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13 policemen and soldiers killed in Al-Arish attack - Daily News Egypt
Egypt 13 policemen and soldiers killed in Al-Arish attack
13 policemen and soldiers killed in Al-Arish attack
Thirteen policemen and soldiers were killed on Saturday night in an attack that targeted a security checkpoint in Sinai’s Al-Arish. The Ministry of Interior announced that a mortar attack targeted Al-Safa checkpoint, killing two police officers, a policeman and 10 soldiers. A different narrative came from the “Sinai Province”, who claimed responsibility for the …
Daily News Egypt March 20, 2016 Be the first to comment
Thirteen policemen and soldiers were killed on Saturday night in an attack that targeted a security checkpoint in Sinai’s Al-Arish.
The Ministry of Interior announced that a mortar attack targeted Al-Safa checkpoint, killing two police officers, a policeman and 10 soldiers.
A different narrative came from the “Sinai Province”, who claimed responsibility for the attack, releasing a statement that details the attack as a suicide operation that was carried out through a truck bomb.
The militant group, affiliated to the “Islamic State” (IS), also claimed they stormed the security checkpoint following the attack in which the group’s operatives seized weaponry.
Topics: Al-Arish attack Islamic state killed Sinai
https://cdn1.dailynewsegypt.com/2016/03/20/13-policemen-soldiers-killed-al-arish-attack/
Three policemen injured in armed attack in Giza
Police officer and solider injured in IED explosion in Al-Arish
Family of missing officer in Sinai demands prompt investigation
Turkey blames ‘Islamic State’ for Istanbul suicide bombing
15 police officers, soldiers killed in Al-Arish attack
Police raid leads to arrest of 4 from Al-Doksh drug cartel
March 20, 2016 Breaking News
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Angelina Jolie on her role in "Girl Interrupted."
December 2011 December 2011 December 2011 June 2007 June 2007 December 2006 November 2004 March 2004 March 2004 October 2003
Actor Peter Sarsgaard talks about his latest movie, “Experimenter.” 17:12
Joe Mantegna discusses playing George Raft in Warren Beatty's film, "Bugsy." 15:06
Julian Schnabel; 'Before the Devil Knows...
Director Julian Schnabel on his adaptation of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"; the filmmaker and actors of "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead." 53:27
Jeff Bridges, Pt. 1
Part one of a two-part interview with actor Jeff Bridges about his life, family, and his new movie, "K-PAX." 09:27
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Man Charged In Fatal Gold Coast ShootingCharles Ternior, 22, was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one misdemeanor count of obstructing identification in connection with the fatal shooting of Larry Lawrence on June 29 in the 1100 block of North Clark, according to Chicago Police.
Trio Steals Designer Handbags From Gold Coast StorePolice said two men and a woman entered Barneys New York on Oak Street around 10 a.m., grabbed 15 to 17 bags worth upwards of $50,000, and ran off.
Police Release Surveillance Images From Gold Coast ShootingA grainy image of the shooter shows him pointing a handgun into the street near the intersection of Clark and Division. Another image shows the car he was driving.
2 Dead, 13 Wounded In Chicago Shootings WednesdayThe most recent shooting happened late Wednesday in the West Englewood neighborhood on the South Side.
26-Year-Old Man Shot And Killed In Gold CoastAround 8:10 p.m., a 26-year-old man was shot multiple times in the 1100 block of North Clark Street, police and fire officials said.
Mother Struck, Killed By Truck On Lake Shore DrivePolice were investigating some discrepancies in a story about a robbery attempt just before woman was killed and her boyfriend was injured when they were hit by a truck on Lake Shore Drive early Sunday in the Gold Coast neighborhood.
Woman Fleeing Robbers Fatally Struck On Lake Shore DrivePamela Johnson, 32, and a 43-year-old man were walking about 1:40 a.m. in the 600 block of North Lake Shore Drive when they were approached by a group of males, at least one of whom was showing a handgun, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Man Shot On Lake Shore Drive In Gold CoastThe 22-year-old man was driving north on Lake Shore Drive around 12:15 a.m. near Oak Street, when another vehicle pulled up alongside, and someone inside opened fire.
Best Places For Designer Frames In ChicagoSee the world in a new way by picking up some designer eyeglasses through these companies in the Chicago area.
6 Wounded In Burst Of Overnight ShootingsSix people were shot across Chicago from about midnight into early Friday, including four wounded in separate attacks within 25 minutes of each other.
Woman, 74, Killed By Truck In Gold CoastThe woman was struck by a turning truck in the 1100 block of North LaSalle Street at 11:55 a.m., according to Chicago Police.
Driver Charged After Shots Fired On Party Bus In Gold CoastOmar Massoud, 32, of the 4200 block of North Broadway was charged with reckless conduct and being a party to a crime, both misdemeanors, according to Chicago Police.
Five Guns Recovered From Party Bus After Shots Fired In Gold CoastInvestigators recovered five guns from a party bus early Sunday after shots were fired in the Gold Coast neighborhood.
Men Claiming They 'Were With ISIS' Prompts Massive Police Response Downtown With both the nation, and the city, on high alert, police are taking no chances on potential terrorist threats.
Lake Shore Drive To Close For Repaving In Gold CoastThe southbound lanes of Lake Shore Drive will be closed in parts of the Gold Coast Sunday and Monday night as crews work to repave lanes.
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In case of emergency, who controls the Internet?
Posted on August 31, 2009 by Howard R. Debs
S. 773, The Cybersecurity Act of 2009, presently being redacted by the Senate Commerce Committee, is a piece of pending legislation that bears watching. On April 1, 2009, Senators John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) introduced legislation designed to promote cybersecurity, a reasonable cause per se.
President Obama, in a public statement delivered from the East Room of the White House on May 29, 2009 emphasized the need for “securing our nation’s cyber infrastructure”. While considering this essential, he emphasized his commitment to an open Internet:
Let me also be clear about what we will not do. Our pursuit of cybersecurity will not — I repeat, will not include — monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic. We will preserve and protect the personal privacy and civil liberties that we cherish as Americans. Indeed, I remain firmly committed to net neutrality so we can keep the Internet as it should be open and free.
Now those in the know, including The Center for Democracy and Technology, have expressed concerns about components of the proposed legislation. CDT, defines itself as “a non-profit public interest organization working to keep the Internet open, innovative, and free.” Its mission is to build “consensus among all parties interested in the future of the Internet and other new communications media.”
Now those who claim to be in the know, in a variety of recent articles over the past several days, in the blogosphere and elsewhere, have made statements about this issue which are more prone to incite than inform. Some of the rhetoric being used is akin to that being employed in the health care debate. Both issues are too important to be reduced to epithets.
On August 20, Commerce Committee staff circulated for comment a draft Committee Amendment to S. 773.
In an effort to render a reasoned interpretation of where this proposed legislation now stands, C&C contacted Greg Nojeim, Senior Counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Director of its Project on Freedom, Security & Technology. He provided the following statement:
“The draft Committee Amendment to the Cybersecurity Act marks a substantial improvement over the original version, but ambiguous language in the draft Committee Amendment also raises new concerns and questions about its scope.”
Previously this blog referenced the attempt by the government of Iran to impose an information blackout during the protest by its citizens of a suspect election. “Internet access has been successfully curtailed to strangle the flow of information in and out of the country.” (http://bit.ly/2N4UUg). Of course the citizenry turned to their cellphones and through tweets on Twitter and video on YouTube circumvented the Internet shut down.
Throughout history, to the present day, totalitarian regimes use access to information to subjugate. In this country, civil liberties are protected. The balancing of these rights with legitimate national security concerns in an Internet driven world is what is at stake in this case.
While there are a number of elements in S. 733 in need of scrutiny, the section which deals with Presidential authority to address a cybersecurity emergency is certainly and rightly a “hot button” issue, no pun intended (“kill switch” was a term previously employed in connection with this provision).
Beyond the Commerce Committee, there are other proposed pieces of related legislation circulating. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is supposed to issue its own bill sometime this fall.
It is expected that The Center for Democracy & Technology, in consort with other responsible organizations, will continue to voice concerns and work with Commerce Committee staff regarding this bill. In the meantime, stay calm and vigilant.
To read the full text of President Obama’s statement on securing our cyber infrastructure go to: http://bit.ly/f8hI8
To learn more about The Center for Democracy & Technology and its work go to: http://www.cdt.org/
➡https://communicatorsandcommunications.com/2009/08/31/in-case-of-emergency-who-controls-the-internet/
Filed under: internet culture, public policy | Tagged: Barack Obama, CDT, Center for Democracy & Technology, cybersecurity, Cybersecurity Act, first amendment, internet, Sen. John D. Rockefeller, Sen. Olympia Snowe |
« Dominick Dunne leaves his mark Beyond books and e-readers »
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Erdogan, News Analysis
Turkey PM Erdogan Unabashed in Support of Muslim Brotherhood
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan used a hand signal to show his support for the Muslim Brotherhood on October 23. This is the second time he has done so since August, not including the time he cried after hearing a pro-Brotherhood poem. His speech also expressed neo-Ottoman aspirations by declaring that Kosovo and Turkey are one.
In his speech, Erdogan told a Kosovar audience, “Do not forget that Kosovo is Turkey and Turkey is Kosovo.” At the same time, he flashed the “Rabia” hand signal that shows solidarity with Muslim Brotherhood protestors that the Egyptian government cracked down on. (Erdogan blames Israel for the Brotherhood’s loss of power.)
In that single move, Erdogan showed that he sees Turkey as reclaiming its place as the guardian of the region’s Muslims. His vision has earned him the admiration of Arab Islamists who desire the resurrection of the Caliphate.
The Islamist Turkish government was openly dismayed at the popularly supported military intervention that toppled the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. According to the Arab newspaper Al-Arabiya, Turkey has since “become the regional hub for the Muslim Brotherhood’s international organization.”
That includes the Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing, Hamas, a group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Israeli intelligence has discovered that Hamas has a command post in Turkey.
Hamas is looking to Turkey and Qatar, two U.S. “allies,” for support since the Muslim Brotherhood was overthrown in Egypt and had a falling out with Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal recently met with Erdogan in Turkey at the same time as the group began calling for a new intifada against Israel.
An Arab newspaper reports that Hamas is so dependent upon Turkey that Erdogan exercises significant control over its actions. The Turkish government even had Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh change one of his speeches and stopped the group from trying to reconcile with the new Egyptian government.
Turkey told Hamas that it was not time to make amends with Egypt. Erdogan believes the Muslim Brotherhood can still be victorious in Egypt with help from Turkey, Qatar and the international Brotherhood apparatus.
The Erdogan government’s involvement in the Syrian civil war is motivated by Islamist interests, not just disgust over the Assad regime’s oppression. Anti-Islamist Syrian rebels and Kurds have complained about Turkish support for the Muslim Brotherhood from the very beginning.
Turkey has even been accused of supporting Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate that fights on the side of the Syrian rebels. The Erdogan government reacted with anger when the U.S. designated Jabhat al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization, even though it says it has never supported the group.
The co-chairman of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, Saleh Muslim, asserts that Turkey helps Islamist fighters by allowing their border crossings to operate and even clearing pathways of mines and barbed wires for them.
“The Brotherhood leads all the decision-making in the [opposition] Coalition … they buy the other members thanks to the money they receive in Doha and Ankara,” says Kamal al-Labwani, a secular Sunni opposition leader.
Even though it is hurting him politically, Erdogan is doubling down on his support for the Islamist cause. This summer, Erdogan faced his largest internal political challenge from largely secular protestors. In 2012, his government’s approval rating fell to 30% in Istanbul and 48% in the rest of the country. Those numbers have surely fallen since this summer.
Earlier this month, the Geza Party was formed in Turkey by supporters of the opposition. It is named in honor of Gezi Park, the location of the protests in Istanbul. One of its founders is a heavy metal guitarist. Needless to say, his ideology isn’t exactly Sharia-compliant.
Embracing Hamas isn’t a political winner for Erdogan, either. Only five percent of Turks view Hamas favorably, while 73% view it unfavorably.
The only explanation for his actions is that Erdogan is a stalwart believer in the Islamist cause. It can no longer be argued that he is just responding to public opinion.
Tellingly, he’s pursuing that cause while Turkey continues to be praised as a U.S. “ally” and member of NATO.
Ryan Mauro is the ClarionProject.org’s National Security Analyst, a fellow with the Clarion Project and is frequently interviewed on top-tier TV stations as an expert on counterterrorism and Islamic extremism.
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RAPAPORT... De Beers has reduced its production outlook for next year and beyond amid uncertainty about the health of the diamond market.
The miner now expects to recover between 32 million and 34 million carats in 2020, compared to its earlier outlook of 33 million to 35 million carats, parent company Anglo American said Tuesday. Its output is forecast to rise to between 34 million and 36 million carats in 2021, versus a previous projection of 35 million to 37 million carats.
“It’s a slight trimming of production [and] a prudent approach to supply outlook for next year, given the rebalancing the industry is going through,” David Johnson, head of strategic communications for De Beers, told Rapaport News Wednesday. “We’ve got some flexibility in that, so if we did see things change significantly, we could edge things back up again.”
An oversupply of polished diamonds in the manufacturing sector and sluggish consumer demand have forced De Beers to revise its production plan twice in five months. In July, it trimmed its 2019 estimate to around 31 million carats from its earlier prediction of 31 million to 33 million carats, citing weakness in the rough market. While 2020 production is anticipated to be higher, it will still lag behind the 35.3 million carats unearthed in 2018.
De Beers’ revenue has declined 26% for the year to date amid “challenging diamond-market conditions,” it noted in an investor presentation on Tuesday. Anglo American also expects inventory for the entire group to grow by around $500 million in 2019, with De Beers accounting for most of that increase. This follows the company’s decision to offer unprecedented concessions to sightholders in the second half of the year to enable them to buy less rough and reduce their stockpiles.
The excess inventory at diamond cutters has weighed on the entire market this year, with Bain & Company predicting a slight improvement in 2020. However, the management consultancy doesn’t expect a real opportunity for rebalancing until 2021.
“Ongoing supply-demand inequality will prevent full recovery of the industry [in 2020], and may be exacerbated by a continuing decrease in available financing for midstream players,” Bain said Tuesday in its annual sector-wide report. “Few producers have announced sufficient mining plan cuts, so we do not foresee a major decline in supply.”
A shift at De Beers’ Venetia deposit from open-pit to underground mining has also impacted production, as output there has fallen during the transition period. Production at the mine in South Africa was anticipated to increase in 2021 as it focuses on a high-grade section, the company said a year ago. However, the final transition to underground operations will result in a drop in company-wide production to between 33 million and 35 million carats in 2022.
The miner’s final sight of the year is currently taking place in Gaborone, Botswana.
Image: De Beers’ Jwaneng mine in Botswana. (Ben Perry/Armoury Films/De Beers)
Tags: Anglo American, bain, Bain & Company, De Beers, Manufacturing, mining, oversupply, Production, Rapaport News, rough, Rough Diamonds, rough market
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דף הבית > Judicial Appointments in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Challenges and Regional Solutions
Chris Oxtoby, University of Cape Town Judicial Appointments in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Challenges and Regional Solutions
This paper will focus on the experience of judicial appointments in South Africa under post-apartheid Constitutional Democracy. Prior to the introduction of the country’s much-lauded Constitution in the 1990’s, judicial appointments in South Africa were made according to the old Westminister “tap on the shoulder” system of appointment. This system was often criticized for failing to allow for external input, and for delivering an executive minded and demographically unrepresentative judiciary.
The South African Constitution changed this system by establishing a Judicial Service Commission (JSC), which plays a central role in judicial appointments. The JSC was faced with a challenging task. It is given an express Constitutional mandate to take into account the need for the judiciary to be representative of the population in terms of race and gender, against a backdrop of a long history of systemic discrimination and exclusion. It is a body comprising a significant number of politicians, which is charged to make appointments to a judiciary that is charged to uphold and enforce a constitution that vests the courts with extensive powers of judicial review, as well as ensuring the fulfilment of judicially enforceable social and economic rights. It should therefore not be surprising that the issue of judicial appointments in the post – Constitutional era has been contentious, fraught, and revealing of deeper faultlines in South African society.
This paper will provide an overview of the judicial appointments process in South Africa in the Constitutional era. The paper will draw on the author’s primary research observing the South African JSC’s public interview process between 2009 – 2019, and will discuss some of the major challenges that have arisen, including:
The demographic transformation of the judiciary;
The criteria for recommending candidates for appointment;
The role of politics, including the
Interviews, including vetting and dealing with adverse comments.
The aim of the paper is to bring out common themes that may be useful grounds for comparative analyses with other jurisdictions.
The paper will conclude with a brief discussion of the Lilongwe Principles and Guidelines on the Selection and Appointment of Judicial Officers,[1] a southern and eastern African regional best practice document that provides one means of addressing some of the challenges identified in the South African process. The Lilongwe document may also in itself provide an interesting basis for comparative analysis.
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Guy Callendar Called it 75 Years Ago
One of the most persistent myths I have to constantly break down the impression a lot of folks still have that the science of global climate change was invented by Al Gore in 2006.
In fact, the basic physics were outlined almost 2 centuries ago, and firmly nailed down shortly after World War 2.
The pioneers include some names that have been forgotten.
The Guardian:
Seventy-five years ago this month an amateur weather-watcher from West Sussex published a landmark paper in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society directly linking the burning of fossil fuels to the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Guy Callendar was a successful steam engineer by trade, but in his spare time he was a keen meteorologist. In April 1938, his paper, “The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature” (pdf), which built on the earlier work of John Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius, was published with little fanfare or impact. It was only in the proceeding decades that the true significance of his conclusions would be heralded.
To mark the anniversary, two modern-day climatologists have published a co-authored paper (pdf) in the same journal celebrating not just his legacy, but also illustrating with modern techniques and data just how accurate Callendar’s calculations proved to be.
Dr Ed Hawkins of the University of Reading’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science, who co-authored the paper with Prof Phil Jones at the University of East Anglia, describes why Callendar is so significant to the development of climate science:
In hindsight, Callendar’s contribution was fundamental. He is still relatively unknown, but in terms of the history of climate science, his paper is a classic. He was the first scientist to discover that the planet had warmed by collating temperature measurements from around the globe, and suggested that this warming was partly related to man-made carbon dioxide emissions…People were sceptical about some of Callendar’s results, partly because the build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere was not very well known and because his estimates for the warming caused by CO2 were quite simplistic by modern standards. It was only in the 1950s, when improved instruments showed more precisely how water and CO2 absorbed radiation, that we reached a better understanding of its importance. Scientists at the time also couldn’t really believe that humans could impact such a large system as the climate – a problem that climate science still encounters from some people today, despite the compelling evidence to the contrary.
Hawkins has also written a blog post about his new Callendar paper, which delves deeper into why Callendar’s findings were not immediately acted upon, or even discussed until decades later:
Doubts in the role of CO2 remained, partly because the world did not warm further – in fact land temperatures fell slightly until around 1975, before the warming resumed. This temperature plateau is very likely due to increased levels of particulates (or ‘aerosols’) in the atmosphere reflecting solar radiation back into space. Ironically, these aerosols are also the product of fossil fuel burning and strict regulations were imposed in the developed world on their emissions in the 1960s and 1970s which allowed the warming from carbon dioxide to emerge again. Aerosol emissions from the developing world may also have played a role in the temperature plateau since around 2000.
Here is the illustration produced by Hawkins and Jones to show how Callendar’s findings, published in 1938 and updated in 1961, match a modern-day temperature reconstruction (CRUTEM4) of global land temperatures for the period 1850-2010.
Below, senior scientist Mike MacCracken’s take on climate science history, which he delivered at Sandia Labs in 1982 – including a nod to Callendar.
8 Responses to “Guy Callendar Called it 75 Years Ago”
Ed Sharron (@Ed_Vermont) Says:
Don’t forget the father of modern ecology George Perkins Marsh from 1847:
“Man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action.”
September 30th, 1847 speech in Vermont.
And here is the Guardian article that talks more about him:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/jun/20/george-perkins-marsh-climate-speech
It's all over but for the sweating? - Page 77 - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com Says:
[…] Guy Callendar Called it 75 Years Ago | Climate Denial Crock of the Week http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature…&v=ILgBzfOJmOI (Support Ecomodder.com & get rid of these annoying ads!) __________________ Sincerely, Neil http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ […]
NevenA Says:
Callendar was a genius.
Guy Callendar Called it 75 Years Ago | Sustain ... Says:
[…] One of the most persistent myths I have to constantly break down the impression a lot of folks still have that the science of global climate change was invented by Al Gore in 2006. In fact, the ba… […]
kokuaguy Says:
There’s a reason why the Big Energy cabal, led by the infamous Koch funded “dark money” propaganda campaign, has been forced to spend over a $100 million fighting against climate science forecasts — they’re rock solid and based on discoveries made over a century ago.
Another Week of Anthropocene Antics, April 28, 2013 – A Few Things Ill Considered Says:
[…] 2013/04/23: PSinclair: Guy Callendar Called it 75 Years Ago […]
BACKGROUND TO THE DEBATES ON CLIMATE CHANGE | Who Makes Policy? Says:
[…] weather and agriculture in Scandinavia. As the 20th century progressed, other researchers such as Guy Callendar supported Arrhenius’ findings and attempted to refine the scientific understanding of the role […]
Background to current debates on climate change | Important Moments of my Journey Says:
Leave a Reply to Background to current debates on climate change | Important Moments of my Journey Cancel reply
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A Dangerous Man: Tim DeChristopher Now Loose »
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Template:Character
Kishin Aiba was the main protagonist of the manga serie
s Cloverfield/Kishin.
Kenshi is a troubled boy, who had been repeatedly tormented by a couple of bullies in a public restroom within their school. Although he was saved from humiliation by a girl named Aiko Sasahara, they continue their activities with him and decided to leave him within the confines of an emergency safety house. He had a long history of being bullied due to his mother being "strange", and along with her, he was badly ridiculed for this. When his mother died, he was so stricken with grief that even into his teens, he wished he had died with her. His emotional torment continues, and which at the same time the monster begins to come to surface within Tagruato's oceans. He later escapes the school grounds with Aiko's help to his house after seeing news coverage about the monster. Here, the two bond together while on their way to Kishin's apartment to seek shelter, only to stumble across an unknown cult bent on using him for a dark purpose tied to the monster. Unlike his mother, Kishin and his father are not on good terms as seen in some panels.
Medical records seen at his father's room, along with the cult tracking him down, heavily implies that Kishin is part of a series of experiments with an item revered by the cult, that ties him to the monster itself. In the third chapter, it is seen that his system has been mixed with the monster's own stimuli made into a tiny organ called the Splinter of Amnion to allow him to control it without him falling to its wrath. Kishin's father confirms this as an act of sabotage by his mother, whereby she used Kishin as a vessel under the cult's orders, but dies by Tagruato's hands.
Kishin succumbs to madness due to the betrayal of his mother and now uses the monster to cause more destruction. He is able to control the monster without it harming him, it thinking that the child is its kin or brethren. In the final chapter, with the help of Aiko, Kishin gains his sanity back, learns to value the life of others and his own and faces the monster, where it removes the Splinter of Amnion from his system to its own, but it cannot feed on the emotions Kishin has laced it with, it leaves Kishin in the seas of Japan where he is rescued by Aiko and the bullies. The manga ends as they embrace, having finally found the one thing he cares for in his life.
Retrieved from "https://cloverfield.fandom.com/wiki/Kishin_Aiba?oldid=8664"
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Robert G. Garrett
rgr (1.1.15). Applied Geochemistry EDA. (almost 2 years ago)
rgr was upgraded to version 1.1.15 (almost 2 years ago)
DrAndrewRate uses rgr (about 2 years ago)
rgr was upgraded to version 1.1.14 (over 2 years ago)
rgr was upgraded to version 1.1.13 (about 4 years ago)
rgr was upgraded to version 1.1.9 (almost 7 years ago)
rgr was upgraded to version 1.1.8 (about 7 years ago)
rgr was upgraded to version 1.1.7 (over 7 years ago)
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Ritika Ramani
rphast (1.6.9). Interface to 'PHAST' Software for Comparative Genomics. (almost 2 years ago)
rtfbs (0.3.9). Transcription Factor Binding Site Identification Tool. (almost 2 years ago)
rphast was upgraded to version 1.6.9 (almost 2 years ago)
rtfbs was upgraded to version 0.3.9 (almost 2 years ago)
rtfbs was upgraded to version 0.3.5 (over 3 years ago)
rphast was upgraded to version 1.6.5 (over 3 years ago)
crantastic_production tagged rphast with Phylogenetics (almost 4 years ago)
rphast was upgraded to version 1.6 (about 5 years ago)
rtfbs was upgraded to version 0.3.3 (about 5 years ago)
rphast was upgraded to version 1.4 (almost 7 years ago)
rtfbs was upgraded to version 0.2 (almost 8 years ago)
rtfbs was released (over 8 years ago)
rphast was released (over 9 years ago)
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PDF Registration Form
Exhibitor Floor Plan
In-Hall Events
Speakerscholloway@csda.com2020-01-08T16:04:16-05:00
We have an exciting group of speakers and presenters this year, offering instruction on a diverse range of topics. Learn more about them by selecting their name.
Lee Albert, NMTcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:14:29-05:00
Lee Albert, NMT
Lee Albert, NMT is a national presenter and highly popular neuromuscular therapist and yoga instructor at the world renowned Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Lenox, MA. Dedicated to helping people help themselves, Lee created practices and teaches Integrated Positional Therapy (IPT) protocols to reduce and often eliminate chronic pain. People from every walk of life have learned from Lee how to live a pain free life. He is the author of Live Pain Free: Eliminate Chronic Pain without Drugs or Surgery and Yoga for Pain Relief: A New Approach to an Ancient Practice. Lee is the PBS host of “3 Steps to Pain Free Living.”
Erika L. Amarantecholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:14:47-05:00
Erika L. Amarante
Erika L. Amarante is a partner in Wiggin and Dana’s Litigation Department. She represents hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers in cases alleging professional negligence, lack of informed consent and negligent credentialing. She has extensive experience defending claims of wrongful death, birth trauma, delayed diagnosis of cancer, and brain injuries, as well as the catastrophic injuries that often arise in such claims. Erika also has had the unique experience of serving in a claims management position, setting reserves and valuing cases. She regularly counsels health care providers on issues of liability and risk reduction strategies.
Colleen Atkinson, NREMT, EMSIcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:15:02-05:00
Colleen Atkinson, NREMT, EMSI
Colleen Atkinson, NREMT, EMSI has many years of service to local communities in both paid and volunteer positions in the human services and emergency medical fields. She is a nationally registered EMT, professional educator, and instructor in Connecticut’s Community College system (Nursing and EMS programs). In addition to being a Connecticut EMS Instructor, she is an American Heart Association (AHA) and ASHI instructor, CT State EMS evaluator, CT State Police instructor and Medical Reserve Corps volunteer/trainer. Colleen is a practicing emergency medical technician and is a National Registry training officer.
Joanne Block Rief, DDScholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:15:29-05:00
Joanne Block Rief, DDS
Joanne Block Rief, DDS started her career in dentistry at age 13, working for her father in his dental practice. In 1982, she received her BS in dental hygiene from the University of Rhode Island and her DDS from the University of Maryland in 1986. She practiced alongside her father for 18 years until she purchased her own practice in Owings Mills, MD. Her practice focuses on cosmetic dentistry and provides excellent customer service for her patients. She also lectures and coaches dental students and dentists on practice management and how to build a thriving and
profitable dental practice.
Kevin Budge, JDcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:21:52-05:00
Kevin Budge, JD
Kevin Budge, JD is a partner at Wiggin and Dana in New Haven, CT. He is the co-chair of the firm’s Medical Malpractice Defense Practice Group and has extensive experience representing hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers in all areas of professional liability, focusing on large, complex damage exposure matters such as birth trauma, delayed diagnosis of cancer, and wrongful death. He has significant experience defending physicians and health care providers in Department of Public Health investigations, inquiries, and administrative proceedings. Kevin has unique experience in claims management, setting reserves, and valuing cases. He also counsels health care providers in managing risks and limiting liability.
Tracy Civickcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:23:06-05:00
Tracy Civick
Tracy Civick is a nationally recognized speaker, coach, and author devoted to the cultivation and development of dental practice excellence. She teaches teams how to streamline front office operations and boost practice revenue. Coaching and inspiring individuals at all practice levels is Tracy’s passion, and she does so with a style that is part strategist, part consultant, and all energy. She is an active member of AADOM and ADMC and her life’s mantra is, “You can’t exceed patient’s expectations without exceeding your own expectations.”
Brandon Collier, JD, LLMcholloway@csda.com2019-12-02T23:30:42-05:00
Brandon Collier, JD, LLM
Brandon Collier, JD, LLM is president of Collier & Associates, Inc., a law and consulting firm representing dentists with practice transitions and providing objective advice regarding the business aspects of their practices. He is the editor of the twice-monthly Collier & Associates Newsletter and conducts the C&A doctor seminars at top destinations throughout the country. Brandon also oversees the C&A retirement plan division which designs and prepares 401(k) and defined benefit plans for hundreds of clients. He is a frequent lecturer at national and regional meetings, study clubs and dental schools. Brandon gives back to dentistry through the ADA and AAO Foundations and serves on the visiting committee of the Case Western Reserve University School of Dentistry.
Michelle DeBarge, JDcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:26:01-05:00
Michelle DeBarge, JD
Michelle DeBarge, JD is a partner with Wiggin and Dana and has practiced with the firm for over 25 years. Her practice focuses on regulatory compliance and audits, HIPAA and related privacy/security requirements, negotiation and mediation, and general operational matters. She is respected by regulators and well-versed in both the legal and practical issues that need to be considered to ensure a favorable result. Michelle has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America since 2006 and Connecticut Super Lawyers since 2007. Michelle received her JD with high honors from the University of Connecticut School of Law, where she was the editor-in-chief of the University of Connecticut Law Review. She received a BA from Williams College.
Ann-Marie DePalma, CDA, RDHcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:29:19-05:00
Ann-Marie DePalma, CDA, RDH
Ann-Marie DePalma, CDA, RDH is a graduate of Forsyth School for Dental Hygienists, Northeastern and University of Massachusetts Boston. She is a member of the Association of Dental Implant Auxiliaries, American Academy of Dental Hygiene, American Dental Hygienists’ Association and American Association of Dental Office Management. In 2017, she was the Esther Wilkins Distinguished Alumni of Forsyth Award recipient and is currently a technology advisor for Patterson Dental. Ann-Marie is a published author and textbook contributor in dental hygiene. She served as coach for a national dental practice management company, a faculty member in dental hygiene and chair of a dental assisting program. She is also a consultant examiner for CDCA (formerly NERB).
Carolyn DeRocco, BAcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:29:57-05:00
Carolyn DeRocco, BA
Carolyn DeRocco, BA is vice president of Programs and Education at the Alzheimer’s Association Connecticut Chapter. She has a bachelor of arts degree in Human Relations from St. Joseph’s College in Long Island, NY, with certificates in both counseling and human resources. She has been employed at the Alzheimer’s Association Connecticut Chapter for over 13 years. Carolyn has over 20 years of experience as a therapeutic recreation director working with individuals with dementia in a skilled nursing facility and over 25 years’ experience as a support group leader working with individuals diagnosed with dementia and their caregivers. She is a member of the Western Connecticut Area Agency on Aging Advisory Council and a former board member of the Connecticut Geriatric Society.
Nancy Dewhirst, RDH, BScholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:30:52-05:00
Nancy Dewhirst, RDH, BS
Nancy Dewhirst, RDH, BS graduated from the University of Southern California, practiced dental hygiene for 20 years and is adjunct dental hygiene faculty at West Coast University. Ms. Dewhirst is consistently listed as one of the nation’s leaders in CE, presents over 80 seminars a year, is featured at major US and Canadian dental conferences, and is a member of the California Dental Association Speakers Bureau. She has had many articles published in dental peer-reviewed journals and has contributed to dental textbooks.
Raymond Dionne, PhD, DDScholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:34:11-05:00
Raymond Dionne, PhD, DDS
Raymond Dionne, PhD, DDS earned a DDS degree and MS in pharmacology at Georgetown University and a PhD in pharmacology at the Medical College of Virginia. He conducted clinical pain research at the NIDCR and practiced dentistry part-time in Washington, DC, for 27 years. He is currently appointed as a professor in the Cell Biology department at the UConn School of Medicine. Dr. Dionne has been a co-author on more than 200 scientific and educational papers and has edited 5 textbooks and monographs. He is delighted to have returned to the University of Connecticut after 50 years since he graduated and looks forward to contributing to the educational process at UConn Health for a few more years.
Gary DiSanto-Rose, DMDcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:34:49-05:00
Gary DiSanto-Rose, DMD
Gary DiSanto-Rose, DMD received his dental degree from the University of Pennsylvania where he also completed a general practice residency program. He is a fellow in both the Academy of General Dentistry and the International Association for Orthodontics. He has been an active member of the American Dental Association and has been a senior instructor in the New England Chapter of the IAO for over ten years. He has earned over 3,000 credit hours in orthodontic studies and has incorporated orthodontic treatment in his general dental practice for over 30 years. He has lectured throughout the US and internation-
ally. Dr. DiSanto-Rose maintains a private practice in Johnstown, NY, which focuses on early orthodontic treatment, myofunctional therapy, and airway centered dentistry.
Timothy Donley, DDS, MSDcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:35:31-05:00
Timothy Donley, DDS, MSD
Timothy Donley, DDS, MSD is currently in the private practice of periodontics and implantology in Bowling Green, KY. Dr. Donley is a sought-after speaker whose courses are always highly rated. His forte lies in taking the latest research and packaging it in a way that makes sense. He is a lecturer with the ADA Seminar Series and has lectured worldwide. Dentistry Today recently listed him among its Leaders in Continuing Education. He lectures and publishes frequently on topics of interest to clinical dentists and hygienists.
Debra Engelhardt-Nash, AABFAcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:36:22-05:00
Debra Engelhardt-Nash, AABFA
Debra Engelhardt-Nash, AABFA has presented workshops nationally and internationally for numerous study groups and organizations. Debra is a founding member and served three terms as president of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants. She is a member of the American Academy of Dental Practice Administration and Speakers Consulting Network. She has been recognized by Dentistry Today as a Leader in Continuing Dental Education and a Leader in Dental Consulting. Debra is on the board of the American Dental Association’s Dental Practice Management Advisory Board. She has been chosen as one of the Top 25 Women in Dentistry for 2014 by Dental Products Report and is the 2015 recipient of the Gordon Christensen Lecturer Recognition award. She is co-founder of the Nash Institute for Dental Learning.
Jody Erdfarb, JDcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:37:05-05:00
Jody Erdfarb, JD
Jody Erdfarb, JD is a partner in Wiggin and Dana’s Health Care Department. She advises healthcare providers on a broad range of issues including compliance, fraud and abuse, HIPAA, patient care, regulatory, and corporate matters. She handles matters involving state and federal licensure and certification, survey deficiencies and penalties, False Claims Act cases, and Medicaid audits. Jody also develops and implements corporate compliance and HIPAA programs for clients. Jody currently serves as the American Health Lawyer’s Association (AHLA) vice chair for the Health Information Technology Practice Group’s Digital Health Records Affinity Group and is on the editorial board of the AHLA’s Federal Healthcare Laws & Regulations publication.
Jean Fallago, JD, LLMcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T22:38:20-05:00
Jean Fallago, JD, LLM
Jean Fallago, JD, LLM is an attorney, author, speaker, and frequent lecturer at dental schools and dental meetings with more than 25 years of experience in the area of dental practice transitions. Her recent speaking engagements include Boston University Goldman Graduate School of Dentistry, University of Connecticut School of Dentistry, Harvard University School of Dentistry, Tufts University School of Dentistry, Yankee Dental Congress, and Massachusetts Dental Society. Jean is a graduate of Bryant College with a bachelor’s in finance and insurance. She holds an associate’s in real estate, a JD degree (cum laude) from Suffolk University Law School and a master’s in tax law from Boston University Graduate Law School. Jean also holds a real estate brokers license for the past 30 years.
Ellen Gambardella, CDA, MEdcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:24:40-05:00
Ellen Gambardella, CDA, MEd
Ellen Gambardella, CDA, MEd is an acclaimed author and educator who has lectured nationally and internationally. She was selected as Most Effective Dental Assistant Educator in the United States as the result of a nationwide search. The Massachusetts Dental Society presented her with their Special Award for Teacher of the Year, and she is the recipient of the Goldin Foundation Award for Excellence in Education and the Dr. LeClaire Dental Health Professional Award for innovative and impassioned teaching. The United States Air Force recognized Ellen for her educational support of the 66th Dental Flight and Medical Group. She was recently awarded the title of Fellow from the ADAA. She is a former faculty member of Tufts and Northeastern Universities and Middlesex Community College.
Mary Gambardella, JDcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:24:56-05:00
Mary Gambardella, JD
Mary Gambardella, JD brings decades of experience in helping clients comply with ever-changing labor laws and regulations, as well as in managing employment challenges such as sensitive terminations, sexual harassment, reductions in workforce, discrimination claims, and severance agreements. Mary is chair of the firm’s Labor, Employment, and Benefits Department and regularly represents employers in state and federal court litigation, administrative and regulatory proceedings, mediations and arbitrations. She handles all aspects of labor and employment law, including discrimination claims, sexual harassment, wrongful discharge, wage/hour, and employment contract claims. She has an AV® Preeminent™ peer rating from Martindale-Hubbell, and she is recognized in Chambers USA and by Super Lawyers® in Connecticut.
Joseph Garzicholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:25:14-05:00
Joseph Garzi
Joseph Garzi has had a career in information technology for over twenty years in the Connecticut region and has been supporting information technology for dental practices for almost as long. Joe has led Southridge to the Inc. 500/5,000 as one of the fastest growing IT companies in America six years in a row. He has worked with outside resources in cyber security breach discovery and prevention and has extensive experience with security and the protection of a dental practice’s technical assets. Southridge Technology is the affinity IT partner for the CSDA.
www.southridgetech.com
Sharon Gordon, PhD, DDScholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:25:32-05:00
Sharon Gordon, PhD, DDS
Sharon Gordon, PhD, DDS is dean of the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine. She earned her dental degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center and completed a two-year GPR at Medical Center Hospital—San Antonio. She earned an MPH in Epidemiology and PhD in Clinical Investigation from Johns Hopkins University. As a research staff scientist, she directed research training, career development and educational programs at the NIDCR, NIH. She served as the inaugural research dean and department chair for foundational sciences at the East Carolina University School of Dental Medicine. Dr. Gordon is board certified in Dental Public Health. At the national level, she serves as a reviewer for NIH study sections and president of the American Board of Dental Public Health.
Mary Govoni, CDA, RDH, MBAcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:25:53-05:00
Mary Govoni, CDA, RDH, MBA
Mary Govoni, CDA, RDH, MBA is an internationally recognized speaker, author and coach for dental teams. Her areas of expertise are infection prevention and control, OSHA compliance, HIPAA compliance, ergonomics and efficiency and team communication. Her dynamic presentations are energizing and motivating and are full of practical information that can be easily implemented in the dental practice.
Stefan Greencholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:26:15-05:00
Stefan Green is a regional business development officer for Bank of America Practice Solutions. He oversees all of New England for the dental division of the Bank. He specializes in providing loans to dentists seeking financing for equipment and construction projects, as well as restructuring practice debt to increase practice cash flow. Stefan also assists dentists with the financing of commercial real estate purchases. He has been with Bank of America Practice Solutions since 2016.
Jack Griffin, DMDcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:26:34-05:00
Jack Griffin, DMD
Jack Griffin, DMD is a full-time practitioner and has owned multiple practices in the St. Louis area focusing on comprehensive aesthetics. He has been awarded diplomate status with the American Board of Aesthetic Dentistry, Accreditation in the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, Mastership in the Academy of General Dentistry, and Fellowship in the International Academy of DentoFacial Aesthetics. He is a director for the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum and has been published over 100 times in various journals. But most important to Dr. Griffin is providing comfortable, compassionate dental care to his many patients. He considers it a sincere honor to be able to teach other dentists’ comprehensive aesthetics, regenerative dentistry, clinical photography, practice management, CAD/CAM and other relative topics.
Irene Iancu, BSC, RDH, CTDPcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:26:50-05:00
Irene Iancu, BSC, RDH, CTDP
Irene Iancu, BSC, RDH, CTDP achieved her bachelor of political science from Florida State University in 2005 and realized she would be a TERRIBLE lawyer! After graduating with honors from Oxford College in 2007, Irene followed her curiosity into the various aspects of dental hygiene practice, working her way through each specialty. Today, Irene is a Toronto-based independent dental hygienist who owns her own practice where she incorporates her extensive training in orofacial myology. She is a clinical and theoretical dental hygiene instructor at Oxford College, quality assurance mentor and peer mentor with the College of Dental Hygienists of Ontario, key opinion leader, international speaker, and item writer for the National Dental Hygiene Certification Board while enrolled in the Harvard HMX program at Harvard Medical School.
Damon Jenkins, DMD, MPHcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:27:20-05:00
Damon Jenkins, DMD, MPH
Damon Jenkins, DMD, MPH is a private practice Prosthodontist in Coventry, CT. He obtained his DMD from UMDNJ in 2001. He completed two general practice residencies -year one at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY, and year two at LSU Charity Hospital in New Orleans, LA. With his desire to pursue more dental education, he enrolled at LSU School of Dentistry in 2003 and completed his specialty degree in prosthodontics in June 2006, along with a master’s degree in Public Health. He was an assistant professor at UConn School of Dentistry from 2007 to 2012. Dr. Jenkins served in Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2007–2008 as a captain in the U.S. Army Dental Reserve Corps and ended his service as a major in 2014.
Michael Johnson, DMD, FACScholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:27:37-05:00
Michael Johnson, DMD, FACS
Michael Johnson, DMD, FACS is an oral maxillofacial surgeon who sees patients at Coastal Connecticut OMS. He is full-time faculty at Yale-New Haven Hospital where he serves as the program director for the Oral Maxillofacial Surgery Residency Training Program and associate chief of Dental Services. He has been involved in various research projects and has mentored multiple Yale residents resulting in publications and presentations at national meetings. Dr. Johnson has lectured on topics that include head and neck history and physical exam, craniofacial, maxillofacial bone grafting for dental implants, orthognathic surgery, maxillofacial trauma, head and neck infections, anesthesia, safety culture, office-based emergency preparedness, and the management of medically complex patients. Additionally, he teaches courses in surgical anatomy, oral maxillofacial pathology, and anesthesia emergency management.
Kathy Langlais, RDHcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:27:57-05:00
Kathy Langlais, RDH
Kathy Langlais, RDH has lectured extensively to dental hygiene and nursing students as well as professional dental organizations. She works as a dental hygienist at Connecticut Valley Hospital for the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and in an inpatient facility treating patients with substance abuse and or psychiatric illnesses. Kathy’s dental hygiene experience includes private practice, a school-based dental program, a community health center dental clinic, and teaching as adjunct faculty at Tunxis Community College in Farmington, CT. Kathy is involved in the Connecticut Coalition for Oral Health and has worked with the Middlesex County Substance Abuse Action Council to bring awareness about opioid addiction to the dental community.
Robert LaRosa, DDS, MAGD, FICOIcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:28:18-05:00
Robert LaRosa, DDS, MAGD, FICOI
Robert LaRosa, DDS, MAGD, FICOI graduated from Georgetown University School of Dentistry in 1984 and practices general dentistry in Woodbury, CT. His continuing education activities include courses through the Connecticut State Dental Association, New England Master Study Club, the International Association for Orthodontics New England Chapter, the International Congress of Oral Implantologists, and a local study club in Southington, CT. He has earned his masters with the Academy of General Dentistry, and has taken orthodontic courses through NYU’s Linhart Continuing Education Program. Dr. LaRosa is a fellow in the International Congress of Oral Implantology.
On a personal note, Dr. LaRosa and his wife enjoy sports, hiking, family reunions, and spending time with their children and grandson.
Susan Leckowicz, RDHcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:28:37-05:00
Susan Leckowicz, RDH
Susan Leckowicz, RDH began her career in dentistry as a dental assistant in her father’s practice in Connecticut and worked over 20 years as a dental hygienist before becoming a dental coach for the past 12 years. As the founder of Dental Coaches, Susan and her team of experts, work with dentists across the country to grow their practices. She believes strongly in training team members as patient advocates while helping patients reach a collaborative agreement in getting healthy. She works with staff on communicating the value and benefits that dentistry can provide and marketing that attracts the type of patients who want great dental care. In her spare time, she enjoys yoga, golf, and the beach.
Geoff Ligibel, CPA, CFAcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:28:59-05:00
Geoff Ligibel, CPA, CFA
Geoff Ligibel, CPA, CFA is the president and CEO of 42 North Dental, a leading dental service organization (DSO) with over 70 locations in the Northeast. Since joining more than 5 years ago, he has led rapid growth at the company, building new practices and partnering with established practices throughout 5 states. Mr. Ligibel was previously a director in Houlihan Lokey’s Healthcare Group. During his career, he has executed dozens of transactions involving companies providing services to healthcare providers across the nation. Mr. Ligibel graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in accounting from Ohio State University. He is a certified public accountant and holds the designation of chartered financial analyst.
Doug LoPresti, NREMT, EMSIcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:29:16-05:00
Doug LoPresti, NREMT, EMSI
Doug LoPresti, NREMT, EMSI has broad experience in all aspects of Emergency Medical Services (EMS), including EMS management, consulting, program development and training, and is certified in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Doug is a nationally registered EMT, professional educator, and instructor in Connecticut’s Community College system, teaching in nursing and EMS programs. In addition to being a Connecticut EMS instructor, he is an American Heart Association (AHA) and ASHI instructor and evaluator, and a Connecticut State Police Instructor. Doug is a practicing EMT, working on ambulances in the town of Westbrook and Lyme and is the National Registry training officer for both agencies. Doug is a member/instructor with the Connecticut Medical Reserve Corps (MRC).
Rui Ma, DMDcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:29:44-05:00
Rui Ma, DMD
Rui Ma, DMD maintains a periodontal and implant practice in Fairfield, CT. A fourth-generation dentist raised in his family’s private practice, Dr. Ma excelled in his education achieving his doctor of dental medicine (D.M.D) from Tufts University in Boston. Previously educated at State University of NY in Albany, he received his bachelor of science in chemistry with summa cum laude and graduated as class valedictorian. Dr Ma completed his post-doctoral training in periodontics at Stony Brook University, in NY, where he was bestowed the certificate of advanced graduate study in periodontology. Dr. Ma is a diplomate of the American Board of Periodontology.
Maria Melone, CPA, CVAcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:30:02-05:00
Maria Melone, CPA, CVA
Maria Melone, CPA, CVA founded MORR Dental Solutions in 2012 with like-minded and experienced CPAs. Maria has extensive knowledge of the dental industry and brings a wide breadth of skills to the table—particularly in valuation. As a certified valuation analyst, she is an expert in helping clients understand what a dental practice is worth. Prior to founding MORR, Maria worked for American Dental Partners, Inc., in corporate development, overseeing all aspects of the acquisition process. During her 10 years with ADPI, she facilitated nearly 100 transactions, the biggest of which was a $90,000,000 acquisition of a multi-location, multi-disciplinary group practice. Since founding MORR, Maria has worked with hundreds of buyers and sellers and facilitated over 150 transactions.
Michael Menapace, JDcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:30:24-05:00
Michael Menapace, JD
Michael Menapace, JD is a partner at Wiggin and Dana. He is an insurance lawyer, data breach coach, and law school professor. His practice focuses on a variety of insurance, cybersecurity, and litigation matters. Michael lectures and publishes regularly on insurance and cybersecurity topics and has testified before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee as an invited expert on cybersecurity and insurance. He teaches insurance law at the Quinnipiac University School of Law. He has been listed in Super Lawyers for Insurance Law and is active in the American Bar Association as vice-chair of the TIPS Cybersecurity Committee and in ARIAS-US as chair of the Technology Committee.
David Millercholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:30:53-05:00
David Miller is a vice president and regional business development officer for Bank of America Practice Solutions which is responsible for providing financing options to dentists in the New England market. Dave has been working with dentists since 2010 when he started his career with Bank of America. In just over 5 years with the bank, Dave provided over $130,000,000 in financing to healthcare professionals in the New England market. Following that experience, Dave opened the Boston market for Carr Healthcare Realty, LLC, where he represented dentists and gained invaluable experience about what makes a great location for a dental office.
Joelle Murchison, MEdcholloway@csda.com2019-11-25T00:31:24-05:00
Joelle Murchison, MEd
Joelle Murchison, MEd is an accomplished executive, diversity and inclusion champion, and mom of four. Joelle is a graduate of Brown University, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. Following her post-secondary pursuits, Joelle began a career in higher education and the non-profit sector before transitioning to corporate America, and then returning to higher education in 2016. Drawing on her passion and interests in education, inclusion, policy and communications, in 2019, Joelle founded ExecMommyGroup, LLC—an inclusion, communication, leadership and coaching firm. At her core, Joelle is passionate about encouraging people to reach their highest potential and creating space to open dialogue to enhance inclusion and understanding.
Shannon Nanne, RDHcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T23:43:09-05:00
Shannon Nanne, RDH
Shannon Nanne, RDH graduated from The University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine in 1994. She’s authored articles in RDH, JPH, In Focus, and Dimensions of Dental Hygiene and is a KOL for several companies, publications, and associations. She is an ambassador with The Oral Cancer Foundation and has served as the executive director of the Global Oral Cancer Forum and continues serving on the organizing committee for GOCF20. Shannon helps promote the changes required for a substantial impact on incidence, morbidity, and mortality of oral cancer worldwide educating health professionals globally. She has sat on the Corporate Council for Dimensions of Dental Hygiene representing Basicbites, Biotene and Oral7. Shannon continues to create awareness on oral cancer and its horrific side effects
Christine O’Hea, DMD, MDScholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T23:43:31-05:00
Christine O’Hea, DMD, MDS
Christine O’Hea, DMD, MDS has over twenty years of experience with clear aligners in both private practice and academic orthodontics. She received a B.S. in chemistry with Honors from Lafayette College in 1992. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a DMD in 1996 and then received both a master of dental science degree and certificate in orthodontics from the University of Connecticut in 1999. Dr. O’Hea maintained private practices in New Jersey from 1999–2019 while serving as part-time clinical assistant professor at Columbia University from 2014-2018. She presently is a full-time assistant professor at Columbia University. Recognizing the driving interest in clear aligners by general dentist practitioners, she developed an innovative clear aligner therapy protocol for undergraduate dental students.
Yumi Panui, LCSW, CSACcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T23:44:18-05:00
Yumi Panui, LCSW, CSAC
Yumi Panui, LCSW, CSAC is a licensed clinical social worker and a licensed addictions counselor. She has been in the National Guard since 2010 and recently transitioned to Connecticut from Hawaii to serve as the chief behavioral health officer of the Connecticut National Guard. She has been in the behavioral sciences field since 1992 with specializations in trauma and addiction. Captain Panui’s military behavioral health experience includes the Department of Veteran’s Affairs in the mental health and homeless veteran’s departments; the active duty Family Advocacy Program, Embedded Behavioral Health clinics, and the Army Substance Abuse Program; as well as in the overarching National Guard Behavioral Health medical and support program sections.
Michael Ragan, DMD, JDcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T23:44:44-05:00
Michael Ragan, DMD, JD
Michael Ragan, DMD, JD is an attorney who represents physicians, dentists, and nurses in civil and administrative litigation. Dr. Ragan practiced dentistry for many years and spent more than 10 years managing healthcare professional liability claims in the insurance industry. Dr. Ragan was a director of Fortress Insurance Company as well as the chairman of the claims committee and currently serves as Fortress’s medico-legal consultant.
Penny Reedcholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T23:45:11-05:00
Penny Reed
Penny Reed is a coach, speaker, and author of the book Growing Your Dental Business. She runs the Dental Coaching Institute and works with dentists who want to raise the bar on their performance and create an office culture where the entire team looks forward to coming to work every day. Penny coaches dentists and team leaders on implementing systems and standards that drive consistent and predictable revenues. Penny’s expertise has been highlighted in published articles both nationally and internationally. She has conducted presentations at dental meetings across the country for over two decades and has received the Leaders in Dental Consulting designation from Dentistry Today from 2007 to present. She is a member of ADMC, The Speaking and Consulting Network, AADOM,
and the NSA.
Adam Richichicholloway@csda.com2019-11-24T23:45:45-05:00
Adam Richichi
Adam Richichi is a dynamic leader with 18 years of dental experience. Mr. Richichi is the CEO of Dental Associates of CT, a unique fast-growing DSO in the North East. His experience leading dental service organizations, dental laboratories, and technology start-ups gives him a unique perspective. Additionally, Mr. Richichi is a speaker and author on leadership.
Philip Silverio, DPTEamonn Edge2020-01-20T16:01:30-05:00
Philip Silverio, DPT
Philip is a licensed physical therapist that specializes in the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders. He received his doctorate degree in physical therapy from Sacred Heart University in 2014 and in 2016 became board certified in orthopedics. He has advanced training in manual therapy, dry needling and exercise prescription. He currently sees patients at Gaylord physical therapy orthopedics and sports medicine in Cheshire, CT. He regularly works with patients of all backgrounds and in his spare time he enjoys spending time outdoors, traveling, and being with his friends, family, and dog, Mia.
Sam Simos, DDSEamonn Edge2020-01-20T16:01:52-05:00
Sam Simos, DDS
Dr. Sam Simos is an Implant, restorative and cosmetic dentist practicing just outside of Chicago, in Bolingbrook and Ottawa, Illinois. People from around the world seek out his services to help enhance their lives. He is internationally recognized as a leader in cosmetic and restorative dentistry. He received his doctorate of dental surgery at Chicago’s Loyola University. Dr. Simos teaches post-graduate courses to practicing dentists on cosmetic dentistry, occlusion, and comprehensive restorative dentistry. He is one of a select number of dentists who work with the Dental Advisor to evaluate and consult with dental manufacturers about new products. Dr. Simos promotes awareness, communication, and education within the dental profession, and is an internationally published author on today’s use of innovative dental techniques and materials.
Michael Sonick, DMDEamonn Edge2020-01-20T16:02:19-05:00
Michael Sonick, DMD
Michael Sonick, DMD, is an internationally-known, authority in the field of dental implantology and periodontology. He completed his undergraduate degree at Colgate University. He received his DMD at University of Connecticut School of Medicine and his certificate in periodontology at Emory University. He received implant training at Harvard University as well as the Branemark Clinic in Gothenburg, Sweden. A full time practicing periodontist in Fairfield, Connecticut, he is also a frequent guest lecturer in the international program at New York University School of Dentistry and the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine. He is the co-editor of the multi-language textbook, Implant Site Development. He serves on the editorial boards of numerous journals including the Compendium of Continuing Education and the Journal of Cosmetic Dentistry.
Greg Wappettcholloway@csda.com2020-01-20T16:01:04-05:00
Greg Wappett
Greg Wappett is the director of corporate development for 42 North Dental. He is responsible for all aspects of practice acquisitions and affiliations; beginning with deal origination, going through practice analysis and due diligence, and culminating in integration. He has helped 42 North Dental expand from a single-branded dental support organization in one state, to operating over 20 brands across 5 states. Prior to joining 42 North Dental, Mr. Wappett was a director with Provident Healthcare Partners, a middle-market investment bank. He advised clients across a variety of verticals, including DSOs, multi-site physician groups, retail medical groups, and pharmacy services, through a variety of transactions including mergers, acquisitions, financing events, and growth consulting. Mr. Wappett graduated from Babson College with a degree in business administration.
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Hassanieh receives NSF CAREER Award to leverage benefits of new high frequency spectrums
May 17, 2018 Katie Carr, Coordinated Science Lab
As demand for mobile and wireless data continues to increase, the strain it has caused led the Federal Communications Commission to open up bandwidth in high frequency spectrums. These Millimeter Wave (mmWave) bands are expected to play an important role in next-generation cellular networks and future 802.11 wireless LANs.
CSL researcher Haitham Hassanieh, assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering and computer science, was recently awarded a 5-year, $550,000 NSF CAREER Award to address the challenges these mmWave bands bring, in order to take full advantage of these high frequency spectrums.
“You get a lot more bandwidth at these higher frequencies, but it’s not as simple as that,” Hassanieh said. “With higher frequencies, the range goes down, and to compensate for that you have to direct the transmission in only one direction, called directional communication, rather than transmitting a message in all directions. That leads to difficulties with mobility and establishing communication.”
These high frequencies were initially opened up in 2015 and are available for licensed and unlicensed use. Due to recent advances in technology and the opening of these spectrums, mmWave radios have become practical. However, mmWave communication is fundamentally different from existing wireless technologies, due to its physical properties, such as directionality, wide bandwidth and sparsity. All of this makes Hassanieh’s current research timely and important.
Hassanieh plans to work off algorithms he’s previously developed to build a practical system that can perform fast beam alignment and tracking to enable mobility in mmWave networks. This will help make communications faster and more efficient and allow for scaling of the system to include many transmitters and receivers.
“With directional communication, you might not know if someone is transmitting a message to the same place, even if they’re right next to you,” he described. “If we transmit at the same time, we might interfere with each other and then when you add in many users it can cause additional problems.”
Hassanieh anticipates that building the system will likely be the most difficult part of this project, as researchers are attempting to do real-time tracking of users with very narrow beams of transmission, making it difficult to identify users. He added that while an algorithm may work in theory, “when you deal with real hardware, it’s often much harder to implement.”
After working on solutions for effectively transmitting messages and scaling, Hassanieh plans to extend this work to new applications, such as virtual reality and self-driving cars. They propose to use this same technology for communication and sensing with the goal of enabling cars to determine everything from the presence of another car on the road to the speed of that car.
“Experts are predicting that demands on technology companies are rising so fast, the current wireless networks can’t keep up with it,” Hassanieh said. “I believe high frequencies can help with this problem, but the question is if we’re going to be able to make it practical and leverage it properly and to its full extent. I believe this research will allow us to increase data rates and provide internet connectivity to many more people.”
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Making Sense of Sounds About Challenge Media People Publications Research
The aim of this project is to investigate, develop and demonstrate new ways to make sense from large amounts of everyday sounds, focussing on real-world non-music, non-speech sounds and soundscapes. In this way we will realize latent value in existing sound and broadcast archives, enable more productive interaction with sound data, and improve the lives of people in their sound environment.
To achieve this aim, our specific objectives are:
To investigate and develop new machine learning and signal processing methods to analyse sounds and soundscapes;
To investigate how to use other modalities such as vision and text that can bring complementary information to improve analysis and interaction with sound-focussed data;
To investigate human sound perception and cognition in the context of sound data understanding, including emotional response, attention and context;
To build a research software framework and datasets to encourage other researchers to contribute to the field; and to build a set of software demonstrators to illustrate the outcomes to potential users;
To create a network of national and international partners from academia and industry, to realize the potential of current and future research and applications in making sense of sound data.
In this project we will investigate how to make sense from sound data, focussing on how to convert these recordings into understandable and actionable information: specifically how to allow people to search, browse and interact with sounds.
Increasing quantities of sound data are now being gathered in archives such as sound and audiovisual archives, through sound sensors such as city soundscape monitoring and as soundtracks on user-generated content. For example, the British Library (BL) Sound Archive has over a million discs and thousands of tapes; the BBC has some 1 million hours of digitized content; smart cities such as Santander (Spain) and Assen (Netherlands) are beginning to wire themselves up with a large number of distributed sensors; and 100 hours of video (with sound) are uploaded you YouTube every minute.
However, the ability to understand and interact with all this sound data is hampered by a lack of tools allowing people to “make sense of sounds” based on the audio content. For example, in a sound map, users may be able to search for sound clips by geographical location, but not by “similar sounds”. In broadcast archives, users must typically know which programme to look for, and listen through to find the section they need. Manually-entered textual metadata may allow text- based searching, but these typically only refer to the entire clip or programme, can often be ambiguous, and are hard to scale to large datasets. In addition, browsing sound data collections is a time-consuming process: without the help of e.g. key frame images available from video clips, each sound clip has to be “auditioned” (listened to) to find what is needed, and where the point of interest can be found. Radio programme producers currently have to train themselves to listen to audio clips at up to double speed to save time in the production process. Clearly better tools are needed.
To do this, we will investigate and develop new signal processing methods to analyse sound and audiovisual files, new interaction methods to search and browse through sets of sound files, and new methods to explore and understand the criteria searchers use when searching, selecting and interacting with sounds. The perceptual aspect will also investigate people’s emotional response to sounds and soundscapes, assisting sound designers or producers to find audio samples with the effect they want to create, and informing the development of public policy on urban soundscapes and their impact on people.
There are a wide range of potential beneficiaries for the research and tools that will be produced in this project, including both professional users and the general public. Archivists who are digitizing content into sound and audiovisual archives will benefit from new ways to visualize and tag archive material. Radio or television programme makers will benefit from new ways to search through recorded programme material and databases of sound effects to reuse, and new tools to visualize and repurpose archive material once identified. Sound artists and musicians will benefit from new ways to find interesting sound objects, or collections of sounds, for them to use as part of compositions or installations. Educators will benefit from new ways to find material on particular topics (machines, wildlife) based on their sound properties rather than metadata. Urban planners and policy makers will benefit from new tools to understand the urban sound environment, and people living in those urban environments will benefit through improved city sound policies and better designed soundscapes, making the urban environment more pleasant. For the general public, many people are now building their own archives of recordings, in the form of videos with soundtracks, and may in future include photographs with associated sounds (audiophotographs). This research will help people make sense of the sounds that surround us, and the associations and memories that they bring.
Audio Analytic Ltd
NYU Steinhardt
Pompeu Fabra University
Design by Christian Kroos
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Category: World War II
Remembering Veterans
In 1950 a petition was circulating in Missouri for a bonus bill to be passed so veterans could be placed on the November ballot.
The petition stated the maximum bonuses to World War II veterans would be $400 for those who served within the U.S. and $500 for overseas veterans. Only those veterans who served between Sept. 16, 1940 and Sept. 2, 1945, would be eligible.
The petitions were distributed by representatives of the VFW posts at Tina, Chillicothe, Carrolton, Gallatin, Jamesport, Gilman City, Bethany and Pattonsburg. The petitions were simply a way to get the bonus bill on the ballot at the November election. People signing the petitions had to have resided in the state one year and in the county 60 days. If the bill passed, the bonuses would be derived from special taxes to be imposed on items in 10 categories, nine of which were listed as luxuries, and the 10th against corporations doing business in the State of Missouri.
The taxes used to raise the money would cease on the date the money had been raised. This bonus was completely separate from any federal bonus which might come in the future. To be placed on the ballot, they had to be signed by eight percent of the legal voters in each two-thirds of the congressional districts in the state and filed at the statehouse at least 120 days before the election.
In late May 1950, both the Gallatin and Pattonsburg veterans’ organizations and auxiliaries had memorial services at two different cemeteries. At Brown Cemetery in Gallatin more than 50 veterans and a score of their auxiliaries listened as a brief prayer was said and an American Legion post commander read a tribute to all war dead. A similar service was held at the Pattonsburg Cemetery. At each service, a firing squad of seven veterans fired three shots into the the air and standing at rest were color bearers, flag guard and members of the auxilary. Flowers were placed on veterans’ graves and a American flag was left as a grave marker in honor of each fallen soldier, It was the first time such a ceremony had been held at either cemetery since the close of world War II. Taking part in the services were veterans of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force. More than 200 people attended the ceremonies.
At the election, more than 2,200 names were signed to 17 petitions passed among people in Daviess County urging them to vote for a veteran’s bonus for Missourians who were in the armed forces during the last world war. More than 850 of those names were signed in Gallatin alone.
At that time they had to have only eight percent of the voters in two-thirds of the counties of the state to get the measure before the legislature and they had more than the necessary number on the Daviess county petitions.
— researched by Wilbur Bush, Gallatin
Author darrylPosted on August 23, 2011 Categories Veterns, World War II
1948: County Sends Relief
In 1948, a relief program was started called Christian Rural Overseas Program (CROP). It began as a relief program for 43 war-stricken foreign countries. Daviess County also participated. The program was sponsored by American churches; however, there were many farm organizations, civic and service clubs, and countless other cooperating individuals that wanted to be included.
Contributions made to the program were distributed to those in need such as children, orphans, widows, the aged, those hospitalized, youth and pre-tubercular clinics.
Contributions in Daviess County were to be made in wheat, soybeans, or cash. The county’s quota was for two carloads of wheat or approximately 3,000 bushels, the equivalent in cash being $6,000.
The county committee suggested it would be better for them if the people contributed cash. The program was to be in force until every person in the county had been solicited. It was said concerning the crop donations that we can raise a crop every year, but people die of starvation only once.
It was believed there wasn’t a single group in the county that wouldn’t give if the members actually realized the starvation and disease that existed abroad at that time. With inflated prices, it was almost impossible for millions to purchase the very necessities of life. Approximately 90% of the people wanted to give the program a chance and were giving cash rather than grain.
The county quota of $6,000 was to be used by the national CROP office in Chicago to purchase wheat, soybeans, cotton or dried milk products to be sent to four overseas countries where there was the greatest need.
Author darrylPosted on April 6, 2011 Categories Veterns, World War II
Labor Shortage in 1943
An act of Congress made a farm labor program possible for rural areas which included Daviess County. One step of the plan was for the Farm Security Administration to bring in south Missouri farm hands.
In 1943, nine workers were brought to Daviess County. But it wasn’t a satisfactory arrangement to many because the workers didn’t have previous farm experience and didn’t know how to do things.
Still, it was believed full-time work was critical as the time for preparing the ground, haying, planting, etc., neared.
The school’s summer months would provide some farm labor. Volunteers also were available to help with the labor shortage. Several businessmen went to the farmer’s fields in order to prepare the ground for planting and seeding. One man worked 28 hours which was almost equivalent to three, eight hour days. Other store owners went and helped three and four hours at a time.
The government started a farm department designed to keep dairy, livestock and poultry farmers working. The department did this through draft deferment, wage stabilization and banning employment in other work. Some of the objectives were:
1. Local draft boards would grant occupational deferment to necessary men on essential dairy, livestock and poultry farms. The agreement would be withdrawn if they ceased to perform the work for which it was granted.
2. The army and navy would refrain from recruiting such workers or accepting them for voluntary enlistment.
3. All other employers would refrain from hiring skilled workers who’d been engaged in these three types of farm production.
4. The agricultural department would move toward stabilizing wages on dairy, livestock and poultry farms with a view to assisting those farmers in securing and maintaining an adequate supply of labor.
5. The department would take necessary steps to control the sale of dairy cows for slaughter so as to check a trend which was threatening to reduce dairy production.
In addition, the program for building dairy, livestock and poultry production included plans for aiding producers in building up livestock, training unskilled workers, buying or renting more productive farms, and job placement service for unskilled farm operators and laborers along with aid in transporting them to farms where they were needed most.
Another factor of the labor shortage occurred when the men and boys who’d served their time in the war returned home to find there weren’t any jobs for them to do.
Author darrylPosted on April 6, 2011 Categories World War II
Teacher Shortage During World War II
In the days of World War II there was a teacher shortage due to various reasons. Some of the male teachers had been called to service while others had resigned to take on higher paying jobs in industrial plants where war necessities were made. As a result many small schools were faced with closing by 1944.
Although it was nearing the end of the school year, the state had barely enough teachers to operate. Predictions were that there would be an even greater loss of teachers the following year.
The state’s Department of Education was working with the local superintendents in solving the problem. Some of their suggestions were:
1. Dropping the bars which many school districts had erected against employment of married women.
2. Urging retired teachers to return and making it easier for them to renew their certificates.
3. Closing small non-essential schools with their small enrollments and sending the pupils to nearby schools.
4. Dropping some special courses to permit reduction of staffs in larger school systems.
5. To make it easier for teachers to renew teaching certificates the state colleges offered special summer extension and correspondence courses and the state department issued special one-year certificates.
A later survey revealed 1,765 vacancies in 9,000 schools in the state, exclusive of Kansas City and St. Louis. Further plans to alleviate the situation were the issuing of special emergency teaching certificates to people with two years of college work and the combination of some school districts. Some 700 districts had been merged so teacher’s could utilize the same materials.
Farm Deferments During World War II
In the early 1940s there was a shortage of farm workers and many people stated that replacing these workers was hard to do.
Thousands of our men took jobs in shipyards and airplane factories thinking they could be exempt from going to war and seek deferment because they had essential operations. However, many of the higher ups were under the impression these workers could be replaced far easier than the farmers and their expertise. These men played a vital part in the army by furnishing the bread and butter for the people.
Some guidelines for deferment for farmers were:
1. A farmer who resided on his farm and operated it alone was required to have at least eight milk cows.
2. If both a farmer and his son lived on the farm together, 16 animal units were required for the man to obtain deferment.
3. By Feb. 12, 1943, in order to get deferment, the farmer had to raise at least 10 animal units.
4. By May 12, 1943, the farmer had to have at least 12 animal units. Feed for the stock had to be produced on the farm where the resident lived.
Since there was a variety of different types of animals on different types of farms, guidelines were often flexible. For example:
For one milk cow there had to be three beef cows; or four two-year-old steers; or four feed lot cattle; or 16 ewes; or 80 feed lot lambs; or flock of 75 hens; or 250 chickens raised; or 500 broilers; or 40 turkeys raised; or nine hogs raised. Breeding herd was not considered at all.
A typical example if a farmer lived on a farm alone, and had the following stock, he would meet the requirement of eight animal units and would be entitled to deferment: 2 milk cows…2; 18 hogs raised…2; flock of 150 hens…2; raise 250 chickens…1; 16 ewes…1; Total animal units = 8.
By May 1943, there was desperate need for farm workers as farming season approached and seed bed preparation and planting was needed and past due because of the wet weather. Year-round farm hands and seasonal workers could be secured from other sections of the state by making application at the county office or with the volunteer workers in the towns.
Volunteer workers were also needed to fill requests and place workers in as many cases as possible. Also available for summer jobs were the high school and college students.
Do you remember….
*when service stations filled your gas tank for you, checked the oil and the air in your car’s tires, and washed the windshield
*when ice was sold in large cubes for the ice boxes
*when grocery stores delivered groceries to your home
*when you used red and green mills to pay sales tax
*when farmers took eggs to town in 36-dozen wooden cases
*when farmers purchased baby chicks in the spring and raised them in the brooder house
*when many farmers took their grain to the elevator in their pickups and wagons
*when you couldn’t go to town when the roads were muddy without putting chains on your car
*when cars had mud flaps and running boards
*when hogs were found on most small farms and were called mortgage breakers.
*when soot had to be cleaned from the flues
*when vinegar was shipped in large barrels and used to fill the containers the people brought in
*when flour was sold in cloth bags and women used the empty sacks to make a dress, shirt, etc.
Meat Rationing Necessary on the Home Front
In March 1942, the armed forces and the fighting allies were using about one-fourth of all the meat our country produced. Rationing became necessary on the home front.
Civilians would have available only a little more than half of the amount they had consumed in recent years. Everyone wouldn’t get as much of every kind of food as they wanted and their diets might not be as pleasant to eat, but there would still be enough for everyone to have a healthy and adequate diet.
On March 28, 1943, the O.P.A. (Office of Price Administration) became involved in the rationing of meats, edible fats and oils (including butter) cheese and canned food. From then on, a War Ration Book No. 2 had to be used.
In the first month, each card holder, regardless of age, would have a basic allotment of 16 points a week to spend. If all the points weren’t used in the same week, they could be held a week or longer.
The B., C., D. and E. Red stamps became valid in alphabetical order. As each series of red stamps became valid they could be used with complete freedom of choice to buy any one of the rationed products.
The new program permitted the dealer to give change in ration stamps, using only one-point stamps. Surrender of stamps had to be given in the presence of the merchant, clerk or deliveryman.
Some items covered were: 1. All fresh, frozen, cured meats and meat products derived from beef, veal, lamb, mutton and pork, as well as variety meats such as sausages, canned fish and canned shellfish. 2. The most important natural and processed cheeses and their derivatives, but not the cottage type and cream cheeses. 3. Most edible fats and oils, including butter, lard, margarine, shortening, salad oils and cooking oils.
All restaurants, hotels and other institutional users were allowed supplies of the rationed foods on the same basis that would reduce their use to approximately the same level as that of the private individual who ate at home.
None of the rationed foods could be used in the manufacture of dog foods.
Point values for the entire list of the rationed foods were to be posted just as if they were canned goods. There would be approximately 150 meat items with about 60 types and cuts made monthly as well as a separate chart for each store.
The new plan didn’t place any restrictions on any of the foods raised by the farmers if they were used for themselves. Farmers and their families were given a full quota of points. If a farmer sold any of his home-produced meat, butter, or other rationed foods, he had to collect ration stamps, checks or certificates when making a sale and surrender the collected points to the OPA.
All county livestock slaughterers, butchers and resident farm slaughterers who sold meat after April 1, 1943, had to obtain a permit from the local USDA War Board. Farm slaughterers included all individual killing and selling of any meat. If they slaughtered exclusively for home consumption on the farm they weren’t covered by the order.
Livestock dealers and agents were required to register and obtain permits partly for the reason of stamping out black markets, providing adequate meat supplies for military and lend-lease needs, and to guarantee sufficient coupons issued by OPA.
Each individual was required to show on his application for a permit the number of each type of livestock which he slaughtered in 1941 and the total live weight of the livestock. Quotas were the applicant’s choice of (1) the number of livestock which he slaughtered in the corresponding period in 1941; or (2) the total live weight of the animals which he butchered and sold during the base period.
Any farm slaughterer who applied for a permit and was unable to furnish data showing his slaughter in 1941 received his choice of (1) 300 lbs. of meat; or (2) the meat from three animals including not more than one head of cattle. Anyone who didn’t obtain his permit before April 1 was required to suspend operation until the proper permit was obtained.
In early 1944, the government issued red and blue ration tokens for buying meat and some types of processed products. Each token was worth 10 points each. Blue tokens were to be used when the price of the processed food was less than 10 points. Red tokens were to used for meat purchases.
Gallatin’s Problem with Homes for Returning Vets
The ending of World War II was the beginning of a new set of problems for Gallatin veterans. The vets were coming home, but there wasn’t any home for them to return to. A Gallatin survey revealed there were at least 25 new houses needed since there weren’t any vacant houses nor rooms to rent.
The Gallatin Rotary Club passed a resolution backing a building program for the purpose of alleviating the housing shortage and also to curb inflation of real estate values.
The problem came to light when a man went to buy a permit to build in the city. He found a building priority for a home was impossible to obtain unless the town in which he resided had a set building quota. Gallatin didn’t have any such quota.
Building quotas were based on each particular town and an investigation of Gallatin revealed several factors had to be resolved before a quota could be set. A few of these factors were:
1. There were eight or more families without places to live and several others were inadequately housed
2. Property values had inflated from 100% to 300%
3. Many retired farmers were moving to town
4. Several returning veterans had expressed wanting to live in Gallatin.
A proposal was set up by the FPHA (Federal Public Housing Authority) stating they’d furnish pre-fabricated houses of a war-housing type and ship the parts to Gallatin for assembly. The housing units would remain federally owned. They would be four, five, or six bedroom homes and modern in every way.
Only discharged veterans or families of servicemen were eligible to apply for the accommodations. Before applications could be made for the temporary housing, an estimate of community needs had to be made. All veterans and servicemen’s families who wanted the accommodations were urged to sign up for them. The number of houses to be asked for depended upon the number of people interested in securing this type of housing.
In January 1946, Gallatin made application for 15 temporary family units to be occupied by discharged veterans and the families of servicemen. Additional units were to be ordered if the houses were being utilized and proved to be satisfactory. The government would furnish pre-fabricated war-housing type dwellings delivered prepaid by the city. The cost of a site and connecting the utilities would be paid to the city. The rent, at a very nominal cost of $22 a month, was to be charged to the veterans and families.
The application was turned down because the quota for the houses had been exhausted. Both the project requested and the number size of the housing administration was too small. They’d substitute 10 trailers. In February, 1946, 10 family trailers were ordered and were to be of two sizes, 7′ x 22′ one bedroom units and three 22′ x 22′ bedroom units. Each trailer had their water and electricity. The trailers would be allotted to the applicants in the order the requests were received.
Dockery Park was chosen for the site because there’d be less work and expense. There’d be little grading and sodding to be done, sidewalks and gavel driveways were already built and present light and water facilities were nearby. Rent from the trailers would go to the FPHA after the expenses of maintenance were deducted. FPHA retained the title to the buildings. Families of servicemen and veterans were the only eligible tenants of the trailers. Also included were men seeking accommodation so they could bring their families stationed outside the locality.
Nearing the end of February, Gallatin was assured of its trailer colony housing project. The FPHA would provide the materials and the labor for the construction of two baths and laundry buildings at the trailer site. The building would be 29 ˝’ x 23′ and would cost $8,300. The project had been turned down earlier by the city officials due to the scarcity of materials and labor.
In May 1946, the government agreed to relieve the city of any responsibility in building construction. The bath and laundry building was approved for the colony. Under the proposal the city would sign a contract with the housing authority to build the structure, with the government agency paying the bill. The city was to hire the labor, buy the material, and supervise the construction. The building was to be centrally located in the trailer colony.
World War II Scrap Metal Drives
In 1942, there was a big demand for scrap metal materials for the fighting of World War II. On Oct. 9, 1942, there was big scrap metal drive in Daviess County.
It was estimated that 1.5 million tons of scrap lay useless on U.S. farms. Enough to build 139 modern battleships for the navy! If the average farm generated 125 pounds to be mixed with other materials, each farm could possibly make a 500 pound aerial bomb. If the farmers banned their collection and accumulated 36,000 pounds there would be enough scrap iron to build one 27-ton tank.
All the scarp was important: One old shovel would make four hand grenades; one old disc would provide scrap steel for 210 semi-automatic light carbines; one old broken plow would help make 100 75mm armor piercing projectiles; one useless old tire would provide enough rubber for 12 gas masks; old lawn mowers, flat irons, broken tools would all count; 125 pounds of rusty metal, mixed with other materials, was enough to make a 500 pound aerial bomb; an old hand corn sheller would make three one-inch shells.
The Daviess County USDA war board took the responsibility to encourage the collection of scrap metal from all the local farms. The metal would be taken to the smelters and blast furnaces to be remade. The need for it was vital because many steel plants throughout the country had been slowed down or had to suspend operations because of the lack of material.
On Oct. 9, plans were made for every school and every business in the county to close and to work out their plans such as arranging for trucks, how to collect the scrap, where to sell it, what to do with the money, etc.
The schools and town salvage committees took the lead in the collection. Some people donated their trucks for the project. However, the scrap had to be brought to them as they didn’t have time to go from farm to farm and pick up the metal.
This enabled every man, woman and child to have an opportunity to help. Four Gallatin girls helped in a big way when they removed an entire iron pump from a well in south Gallatin which had been donated. People were willing to help as there were approximately 500 Daviess County boys fighting in the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force.
Nearly 300 tons of scrap metal was collected. In Gallatin the scrap was hauled to the Whitfield salvage dump and the Hacker junk yard. Approximately 270 tons of scrap was purchased in the county on scrap day. Including what had been purchased prior to scrap day brought the county 457 tons.
Another important campaign was the collection of two million victory keys. The goal was to raise 12,000,000 pounds of metal. The average key contained about 80% nickel silver which was desperately needed by the Navy, particularly the Yale and Corbin type keys. These keys could be deposited in Gallatin stores, namely the Merrigan Grocery, Davis Drug Co., King’s Drug Store, the high school and the Gallatin Publishing Co.
Every penny over the actual cost of the campaign was given to the boys in the service through their United States Organization (USO).
Throughtout the war years after the war started, a temporary freeze was put on farm machinery because of the scrap iron shortage. There were exceptions to the rule, but a farmer had to present a valid reason why he needed new equipment; why he was unable to repair his present equipment; why he could not purchase or rent used machinery; or why he could not use custom or exchange work. The purchaser also had to present a satisfactory reason for changing from horse power to motor power. If refused, he could appeal to the state USDA board.
There was a shortage of car manufacturing and new cars were hard to come by which caused a safety hazzard. Motorists were driving older cars which were harder to keep safe because of the shortage of spare parts and skilled mechanics. Car tires were used beyond their safely point. Many cars which had been discarded as unfit for service were back on the road.
On Oct. 9, 1942, a big scrap drive took place in Daviess County. All the county schools and stores closed in order for every man, woman and child to be able to participate. Each county town and each school district worked out a plan for such things as how to collect the scrap, where to sell it, what to do with the money, etc.
The courthouse was chosen as the central point and committees went out in four directions. Each section was appointed a captain and each section was to pile their scraps where it could be seen.
Another important nationwide campaign was the collection of keys. Two million victory key kans and two million placards were distributed throughout every U.S. city. The goal was to raise 12,000,000 pounds of metal. The average key contained 80% nickel silver which was vital to the navy.
There were five places to deposit the keys in Gallatin: Merrigan Grocery, Davis Drug Co., Kings Drug Store, Gallatin Publishing Company, and the high school.
On scrap day, Gallatin and the community collected 100 tons of scrap and the county gathered 275 tons.
The scrap had to be sorted, graded, prepared, packed and placed in railroad lots for loading onto freight cars. If there wasn’t enough material of one grade in a county to make a carload, it became necessary to combine grades from several neighboring counties.
In early October, it was announced that any county that made a per capita collection of 100 pounds or more of scrap from any or all sources during the period of Sept. 1 to Oct. 31, would receive a Victory Salvage Pennant to fly from the flagpole in the courthouse yard.
By early December Gallatin reached its 900 ton goal. More scrap iron was still to be found. The government dedicated the remaining years of 1942 to an extended scrap hunt. Salvage committees were instructed to continue to make available to farmers all the transportation facilities and manpower needed.
In April, 1943, an all out effort was made to gather tin cans. They were piled separately from the other trash and city trucks picked them up.
Copper was the most important and the most needed of all metals for war production. One hundred pounds of tin cans was equal in worth to one pound of copper.
Food Shortages During & After World War II
In 1943, women on 175 Daviess County farms were doing more work than ever. Many were going to work in the fields in addition to carrying on what had always been the women’s share of the farm work such as milking, taking care of the chickens and gardening.
They started a plan as to what other things they could do such as:
1. To grow a garden that would produce enough food to feed the family the year around.
2. To can 100 to 200 quarts of food and store six to 10 bushels of potatoes and other storable food.
3. To use home-produced foods in well-prepared meals which met the requirement for good health.
4. To buy as little as possible from commercial food supplies, leaving it for the armed forces and those that couldn’t produce their own.
5. To take care of equipment and supplies to extend their usefulness and prevent need for replacement.
6. To adjust homemaking practices and the use of time and energy so the family’s welfare wasn’t neglected while at the same time making possible the production of more of the foods essential to war needs.
There were drawbacks in regard to the canning, as sugar was rationed at five pounds, but a new ration stamp for an extra 10 pounds would soon be sent to those who would do the extra canning.
After World War II had ended, there was still a food shortage at home and abroad. Mrs. Truman’s instructions at the White House were: wheatless day every Monday; use wheat food only at breakfast on other days; no bread served at dinner.
There were nine ways in which Daviess County homemakers could save critically needed foods, including:
1. Cutting down on the waste of bread in every way possible. Estimates indicated one slice out of every loaf of bread went into the garbage can.
2. Reducing the amount of bread used at each meal through substitutes such as potatoes and oat cereals. Fruit could be used instead of cake and pastries for desserts.
3. Using alternate foods and using less wheat cereals for breakfast.
4. Saving cooking fats by making more extensive use of meat drippings for cooking and seasoning food.
5. Holding down the number of fried foods that were served.
6. Saving and reusing fats and oils for cooking purposes.
7. Holding bacon grease for cooking and rendering out excess fats or meats.
8. All fats that couldn’t be reused could be salvaged and turned in at the butcher’s shop or grocery store.
9. Using less oil and salad dressing.
Meat Rationing during World War II
Civilians would have available only a little more than half of the amount they had consumed in recent years. Everyone wouldn’t get as much of every kind of food as they wanted and their diets might not be as pleasant to eat, but there’d still be enough for everyone to have a healthy and adequate diet.
On March 28, 1943, the O.P.A. (Office of Price Administration) became involved in the rationing of meats, edible fats and oils (including butter), cheeses and canned food. From then on, a War Ration Book No. 2 had to be used.
In the first month, each card holder, regardless of age, would have a basic allotment of 16 points a week to spend. If all the points weren’t used in the same week, they could be held a week or longer. The B.C.D. and E. red stamps became valid in alphabetical order. As such series of red stamps became valid they could be used with complete freedom of choice to buy any one of the rationed products. The new program permitted the dealer to give change in ration stamps, using only 1-point stamps. Surrender of stamps had to be given in the presence of the merchant, clerk or deliveryman.
Some items covered were: (1) All fresh, frozen, cured meats and meat products derived from beef, veal, lamb, mutton, and pork, as well as variety meats such as sausages, canned fish and canned shellfish. (2) The most important natural and processed cheeses and their derivatives, but not the cottage type and cream cheeses. (3) Most edible fats and oils, including butter, lard, margarine, shortening, salad oils and cooking oils.
All restaurants, hotels and other institutional users were to be allowed supplies of the rationed foods on the same basis that would reduce their use to approximately the same level as that of the private individual who ate at home. None of the rationed foods could be used in the manufacture of dog foods.
The new plan didn’t place any restriction on any of the foods raised by the farmers if they were used for themselves. Farmers and their families were given a full quota of points. If a farmer sold any of his home-produced meat, butter, or other rationed foods, he had to collect ration stamps, checks or certificates when making a sale and surrender the collected points to the OPA.
All county livestock slaughterers, butchers and resident farm slaughterers who sold meat after April 1, 1943, had to obtain a permit from the local USDA War Board. Farm slaughterers included all individual killing and selling any meat. If they slaughtered exclusively for home consumption on their farms they weren’t covered by the order. Livestock dealers and agents were required to register and obtain permits partly for the reason of stamping out black markets, providing adequate meat supplies for military and lend-lease needs, and to guarantee sufficient coupons issued by OPA.
Any farm slaughtered who applied for a permit and was unable to furnish data showing his slaughter in 1941 received his choice of (1) 300 pounds of meat; or (2) the meat from three animals including not more than one head of cattle. Anyone who didn’t obtain his permit before April 1 was required to suspend operation until the proper permit was obtained.
In early 1944, the government issued red and blue ration tokens for buying meat and some types of processed products. Each token was worth 10 points each. Blue tokens were to be used when the prices of the processed food was less than 10 points. Red tokens were to be used for meat purchases.
Fuel Shortage in the mid-1940s
Due to World War II, fuel was in short supply on the home front. Prior to the winter months and anticipating a shortage, people were urged to start preparing for it to avoid being left out in the cold. This included wood, fuel oil and coal.
Those people who heated with fuel oil were urged to get their storage tanks filled as quickly as they could. If these tanks weren’t filled then, fuel might not be available when it was needed. Tank cars were being diverted to transport a large part of the Navy’s fuel oil to the West Coast, leaving less overland transportation available for civilian needs. Still, in these summer months, supplies were greater and would allow for more efficient delivery than when the product was needed the worst.
The previous winter, about 3,000 homes had been heated with fuel oil. Now, in these mid-summer months many of the people had already mailed applications to the War Price and Rationing Boards. The boards urged the people to get their fuel allocations while transportation was more readily available and there was still time to repair their old and their current equipment. Many people had followed suit and were starting to get their coupon books for their fuel allotment.
Still, many were using the primitive way by heating with wood. Many people had woodlands with plenty of wood for their use and there wasn’t any reason they couldn’t have fuel. People were urged to share their wood with others who didn’t have an adequate supply. Everyone didn’t cooperate; many had woodlands with plenty of firewood and refused to share it with those who were in dire need even though some of it was laying on the ground rotting. Others were profiteering from the wood supply even though it was greatly discouraged.
Likewise, those who used coal were also encouraged to lay in their winter supply. One factor was the space because neither the mines nor the local dealers had the capacity to store large amounts of coal. If the transportation process was slowed down in the cold months, these minimal amounts would soon be depleted and new shipments could be delayed creating another shortage.
At that time it was predicted transportation facilities were going to be tighter than ever before. It was imperative that the coal flow from the mines to the dealer’s supplies and the consumer’s bins. There couldn’t be any working time lost by the coal mines which were operating with the smallest crews and task force.
Just the mining and the preparing fuel weren’t entirely caused by the shortage of the fuel. Other factors entered in, such as the shortage of men to work the mines and transport the product because many of the men who had the jobs were now fighting overseas. Likewise, proper manufacturing could be hindered by the lack of machines in top quality.
The homeowners were also urged to take conservative measures by cleaning and repairing their present furnaces and heating equipment. They were also urged to install insulation and weather stripping.
Shoe Rationing in 1943
In 1943, shoes were rationed and had to be purchased with ration stamps. However, in order for the merchants to rid some of their odd and end pairs, a shoe holiday was established which lasted for two weeks from July 19 to July 31.
Some of its stipulations were the sale would only consist of a small percentage of each type to be sold. The dealer could sell only 1% of his stock of men’s dress shoes and men’s work shoes, 4% of womens’ shoes, 2% of misses, children and infant’s shoes and 2% of all other rationed footwear.
The sale price couldn’t be more than a 10% mark-up from the price paid by the dealer. If the price couldn’t be determined or if the shoes were made by the owner of the establishment, the selling price had to be at least 25% of his selling price on July 1, 1943. It was a way both the merchant and the customer could benefit by purchasing a few odds and ends, broken sizes, and any other problem shoes on the merchant’s shelves.
The shoes were to represent a fixed percentage of retailers’ stocks which were to be marked down and they had to be stamped with stickers bearing OPA lot release in any notice or advertisement. People were urged to turn in their old shoes, boots and soles.
The amendment also allowed mail order houses, wholesalers and manufacturers to move the same percentage of such shoes without a time limit, after July 19, but they had to apply to the district office for permission.
Other rules were more lenient concerning children’s shoes. Considering the fact children would outgrow their shoes, parents could apply to their board for special permission to buy additional shoes and if the parents could prove a need, they would probably be given extra stamps.
In a hardship case when a person couldn’t afford to buy a pair of shoes in addition to the regular pair option they were asked to apply for special coupons.
Tire Rationing in World War II
During World War II the government’s demand for rubber to use almost exclusively for defense purposes caused the need to ration tires on the home front. The Office of Price Administration (OPA) in Washington D.C. regulated the quota and the rules for tires and tubes issued to each county.
It became necessary to get a certificate when a tire was needed and purchased. The certificate had to be used for that month and couldn’t be carried over to the following month. In January 1942 Daviess County’s allotment was 12 car tires and innertubes and 25 truck tires and innertubes.
The OPA started the Tire Purchase Plan.
Under the plan gasoline rations would be denied to those with more than five passenger cars with more than five tires on each car. If a person had passenger tire trailers, they could have one tire for each running wheel without forfeiting the right to buy gasoline.
The procedure for purchasing new tires required several steps. First, the vehicle the tire was purchased for had to be inspected and an application form filled out. The form would be taken to Gallatin’s rationing board. The board would issue a necessary permit upon proof the tire was needed.
The dealer couldn’t sell a new tire or tube without the certificate. The old tire had to be sold in five days and the certificate had to be approved by the local board. Upon completion of the sale, the dealer could get a new replacement tire for wholesale purposes. The new tire couldn’t be used on any other piece of machinery or vehicle other than the one purchased for and violation of the law meant punishment by the federal government.
No other certificate could be issued unless it was for:
1. An ambulance;
2. Vehicles used specifically for fire fighting, professional services used by a physician, surgeon, visiting nurse or a veterinarian;
3. Vehicles used for fire fighting, police service to regulate laws exclusively relating to public health and safety, garbage disposal and other sanitary services, and mail service.
4. On vehicles with a capacity of 10 or more passengers for regular transportation, students and teachers, employees of any mining or construction work.
Due to the tire shortage of grade III tires, the government released two million usable tires. Some needed repair while others could be used in national emergencies without repair. Large orders were placed with the large company stores and exclusive tire dealers in the larger cities, but very few orders were received from the small dealers in the farming areas where the most critical tire shortage existed.
Local dealers were advised to urge framers to get their orders in quickly because of the high demand that might last 60 to 90 days. Any dealer could purchase from 25 to 100 of these tires for immediate delivery. An O would be branded on the sidewall and sold at a price not to exceed a dollar.
Some tires were later retread and recapped, but since the lack of crude rubber used in making the compound was limited it greatly curtailed any great supply. The process to obtain one of the tires was similar to that of purchasing a new one. No applicant would be granted to anyone who had more than one car or truck unless the tires on both machines were worn out.
By June 1943 the drive for scrap rubber had resulted in an accumulation large enough to meet the needs for months to come and the drive was discontinued.
Gas Shortage and Rationing by OPA
In the early 1940s, cars were coming on the scene and gas was utilized more and more. However, due to World War II, the military’s demand for gas caused a shortage on the home front.
Gas companies were drawing on their reserves and using the oil faster than they were finding it.
The partial solution seemed to be to use what they had very sparingly. Gas rationing became necessary and coupons were needed to buy gas. The allotment allowed a person to buy four gallons at a time and it depended on the mileage used. Coupons were mailed to the motorists. The coupon’s expiration date was about 15 months after they’d been issued. The allotment was later changed to two gallons weekly.
Black markets for gas appeared and the ration boards tried to stop them. The boards offered a new plan, hoping to eliminate ration coupon thefts. Soon, when a motorist went to buy gas they were required to show all their gasoline coupons as proof that they were valid. If all the coupons weren’t endorsed, the investigator explained the endorser’s importance, which was a move against the black market.
Any dealers handling coupons that weren’t endorsed had to appear to the local war price and rationing board within 10 days to show that all their coupons had been endorsed. A copy of the notice was then forwarded to the ration board and any motorist failing to comply was to have a hearing for the purpose of revoking their gasoline ration.
The check of coupons in the Kansas City area comprised 51 counties in western Missouri and three counties in Kansas.
Rural areas were hurt to a greater degree than the urban areas by gas rationing because many farmers needed the fuel to power their tractors.
Sugar Rationing During the War Years
Just as the sugar rationing was being put in effect in 1942 during the war years, Daviess County had taken steps to prepare to hand out ration stamps and ration sugar when they got the go orders.
The supplies for the rationing were locked in a vault in the city clerk’s office. The supplies included 15,000 rationing books, 16,000 application blanks for books, and 16,000 instructional leaflets.
At the appointed time, these books had to be available for necessary distribution 24 hours a day. Only one member of the rationing board would be able to pass out the books.
Ration books were issued to each household for the eligible amount of sugar they’d receive. For example, a war stamp book No. 8 was issued for a 10 week period from Aug. 23 to Oct. 31, 1942, and was good for five pounds of sugar.
Later, there was a small change. The half pound per person per week was the same as the five pound per person for 10 weeks. This new change was more efficient as it was easier to divide the five pound purchase, which was packed in five, 10, and 25 pound bags that had been put up the previous fall before the sugar was rationed.
Sugar ration books issued to persons who had since died, entered the army, or had been absent from the country for a period of more than 30 days had to be returned to the local War Price and Ration Board which issued them.
To keep informed of the status of consumers in this area, members of the ration board were established. They kept in contact with the local draft board and county health authorities who had a record of deaths.
Veterans Offered Farm Training
On-the-job training offered veterans who want to learn to farm after WWII.
As more veterans returned home, many didn’t have jobs and wanted to farm. Factory work and clerical work didn’t appeal to the boys who were raised on farms. To help solve this problem, the Missouri Department of Education, working in cooperation with the Veterans Administration and the state’s high schools, worked out a plan for the modification of on-the-job training. This combined school instruction and actual farm work to place the veteran on an even footing with skilled farmers in his own community.
The new plan was divided into three categories. The first plan was the institutional program. In this step, the veterans went to school to learn to be a farmer, just as he would go to school to learn about dentistry, law, or engineering. The students learned most of their training in an agricultural school, with off-campus inspection trips to supplement the education.
The second classification was when veterans trained for a position existing in the employer’s farm organization. Off-the-farm instruction of a supplementary nature was included. This plan held the employer responsible for the training. The veteran was trained to take over a certain phase of the farm operation, such as dairy supervisor or being in charge of the beef cattle.
The third classification was the comprehensive plan developed by the Department of Education, Veterans Administration, high schools and agriculture agencies, plus on-the-farm training. These phases were planned so that each supplemented the other. The responsibility for the entire course rested with the school. The school not only offered the classroom instruction, but it also helped with the on-the-farm phase of training.
The plan was broken down further into two subdivisions. One plan was designed for the veteran who could take the on-the-farm portion of his training on his own farm; the other plan was for a farm under his management. In each case the veteran was enrolled at the local school as an agricultural student.
Under all the training plans the veteran was allowed to receive monthly subsistence allowances from the government which enabled him to earn a living while learning the science of farming.
Scrap Paper Drive in War Effort
In 1945, clothing and wastepaper drives were necessary for the World War II defense. Clothing was desperately needed.
President Roosevelt stated that as many war victims had died from exposure and lack of clothing as had died from starvation. This could be solved to a small degree by people on the home front donating their unused clothing which could hopefully save lives or prevent suffering.
It was believed that almost every household in every town had scrap or unused clothing in their closets and attics. The national goal was five pounds of usable clothing from every man, woman and child in the nation.
It was thought Daviess County could reach the goal because it fell in the time when spring house cleaning was being done and unused clothing was being discarded.
In every town in the county there was someone appointed to head the campaign in that particular community. In Gallatin, the collection depot was located at the Red Cross surgical dressing room on the first floor of the courthouse. At a later date, arrangements were made to pick up the heavier bundles. A few of the garments asked to be donated were infant wear, shoes, knit clothes, blankets, etc.
Likewise, waste on unused paper was also needed for war products. Everyone was encouraged to scout around and find the paper products which would be gathered by veterans and boy scouts. A person was to call for a pickup or deliver them to the collecting station themselves. As a result, several truckloads were sent.
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Auditing/Accounting Policy and Enforcement Legislation
Development of policy, preparation and drafting of legislation in relation to company law (auditing); the negotiation of EU proposals on this area of company law and the transposition of EU proposals into domestic law.
Companies (Statutory Audits) Act 2018 (No 22 of 2018)
The Companies (Statutory Audits) Act 2018 sets out the current policy in relation to auditors/audit firms carrying out statutory audits. It gives the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority (IAASA), as the competent authority with ultimate responsibility for oversight, the appropriate powers to ensure effective monitoring and enforcement of the new requirements.
The transposition deadline for the Audit Directive 2014/56/EC was 17 June 2016 and, as the Audit Regulation (EU) No 537/2014 was directly applicable in Ireland from the same date, the necessary requirements of the EU audit measures were transposed in June 2016 by way of a statutory instrument – European Union (Statutory Audits) (Directive 2006/43/EC, as amended by Directive 2014/56/EC, and Regulation (EU) No 537/2014) Regulations 2016 – SI No 312 of 2016.
The Directive contains amendments to augment the provisions of the Statutory Audit Directive. The Regulation is directed at Public-Interest Entities (PIEs), entities which are of significant public interest because of their business, their size, their number of employees or their corporate status is such that they have a wide range of stakeholders. The category of PIE also encompasses systemically important entities such as listed companies, credit institutions and insurance undertakings.
The Act avails of options not available in secondary legislation which will enhance the system of oversight of audit in Ireland and audit quality. It elevates the provisions of SI No 312 of 2016 into primary legislation to provide a single, comprehensive framework for statutory audit in the Companies Act 2014.
In addition, the Act updates the rules relating to auditors for Industrial and Provident Societies Acts and the Friendly Societies Acts.
The Act was signed into law by the President on 25 July 2018. The Companies (Statutory Audits) Act 2018 (Commencement) Order 2018, SI No 366 of 2018 commences the Act as and from 21 September 2018 for all sections, except for sections 3(1)(a), 3(1)(h), 3(1)(i), 3(1)(j) and 9.
Companies (Amendment) Act 2019 (No 10 of 2019)
A company has a maximum of nine months after its financial year end to prepare an annual return and the associated financial information for filing with the Companies Registration Office (CRO) where it will be publicly available. Currently there is a two-step procedure for a company in filing an annual return with the CRO, each step allowing up to a maximum of 28 days. The Companies (Amendment) Act 2019 amalgamated these two periods of 28 days to provide a single step with a maximum of 56 days to complete the process. The administrative burden on companies is thus reduced by simplifying procedures and making it easier to meet filing obligations. The Act was signed into law by the President on 11 April 2019. It is expected that the Act will be commenced towards the end of Quarter 4, 2019.
Third Country Auditors/Audit Entities
Equivalence/Transitional Decisions
The EU Commission issue Commission Decisions which relate to the equivalence of certain third country public oversight, quality assurance, investigation and penalty systems for auditors and audit entities and a transitional period for audit activities of certain third country auditors and audit entities in the European Union, as provided for in Article 46 of the EU Audit Directive 2006/43/EC (as amended by Directive 2014/56/EU).
The European Union (Third-Country Auditors and Third-Country Audit Entities Equivalence, Transitional Period and Fees) Regulations 2018, SI No 367 of 2018 consolidate three existing statutory instruments (SI No 312 of 2012, SI No 555 of 2014 and SI No 67 of 2017) which transpose Commission Decisions and Commission Implementing Decisions.
The following Regulations are revoked:
(a) the European Union (Third Country Auditors and Audit Entities Equivalence, Transitional Period Measures and Fees) Regulations 2012 (SI No 312 of 2012);
(b) the European Union (Third Country Auditors and Audit Entities Equivalence, Transitional Period and Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 (SI No 555 of 2014);
(c) the European Union (Third Country Auditors and Audit Entities Equivalence, Transitional Period and Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2017 (SI No 67 of 2017).
The Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority (IAASA) is the competent authority in Ireland for the purposes of these Commission Decisions, Commission Implementing Decisions and these Regulations.
Adequacy Decisions
The EU Commission issue Commission Decisions relating to the adequacy of competent authorities of certain third countries and territories regarding the transfer of relevant audit papers as provided for in Article 47 of the EU Audit Directive 2006/43/EC.
The European Union (Adequacy of Competent Authorities of certain Third Countries regarding transfer of relevant audit papers) Regulations 2017, SI No 68 of 2017, give effect to Commission Decision 2010/64/EU of 5 February 2010, Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2016/1010 of 21 June 2016 and Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2016/1156 of 14 July 2016 on the adequacy of competent authorities of certain third countries and territories regarding transfer of relevant audit papers.
It provides that the competent authorities of third countries listed below shall be considered adequate.
(i) Under Commission Decision 2010/64/EU–
the Canadian Public Accountability Board;
the Financial Services Agency of Japan;
the Certified Public Accountants and Auditing Oversight Board of Japan;
the Federal Audit Oversight Authority of Switzerland.
(ii) Under Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2016/1010–
the Comissao de Valores Mobiliarios of Brazil;
the Dubai Financial Service Authority of Dubai International Financial Centre;
the Registrar of Companies of Guernsey;
the Finance Professions Supervisory Centre of Indonesia;
the Financial Supervision Commission of the Isle of Man;
the Jersey Financial Services Commission;
the Audit Oversight Board of Malaysia;
the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors of South Africa;
the Financial Services Commission of South Korea and the Financial
Supervisory Service of South Korea;
the Financial Supervisory Commission of Taiwan;
the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand.
These Regulations apply to the Finance Professions Supervisory Centre of Indonesia and the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors of South Africa until 31 July 2019.
(iii) Under Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2016/1156–
the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board of the USA;
the Securities and Exchange Commission of the USA.
These Regulations apply to (iii) above from 1 August 2016 to 31 July 2022.
The Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority (IAASA) is the competent authority in Ireland for the purposes of these Commission Implementing Decisions and these Regulations.
Enforcement Legislation
Cross-Border Conversions, Mergers and Divisions Proposal
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May 15, 2015 / Published in Local Governments & Agencies
Freeze the Footprint: The Federal Initiative to Reduce Office Space
One story that affects commercial real estate has drawn little attention in the business press – the federal government has shed millions of square feet of office space and warehouse space in recent years.
In a move to save money and maintenance costs, the Obama Administration embarked on its “Freeze the Footprint” policy. The Department of Defense (DoD) and other federal agencies were ordered to curtail leasing and aggressively cut back on office and cubicle space for federal workers and affiliated civilian agencies.
Meantime, the Feds have ended leases and announced plans to move federal workers into renovated or expanded buildings. Last year, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced that 19 federal buildings would absorb those workers who were stationed in other offices. These buildings, which will be renovated to take on the extra workers, include federal buildings in Los Angeles, San Diego, Fresno, Laguna Niguel and The Ronald Dellums Federal Building here in Oakland.
A Major Push to Scale Back Office Space, Warehouse Space
This policy has had a dramatic impact already. In 2014, according to one report, DoD and affiliated civilian agencies eliminated more than 7,000 buildings with office and warehouse space that totaled roughly 44 million square feet.
Federal agencies that control thousands of buildings and millions of square feet are also actively shrinking the size of individual offices by roughly 50 to 70 square feet per employee. These agencies include the massive Social Security Administration and the departments of Health and Human Service, Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense. Federal officials also reported that in fiscal 2013 and 2014, federal agencies reduced 21 million square feet of warehouse space. The Feds are also trying to eliminate data centers throughout the country.
The General Services Administration, which leases over 9,000 buildings across the US and the Office of Management and Budget are developing plans to consolidate even more buildings and dispose of real property over the next several years. In Washington DC, the Feds have already shed a sizable chunk of real estate. The GSA eliminated one million square feet in the DC area, and just under another one million more in northern Virginia. These initiatives have also presented opportunities as well. In DC, for example, the GSA has solicited input from private companies for plans to expand federal facilities in Washington to make room for workers.
The Potential to Freeze the Footprint in California
The GSA leases 746 buildings in California, according to its database. Several of these leases are up in 2016 and 2017. The federal agencies have also sought more favorable lease terms with building owners. During a Congressional hearing last year, a Social Security administrator told lawmakers that the agency had extended the lease terms for a building in Salinas, reducing the rent by $7.50 per square foot. He testified that the government would save $3 million over five years. It would seem plausible that when federal agencies renegotiate more leases in California, the Feds may seek better terms, dangling in front of landlords the possibility that they might pull out of the building altogether. It is hard to predict the moves of the federal government, however.
With this move to shrink its footprint, the federal government may also begin to unload its huge stock of empty or underused buildings. Some estimates have put that number at nearly 80,000 buildings. As one article noted, the federal government has tight guidelines on disposing of property, however. Private sector developers are the last in line to get a crack at purchasing federal property. That being said, it would seem that the Feds will take an accurate accounting of buildings that might potentially be disposed of in the states. There may be future opportunities to purchase land and buildings from the government.
The bottom line is that the federal government – a major owner of commercial real estate and customer in the leasing world – continues to pull back and has been aggressively consolidating space and plans to continue doing so. This caused ripple effects through office and warehouse markets across the country, including California. On the flip side, it could also create considerable opportunities for developers. This story is well worth watching as it continues to unfold.
If your company is negotiating a property deal with the federal government or another state or local government, you don’t have to go it alone. You can get a thorough analysis from a consultant whose community values align with your own. Contact DCG Real Estate today to learn more.
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Opening Bell: 08.11.11
Hedge Funds Win With Gold, Bonds; Paulson Struggles (WSJ)
Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Associates LP has scored gains of more than $3.5 billion, or about 5%, in its flagship hedge fund just in the past week, according to investors. The $71 billion fund now is up more than 20% this year, investors said, making it among the best performers in the hedge-fund business. The gains are partly due to a spike in safe-haven investments, such as gold, Treasury bonds and the Swiss franc, in which Bridgewater has sizable positions. Other large hedge funds that try to anticipate global markets and economic trends, such as Bruce Kovner's Caxton Associates LLC and Alan Howard's Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP, also are making money, even as the Dow Jones Industrial Average has shed nearly 12% so far in August. But John Paulson, the investor who made billions during the mortgage meltdown of 2007 and 2008, has been on the wrong side of the market.
For Street Veterans, Past 3 Days Rank With '87 Crash, '08 Crisis (WSJ)
"I've been lucky enough to be in this business over 50 years and have seen lots of things, from the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Kennedy assassination to the Crash of '87 and the 2008 meltdown," Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS Financial Services, wrote in his morning note Wednesday. "Still, [Tuesday] was rather special. … One of the most frenetic and bizarre trading sessions that I can recall."
Sarkozy Gives Ministers One Week Debt Deadline (FT)
On Wednesday Mr Sarkozy summoned members of his government back from holiday for an emergency meeting on the current financial turmoil. In a statement after the two hour meeting in the Elysee Palace in Paris, Mr Sarkozy said France's pledge to reduce the budget deficit from last year's 7.1 percent to 3 percent by 2013 "will be kept whatever the evolution of the economic situation".
Penny Pinching Hurting Recovery (WSJ)
The past week's market meltdown is confirming what many business leaders and consumers were already thinking—that the economy is close to tilting back into recession and therefore they need to cling to every penny. For an economy already on the brink, such precaution may well be the difference between growth and recession. Gross domestic product—the sum total of goods and services produced in the U.S. and the broadest measure of economic growth—grew at an annual rate of less than 1% in the first six months of 2011. Just a few delayed decisions could push the rate back into negative territory. "Consumers will decide whether we have a better second half or not," said Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital in New York.
In U.S. Stress Tests, a Tool to Gauge Contagion in Europe (NYT)
According to a note from the research firm CLSA on July 13, Citigroup had $12.7 billion in Italian holdings, much of it government-related, while JPMorgan Chase had $12.2 billion. According to a note from Bernstein Research, JPMorgan had “less than $20 billion” in exposure to Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain combined. But that was going in the wrong direction, up from “less than $15 billion” at the end of 2010, when one might expect the banks to be paring exposure. These aren’t large numbers, less than 1 percent of these gigantic banks’ balance sheets. And banks wouldn’t take 100 percent losses on their investments in the event of a default. Unfortunately, we simply don’t know whether the analysts are right. Neither the Fed nor the Securities and Exchange Commission has forced United States banks to make as detailed disclosures as the European stress tests did of its banks. So it’s a matter of having to trust the banks and the regulators.
Central Bankers Race To Protect Growth In 72 Hours Of Crisis (Bloomberg)
“Central bankers have so far been the tower of strength,” said Stefan Schneider, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank AG in Frankfurt. “Lawmakers have done everything to destroy belief in their ability to solve the problems they’re facing.”
Dissents Pose New Test For Bernanke (WSJ)
For the first time in Mr. Bernanke's tenure, three colleagues formally dissented from the Fed's move, a new sign of deep internal opposition that contrasts with the chairman's oft-stated desire for consensus.
Blankfein's $52 Million Loss Leads Wall Street (Bloomberg)
Lloyd Blankfein lost about $52 million of his personal wealth this month -- more than the combined losses of four other Wall Street CEOs. The heads of Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs saw the value of their combined shareholdings fall by $94 million on paper since July 29, based on regulatory filings. That includes a $40 million plunge yesterday.
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New Frankford police chief establishes outreach programs
Nov 26th, 2019 · by Glenn Rolfe · Comments:
FRANKFORD — After more than two years without local police presence the town of Frankford has a new chief of police.
Laurence “Larry” Corrigan was officially sworn in Friday, Nov. 22, filling the police chief void created with the resignation of Mark Hudson in July 2017.
Chief Corrigan’s first full day on the job was Monday. He said he is excited about his new role and the outreach and programs that are planned.
“I have been given a great deal of assistance from not just the council but all of the residents I have met thus far,” said Chief Corrigan, who on day one took a ride through town and spoke with adults and children getting off their school buses. “Everybody is very enthusiastic about the Frankford Police Department starting back up again. That being said, there is a lot of work ahead.”
Mr. Corrigan was one of two applicants who interviewed for the chief’s position; council approved his hiring unanimously.
“That was my goal when we did the budget for this year, that we were going to create our police department again. And we did,” said JoanneBacon, town council president. “We were very lucky in order to do that.”
Chief Corrigan has extensive experience in law enforcement and administration. His resume includes 22 years with Delaware State Police, work with the Maryland state attorney general’s office, Salisbury University and several local police agencies.
He comes to Frankford from the Fenwick Island Police Department, where he worked the past two years. Prior to that he was with Selbyville Police Department, serving as a school resource officer and major crimes investigator.
With Frankford police, Chief Corrigan’s outreach initiatives include:
• Partnership with the Frankford Public Library, including interactive reading sessions with children;
• Programs in the making for internet crime training for parents to protect their children and elderly-related programs to protect them from fraudulent activities;
• Possible mental health professional intervention to address needs of that nature, particularly with children in the community;
• Traffic education
• Coffee with a Cop programs at Frankford Diner, once or twice monthly — with free coffee and pastries — to address citizen needs;
• After-school programs
“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us as a community,” Chief Corrigan said. “I am a big fan of a group thing, a collaborative effort for the betterment of the community. I’d like the police department to be the catalyst of that.”
Chief Corrigan said he plans to specifically reach out to the “minority communities here, because we do have a rather diverse population for our town.”
In addition, he is instituting a chaplain’s program.
“We’ve already got one on board and I am going to be addressing local clergy,” said Chief Corrigan, who resides in Selbyville.
Now officially on duty, he is presently a one-person force.
Ms. Bacon said, “Hopefully, we can build it as we grow.”
Chief Corrigan said, “Until I get a second or maybe even a third person hired, the onus of it is going to be firmly on me. But I do feel a great deal of assistance from the community, and the council as a whole. I’m going to do the best I can to work pretty much around the clock. If I am off and there is something in town, I am asking the state police to call, and I’ll come in and handle that until we get some additional help here. But there will never be a time that the town is not covered.”
Chief Corrigan, who has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware and a master’s from Wilmington University, is taking on additional administrative tasks with the town.
“I am, with the blessing of council, taking on some town manager related responsibilities as well,” he said. “They asked me that at the final interview, if I’d be interested in doing that. I gave an enthusiastic ‘yes.’”
For the past two-plus years Frankford has relied on coverage from Delaware State Police.
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Mauricio Adade
Mauricio Müller Adade, Brazilian, is a Food Engineer graduated from the State University of Campinas – UNICAMP, Brazil, with a Master Degree in Business Administration from the Escola Superior de Propaganda & Marketing (ESPM) in São Paulo, Brazil.
Mauricio has pursued his career within DSM since 1988, when he joined Roche Vitamins in the city of São Paulo as marketing and technical manager. In 1992, he was appointed Human Nutrition and Health Director of Roche in Mexico and, in 1998, he moved to Singapore as Human Nutrition and Health Regional Director Asia/Pacific, where he stayed until his promotion, in 2001, to Vice President of the Global Industry Unit Food Pharma, at Roche Vitamins’ headquarters in Basel, Switzerland.
After Roche Vitamins acquisition by Royal DSM in October 2003, Mauricio Adade was appointed Executive Vice President and Head of Global Marketing of DSM Nutritional Products and, in January 2006, President of DSM’s Global Human Nutrition and Health business.
In June 2010, Mauricio Adade took the position of Chief Marketing Officer of the DSM at the headquarters in Heerlen, The Netherlands. In this role, he was responsible for the design and implementation of the commercial (marketing and sales) programs and innovations, enhancing all business units focus on customer centricity thus increasing effectiveness toward improved businesses results.
Since March 2015, Mauricio is back to Brazil in the position of DSM President Latin America. In his current position, he is responsible for implementing regional strategies towards 16 countries in the region, leading more than 2000 people with revenues higher than USD 1.2 billion.
In February 2016, Mauricio became also the President of Global Malnutrition Partnerships & Programs combining with his previous role as Chairman of the Board of Africa improved Foods, in Africa. The main responsibility is to actively develop and implement effectively public & private, and other partnerships and new business models, addressing malnutrition issues around the Globe.
Chairman of the Partnership Council and Board Member of GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition – Switzerland)
Advisory Board Member of ABIA (Brazilian Food Industry Association), ENACTUS (Entrepreneurial Action for a Better World – Brazil) as well as DUTCHAM (Dutch Brazilian Chamber of Commerce) Member of the CEOs’ Legacy of Fundação Dom Cabral Business School – Brazil
Gerda Verburg
Chris Elias
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Cancer Human Experimentation Medicine
Doctor who Engaged in Human Experimentation was VP of the American Cancer Society
“… In 1952, he had injected inmates at the Ohio State Prison with cancer cells. … Southam’s license was temporarily suspended when he admitted to injecting 22 people at Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital of Brooklyn with live cancer cells …”
Essential background: “American Cancer Society: This Carcinogenic World According to Elmer Bobst“
By Esther Inglis-Arkell
A doctor who was once vice president of the The American Cancer Society turns out to have had a dark history. He twice experimented on human beings, injecting them with cancer cells.
In 1964, Doctor Chester Southam, a well-known cancer researcher, was elected vice-president of the American Cancer Society. The American Cancer Society was established in 1913, and publishes research, supports cancer patients, and looks into new treatment options. The Society’s inclusion of Southam was not entirely inappropriate, as Southam had been researching cancer for over a decade, but the timing was a bit awkward. Southam was elected just after his license was reinstated after a temporary suspension for human experimentation.
In fact, a lot of Southam’s research involved human experimentation. In 1952, he had injected inmates at the Ohio State Prison with cancer cells. Human experimentation on prisoners had gained popularity in the 1940s, and despite it being used as a defense for Nazis at the Nuremberg trials, was going strong in the United States in the 1950s.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that experimentation on prisoners was banned, so that wasn’t the reason Southam was a controversial choice for the society’s vice presidency.
Southam’s license was temporarily suspended when he admitted to injecting 22 people at Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital of Brooklyn with live cancer cells. The patients were dying of various diseases, but not cancer, and Southam believed that, despite their diseases, their bodies would reject the cancer cells as well as healthy people’s bodies, and a great deal faster than cancer sufferers. He was right, and if he’d told his patients what he was injecting them with, he’d have been in the clear. Unfortunately for both the patients and Southam, he didn’t want to “frighten” them, but didn’t go as far as not injecting them with the substance that they would be afraid of.
Amazingly, the loss of the license, even for a brief time, was a step forward. In 1952, Southam worked for a medical organization that injected over 300 women with cancer cells, with relatively few repercussions. Still the quick step from injecting people with cancer cells without their knowledge to heading an organization that treats people with cancer is dramatic, and disconcerting.
http://io9.com/a-human-experimenter-was-vice-president-of-the-american-1581915040
Report: Grimm Kept Secret Cell Phone And Mafia Alter-Ego After Joining Congress
‘Kill the Messenger’ Trailer: Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner) Uncovers CIA Drug Connections
A Medical “Manhattan Project”: Dr. Alton Oschner, JFK Murder, CIA, Monkey Viruses & the Search for a Weaponized Form of Cancer
American Cancer Society: This Carcinogenic World According to Elmer Bobst
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Tag Archives: National Institute for Health Research Signal
Antidepressants Not Recommended for Depression in People With Dementia (NIHR Signal / Cochrane Database)
Summary A National Institute for Health Research “Signal” expert commentary refers to a systematic review which indicates that antidepressants are unsuitable / unhelpful for the treatment of depression in persons living with dementia. Full Text Link Reference Antidepressants do not … Continue reading →
Posted in Acute Hospitals, Community Care, For Carers (mostly), For Doctors (mostly), For Nurses and Therapists (mostly), For Researchers (mostly), International, Management of Condition, Mental Health, Models of Dementia Care, NIHR, Person-Centred Care, Pharmacological Treatments, Quick Insights, Systematic Reviews, UK, Universal Interest | Tagged Addenbrooke), Addenbrookes Hospital, Adverse Effects, Adverse Events, ALOIS: a Comprehensive Register of Dementia Studies, ALOIS: Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement's Specialized Register, ALOIS: the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group, Antidepressants, Antidepressants for Agitation and Psychosis in Dementia, Antidepressants for Depression in Dementia, Antidepressants for Treating Depression in Dementia, Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge University Hospitals (Addenbrooke’s), Cochrane Database, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Group, Cochrane UK, Department of Psychiatry: University of Cambridge, Drug Side-Effects, Inappropriate Medication, Inappropriate Prescribing, Later Life, Mental Health and Illness, National Institute for Health Research Signal, National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU): University of Oxford, NIHR Signal, Older People’s Mental Health Service: Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Potentially Inappropriate Medications (PIM), Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing, Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing (PIP), Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing in Depression and Dementia, Preventable Adverse Events, Professor Martin Orrell, Professor Martin Orrell: Director of Institute of Mental Health at University of Nottingham; Division of Psychiatry and Applied Psychology: University of Nottingham, Psychotropic Drug Use (Antipsychotics Antidepressants Hypnotics Anxiolytics Anticonvulsants Antidementia Drugs), Reducing Inappropriate Prescribing of Antidepressants, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), University of Cambridge, University of Nottingham, University of Oxford | Leave a comment
Blueprint for Complex Care: Care for Individuals with Complex Health and Social Needs (National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs / IHI / Duke University / NIHR)
Summary The latest Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) report covers multi-disciplinary and multi-agency approaches to better coordination in the provision of care for individuals with complex health and social needs, from a USA perspective. “The Blueprint for Complex Care is a joint … Continue reading →
Posted in Commissioning, Community Care, For Carers (mostly), For Doctors (mostly), For Nurses and Therapists (mostly), For Researchers (mostly), For Social Workers (mostly), Health Foundation, Integrated Care, International, Local Interest, Management of Condition, Non-Pharmacological Treatments, Person-Centred Care, Quick Insights, Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, Standards, Universal Interest, Wolverhampton | Tagged Accountable Care Organisations (ACOs), Accountable Care Organisations (in United States and England), Accountable Health Communities, Adult Social Care for People with Complex Needs, Advancing Integrated Care in England: Practical Path for Care Transformation, Ageing Population, Barriers to Integrated Care, Barriers to Integration, Barriers to Integration: Different Funding Models, Barriers to Integration: Different Workforce Cultures, Barriers to Integration: Difficulties in Effective Information Sharing, Barriers to Integration: Organisational Integration, Blueprint for Complex Care, Bridgespan Group: Strong Field Framework, Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers (CCHP), Care of Frail Older People With Complex Needs, Center for Health Care Strategies, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), Commonwealth Fund, Community Outreach, Complex Care, Complex Care and Multimorbidity, Complex Care Champions, Complex Care Ecosystem, Complex Chronic Conditions, Complex Comorbidities, Complex Conditions, Complex Needs, Complex Patients at Risk of Hospital Admission, Conceptual Model: Starter Taxonomy for High-Need Patients, Cross-Sector Partnerships, Data Sharing, Data Sharing for Better Health, Dr Robin Miller: Deputy Director of Health Services Management Centre at University of Birmingham, Duke University, Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, Effective Care for High Need Patients: National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Report, Global Health Innovation Center: Duke University, Health Care Innovation Awards, Health Services Management Centre (HSMC): University of Birmingham, Health Services Management Centre: University of Birmingham, HSMC: University of Birmingham, IHI: Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Innovation Accelerator Program, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Integrated Care Partnerships and Accountable Care Organisations, Integrated Multi-Agency Care, Lived Experience, Medication Management, Multi-Agency Collaboration, Multi-Agency Integration, Multi-Agency Working, Multi-Disciplinary and Multi-Agency Working, National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research Programme, National Institute for Health Research Signal, NIHR Signal, Organisational Competencies to Accelerate Care Improvements, Outreach Services, Quality Improvement, Quality Measures, Robert and Lisa Margolis Family Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), SCAN Foundation, School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR): University of Sheffield, Strong Field Framework, United States, University of Sheffield, USA, Value-Based Payments (VBP), Variability in Implementation (of Integrated Care), Vertical Integration, Vertical Integration (of Primary and Secondary Care) | Leave a comment
Systematic Review of Meaningful Activity for People With Dementia in Long-Term Care (Cochrane Database / NIHR Signal / PLoS Medicine)
Summary Mainstream opinion is nowadays in favour of providing personally-tailored meaningful activity for people with dementia in long-term care, as a means of improving mental wellbeing and quality of life, and / or reducing challenging behaviour without resort to antipsychotics. … Continue reading →
Posted in Commissioning, Community Care, For Carers (mostly), For Nurses and Therapists (mostly), For Researchers (mostly), International, Management of Condition, Mental Health, Models of Dementia Care, NIHR, Non-Pharmacological Treatments, Person-Centred Care, Personalisation, Quick Insights, Systematic Reviews, UK, Universal Interest | Tagged Agitation, Agitation and Aggression, Alternatives to Antipsychotics, Alternatives to Medication for Agitation, Antipsychotic Prescribing in Care Homes, Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD), Best Practice in Care Homes, Broaden-and-Build Theory, Care Homes, Care Homes Wellbeing, Division of Psychiatry and Applied Psychology: University of Nottingham, Division of Psychiatry: University College London, Encouraging Independence and Social Interaction, Exeter University, Exeter University Medical School: Exeter University, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences: University of Hull, Faculty of Medicine: University of Freiburg, Germany, Helse Stavanger University Hospital (Norway), Improving Wellbeing and Health for People with Dementia (WHELD) Trial, Individualized Positive Psychosocial Intervention (IPPI), Individualized Positive Psychosocial Interventions, Individualized Social Activity Intervention (ISAI), Institute for Evidence in Medicine (for Cochrane Germany Foundation): University of Freiburg, Institute of Mental Health: University of Nottingham, Kings College London, London School of Economics, Maintaining Identity, Maintaining Independence, Managing Agitation, Managing Ongoing Physical and Mental Health Conditions, Meaningful Activity, Meaningful Activity and Occupation, Meaningful Activity in Care Homes / Nursing Homes, Meaningful Occupation, Meaningful Occupation Interventions, Mental Health and Wellbeing, Mental Health and Wellbeing in Adult Social Care, Mental Wellbeing, Mental Wellbeing and Older People, Mental Wellbeing of Older People in Care Homes, Mental Wellbeing of Older People in Care Homes (QS50), Mental Wellbeing of Older People in Care Homes: Support for Commissioning, Montessori Principles, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), National Institute for Health Research Signal, Need-Driven Dementia-Compromised Behavior (NDB) Model, Needs of Older People Living in Care Homes, NICE Quality Standard QS50, NIHR Signal, Norway, Nursing Homes, Occupational Therapy, Occupational Therapy in Care Homes, Occupational Therapy Programmes, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Patient Engagement, People with Dementia in Care Homes, People With Dementia in Long-Term Care, People With Dementia Living in Care Homes, People With Dementia Living in Nursing Homes, Person-Centred Activities for People With Dementia Living in Nursing Homes, Person-Centred Care Training for People With Dementia Living in Nursing Homes, Personal Identity, Personalised Social Interaction, Personally Tailored Activities for People With Dementia in Long-Term Care, PLoS Medicine, Preventing Isolation, Professor Martin Orrell, Recreational Activities, Recreational Stimulation, Reducing Agitation and Distress, Reducing Antipsychotic Drugs in Care Homes, Reducing Antipsychotic Medication in Care Homes, Reducing Antipsychotic Prescriptions in Dementia, Reducing Inappropriate Use of Antipsychotics, Reducing Violence and Aggression, Reminiscence Therapy, Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs), Residential Care, Residential Care Homes, Sawinery, Self-Determination Theory, Social Interaction, Systematic Reviews, Treatment Routes for Exploring Agitation (TREA) Framework, University College London, University of Freiburg, University of Hull, University of Nottingham, WHELD Intervention, WHELD Programme, Woodworking (Hobby), Woodworking for the Elderly | Leave a comment
One Hour of Social Interaction Per Week Improves Dementia Care (NIHR / NHS Choices / PLoS Medicine)
Summary NIHR-funded research indicates that a modest amount of social interaction improves quality of life for people with dementia living in care homes. Agitation and aggression were reduced by these cost-effective means, and the quality of life in people with … Continue reading →
Posted in Commissioning, Community Care, For Carers (mostly), For Doctors (mostly), For Nurses and Therapists (mostly), For Researchers (mostly), For Social Workers (mostly), In the News, Management of Condition, Mental Health, Models of Dementia Care, NHS Digital (Previously NHS Choices), NIHR, Non-Pharmacological Treatments, Patient Care Pathway, Person-Centred Care, Personalisation, Quick Insights, UK, Universal Interest | Tagged Abbey Pain Scale, Advancing Care: Research With Care Homes (NIHR), Agitation, Agitation and Aggression, Alternatives to Antipsychotic Drugs, Alternatives to Antipsychotics, Alzheimer's Society, Antipsychotic Prescribing in Care Homes, Antipsychotic Prescribing in Nursing Homes, Antipsychotics Limitation in Dementia, Bangor University, Bazian, Behavioural Alternatives to Antipsychotic Drugs, Behind the Headlines, Camberwell Assessment of Need for the Elderly, Care Homes, Centre for Age-Related Medicine (SESAM): Helse Stavanger University Hospital, Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR), Clinical Dementia Rating Scale, CMAI (Cohen Mansfield Agitation Inventory), Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory (CMAI), Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory (CMAI) Scores, Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (CSDD), Dementia Services Development Centre Wales: Bangor University, Dementia-Related Agitation, DEMQOL-Proxy, DEMQoL-Proxy: Dementia Quality of Life Proxy, Division of Psychiatry and Applied Psychology: University of Nottingham, Division of Psychiatry: University College London, Encouraging Independence and Social Interaction, Exeter University, Exeter University Medical School: Exeter University, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences: University of Hull, Helse Stavanger University Hospital (Norway), Improving Wellbeing and Health for People with Dementia (WHELD) Trial, Institute of Mental Health: University of Nottingham, Kings College London, London School of Economics, Managing Agitation, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), National Institute for Health Research Signal, Neuroleptic Discontinuation, Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Nursing Home version (NPI-NH), NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR) Programme, NIHR Signal, Norway, Nursing Homes, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, People With Dementia Living in Care Homes, People With Dementia Living in Nursing Homes, Person-Centred Activities for People With Dementia Living in Nursing Homes, Person-Centred Care Training for People With Dementia Living in Nursing Homes, Personalised Social Interaction, PLoS Medicine, Professor Martin Orrell, Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR) Programme (NIHR), Quality of Interactions Scale (QUIS), Reducing Agitation and Distress, Reducing Antipsychotic Drugs in Care Homes, Reducing Antipsychotic Medication in Care Homes, Reducing Antipsychotic Prescriptions in Dementia, Reducing Inappropriate Use of Antipsychotics, Reducing Violence and Aggression, Residential Care, Residential Care Homes, Social Interaction, University College London, University of Hull, University of Nottingham, WHELD Intervention, WHELD Programme, Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases: King’s College London | Leave a comment
Prevalence of Visual Impairment in People with Dementia: the PrOVIDe Study (NIHR)
Summary The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)’s Prevalence of Visual Impairment in People with Dementia (PrOVIDe) study investigated the prevalence of visual impairment in people with dementia, and addressed possible reasons behind any under-detection or inappropriate management of vision … Continue reading →
Posted in Commissioning, Community Care, Diagnosis, For Nurses and Therapists (mostly), For Researchers (mostly), Integrated Care, Management of Condition, Models of Dementia Care, National, NIHR, NIHRSDO, Non-Pharmacological Treatments, Person-Centred Care, Personalisation, Quick Insights, Standards, UK, Universal Interest | Tagged Alzheimer’s Society Research Network, Astigmatism, Birmingham, Bristol Activities of Daily Living Scale, Cambridge Behavioural Inventory – Revised, Cataracts, City University London, Cognitive Impairment, College of Optometrists, Communication Between Carers and Health-Care Professionals, Communication Between Carers and Optometrists, Dementia and Impaired Sight, Dementia and Sight Loss, Dementia: People With Dementia in Care Homes, Department of Primary Care and Population Health: University College London, Diabetic Eye Disease, Division of Optometry and Visual Science: City University London, Domiciliary Sight Tests, Early Cataract Intervention for People in Early Stages of Cognitive Impairment (Research Requirement), Early Intervention for Cataracts (Research Requirement), Epidemiology, Eye Care for Other Vulnerable Groups (Research Requirement), Eye Care Information for People With Dementia and Carers, Eye Diseases, Eye-Care Pathway for People With Dementia (Proposal), Eyesight, Frail Older People With Complex Needs, General Ophthalmic Services, Glaucoma, Impaired Sight, Independent Living, Independent Living At Home, Institute for Neuroscience: Newcastle University, Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA): Trinity College Dublin, Living at Home, London, Low Vision, Macular Degeneration, Myopia, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Service Delivery and Organisation (SDO), National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research Programme, National Institute for Health Research Signal, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NHS Sight Tests, NIHR Signal, Older People Living in Care Homes, Optometrists, People With Dementia and Treatable Vision Problems, People with Dementia in Care Homes, Poor Eyesight, Presbyopia, Prevalence Estimates of Distance Visual Impairment for UK Populations Aged 60–74 Years With Dementia, Prevalence Estimates of Distance Visual Impairment for UK Populations Aged 65–89 Years With Dementia, Prevalence Estimates of Distance Visual Impairment for UK Populations Aged 75–89 Years With Dementia, Prevalence of People With Dementia and Treatable Vision Problems, Prevalence of Vision Problems (in the Elderly), Prevalence of Visual Impairment, Prevalence of Visual Impairment in People With Dementia, Prevalence of Visual Impairment in People with Dementia (PrOVIDe) Study, Primary Care Clinical Sciences: University of Birmingham, Refractive Errors, Republic of Ireland, Research Department: Alzheimer’s Society, Research Department: College of Optometrists, Research Department: Thomas Pocklington Trust, Retinal Diseases, Retinopathy, Sensory Loss, Sheltered Housing Schemes, Sight Loss, Sight Loss and Increased Risk of Depression, Specialist Optometrists for Older People, Standardised Mini-Mental State Examination (SMMSE), Staying at Home, Support for People with Complex Needs, The Outside Clinic (Swindon), Thomas Pocklington Trust, Trinity College Dublin, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, Uncorrected Visual Impairment, Undercorrected Visual Impairment, University College London, University of Birmingham, Vision Care, Vision Disorders, Visual Acuity, Visual Impairment | Leave a comment
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Man who shot his son suing over injuries sustained after the killing
By Lizzy Ioannidou October 11, 2018 October 11, 2018 039
The scene of the 2015 killing (CNA)
A 74-year-old man who is behind bars for killing his son in 2015 is demanding, through a civil action, compensation of €2 million for injuries sustained when his older son tried to disarm him after the shooting.
Timoleon Themistokleous, from the village of Paramytha in Limassol, brought the civil action before the Limassol district court. He is suing his elder son, Alexandros, for injuries incurred after killing his younger son, Odysseas, on October 14, 2015.
Themistokleous is also suing the attorney-general “for inhumane and harsh treatment”, and is demanding compensation “for the violation of his human rights and the violation of his right to life, and his physical integrity.”
The 74-year-old has also lodged an appeal to the supreme court against his conviction by the Limassol assize court.
Themistokleous was convicted for the murder of his Odysseas, 19, after a quarrel that took place in front of his older son, Alexandros. Odysseas was shot point-blank in the abdomen.
The court found Themistokleous was a harsh and ruthless man who did not hesitate to involve his older son in the case.
Themistokleous had denied killing his son, claiming that he was only trying to separate the two brothers who were fighting when the gun went off. The court found these claims to be baseless. The argument reportedly occurred when Odysseas, who was a conscript, asked to use the car because he was due to report to his unit at 3pm. His father refused and the two argued. The father reportedly went into the house and returned with the gun.
According to the 74-year-old, his older son inflicted serious injuries on him following the murder of Odysseas, and had given false statements against him in court.
He also claimed that the injuries have had serious consequences to his health, and despite this he is still being kept behind bars.
Shortly after the killing in 2015, Themistokleous, suffered heart attack while already being treated at Nicosia general hospital for fractures to his skull, jaw and ribs, suffered during the scuffle with Alexandros who was also injured.
Central PrisonsMurderparamythaTimoleon Themistokleous
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President Who Told Obama To ‘Go To Hell’ Declares He’s Now America’s ‘Humble Friend’
REUTERS/Erik De Castro
Ryan Pickrell China/Asia Pacific Reporter
The president of the Philippines appears to have reversed his position on the U.S. after a period of rocky relations with the Obama administration.
“I am your humble friend in Southeast Asia,” President Rodrigo Duterte told Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when the two met in Manila on Monday to discuss regional issues, including the ongoing fight against radical Muslim militants with ties to the Islamic State in the southern Philippines.
Duterte, who rose to power last summer, has repeatedly attacked the U.S. in foul-mouthed rants responding to perceived slights and criticisms of his anti-narcotics campaign, a massive drug war that has taken the lives of several thousand people over the past year.
“You can go to hell, Mr. Obama, you can go to hell,” Duterte said last October. In another incident, he called former President Barack Obama a “son of a whore.”
He threatened to tear up bilateral agreements and treaties, such as the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Act (EDCA), which gives American military forces access to military bases in the Philippines. Duterte also cancelled certain war games and suggested that he would evict U.S. troops from the Philippines.
“This is what happens now. I will be reconfiguring my foreign policy. Eventually, in my time, I will break up with America. I would rather go with Russia or China,” he said in Manila last year. Later, he declared that he had decided to separate from the U.S.
“In this venue, I announce my separation from the United States,” he said in China. “Both in military … but economics also, America has lost.” Duterte began shifting his focus to Beijing and Moscow, explaining that “there are three of us against the world – China, the Philippines, and Russia.”
Since President Donald Trump took office, relations between the U.S. and the Philippines seem to have improved.
Duterte was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Trump on his victory in the 2016 presidential election, and he was quick to point out that he was done fighting with the U.S. The Trump administration has, for the most part, avoided criticizing the ongoing drug war in the Philippines and has shown support in the fight against extremism.
The two world leaders have had several “very friendly” conversations over the phone, repairing some of the damage left by the previous administration.
Tillerson and Duterte discussed the situation in Mindanao, where several armed militant groups are attempting to establish an autonomous Islamic state and leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. One organization seized a city in May, triggering a fight that led to its destruction and the deaths of hundreds of people.
The U.S. supports counterterrorism operations in the Philippines. “We are providing some training and some guidance in terms of how to deal with an enemy that fights in ways that is not like most people have ever had to deal with, so it’s a tragic situation down there,” Tillerson explained at a regional security forum Monday.
While the previous administration considered limiting arms sales and other support to the Philippines in response to human rights concerns, the Trump administration has taken a different approach, separating the two issues.
“We see no conflict at all in our helping them with that situation and our views of the human rights concerns we have with respect to how they carry out their counter narcotics activities,” Tillerson added. Duterte does not perceive the atrocities in his anti-narcotics campaign as human rights violations because he does not consider drug criminals human. The many innocent people killed in the crossfire are often labeled “collateral damage.”
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Send tips to ryan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Tags : islamic state rex tillerson rodrigo duterte the philippines
Ryan Pickrell
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The Only Measure of Success
There’s plenty written about people pushing through failure, pulling themselves out of the depths of despair, rising above against all odds. There are countless inspiring stories of the struggling artist, living in debt and obscurity for years—a lifetime even—eventually garnering the recognition and commercial success they long believed they deserved.
There’s less written about dealing with the pressures of immediate success. We rarely hear about how the artist—the musician whose debut album goes platinum or the author whose debut book is an instant bestseller—deals with the pressures, internal and external, of avoiding the dreaded “One Hit Wonder” label.
Mark Manson’s debut book The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck was an international sensation which sold more than 8 million copies. His second book Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope releases today. In our interview with Mark for DailyStoic.com, we asked how he approached following up the massive success of Subtle Art:
I had to own up to the fact that…at the ripe old age of 32, it’s extremely likely that, commercially speaking, my career had peaked…That is hard to swallow.
So, when I sat down to write this book, it was really rough…This is going to sound cliche, but ultimately what “saved” me and kept me sane was remembering why I write: I write to sort out the ideas and issues that trouble me and try to do it in a way that can teach and help others…So, that was the starting point. Learning to regain some hope for myself—and for me, that was zeroing in on one goal: just write a better book.
And I believe I did. Since making that commitment, it’s been liberating. I don’t feel anxious about this book release. It might bomb. It might sell really well. Fans might love it. They might hate it. But I truly believe it is a better book: it’s smarter, deeper, more mature, better-written than Subtle Art was. So, regardless of the worldly result, I will always be proud of it. And ultimately, that’s what matters.
The Stoics talk about detaching from results and outcomes. “Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole,” Marcus Aurelius said. “Stick with the situation at hand.” The less attached we are to outcomes the better. When fulfilling our own standards—when doing the right thing—is what fills us with pride and self-respect, when the effort is enough, we are liberated.
Let that be your mindset today. Focus only on what’s immediately in front of you. No strain, no struggle, no worry. Just one simple movement after another with just one goal: your best effort.
Mark’s new book is out now! If you haven’t already, pick up a copy of Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope—a perfect book to read to combat the hopelessness and frustration that can often feel hard to avoid in today’s world.
P.S. This was originally sent on May 14th, 2019. Sign up today for the Daily Stoic’s email and get our popular free 7-day course on Stoicism.
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News Without Liberal Bias, an Endangered Species
03.19.2014 | Chris Salcedo |
According to Politico Sharyl Attkisson, an investigative reporter with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with the network’s liberal bias. It’s why she resigned from CBS “News” this week. She was worried, according to sources, about an outsized influence by the network’s corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting. She increasingly felt like her work was no longer supported. She was right.
This is what happens to real journalists in the era of Obama. An era that has seen big government target journalists like James Rosen of Fox News as a “co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act, for merely doing his job. It’s a time when the Associated Press has had its phone records illegally obtained in an effort to ferret out sources.
Through all of this, astonishingly, the press at large continues to carry Obama’s water.
I have worked with fine journalists in my career in news. Some took their craft so seriously that their spouses had no idea how they leaned in the voting booth. Some wouldn’t even vote, fearing it might cloud their objectivity.
I’m not sure if Attkisson went that far. I am sure that she approached her job with zeal and professionalism. It was Atkisson who gave CBS News credibility with the American people as she pressed the Obama administration on Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and Obama’s green energy boondoggle. She was even yelled at and “cussed” out by Obama staffers because she was asking tough and pointed questions. How did CBS reward Attkisson for her dogged pursuit of the truth? They marginalized her and kept her reports from airing.
There is only one job articulated in the Constitution of the United States: a free press.
Many in the profession today have forgotten this most basic and essential responsibility. CBS no longer has Sharyl Attkisson on staff. With her exodus comes the departure of any credibility CBS still had as an unbiased news organization on the national level. It’s sad. The journalistic marketplace has slim pickings of journalists who remember that their job doesn’t stop when an extremist liberal occupies the Oval Office. Sharyl Attkisson, and her relentless desire to fulfil her First Amendment responsibility will be sorely missed.
If alleged journalists today need a refresher course on how tough journalism is done, just click here.
Chris Salcedo
“Chris Salcedo is the “Liberty Loving Latino” heard and seen on The Blaze Radio and TV Network. He has over 20 years of experience in news and political analysis. Chris is the author of "Liberty Rises" and serves as the executive director of the Conservative Hispanic Society.
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The Men of Massada (previous to destroying themselves) Murdering their Wives and Children, to prevent their falling into the hands of the Romans.
7319 × 10086 pixels (73.82 MP)
62 cm × 85.4 cm @ 300 PPI
112.3 MB Request
Neagle, James, 1760?-1822, engraver
Plate opposite page 463: Josephus, Flavius. The whole genuine and complete works of Flavius Josephus. London : Printed for C. Cooke ..., [1792-1793].
The plates are engraved by Grignion (17), Tookey (6), Heath (4), Blake (3), Jas. Neagle (3), Scot (2), Collier (2), Noble (2), Sharp (2), Morris, Smith, Warren, Sparrow, Parker, Warner, Page and Grainger. Illustrators for the plates include C.M. Metz (19), T. West (10), Stothard (5), Luykin (3), Ramberg (3), C. Cooke (2), Corbould, Salvator Rosa, Trepisian, Weston, C. Graves, and Moreau. The remaining ten plates were unsigned.
Includes 3 engravings by William Blake: "The parting of Lot and Abraham, after seperating their flocks, &c." (Metz delin.) (opposite page 13); "The Battle of Ain, & the destruction of the city, by the army of Joshua" (Stothard delin.) (opposite page 64); "The fugitive Shechemites burnt and suffocated in the holds of their retreat by order of King Abimelech" (Metz delin.) (opposite page 76).
Imprint date from Bentley.
Blake no.744
Jews -- Antiquities
Jews -- History
Ramberg, Johann Heinrich, 1763-1840, illustrator
Herod the...
The Assassin...
Adad, King o...
Seventy of...
Frontispiece...
Antigonus...
Death of...
Magnificent...
The Prophet...
Josephus in...
Manasseh...
King David...
King Solomon...
Ceconia...
The Parting...
Eleazer by...
Judas Maccab...
Ten Thousand...
Zachariah...
Josephus...
The Feast...
Queen Esther...
An exact...
The Idolatry...
Hilkiah and...
Ahab King...
Herod reproa...
The Fugitive...
Destruction...
Jerusalem...
The Philisti...
Achar confes...
King Artaxer...
Tyro vindica...
An Accurate...
Samson...
Solomon's...
The Appariti...
King Herod...
Gideon's...
Pharaoh and...
Delilah...
The falling...
The Battle...
The Egyptian...
Hagar in...
Dagon the...
The Triumph...
The Combined...
Adam and...
The Building...
The six...
A Correct...
neagle
destroying
murdering
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This title was shortlisted for the April Book of the Month
Fictionsl Saga / Adventure / Romance / Military
Book #III of The King's Greatest Enemy
In this, the third of the series, we catch up with Adam de Guirande and his wife Lady Kit where Adam is pledged to serve the young King Edward III whose father is held prisoner in Berkeley Castle. Roger Mortimer and the boy's mother, Queen Isabella, rule as joint regents and the times are beset with rumours, jealousies, treason and secrets. Adam is caught between two strong-willed men – Edward and Mortimer – and often has to act as go-between for the two, an invidious position. But Adam has enemies of his own and both his life and that of Kit's are in constant danger. And then there is the problem of how to deal with the dethroned Edward II....
As in all series, it helps to have read the previous volumes, yet this part is eminently readable as a stand alone – the author skilfully fills in the past events when necessary and all without cluttering the story.
The atmosphere of the 14th century is superbly captured and one has to feel sorry for Adam, for he is called to attend the king at a moment’s notice and with no thought or sympathy as to his – or Kit's – disposition. What comes over brilliantly is the position of Edward himself: not quite old enough to rule in his own right, frustrated that he cannot do so and impatient for the time when he can.
Ms Belfrage is an established author and this wonderful novel adds highly to her already respected reputation.
Cover selected for Cover of the Month
Anna Belfrage 24 April 2017 at 16:41
Lovely review! Happy dancing over here :)
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Title: Antiviral cystine knot α-amylase inhibitors from alstonia scholaris
Authors: Nguyen, Phuong Quoc Thuc
Ooi, Justin Seng Geap
Nguyen, Ngan Thi Kim
Wang, Shujing
Huang, Mei
Liu, Ding Xiang
Tam, James P.
Keywords: Antiviral Agent
Cysteine-mediated Cross-linking
DRNTU::Science::Biological sciences
Source: Nguyen, P. Q. T., Ooi, J. S. G., Nguyen, N. T. K., Wang, S., Huang, M., Liu, D. X., & Tam, J. P. (2015). Antiviral cystine knot α-amylase inhibitors from alstonia scholaris. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 290(52), 31138-31150. doi:10.1074/jbc.M115.654855
Series/Report no.: Journal of Biological Chemistry
Abstract: Cystine knot α-amylase inhibitors are cysteine-rich, proline-rich peptides found in the Amaranthaceae and Apocynaceae plant species. They are characterized by a pseudocyclic backbone with two to four prolines and three disulfides arranged in a knotted motif. Similar to other knottins, cystine knot α-amylase inhibitors are highly resistant to degradation by heat and protease treatments. Thus far, only the α-amylase inhibition activity has been described for members of this family. Here, we show that cystine knot α-amylase inhibitors named alstotides discovered from the Alstonia scholaris plant of the Apocynaceae family display antiviral activity. The alstotides (As1–As4) were characterized by both proteomic and genomic methods. All four alsotides are novel, heat-stable and enzyme-stable and contain 30 residues. NMR determination of As1 and As4 structures reveals their conserved structural fold and the presence of one or more cis-proline bonds, characteristics shared by other cystine knot α-amylase inhibitors. Genomic analysis showed that they contain a three-domain precursor, an arrangement common to other knottins. We also showed that alstotides are antiviral and cell-permeable to inhibit the early phase of infectious bronchitis virus and Dengue infection, in addition to their ability to inhibit α-amylase. Taken together, our results expand membership of cystine knot α-amylase inhibitors in the Apocynaceae family and their bioactivity, functional promiscuity that could be exploited as leads in developing therapeutics.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M115.654855
Rights: © 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc. This paper was published in Journal of Biological Chemistry and is made available as an electronic reprint (preprint) with permission of The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc. The published version is available at: [http://dx.doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M115.654855]. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic or multiple reproduction, distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law.
Appears in Collections: SBS Journal Articles
Antiviral cystine knot amylase inhibitors from alstonia scholaris.pdf 4.03 MB Adobe PDF
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Uzziel
The west Old Gate (Neh 3:6-3:12)
“Joiada son of Paseah and Meshullam son of Besodeiah repaired the Old Gate. They laid its beams, set its doors, its bolts, and its bars. Next to them repairs were made by Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite. These were the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah, who were under the jurisdiction of the governor of the province Beyond the River. Next to them Uzziel son of Harhaiah, one of the goldsmiths, made repairs. Next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, made repairs. They restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall. Next to them, Rephaiah son of Hur, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, made repairs. Next to them, Jedaiah son of Harumaph made repairs opposite his house. Next to him, Hattush son of Hashabneiah made repairs. Malchijah son of Harim and Hasshub son of Pahath-moab repaired another section and the Tower of the Ovens. Next to him Shallum son of Hallohesh, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, made repairs, he and his daughters.”
Next, they began repairing on the northwest side of Jerusalem from the Fish Gate to the Tower of the Ovens on the west side. The Old Gate was on the west side of Jerusalem. They also repaired the old wall on the northwest side. Joiada and Meshullam, who is different from the other Meshullam, were probably priests who worked on the beams, doors, bolts, and bars of this gate. This is the only biblical mention of Melatiah and Jadon. They are from Gibeon and Mizpah, both nearby, but outside Jerusalem. Nehemiah mentions they were under the governor of the Province Beyond the River, indicating that there might have been a tacit approval. Even though there were perfumers in 1 Samuel, chapter 8, and 2 Chronicles, chapter 16, Nehemiah was the only biblical writer who ever mentioned goldsmiths. Uzziel and Hananiah worked on the old northwest wall, the Broad Wall where the street was a little bigger. Interesting enough, the both rulers of Jerusalem were involved in this project. Rephaiah and Shallum seem to be rulers of different halves of Jerusalem, which is strange in itself. Nehemiah also mentions the daughters of Shallum working on the wall. This mention of females doing manual labor is a little unusual. However, we know that young women went out for water and picked up after the harvest, besides the internal household work. At least, one person, Jedaiah, worked just outside his house. The family of Pahath-moab built the Tower of the Ovens, which is probably the Tower of the Angles on the west side.
Uncategorized Broad Wall, Gibeon, goldsmiths, governor of the Province Beyond the River, Hananiah, Hattush Malchijah, his daughters, Jadon, Jedaiah, Jerusalem, Joiada, Melatiah, Meshullam, Mizpah, Nehemiah, perfumers, priests, Rephaiah, Shallum, the Tower of the Ovens, The west Old Gate, Uzziel, Would you have your daughters help build a wall? 0 Comments
The response of the Levites (2 Chr 29:12-29:15)
“Then the Levites arose. Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites arose. Of the sons of Merari, Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jehallelel arose. Of the Gershonites, Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah arose. The sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeuel also arose. Of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah arose. Of the sons of Heman, Jehuel and Shimei arose. Of the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel arose. They gathered their brothers. They sanctified themselves. They went in as the king had commanded, by the words of Yahweh, to cleanse the house of Yahweh.”
The Levites responded positively. 2 people from each of the Levitical tribes arose from the Kohathites, the Merarites, and the Gershonites. The same was true for the 3 groups of singers or cantors, the sons of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, all had 2 people stand up. On top of that, the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeuel also rose up. They gathered their brother Levites and sanctified themselves. Then they went in to cleanse the house of Yahweh. I wonder why they had not done more to sustain the house of Yahweh even in the face of indifference.
Uncategorized 2 Chronicles, Asaph, Azariah, Eden, Elizaphan, Gershonites, Heman, Jeduthun, Jehuel, Jeuel, Joah, Joel, Kish, Kohathites, Mahath, Mattaniah, Merari, Shemaiah, Shimei, Shimri, The response of the Levites, Uzziel, Would you help clean up a church or temple?, Zechariah 0 Comments
The sons of Heman (1 Chr 25:4-25:6)
“The sons of Heman were Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shebuel, and Jerimoth, Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti, Romamti-ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, and Mahazioth. All these were the sons of Heman the king’s seer, according to the promise of God to exalt him. God had given Heman fourteen sons and three daughters. They were all under the direction of their father for the music in the house of Yahweh. They played cymbals, harps, and lyres for the service of the house of God.”
Heman had 14 sons and 3 daughters. Apparently, they all performed music in the house of Yahweh, the Temple, with cymbals, harps, and lyres. Heman was also called a seer or prophet to the king. Of Heman’s 14 listed sons, 8 of them are names that only are mentioned here and in the giving of the lots, but nowhere else in the biblical literature, (1) Bukkiah, (8) Eliathah, (9) Giddalti, (10) Romamti-ezer, (11) Joshbekashah, (12) Mallothi, (13) Hothir, and (14) Mahazioth. There were 9 different people with the name of (2) Mattaniah, but this Mattaniah will be in charge of the 9th group of singers. There were 8 different people with this name of (3) Uzziel. There was only 1 other (4) Shebuel. There were 7 different people with the name of (5) Jerimoth. There were 13 different people with the name of (6) Hananiah. There were 5 different people with the name of (7) Hanani.
Uncategorized 1 Chronicles, and Jerimoth, Bukkiah, cymbals, Do you come from a musical family?, Eliathah, Giddalti, God, Hanani, Hananiah, harps, Hothir, Israel, Joshbekashah, lyres, Mahazioth, Mallothi, Mattaniah, Romamti-ezer, Shebuel, temple, The sons of Heman, Uzziel, Yahweh 0 Comments
The sons of Kohath (1 Chr 23:12-23:20)
“The four sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. The sons of Amram were Aaron and Moses. Aaron was set apart to consecrate the most holy things. He and his sons should forever make offering before Yahweh. They were to minister to him and pronounce blessings in his name forever. The sons of Moses, the man of God, were reckoned among the tribe of Levi. The sons of Moses were Gershom and Eliezer. The son of Gershom was Shebuel the chief. The son of Eliezer was Rehabiah the chief. Eliezer had no other sons, but the sons of Rehabiah were very many. The son of Izhar was Shelomith the chief. The sons of Hebron were Jeriah the chief, Amariah the second, Jahaziel the third, and Jekameam the fourth. The sons of Uzziel were Micah the chief and Isshiah the second.”
Based on chapter 6 of this book and loosely based on Numbers, chapter 4, Kohath had four sons (1) Amram, (2) Izhar, (3) Hebron, and (4) Uzziel, so that there is no dispute about these names. Kohath was the second of the three sons of Levi. (1) Amram was the father of Aaron and Moses. Aaron and his sons were set aside to make offerings to Yahweh forever. Aaron was a Levite, but his sons are not mentioned by name here. The 2 sons of Moses were also Levites, but they were not as attached to the worship cult as the sons of Aaron. One of the sons of Moses was called Gershom, the same name as the son of Levi. The other son was Eliezer, whose name only appears here and in Exodus, chapter 18, although it is a fairly common name. Shebuel, the son of Gershom was in charge of the treasures, which seems to be a common position like chief. Rehabiah, Eliezer’s son did not have many children. (2) Izhar’s son Shelomith had something to do with the treasures also. (3) Hebron apparently had 4 sons but Jeriah and Jahaziel were only mentioned here. Amariah and Jekameam were the names of some other Levites. (4) Uzziel’s descendants were Micah, not the prophet, and Isshiah, which is the name of other Levites.
Uncategorized 1 Chronicles, Aaron, Amram, Do you know anyone who is the son of a famous person?, Hebron, Izhar, Moses, Numbers, The sons of Kohath, Uzziel 0 Comments
The Levites prepare to transport the ark (1 Chr 15:3-15:10)
“King David assembled all Israel in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of Yahweh to the place that he had prepared for it. King David gathered together the descendents of Aaron and the Levites. There were the sons of Kohath, Uriel the chief, with one hundred twenty of his kindred. There were the sons of Merari, Asaiah the chief, with two hundred twenty of his kindred. There were the sons of Gershom, Joel the chief, with one hundred thirty of his kindred. There were the sons of Elizaphan, Shemaiah the chief, with two hundred of his kindred. There were the sons of Hebron, Eliel the chief, with eighty of his kindred. There were the sons of Uzziel, Amminadab the chief, with one hundred and twelve of his kindred.”
This biblical writer said that King David called everyone to Jerusalem, which would have been difficult. More particularly, he gathered the descendents of Aaron, the 3 groups of Levites, the Kohathites, Merarites, and Gershonites with their chiefs and family. However, 3 other groups of Levites, the descendents of Elizaphan, Hebron, and Uzziel were also named, but they were actually the sons of Kohath. Thus 4 of these groups were Kohathites. Each group had a leader and a number of their clan. Thus we have the following assigned to carry and care for the Ark of the Covenant. This has become a big deal with over 800 people directly involved.
Uncategorized 1 Chronicles, Amminadab, Asaiah, Do you know a family that has a lot of priests, Eliel, Elizaphan, Gershonites, Hebron, Joel, Kohathites, Merarites, ministers, or rabbis?, Shemaiah, The Levites prepare to transport the ark, Uriel, Uzziel 0 Comments
The sons of Bela (1 Chr 7:7-7:7)
“The five sons of Bela were Ezbon, Uzzi, Uzziel, Jerimoth, and Iri, heads of the ancestral houses, mighty warriors. Their enrollment by genealogies was twenty-two thousand and thirty-four.”
Bela had 5 sons. (1) Ezbon was also the name of 1 of the sons of Gad in Genesis, chapter 46, and Numbers, chapter 15, but not among the clans of Gad in chapter 4 of this book. There are 7 different people with the name of (2) Uzzi, including the son of Tola in the Issachar family. There are 5 other biblical characters with the name (3) Uzziel, including a son of the Levite Kohath. There 8 other biblical people with the name of (4) Jerimoth, while (5) Iri only appears here. These were the heads of the ancestral house and mighty warriors, so that these Belaites numbered 22,034, probably around the time of David.
Uncategorized 1 Chronicles, Do you have a head of your ancestral family?, Ezbon, Iri, Jerimoth, The sons of Bela, Uzzi, Uzziel 0 Comments
The sons of Kohath (1 Chr 6:18-6:18)
“The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.”
In Exodus, chapter 6, and earlier in this chapter, Kohath had four sons (1) Amram, (2) Izhar, (3) Hebron, and (4) Uzziel. Kohath was the second of the three sons of Levi. The Kohathites were in charge of the tabernacle in the wilderness. 23 cities were assigned to the Kohathites in Joshua, chapter 21. In David’s time and after, Heman, a Kohathite, and his family had a prominent place in the Temple service as a cantor. Kohath through Amram will be the grandfather of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. His descendents will be called the Amramites. Izhar was then the uncle of Moses and a clan developed named the Izeharites. Hebron’s family became known as the Hebronites. The town of Hebron has existed for over 3,500 years. Uzziel’s descendants were called Uzzielites. There were 5 other biblical characters with the same name.
Uncategorized 1 Chronicles, Amram, Hebron, Izhar, The sons of Kohath, Uzziel, Would you like to be a grandparent? 0 Comments
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Home » Scholars of Color (Page 2)
Category Archives: Scholars of Color
Why I Am Committed To Fighting Oppression In Academia
December 19, 2016 9:47 AM / 2 Comments on Why I Am Committed To Fighting Oppression In Academia
Image Source: Rigers Rukaj
“Facts about the Black vagina — the hardest working vagina in America.”
A few days ago, I watched in awe as activist and legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw read her poem, “The Black Vagina,” at a production of The Vagina Monologues in Harlem, NY. Unfortunately, I did not actually observe from the audience in the infamous Apollo Theatre. Rather, it was featured on V-Day: Until The Violence Stops – a documentary about productions of The Vagina Monologues and other activism to end violence against women around the world (see the trailer here).
Eve Ensler’s play-turned-global-movement impressed me. But, observing Crenshaw – looking fierce in a beautiful red gown ready for some glamorous Hollywood awards show – speak truths to what so many Black women in America know, I went back to my usual place of self-doubt: what am I doing with my life? Here was the scholar who developed the theoretical framework of intersectionality and, today, a scholar-activist at the forefront of #SayHerName movement to end violence against Black women. And, without a hint of doubt, without a word of apology for her presence or explanation for why she wasn’t doing research instead of working in the community, there she was on that Apollo stage singing the praises of the Black vagina.
I spent the rest of the day deep in reflection. “I’m not doing enough as an activist. Why do I even call myself an activist, a scholar-activist, an intellectual activist?” Unfortunately, the question — am I enough — is a commonly occurring one for me. And, I realize not feeling [X] enough — skinny enough, pretty enough, smart enough, rich enough, popular enough, Black enough, gay enough, feminine enough — is not unique to me. But, there is something unique about my sense of being inadequate as an activist — and it’s not just that I simultaneously worry that I’m too much of an activist, that the work that won’t count toward tenure may actually cost me tenure.
The work to which I am referring is this — this blog, the column on Inside Higher Ed, the talks I’ve given, panels I’ve served on and organized, the long-term effort to call attention to and eliminate injustice in academia. Even as I write what sounds impressive, I feel as though I padded the previous sentence to silence the voice that once asked, “so, all you do is blog?” My critics, largely contained in an anonymous wiki for cowardly trolls, accuse me of being overly dramatic, preachy, self-righteous, and whiny; worse, they suggest that my sense of injustice in academia is really just the product of mental illness or even mental disabilities (putting it politely relative to the more offensive language they use). This is a form of gaslighting, and it has proven somewhat successful. But, the trolls aren’t alone in leading me to question my academic justice work. It doesn’t count for tenure (and, realistically, is potentially a liability); and, my graduate training served to “beat the activist out” of me because activism and academia supposedly don’t mix.
In other words, there are two powerful messages that come from my training, the expectations of me for tenure, and my critics. The most obvious is that this work is risky. And, the other is that there really isn’t a problem to address. Academics ask, what injustice? What discrimination? What sexual harassment? What motherhood penalty? What exploitation of grad students and contingent faculty? The latter message has successfully led me to doubt myself. What’s that expression — that if you repeat something enough others will believe it’s true, especially if you talk loudly enough. (It worked for a certain elected official with no political experience and ample experience as a bigot and rapist…)
This work, however, is too important to second-guess myself. So, I’m planting my flag into the ground to declare that I am here to unapologetically fight for justice in the academy. Below, I offer a few reasons why this work is important.
Why Working For Academic Justice Is Important
Because Academic Injustice Exists
Perhaps the most important reason to fight for justice in academia is, well, because there is pervasive injustice in academia. Yes, to my surprise as a first-year graduate student, academia is not immune to systems of oppression. Classism, ableism, fatphobia, xenophobia, racism, cissexism, sexism, heterosexism, and ageism — systems of oppression that are embedded in every social institution — have been at home in every college and university from their creation. These manifest as everyday microaggressions, subtle and overt discrimination, disparities and leaky pipelines, rampant sexual violence, interpersonal and institutional barriers to accessibility for all people, prioritizing profit over justice, prioritizing academic freedom over academic justice, curricula that erase or tokenize or exotify oppressed communities, and so forth. That oppression exists in academia should suffice as enough reason to fight it.
Because Academia Reproduces Social Inequality
Unfortunately, the academy does not merely reflect the aforementioned systems of oppression; it also reproduces them in the larger society. There is ample evidence that education, the supposed “greater equalizer,” actually exacerbates inequality. Think about who goes to college: who performed well enough to get in, who attended a high enough quality school to get in, who can afford to go, who has the cultural capital to know how to apply. Among those who attend college, there are disparities between those who to go community colleges and four-year colleges, between those who go to state schools and those who go to private schools, between those who graduate and those who never do. Even with a degree in hand, there are disparities by academic major, quality in the training received, and additional opportunities like studying abroad and internships. There are some statistics that leave one to wonder what higher education is doing for oppressed groups, if anything positive.
And, it isn’t just at the undergraduate level. It is also in graduate education, and among staff and faculty. Let me highlight a few examples for faculty. Take the gender and race wage gaps. There are several manifestations of oppression in academia that contribute to these disparities: discrimination against people of color and women (especially those with kids) in hiring, tenure, promotion, and raises; harassment, which undermines a scholars’ productivity and well-being; disproportionate levels of undervalued (and usually unpaid) service, especially “diversity work“; the devaluing of gender studies, women’s studies, racial and ethnic studies, and cultural studies; racial and gender bias in publishing; racial and gender bias in course evaluations; the exclusion of women and people of color from high-status professional networks; the overrepresentation of women and people of color in poorly-paid, overburdened, temporary contingent faculty positions. You know, just to name a few things that exacerbate the broader patterns of wage disadvantages for oppressed folks.
Because Inequality In Academia Compounds Social Inequality
Since scholars from marginalized backgrounds were already oppressed before pursuing an academic career, injustice in academia further compounds the oppression we experience, thereby making the problem worse. Black academics, for example, cannot separate the racism they experience after they leave work from the racism they experienced at work. It doesn’t matter the source, shit is shit, and it stinks all the same.
I study discrimination and health, so the compounding affect on a scholar’s health comes to mind first. Discrimination is a stressful experience. Even just agonizing over whether the negative outcome one has just experienced was the product of discrimination is stressful. In giving privileged others the benefit of the doubt (because, counter to accusations of “crying wolf” or “playing the [fill in the blank marginalized identity] card”, no one wants to acknowledge that they were discriminated against), we only continue to stress over the event in question. This kind of stress raises your blood pressure and heart rate, it impedes your immune system, and it hinders your ability to make healthy choices regarding food, alcohol, drugs, and sexual activity — basically, discrimination kills. The stress of “teaching while Black” compounds the stress of “driving while Black,” and the worry for the safety of one’s Black teen-aged children innocently hanging out with their friends, and the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream or booze one uses to forget the day’s troubles, and the racial bias in the health care one receives, and the worry about what is to come of this country now that a known racist is running it, and on and on.
Together, this means that our oppressed scholars cannot do their best work, and it hurts them in getting hired and tenured and promoted. It means we may be more likely to have to take medical leaves, or retire early, or find a new job, or leave academia all together, or even die earlier. Besides illness and death, the consequences of discrimination and inequality in academia compound other outcomes of social inequality (e.g., wage disparities, discrimination in real estate and mortgage lending, the burden of caregiving and financially supporting relatives also impacted by discrimination, etc.)
Because Academic Injustice Hurts Science And Higher Learning
Addressing injustice in academia is important because, on the whole, we are not doing our best work. Academic injustice is a threat to science and higher learning. Certain voices and perspectives are excluded from conference panels, works cited, journals, and course syllabi due to rampant bias. Entire fields like queer/LGBT/sexuality studies, gender studies, women’s studies, Black studies, Latinx studies, Indigenous studies, fat studies, and disability studies are underresourced, underfunded, and understaffed on college campuses because they make central oppressed communities. As noted above, discrimination and harassment undermine oppressed scholars’ ability to do their best work, to put their work to use, to be taken seriously by their colleagues.
I imagine we routinely experience a brain drain in academia owing to the 50 percent drop-out rate among grad students, and perhaps many oppressed scholars with PhDs who eventually leave academia for the sake of their well-being or because of shitty wages as an adjunct. Diversity in academia is not merely some liberal political project; it is how science advances. Actively excluding oppressed scholars, or failing to prevent such exclusion, is a political project — it’s called white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, class oppression, fatphobia, ableism, and ageism.
Because Academic Injustice Undermines Our Ability To Fight For Broader Social Justice
A related reason is that leaving injustice in our ranks unaddressed undermines our ability to address injustice beyond the ivory tower. First of all, we’re hypocrites to pursue research that is critical of the rest of society, including other social institutions like law, the government, medicine, military, the labor market, religion, the and family, while oppression manifests in academic institutions. Yet, somehow, we have the rest of society convinced we’re all a bunch of liberals promoting various social justice agendas; we successfully convince prospective grad students who want to make a difference in the world that academia is the right profession for them.
We are not doing our best work as teachers, mentors, artists, scientists, advocates, and analysts. We uphold tenure-track jobs at Research I universities as the ideal path for every PhD despite the adjunctification of higher education, riding that sinking ship on its way to the bottom of the ocean. We could work in and with the community and partner with organizations outside of the ivory tower to reestablish our importance to society as a whole. Acknowledging my optimism here, I wonder whether that would help to reverse the pattern of drying up government funding for higher education and, in turn, the trend of replacing tenure-track positions with temporary adjunct positions.
Because — Oh, Fuck! — Trump Was Elected President (Fuck!)
Finally, now more than ever before, there is an urgent need for the academy to stand up to bigotry, violence, xenophobia, bullying, surveillance, and other social problems that threaten to get worse under the incoming presidential regime. Academic isolationism is a foolish strategy — just look where it has gotten us thus far (read: declining state and federal funding, adjunctification, exploding student debt, irrelevance to the rest of society). We are perhaps complicit in political rise of a racist rapist with no political experience.
But, it is not too late. We can stop clinging to the myths of meritocracy and objectivity that only serve to distract us to the rampant inequality within our ranks. We can stop prioritizing academic freedom, which merely tolerates academics’ controversial work while also enabling bigoted scholars oppressive antics; instead, we can bravely prioritize academic justice — an intentional effort to use academic work to promote justice.
I hope that I have convinced some readers why we can no longer delude ourselves into thinking inequality in academia isn’t that bad, or perhaps that addressing it is no better than “navel-gazing.” Even if not, I find myself more firm in my commitment to fight academic injustice and to promote academic justice. We’re wasting our time here if we continue to allow oppression to manifest in our profession.
Advice For Black Graduate Students On “Playing The Game”
December 16, 2016 8:18 AM / 1 Comment on Advice For Black Graduate Students On “Playing The Game”
The racism that ran rampant through my graduate program was like a swift, hard punch to the gut for me as a naïve, first-year graduate student. I had not even attended my first official graduate course before a cohortmate had marked by body as “ghetto,” despite growing up in the suburbs. I was devastated to find a self-proclaimed scholar of immigration saw no issue with her research assistant’s instruction to fellow students to avoid “talking Black” while conducting interviews. I was annoyed, but no longer surprised, that the faculty failed to see the problems with the ethnic theme of the annual department party.
My college days reside in my memory as a generally wonderful time of self-discovery, activism, and a willingness to have difficult conversations. My alma matter, University of Maryland Baltimore County, is where the seeds of my intellectual activism began to blossom. Undergrad did not, however, prepare me for the reality of oppression in higher education. The funny thing is, when I contacted my two main undergrad advisors halfway through my first-year of grad school, neither professor was surprised that I had been smacked in the face by racism in academe; in fact, they kind of alluded that I was naive to expect otherwise.
Whatever the reason for being surprised by the racism that I experienced and observed in my graduate program, I say with some reticence that my time in grad school has provided me with some insights that may be useful to others.
For Black prospective graduate students, I recommend, as a starting point, to be aware that racism is the norm in academe. Even if you are generally shielded from microaggressions, racism is deeply entrenched in the operation of graduate departments, universities, disciplines, and professional organizations. It affects who and what gets funded, who and what gets published where, who gets hired and tenured, who gets admitted, who graduates, and so forth.
As you select a graduate department, I’m afraid it is simply a matter of how much racism you will experience, not whether you will experience it. Weigh your options carefully. The supportive bubble of a program at an HBCU may come at the expense of your job prospects, yet the prestige of a top-ranked historically white college or university may come at the cost of your mental health and happiness. Don’t assume the presence of a few token Black faculty members or race scholars will be enough to overcome an otherwise racist department. And, given the devaluing of interdisciplinarity in the academy, don’t assume the presence of other, critical programs (e.g., African American Studies) will compensate for lack of diversity or race consciousness in your own (more traditional) PhD program (e.g., sociology).
Do your homework on each program you are considering. Contact multiple current students to ask about their personal and professional experiences — with coursework, support from and availability of faculty, with the university, with funding opportunities, with publishing, with teaching, with the surrounding city, etc. If you are interested in studying race, ethnicity, or immigration, ask whether that kind of work is supported by the faculty, reflected in the course work, and funded. You might do well with a few concrete questions that you email, and offer to talk to them by phone if they are available. Contact faculty to ask similar questions. Take note not only of the number of Black faculty, but also whether any are tenured associate or full professors; if you actually visit the department, use your budding ethnographer skills to observe how central Black faculty and students are in the department’s functions.
As you prepare to begin your graduate program, I recommend setting up your support network ahead of time. Your grad program is not in the business of looking after your personal well-being, so do not rely on it to feel your personal, social, spiritual, and sexual/romantic needs. I highly, highly recommend that you have a community outside of your program; I’d even recommend avoiding dating a fellow student (and professors are off limits). Get involved with a graduate student group, set up a Meetup account and your choice of dating app (if you’re looking), find a church, and look for an off-campus gym, doctor, and therapist if your finances allow them. My point is, do not center your entire life around your graduate program. When school gets tough, it’s nice to have other places to go to unwind without fear of your actions or words getting back to your colleagues.
I wish I could say this concretely — but navigating racism in a supposedly anti-racist or at least race-neutral environment is a messy affair. Find a balance between “playing the game” to succeed in graduate school (by mainstream standards) and authenticity. I made the mistake of “souling out” to such a high level that my mental health suffered. But, I saw others in my program who embraced authenticity so strongly that some faculty did not want to work with them or did not take them seriously, who struggled to advance through departmental milestones, and/or struggled to do the things that made them a strong candidate for the academic job market.
It is an awful catch-22 that Black scholars must choose between advancing their careers or advancing their communities. I am not sure that a happy medium exists, but I believe you can be successful on your terms and be able to sleep at night while making as few concessions as possible. It’s never too early to read The Black Academic’s Guide to Winning Tenure — Without Losing Your Soul.
The faculty advisors whom you select can either help or hinder your success and well-being. Before you jump to making a list of names, I recommend that you identify your needs, as there are many. In the words of Dr. Kerry Ann Rockquemore, avoid the pitfall of attempting to find a mentor guru who will serve all of your needs; not only does such a person not exist, but it is perhaps unhealthy to rely on a single person for everything. You will likely have a main mentor who serves as your primary guide through department milestones and helps you to get a job. But, I strongly encourage a second mentor who perhaps isn’t as accessible, but whose insight is just as important as your main mentor. You can have mentors who are more of a sounding board for professional and/or personal matters, but may have little say over your progress in the department.
Your own preferences and actual availability will determine whether these mentors are Black or some other race. A Black professor may be more supportive by virtue of their shared experiences with racism in the academy. But, there is evidence that white men professors may lead to better job prospects in academe, perhaps owing to their wider, higher status professional networks, cultural capital, and other resources that are unequally distributed in the academy. Keep in mind that being Black doesn’t necessarily make one a good, reliable, or trustworthy professor; unfortunately, you cannot assume a shared Black identity is an automatic sign of solidarity. And, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the white faculty as potential resources; maybe they won’t be sounding boards for the racist crap you’ve dealt with (and might even contribute to it), but they may have other means to help you excel in your career.
Whatever you do, remember that graduate school is a means to an end. This is not the rest of your life. There will be times you simply have to suck it up and do something that feels crappy, or feels irrelevant to your goals to survive and thrive as a Black intellectual. But, you’ve just got to do it to get that PhD and then do whatever you want. These professors are mere gatekeepers. They can grant you a PhD, but they can never validate your worth or value.
Intellectual Violence In Academia
December 15, 2016 5:42 AM / 2 Comments on Intellectual Violence In Academia
For over a year now, I have been seeing a therapist to work through the trauma that was my graduate training. I have a knack for discussing personal troubles publicly, so I have been writing about the recovery process over the past year, as well. I figure, since the structure and culture of the academy is complicit in the trauma, why should I continue to suffer silently? Others like me (Black, queer, non-binary, fat, activist) and not like me have probably been traumatized, too.
Since going public about my story – grad school as “little T” trauma (not as bad as “big T” traumas like rape, child abuse, or war) – I have been privy to other marginalized academics’ trauma narratives. Most of these folks have not said a word, but their reactions to my story say a great deal. I have become more adept at recognizing trauma in other academics: retelling the same painful stories of oppression and injustice over and over; consciously or unconsciously seeking validation from others – “please believe how awful this was”; continuing to give power to those who traumatized them, at least as “air time” in their thoughts, nightmares, and stories. I recognize it because I was doing it and still do at times, albeit to a lesser extent with the help of therapy.
As others have actually named their own trauma and shared those stories with me, I have not only found confirmation that 1) I am not alone in being traumatized by my graduate school experiences and 2) the forces that lead to trauma for marginalized students and scholars is likely far worse than I imagined. Academe and its graduate education is not merely out of touch with the needs of the world beyond the ivory tower. It is not simply a matter of academics having their heads up their butts while job security remains a luxury for the few and exploitative labor conditions in academe have become the new normal for PhDs.
There is a longstanding, widespread phenomenon that I fear too few of us recognize, and even fewer of us are willing to name: intellectual violence. In the name of job prospects, tenurability, professional status, grant funding options, journal homes, citation rates, impact factors, and so forth, many (privileged) academics promote the erasure, stereotyping, disempowerment, objectification, exotification, and silencing of oppressed communities. The status quo of the larger racist, sexist, cissexist, heterosexist, classist, xenophobic, ableist, and fatphobic society is upheld by the academy; worse, academe maintains a reputation for social justice, diversity and inclusion, and critical investigation of the status quo.
I suspect many academics are aware of the ways in which science has been used to advance oppressive causes. We must credit early white men scientists, many of whom were obsessed with creating a taxonomy of humans especially on the basis of race and sexuality, for their influence in oppressive ideologies and policies. (But, let’s not be too optimistic in thinking scientific racism or scientific homophobia are historical artifacts. Think Jason Richwine and Mark Regnerus, among others.)
But, far fewer academics seem to be openly acknowledging the ways in which academic research and teaching (unintentionally) enact violence against oppressed communities through academic norms and values. Where money and resources go says a great deal about an institution’s priorities. So, we can infer from the relatively small number of gender and/or women’s studies, racial and/or ethnic studies, Black and African American studies, Latinx studies, LGBT and queer studies, Asian and Asian American studies, Native American/American Indian/Indigenous studies, and disability studies programs that these areas of academic study, curricula, and, arguably, communities of study, are unimportant in the academy. Where these programs exist, they are underfunded, underresourced, and understaffed.
Most insulting is making marginalized scholars complicit in this violence by making their own job security and professional success dependent upon it. Though naïve about the academy as I graduated college and headed to grad school, I was at least aware that a PhD in sociology would open far greater doors than one in gender or sexuality studies. But, I had no idea that trading off the joy I felt in my gender and sexuality studies courses in college for job prospects in academe was the first of a series of compromises and concessions. I regularly conformed, repeatedly passing up opportunities to pursue gender and sexuality studies for a more mainstream path. This explains why my most recent work falls in the realm of medical sociology, despite being recognized as a sexuality researcher on all counts but my actual training.
On some level, perhaps mostly unconscious, six years of training that implied to me that queer and trans people, women, people of color – and especially people at the intersections of these identities – are unimportant led me to agree with the devaluing of research and teaching on and advocacy with oppressed communities. It led me to agree that these communities themselves hold little value relative to cis hetero middle-class white America. No one held a gun to my head to force me to make the decisions that I made. However, I actually think the intellectual nature of this kind of violence was actually far more damaging than physical violence would ever be. The intentional resocialization of grad school changed how I view the world, how I think of myself as a scholar and an activist, and altered how I relate to my own communities.
Like many victims of oppression, I have also internalized the voice that leads me to doubt the severity of my own marginalization. As I write this, I want to concede that I am being a bit dramatic by using the word violence to describe my training, that I am insulting real victims of trauma (“big T” trauma). But, I keep coming back to the word violence when I think about what I have had to do to recover. On the health front, I have been spending a great deal of time and money on acupuncture, massages, fitness training, and therapy, plus taking a yoga class and Lexapro for the anxiety, to deal with the psychological, emotional, and physical symptoms of the trauma. I have given up a decent chuck of my research leave trying to get healthy – all the while feeling guilty for prioritizing self-care and resentful that privileged colleagues on leave can churn out books because there is little to no trauma from which to recover.
Professionally, I have had to unlearn much of my graduate training in order to heal, to move forward with my research trajectory, to sustain myself, and to feel that my work is aligned with my values as an activist. I have to relearn how to love my communities and myself, and to trust that my gut and spirit are leading me in the right direction, even if that means straying from mainstream academic norms. I will never be free if I let institutional and professional norms define me as a person, if I take my value and worth as a person and scholar from any institution.
Defining what it means to be a scholar on my own terms is scary because I lack role models, and I lack a path-well-taken that assures me that I am headed in the right direction. And, such self-definition is not without its risks. But, for the sake of my health, longevity, and well-being, I can no longer be complicit in the intellectual violence against my communities and me. I will never be free by appeasing institutions that are set on maintaining the status quo.
“Objectivity” And Oppression In Academia
December 9, 2016 7:06 AM / 1 Comment on “Objectivity” And Oppression In Academia
@grollman: Objectivity is a myth afforded to the privileged. (Source: Twitter)
Objectivity — a scholar’s supposed ability to remain impartial about the subjects she studies — is a myth. Like the myths of meritocracy and color-blindness, objectivity sounds good in theory, but it is impossible to use it in practice. Simply put, researchers are not immune to bias. While in many instances such bias can be dangerous, bias is not bad, per se.
Objectivity Precludes Certain Areas Of Inquiry
I am a sociologist in training, perspective, and practice. (Un)fortunately, in the process of recovering from the trauma of my graduate training, my consciousness about my discipline has grown, as well. It recently hit me that it would be more accurate to say that my degree is in “white sociology” or “Eurocentric sociology,” not sociology. The training I received pushed objective research as the only true form of research. But, being detached was not enough; it was not enough to naively attempt to leave my anti-racist politics and Black racial identity at home when I left for school.
Rather, objectivity also implied that research on race — more specifically, research that made central the lives of Black people — was inferior to more mainstream areas. I was told that a true sociologist takes on a subfield — typically a social institution like education or medicine — and, in the process, she might just happen to focus on a particular (marginalized) population. But, no one should be a sociologist of race, and certainly not an anti-racist sociologist. Sadly, for me, “just happens to study [X population]” did not extend to LGBTQ people. In my case, to be objective meant to move away from studying the very community I went to grad school to study. It has taken a couple of years post-grad school to finally return to topics I wanted to pursue back in 2007.
As a powerful and seductive ideology, objectivity serves as a tool for (privileged) gatekeepers of the discipline to devalue research on oppression and oppressed communities. To be objective, one cannot be too eager to study trans people, or Latino fathers, or women with disabilities. To study these populations whom the academy finds suspect or, at worse, unimportant, is to compromise one’s credibility as a true researcher.
Objectivity Is A Privilege
Early in grad school, a fellow student criticized my interest in the intersections among racism, heterosexism, sexism, and classism as “narrow.” In the years since, others have implied or explicitly said that my research constitutes “me-search.” That is, my scholarship is suspect because I am a fat Black queer non-binary sociologist who does research on multiply disadvantaged individuals (e.g., queer people of color), trans people, queer people, people of color, and fat people. In my case, this suspicion is heightened because my anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-cissexist, and anti-heterosexist activism is visible and publicly accessible. Mind you, my research is quantitative, rarely includes “I” or other first person references, speaks to mainstream sociology audiences, is published in mainstream sociology journals, and probably appeases the demand of objective research. My sins, however, are being fat Black queer and non-binary, and caring about the communities that I study.
My white cisgender heterosexual “normal weight” men colleagues are not suspected of bias. They are seen as the gold standard of objectivity. Their interest in topics that seem most interesting to other white dudes is somehow devoid of the influence of their social location. Their uncritical or, on rare occasion, critical perspective on a topic is seen as expertise, not bias. Even when these privileged scholars study marginal topics and/or marginalized communities, their work is taken seriously and remains unquestioned. I have yet to see a privileged scholar accused of having “narrow” interests or doing “me-search.” That is because objectivity serves as a device to police, devalue, and exclude the research of marginalized scholars.
I believe that the privilege of objectivity also includes the freedom from any sense of obligation to do work that matters, to do work that will liberate one’s people. “One could not be a calm, cool, and detached scientist while Negroes were lynched, murdered and starved,” DuBois remarked in his 1940 autobiography, Dusk of Dawn. Like DuBois, I wrestle so frequently with feeling that my publications that lie behind paywalls, only to be read by a handful of people in my subfield, are a complete waste of time while Black trans and cis people are being murdered by the dozens. Our privileged colleagues are not faced with the urgency of death, oppression, violence, invisibility, illness, and poverty of their people, so I can only imagine how much easier it is for them to (pretend to?) be objective, detached, and removed – experts on problems of the world, not of or in them.
Objectivity Perpetuates The Erasure Of Marginalized Scholars
Though my grad school coursework included 3 semesters of professional seminars, I have subsequently found it is neither enough professional development nor relevant to the primary concerns of many marginalized scholars. Instead of talking about how to select a qualifying exam area, I would have benefited from a reflexive discussion about the myth of objectivity in our discipline. Perhaps a less critical, and thus more palpable, topic would be “debates in the profession.” Indeed, whether objectivity exists and — to the extent that it exists — whether it is a good thing has been debated from the very start of the discipline of sociology. So, too, is whether sociologists should concern themselves exclusively with empiricism or also with making a difference in the world, or at least one’s communities.
To further raise my consciousness about my profession, I have started reading pieces by respected sociologists that have long been raising the concerns I have been struggling with privately. For example, Dr. Joe Feagin devoted his American Sociological Association presidential address (2001) to “Social Justice and Sociology.” Feagin raised a point that floored me. The rise of objective research by white men sociologists coincided with the erasure of the work and contributions of sociologists like Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. DuBois, Jane Addams — women and people of color in the discipline. Due to racist and sexist discrimination, these scholars’ work was already devalued; but, the shift toward “value-free” sociology further undermined their contributions in the discipline. Recovering their work, which in objective terms is simply a matter of good science, is an inherently anti-racist and feminist act.
Each instance of embracing objectivity, then, reinforces the erasure of women scholars and scholars of color. Each time I have taught the obligatory theory section in my introductory sociology courses, focusing on “the big three” — Weber, Marx, and Durkheim — I have been complicit in the erasure of W.E.B. DuBois, Harriet Martineau, and Patricia Hill Collins, and others who are not dead white men. The professor of my grad school theory course is complicit, too, by excluding any discussion of critical race theory, Black feminist theory, or queer theory; we focused, instead, on “classical” sociological theory. Each time I unquestioningly cited the (W. I.) Thomas theorem — what people perceive to be real is real in its consequences — I was complicit in the erasure of Dorothy Swaine Thomas, who was a co-author on the text from which this theorem comes.
To question whose perspective and scholarship is respected as central to the discipline would be suspected as activism; and, it requires additional work to learn and advance the perspectives and scholarship of marginalized scholars that one was denied in one’s own training. But, to consume and teach classical and mainstream sociological material without question is to reinforce the racist and sexist status quo.
I conclude by asking that scholars be brave enough to reject the myth of objectivity, and be willing to own subjective and scholar-activist work. But, a revolution of sorts in academe is necessary for this to happen. We must stop celebrating and so fiercely defending “objectivity” in graduate training, in publications, in grants, and in tenure and promotion. We do society and ourselves a disservice by standing on the political sidelines, complicit in our own irrelevance.
Grad School Professors as Gatekeepers… And Then Some
Photo Source: Lynn Friedman
The best piece of advice I received as a grad student was to think of my graduate school professors and advisors as nothing more than gatekeepers. These were people who had been given power by my department, university, and the profession to train me and award me with a PhD. On the surface, it is well known that I, as the student, had to demonstrate sufficient competency in order to advance: master’s thesis, graduate minor, qualifying exam, proposal defense, and then dissertation defense. And, I did so, hence the three letters behind my name since July 2013. They made the boxes that I successfully checked in a six-year period.
Such a utilitarian approach doesn’t sound so bad. Graduate school was simply a means to an end. All I needed to do was appease my grad school advisors’ conditions for advancing toward the PhD — nothing more, nothing less.
But, graduate training tends to be much more complex than that. The dropout rate would not be 50 percent, mental illness would not run so rampant, and there would probably be a lot fewer folks stuck in lifelong ABD purgatory. But, the utilitarian model, while helpful, has the unintended consequence of serving to blame those very students who do not advance in their training.
Admittedly, I can only speak from my own perspective as a Black queer non-binary scholar-activist. So, I need to narrow my concerns to the experiences of marginalized graduate students, perhaps especially my fellow unicorns at the lovely, yet sometimes dreadful, intersections of more than one oppressed status. The utilitarian model — “just play the game” — is naively simplistic when one’s training exists in the context of cissexist, classist, sexist, heterosexist, racist, ableist, and xenophobic oppression. We do not start at the same (privileged) starting point, we are not given the same quality training and resources to excel, our take on the game is seen as inferior, and we are less likely to enjoy the spoils of successfully winning the game.
Ironically, I actually intended to write this essay to promote the aforementioned utilitarian approach. But, as I reflect on how I played the game — but still feel as though I did not win in some important ways — I have grown wary of that advice.
First, I should highlight that the actual game of succeeding in graduate school demanded so much more than checking the boxes that my grad school advisors demanded. There seemed to be an infinite number of implied and sometimes explicitly stated expectations that were either 1) required to actually earn the PhD, 2) highly recommended in order to get a (tenure-track) job (at a Research I university), or 3) deemed central to what it means to be a (mainstream) sociologist. I cannot say that it was ever entirely clear which end a particular means achieved. Was the explicit effort to steer me away from gender and sexuality studies — the areas I expressed interest in in my grad school application — actually a matter of getting the PhD? Probably not. Was the explicit effort to “beat the activist” out of me a formal part of PhD training? Doubtful.
This lack of clarity about the motivations behind particular aspects of my graduate training proved to be more troublesome than a problem of uncertainty. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, it allowed for my graduate advisors to use their superordinate status to push me into a certain direction professionally. I hope most professors could not be described as manipulative, but I have heard stories that echo my own experiences. I had to concern myself with my status in the department, as greater visibility and status as a student meant more opportunities to advance my training. The students on the periphery of the program were tale-tell signs of what could happen if I ignored too many of the informal and implied expectations.
A second, related concern is the strong seductive power of being in the “in” crowd. I was drawn to the game-playing approach, especially as it became a matter of survival. I did what I had to do to get the degree, but also pursued other things (usually secretly) that fed my spirit. But, I saw that others, usually privileged students, were invited into relationships with professors in ways that were not impersonal exchanges. Some were invited to babysit, catsit, and housesit for professors — I never was. Some remain lifelong friends and/or collaborators with their former advisors; some honor their former advisors by making them their children’s godparents. Across the board, many at least stay in touch with their advisors, occasionally leaning on them for professional advice (and sometimes personal support), drawing on their networks, and writing recommendation letters.
I (mostly) played the game, and what did I get? Strained professional and personal ties with my grad school advisors, generalized anxiety disorder, and an unhealthy dose of complex trauma to work through still years later from the awful experience of grad school. No, I do not actually want those kinds of relationships with my advisors; it seems unethical to ask students (who would fear saying no) to watch your children, pets, or house. But, that kind of intimacy was partially denied to me and resisted as a matter of my own survival.
Source: RuPaul’s Drag Race Untucked
I would be lying if I said I did not want some kind of personal relationship with my grad school advisors. These were people I saw on a weekly, if not daily basis, who were invested in my training and success, who observed the highs and lows of the roller coaster known as grad school. I never wanted to treat grad school as a game, for I never knew education to be a cold business transaction.
Perhaps that is where my naiveté shows. My professors — trained sociologists — were not my friends, or therapists, or confidants, and — as I learned the hard way — they were not to be collaborators or colleagues of equal status. A power-imbalanced relationship, in which my advancement and career depended upon them, is inherently fraught. My vulnerable position in these student-professor relationships was heightened by the inequality in our social locations — them white, cisgender, middle-class, (mostly) heterosexual, and me Black, genderqueer, a broke grad student, and queer. I was perhaps too open about suffering from generalized anxiety disorder and about being an activist (which they saw as a professional liability).
The funny thing is, as I became more jaded, distant, guarded, and utilitarian as a means of survival, one advisor criticized me for holding back and for not seeming to trust them. Despite having my anxiety dismissed and their efforts to beat the activist out of me, I was expected to still bare my soul to them — the very soul they intended to crush, or at least co-opt.
I suspect that the privileged way of relating to others in the academy is to be unquestioningly open and trusting of one’s peers and superordinates; indeed, grad school was not the last time I was accused of not trusting a (white) colleague. But, for marginalized folks, that kind of openness and trust can open us up for others’ critique, judgment, dismissal, or other violence. Yet, you get dismissed as uppity, guarded, mean, cold, or standoffish if you don’t open up for privileged colleagues’ entertainment/inspection/surveillance. A double-standard for marginalized scholars and students about ways of interacting with (privileged) others in the academy, which, in the end, actually has nothing to do with the quality of our research or teaching.
Frankly, I never found one good strategy to excel in grad school. Just being good at what I do wasn’t enough because what I really wanted to do — study the intersection of race and sexuality — was dismissed. And, being “likeable” wasn’t enough or, to be really real, even possible for the long-term. I fumbled my way through grad school, achieving what I now see as inevitable: I would earn that damn PhD and never look back. I just wish I was in a position to advise future PhDs how to do so without the scars I endured in the process.
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“Putin’s friends” and Kadyrov: who wants to get rid of God Nisanov?
Photo: The CrimeRussia
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Circle of ‘untouchables’ shrinks. God Nisanov to withstand or fail?Billionaire God Nisanov being convinced to pour cash into new governmental projects before raidsThief in law Guli takes control of Food City Moscow market from Rovshan Lenkoransky's heir
One of the most successful renters in Moscow, God Nisanov, is in trouble again. For now, it concerns his market business. Some sources say that such heavyweights as the Rotenbergs, Timchenko, Delimkhanov and Kadyrov are ready to join the fight against him, which will leave no chance for the businessman. Therefore, it seems that Nisanov will not remain the king of the main vegetable warehouse in Moscow for a long time, and soon he will have to at least move if not withdraw from this market. The fact that thieves in law will undoubtedly play an important role in this confrontation – Guli, who owns Food City, on the one hand, and Akhmed Shalinsky, looking for opportunities to occupy his niche in Moscow, on the other – adds tension.
The business community is now discussing a new possible redistribution in the market of wholesale vegetable warehouses, as a result of which the current flagship Food City of God Nisanov and Zarakh Iliev will have to make room. The revival of Chetyre Sezona (‘Four Seasons’) market is currently under way. Its structures may include the Rotenberg brothers, Gennady TImchenko, and even Ramzan Kadyrov and Adam Delimkhanov.
Recent changes in this business were associated with the closure of the largest wholesale vegetable warehouse in 2013, the Biryulevskaya warehouse, after the unrest caused by the murder of a local resident by one of the market workers. The following year, such new agricultural clusters as Food City on Kaluzhskoe Highway and Four Seasons in Domodedovo appeared.
The pavilions in which Food City is located were originally built for another project, as it was called, the Lotos City trade and exhibition center, which was essentially a covered clothing market.
Plamya LLC was in charge of the project. Its co-owners included ex-State Duma deputy Ildar Samiev (who was subsequently charged with two episodes of fraud) and Andrey Goncharenko, then-first deputy of Gazprom Invest Yug. His father, Nikolay Goncharenko, was associated with billionaires Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, owning St. Petersburg's Atrium LLC, specializing in real estate operations, on equal terms with them. Therefore, an opinion was shaped that this complex was at least in the sphere of interests of “Putin’s friend.” Nevertheless, the Rotenbergs’ representative told Forbes that they did not have anything to do with the facility. Whereas, representatives of TPS-Nedvizhimost, a co-owner of which is Arkady Rotenberg, said that they did receive the proposal to become the management company of Lotus-City, but after studying the concept, they refused this idea.
An area of 90 hectares was to become the new Cherkizon; however, the closure of the Pokrovskaya vegetable warehouse in Biryulyovo disordered arrangements and the already built shopping pavilions were sold to Nisanov. It is now said that this could have been done under pressure. Back then, it looked like Nisanov killed two birds with one stone with one purchase – on the one hand, he prevented a competitor from emerging in clothing markets, and on the other hand, he entered a new niche of vegetable markets, which at that time was becoming very popular. The transaction amount was not disclosed, but as suggested by Colliers International managing partner Nikolay Kazansky, it could be about $1 billion. Given that the annual revenue (including shadow schemes) of the Biryulevskaya base was about 10 billion rubles ($156 million), the investment was still very profitable and could pay off in 6-7 years.
So, exactly one year after the presentation of Lotos-City, Sobyanin was once again shown around the same shopping center by its new owners, who introduced him a new concept.
The story of the final owners of Four Seasons is very confused.
Initially, Finance Invest LLC, registered in Moscow region’s Krasnogorsk, the final owners of which were hiding behind the Cyprus, Seychelles, and British Virgin Islands offshore, became the customer of market construction. However, soon former boxer Timofey Kurgin started introducing himself as the market head, who claimed that the Four Seasons market belonged to him and “Orthodox oligarchs” Aleksey and Dmitry Ananyev's Promsvyazkapital on a parity basis. At the same time, according to official figures, Kurgin was not among the market owners (only Akademia Boksa (‘Boxing Academy’), the Charity Fund +7 (‘Regional Development’) and the Pravoslavia Foundation were listed as organizations headed by him), and he was associated with the Ananyevs by a joint wood processing business holding Rossiyskaya Lesnaya Gruppa (‘Russian Forest Group’, RLG), uniting two plants in the Irkutsk region.
In addition, he has long been known as a representative of the brothers’ interests, including in very sensitive matters. For example, his name was mentioned in connection with the illegal seizure of the agro-industrial complex Ramfood, which came under the control of Promsvyazbank.
Ananyev brothers
In mid-90s, Kurgin miraculously escaped punishment for the murder of State Duma deputy Sergey Skorochkin, who had a conflict with his business partner from Nizhny Novgorod. After Skorochkin sold him a distillery, the buyer still owed $380 thousand. The debtor asked his friend, “power broker” Oleg Lipkin, to help him; the latter proposed to solve the issue by physically eliminating the deputy. In 1995, Skorochkin was kidnapped and killed by gunshots to the head.
In 1998, Lipkin and Kurgin were sentenced to 5.5 and 4.5 years of imprisonment by jury's decision. The prosecutor's office appealed the verdict, and the Supreme Court referred the case for a new trial. Years went by, the jury passed an acquittal several times; eventually, Kurgin was released because the statute of limitations. In 2005, the case was closed.
It was also reported that Kurgin had access to the upper strata of the criminal world; he was familiar with leader of the Orekhovskaya organized crime group iylvester and thief in law Aksen; in addition, he was in the same cell with Shakro Molodoy.
For the market operation, the Mosselprom-Domodedovo operator company was specially created, which was owned by an offshore company Digimia Management LTD (Virgin Islands) and a certain Dmitry Kovalev, whose shares were held by Promsvyazbank. Four Seasons was 3 times smaller than Food City, but had better logistics. Its owners had ambitious plans. They wanted to continue expansion and attract new investors.
In late 2015, it was reported in the media that the world's highest paid boxer at the time, American Floyd Mayweather Jr., was ready to invest in Four Seasons, and Kurgin was negotiating with him. As he told RBC, Mayweather intended to buy 10-25% of the market for $20-50 million, based on an asset estimate of $200 million.
Timofey Kurgin and Floyd Meyvezer Jr.
Nevertheless, instead of participating in the vegetable business of the American boxer, the shopping complex soon switched to Fruit Trade LLC, registered in Krasnogorsk, which subsequently changed its name to the current ORC CHETYRE SEZONA LLC, which is 100% owned by another martial arts representative Pavel Karnaukh (Mixed Martial Arts Federation (MMA), whose share was still pledged to Promsvyazbank, which is currently controlled by the state and headed by Pyotr Fradkov, the son of ex-Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.
However, the acquisition of trading space is not a guarantee of the successful operation of the trade cluster. According to the manager of Slavyanskiy Mir, which owns a huge construction market at the intersection of Kaluzhskoe Highway and the Moscow Ring Road right next to Food City, in the fall of 2013, observing the huge demand for retail space, its owner Vladimir Leshchikov was also going to do some vegetable business, but after seeing how everything worked, he changed his mind.
Pavel Karnaukh
To attract traders to his site, Nisanov and his partner Iliev asked for help from their friend, whom they had known since working on the Cherkizovsky market under the leadership of Telman Ismailov, thief in law Rovshan Dzhaniev (Rovshan Lenkoransky), who at that time practically controlled all merchants of Moscow (and not only) vegetable depots. With the help of his henchmen - Zaur Akhmedov and Magerram Gasanov (Pokrovka Magerram), he dragged wholesalers from other markets to Food City, which ensured Nisanov a stable cash flow. Naturally, this caused discontent of the competitors, but they could not do anything with him, especially since the Ananyevs soon found themselves in trouble and clearly did not have time for the market.
To recall, in late 2017, Promsvyazbank fell under state reorganization amid serious financial problems. A criminal case under part 4 of Art. 160 of the Russian Criminal Code (Misappropriation or Embezzlement Commited by an Organized Group, or on an Especially Large Scale) and part 4 of Art. 174 (The Legalisation (Laundering) of Funds and Other Property Acquired by Other Persons Illegaly) was initiated against the brothers. The Arbitration Court of Moscow seized their property, including apartments, cars, an aircraft, several land plots, and a collection of paintings, in the amount of more than 282 billion rubles ($4.407 billion). The brothers were hiding in London.
Rovshan Lenkoransky
The story with Dzhaniev also ended quite quickly. In August 2016, he was shot dead in Turkey. Among the reasons was revenge for the murder of Ded Hasan, in ordering which Rovshan Lenkoransky was suspected. In addition, the main suspect was, of course, his main enemy, thief in law Guli, with whom they competed for the opportunity to control Azerbaijani merchants and the diaspora as a whole. It could also be Nisanov’s competitors, who thus wanted to end the success of Food City. And finally, it could be Nisanov and Iliev, who allegedly had a conflict with Dzhaniev over money, due to which they risked losing tenants.
According to Rosbalt, in October 2018, in a letter sent to the Russian president, former owner of Cherkizon Ismailov exposed the involvement of the businessmen in the thief’s liquidation. However, later he renounced everything previously written, calling the incident a provocation.
Telman Ismailov
Nevertheless, this “termination of Dzhaniev’s powers” did not really affect Food City’s work. Especially since all merchants soon came under Guli’s control. In late 2017, Nisanov even announced the expansion of this area of his business.
According to him, a new wholesale food market would appear in Khimki, providing the northern front with food supplies. For this purpose, the businessman bought a plot of more than 40 hectares, which would distribute the flows of tenants between these two objects.
After that, they began to approach Nisanov from different angles. In March this year, the work of his markets Sadovod, Moskva, and later Food City was paralyzed due to the raids of security forces. Long before that, in an interview with Vedomosti, Director of the financial monitoring and currency control department of the Central Bank Yury Polupanov said that Sadovod and Moskva “practically became pioneers and leaders in the proposal for the purchase of cryptocurrencies.” Their main buyers are immigrants from China, who thus save and avoid taxes. The scheme is simple; cryptocurrency is acquired for most of the revenue, which is instantly redirected to the merchants’ homeland, where it is cashed. According to Polupanov, about 600 billion rubles circulate there a month. At the same time, there are practically no transfers to bank accounts.
Searches at Sodovod
“The wholesale and retail complexes Sadovod and Food City have become the key platforms in Moscow.” It was also reported that Nisanov’s nephews had prepared their escape routes, issuing themselves European passports, namely Maltese.
Nevertheless, no criminal cases were opened regarding the checks and the markets soon returned to their normal working hours. Nisanov himself later attributed what had happened to the machinations of his competitors.
Zrakh Aliyev
Recently, his opponents have taken new measures aimed at weakening Nisanov’s position. Now on Telegram channels there is information that Ramzan Kadyrov and Adam Delimkhanov are behind the market in Domodedovo. Their partners are Gennady Timchenko and Igor Rotenberg. Thief in law Akhmed Dombaev (Akhmed Shalinsky), who was released at the beginning of the month after 10 years of colonies, will be responsible for the union’s criminal activity. In this situation, Food City and Nisanov in particular do have much of a future.
Akhmed Shalinsky
It is curious that this all coincided with a jump on thief in law Guli, who is currently in charge of the Food City merchants, by Shakro Molodoy's men, whose interests are represented by Badri Koguashvili (Badri Kutaissky). To recall, the conflict was caused by Guli’s sidekick, crime lord Arman Dikiy, who beat hereditary thief Guram Chikhladze (Kvezhoevich), who came to meet with Guli. After that, Koguashvili said that since Salifov allowed a non-thief in law to raise a hand against a thief, he himself could no longer be called a thief. However, he has yet to enlist the support of others on that matter.
In turn, Chechnya has long been looking for its main thief in law, who could adequately represent the region. To this end, a scheme was even organized at the region’s highest level for the early release and transfer to his historical homeland of thief in law Aziz Batukaev, who was imprisoned in Kyrgyzstan. However, Aziz did not live up to the hopes. Therefore, Dombaev is now becoming a key figure; hardly anyone will be surprised that it is possible that this whole situation with Four Seasons was conceived only for his sake.
At the same time, some sources claim that all this is only the result of a quarrel between Nisanov and his long-standing partners - the Rotenberg brothers - who eventually targeted at the entire Moscow vegetable market, so they may take away Food City.
God Nisanov, Arkady Rotenberg, Ilgam Ragimov
In addition, the Rotenbergs intervened into the project that Nisanov and Iliev conducted in the Moscow City business center. In 2011, their LLC Grand-Titul bought the lease and development rights of the 15th section in Moscow City for 7.22 billion rubles. It was planned to build a multifunctional complex Grand Tower there. However, in 2017, as Kommersant found out, SMP Bank announced that it would become an investor in this project, leaving Nisanov and Iliev’s company the general contractor. By the way, the tower, which was planned to be commissioned by 2018, has yet to be built.
One gets the impression that the Rotenberg brothers and Timcheko try to get their hands on any profitable and promising business project. The area is not important; the main thing is that it can give them instant profit. Due to being restricted to travel abroad because of sanctions, they literally squeeze all the juices here in their homeland, now reaching even food markets.
As for the Chechen wing represented by Kadyrov, Dombaev, and Delimkhanov, it is more likely mentioned to make this whole thing serious, given that the latter is well known to Moscow businessmen as a very influential arbiter in resolving financial conflicts.
In light of all this, it is worth recalling that only recently, Nisanov lost his main patron - Putin's classmate and friend of Nisanov’s father, Azerbaijani lawyer Ilgam Rakhimov, who ceased to be the owner of a share in the companies of Nisanov and Iliev. According to the Uniform State Register of Legal Entities, in March 2018, Ragimov left the list of shareholders of the companies that own the Ukraina Hotel (Vysotka LLC, operating under the Radisson Royal brand), Sadovod Market (Flora and Fauna LLC), Automotive Shopping Center on Kashirka (ATC LLC on Kashirka), and furniture shopping centers Grand and Grand 2 (Grandtitul LLC). In addition, he is no longer among the founders of Kievskaya Ploshchad LLC and Kievskaya Ploshchad 1 LLC (both registered at the address belonging to the group of the Evropeisky SC) and Trade and Industrial Company Avers 3 LLC.
Adam Delimhanov
The fact that Nisanov is looking for new support is evidenced even by the fact that just a couple of months ago, he hired the son of Roskosmos’s Head Dmitry Rogozin, Aleskey, who was previously dismissed as general director of the Ilyushin Aviation Complex. The latter will manage the project for the construction of the Nagatinskaya transport interchange hub in Nisanov’s structures. But frankly, hardly this will help him.
Alexey Rogozin
It is not for nothing that rumors have been circulating about the preparation of a “reserve airfield” in the United States by Nisanov. Moreover, these rumors find confirmation. The CrimeRussia found the businessman’s father Semyon Nisanov and his mother Margarita Nisanova among the residents of Brooklyn – one of the largest areas of New York – although not as prestigious as Manhattan, but it is the place of compact residence of the Jewish community.
So, in spite of the fact that Nisanov is still trusted to conduct objects that are significant for Moscow – for example, the reconstruction of the Olimpiysky sports complex – his mind is most likely far from the Russian capital.
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PUBLIC LAW 101-649—NOV. 29, 1990 104 STAT. 5037 and is not ineligible for temporary protected status under section 244A(c)(2)(B) of such Act; and (C) in a manner which the Attorney General shall establish, the alien registers for temporary protected status under this section during the registration period beginning January 1, 1991, and ending June 30, 1991. (2) REGISTRATION FEE.— The Attorney General shall require payment of a reasonable fee as a condition of registering an alien under paragraph (I)(C) (including providing an alien with an "employment authorized" endorsement or other appropriate work permit under this section). The Eimount of the fee shall be sufficient to cover the costs of administration of this section. Notwithstanding section 3302 of title 31, United States Code, all such registration fees collected shall be credited to the appropriation to be used in carrying out this section. (c) APPLICATION OF CERTAIN PROVISIONS. — (1) IN GENERAL.— Except as provided in this subsection, the provisions of section 244A of the Immigration and Nationality Act (including subsection (h) thereof) shall apply to El Salvador (and aliens provided temporary protected status) under this section in the same manner as they apply to a foreign state designated (and aliens provided temporary protected status) under such section. (2) PROVISIONS NOT APPLICABLE. —Subsections (b)(D, (b)(2), (b)(3), (c)(D, (c)(4), (d)(3), and (i) of such section 244A shall not apply under this section. (3) 6-MONTH PERIOD OF REGISTRATION AND WORK AUTHORIZA- TION. —Notwithstanding section 244A(a)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the work authorization provided under this section shall be effective for periods of 6 months. In apply- ing section 244A(c)(3)(C) of such Act under this section, "semiannually, at the end of each 6-month period" shall be substituted for "annually, at the end of each 12-month period" and, notwithstanding section 244A(d)(2) of such Act, the period of validity of documentation under this section shall be 6 months. (4) REENTRY PERMITTED AFTER DEPARTURE FOR EMERGENCY CIR- CUMSTANCES. —In applying section 244A(f)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act under this section, the Attorney General shall provide for advance parole in the case of an alien provided special temporary protected status under this section if the alien establishes to the satisfaction of the Attorney General that emergency and extenuating circumstances beyond the control of the alien requires the alien to depart for a brief, temporary trip abroad. (d) ENFORCEMENT OF REQUIREMENT TO DEPART AT TIME OF TERMI- NATION OF DESIGNATION. — (1) SHOW CAUSE ORDER AT TIME OF FINAL REGISTRATION. —At the registration occurring under this section closest to the date of termination of the designation of El Salvador under subsection (a), the Immigration and Naturalization Service shall serve on the alien granted temporary protected status an order to show cause that establishes a date for deportation proceedings which is after the date of such termination of designation. If El Salvador is subsequently designated under section 244A0t)) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Service shall cancel such orders.
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Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 82.djvu/340
[82 STAT. 298]
PUBLIC LAW 90-391-JULY 7, 1968 AUTHORIZATION
[82 STAT.
OF A P P R O r R I A T I O N S
iltVi^'o^"" SEC. '2: (a) Section 1(b)(1) of the Vocatioiiiil Rehabilitation Act 29 USC 31. is amended by striking out "and" and by inserting before the period at the end thereof the following: , and for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1971, the sum of $700,000,000*'. (b) Section 1(b)(2) of such Act is amended by striking out "and" and by inserting before the period at the end thereof the following: ", for the fiscal year ending June 80, 1969, the sum of $8,200,000, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970, the sum of $6,000,000, and for the fiscal year ending June 80, 1971, the sum of $10,000,000". (c) Section 1(b)(3) of such Act is amended by striking out "and where it appears after "$104,000,000,, and by inserting before the period at the end thereof the following: ", for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1969, the sum of $80,000,000, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970, the sum of $115,000,000, and for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1971, the sum of $140,000,000. (d) Section 1(b)(4) of such Act is amended by striking out "1969" and inserting "1972". MINIMUM 29 USC 32.
ALLOTMENTS TO STATES
SEC. 3. Section 2(a) of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act is amended by inserting at the end thereof the following: "The allotment to any State (other than the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam) for any fiscal year under the preceding two sentences which is less than $1,000,000 shall be increased to that amount, the total of the increases thereby required being derived by proportionately reducing the allotments of each of the remaining such States under the preceding two sentences, but with such adjustments as may be necessary to prevent the allotment of any of such remaining States from being thereby reduced to less than that amount." L I M I T A T I O N O N U S E OF F U N D S FOR CONSTRUCTION
Post, p. 300.
SEC. 4. Section 2(b) of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act is amended by inserting after "for such year" the first time it appears the following: "and such payments shall not be made in an amount which would result in a violation of the provisions of the State plan required by section 5(a) (14)" and by striking out "1965" and inserting in lieu thereof "1969". PRIVATE C O N T R I B U T I O N S FOR CONSTRUCTION OR ESTABLISHMENT O F FACILITIES
Post. p. 299. Post, p. 300.
SEC. 5. Section 2 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act is amended by adding at the end thereof following new subsection: "(c) For the purpose of determining the amount of payments to States for carrying out this section and section 3 with respect to expenditures under a State plan approved under section 5, State funds
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Difference between revisions of "Sylvester (Haruns) of Montreal"
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==Life==
Archbishop Sylvester was born Ivan Antonovich Haruns on [[November 1]], 1914, in Dvinsk, Lativa. While in high school he became interested in the Russian Student Christian Movement. Through this involvement he decided to devote his life to serving [[Christ]] and the Church. Although initially his parents opposed his continuing his education at the [[St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute (Paris, France)|St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute]] in Paris, they relented and he left, never to see his family or homeland again.
Archbishop Sylvester was born Ivan Antonovich Haruns on [[November 1]], 1914, in Dvinsk, Lativa. While in high school he became interested in the Russian Student Christian Movement. Through this involvement he decided to devote his life to serving [[Christ]] and the Church. Although his parent initially opposed his continuing his education at the [[St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute (Paris, France)|St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute]] in Paris, they relented and he left, never to see his family or homeland again.
While attending the St. Sergius Institute, Ivan made his vows and was [[tonsure]]d a [[monk]] on [[March 8]], 1938, by Metr. [[Eulogius (Georgievsky) of Paris|Evlogius (Georgievich)]], giving him the name ''Sylvester''. He was [[ordination|ordained]] a [[deacon]] the next day and then a [[priest]] on [[April 10]], 1938. After his graduation, he served [[parish]]es in eastern France and, after World War II began, served also Orthodox servicemen in the French armed forces. In 1941 after the Germans had occupied France they began to bring in many Russians as prisoners to labor camps. Feeling a call to help them he obtained permission from his [[bishop]] and the authorities to serve them. From then on he devoted his time fully to helping the prisoners. In 1944, after being falsely accused, he was confined by the Gestapo for six weeks in solitary confinement before being cleared by an investigation.
After the war he was assigned to a large parish in Paris where he developed a education program for the youth. He also headed the missions department of the Russian diocese in western Europe and co-edited the Diocesan Herald with Fr. [[Alexander Schmemann]]. He continued his life-long association with the Russian Student Christian Movement.
After the war he was assigned to a large parish in Paris where he developed an education program for the youth. He also headed the missions department of the Russian diocese in western Europe and co-edited the Diocesan Herald with Fr. [[Alexander Schmemann]]. He continued his life-long association with the Russian Student Christian Movement.
On [[April 27]], 1952, he was consecrated Bishop of Messina within the [[Russian Orthodox Exarchate in Western Europe|West European Exarchate]] of the [[Patriarchate of Constantinople]]. His consecration took place at the church of St. Sergius Institute in Paris with the Exarch Metr. Vladimir (Tihonitsky) and Bp. Cassian (Bezobrazov) officiating. Two years later, after initially assisting the Metropolitan in his administrative duties, he was transferred to Nice from where he oversaw the parishes in southern France and Italy.
As the negotiations with the [[Moscow Patriarchate]] proceeded in the late 1960s, Abp. Sylvester became the moderator within the Metropolia of the controversies and conflicts that arose, clarifying misunderstandings and presenting the view that [[autocephaly]] was the correct canonical structure for church life in North America.
To assist the ailing Metropolitan [[Ireney (Bekish) of New York|Ireney (Bekish)]], the [[primate]] of the now Orthodox Church in America, Abp. Sylvester was appointed by the Holy Synod as temporary administrator of the OCA on [[May 15]], 1974, to assist the Metropolitan in his duties until his retirement and election of a new metropolitan. The election of Metr [[Theodosius (Lazor) of Washington|Theodosius (Lazor)]] took place at the fifth All-American Council on [[October 25]], 1977.
To assist the ailing Metropolitan [[Ireney (Bekish) of New York|Ireney (Bekish)]], Abp. Sylvester was appointed by the Holy Synod of the now Orthodox Church in America as temporary administrator of the OCA on [[May 15]], 1974, to assist the Metropolitan in his duties until his retirement and election of a new metropolitan. The election of Metr [[Theodosius (Lazor) of Washington|Theodosius (Lazor)]] took place at the fifth All-American Council on [[October 25]], 1977.
As he advanced in age, Abp. Sylvester decided to relinquish his [[hierarch]]ical responsibilities to new, younger leadership. He retired on [[July 1]], 1981, and for the years following served as pastor of Ss Peter and Paul Cathedral in Montreal. Abp. Sylvester died on [[May 18]], 2000. His funeral was held at Ss Peter and Paul Cathedral according to the rites for monastics, with Bp. [[Seraphim (Storheim) of Ottawa|Seraphim of Ottawa]] and Canada celebrating. He was buried at St. Seraphim Cemetery in Rawdon, Quebec.
after=?|}}
{{succession|
before=[[Anatoly (Apostolov) of Montreal|Anatoly (Apostolov)]]|
before=[[Anatoly (Apostlov) of Montreal|Anatoly (Apostlov)]]|
title=Archbishop of Montréal (OCA)|
title=Archbishop of [[Archdiocese_of_Canada|Montréal]]<br>([[OCA]])|
years=1963-1981|
after=[[Theodosius (Lazor) of Washington|Theodosius (Lazor)]]|}}
Latest revision as of 22:45, March 31, 2016
His Eminence the Most Reverend Archbishop Sylvester (Haruns) of Montréal was the ruling hierarch of the Archdiocese of Canada of the Orthodox Church in America. He acted temporarily as administrator of the Orthodox Church in America and the diocese of New England. He also was Vice-chairman of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the OCA. He was active in the Orthodox youth activities, the Russian Student Christian Movement.
Archbishop Sylvester was born Ivan Antonovich Haruns on November 1, 1914, in Dvinsk, Lativa. While in high school he became interested in the Russian Student Christian Movement. Through this involvement he decided to devote his life to serving Christ and the Church. Although his parent initially opposed his continuing his education at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, they relented and he left, never to see his family or homeland again.
While attending the St. Sergius Institute, Ivan made his vows and was tonsured a monk on March 8, 1938, by Metr. Evlogius (Georgievich), giving him the name Sylvester. He was ordained a deacon the next day and then a priest on April 10, 1938. After his graduation, he served parishes in eastern France and, after World War II began, served also Orthodox servicemen in the French armed forces. In 1941 after the Germans had occupied France they began to bring in many Russians as prisoners to labor camps. Feeling a call to help them he obtained permission from his bishop and the authorities to serve them. From then on he devoted his time fully to helping the prisoners. In 1944, after being falsely accused, he was confined by the Gestapo for six weeks in solitary confinement before being cleared by an investigation.
After the war he was assigned to a large parish in Paris where he developed an education program for the youth. He also headed the missions department of the Russian diocese in western Europe and co-edited the Diocesan Herald with Fr. Alexander Schmemann. He continued his life-long association with the Russian Student Christian Movement.
On April 27, 1952, he was consecrated Bishop of Messina within the West European Exarchate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. His consecration took place at the church of St. Sergius Institute in Paris with the Exarch Metr. Vladimir (Tihonitsky) and Bp. Cassian (Bezobrazov) officiating. Two years later, after initially assisting the Metropolitan in his administrative duties, he was transferred to Nice from where he oversaw the parishes in southern France and Italy.
In 1963, Bp. Sylvester accepted an appointment as Bishop of Montreal and Canada within the North American Metropolia. In 1966 he was elevated to the rank of archbishop. In addition to his duties within the Canadian diocese, Abp. Sylvester participated in a number of duties for the Metropolia, including administration of the New England diocese and overseeing a number of Australian parishes that the Metropolia took under wing.
As the negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate proceeded in the late 1960s, Abp. Sylvester became the moderator within the Metropolia of the controversies and conflicts that arose, clarifying misunderstandings and presenting the view that autocephaly was the correct canonical structure for church life in North America.
To assist the ailing Metropolitan Ireney (Bekish), Abp. Sylvester was appointed by the Holy Synod of the now Orthodox Church in America as temporary administrator of the OCA on May 15, 1974, to assist the Metropolitan in his duties until his retirement and election of a new metropolitan. The election of Metr Theodosius (Lazor) took place at the fifth All-American Council on October 25, 1977.
As he advanced in age, Abp. Sylvester decided to relinquish his hierarchical responsibilities to new, younger leadership. He retired on July 1, 1981, and for the years following served as pastor of Ss Peter and Paul Cathedral in Montreal. Abp. Sylvester died on May 18, 2000. His funeral was held at Ss Peter and Paul Cathedral according to the rites for monastics, with Bp. Seraphim of Ottawa and Canada celebrating. He was buried at St. Seraphim Cemetery in Rawdon, Quebec.
Sylvester (Haruns) of Montreal
? Bishop of Messina
Anatoly (Apostlov) Archbishop of Montréal
(OCA)
Theodosius (Lazor)
Orthodox America 1794-1976 Development of the Orthodox Church in America, C. J. Tarasar, Gen. Ed. 1975, The Orthodox Church in America, Syosett, New York
Biography of His Eminence, Archbishop Sylvester - (OCA)
Retrieved from "https://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Sylvester_(Haruns)_of_Montreal&oldid=123058"
Bishops of Messina
Bishops of Montreal
20th-century bishops
Categories > People > Clergy > Bishops > Bishops by century > 20th-century bishops
Categories > People > Clergy > Bishops > Bishops by city > Bishops of Messina
Categories > People > Clergy > Bishops > Bishops by city > Bishops of Montreal
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Published on Qantara.de - Dialogue with the Islamic World (https://en.qantara.de)
Home > Imams against sex-selective abortion
Azerbaijanʹs struggle to promote the value of girls
Imams against sex-selective abortion
Azerbaijan is struggling to change the mind-sets of families aborting female foetuses. Imams who have weighed in on the issue have become indispensable in up-ending this practice. Experts say the country urgently needs to implement an action plan or it will face dire consequences. Ayse Karabat reports from Baku
Azerbaijan ranks second in the world, after China, in the number of sex-selective pregnancy terminations. A conversation between Qantara and the inhabitants of a womenʹs shelter in Baku, the countryʹs capital, merely confirmed the reality.
"I had two daughters already. My husband had threatened to leave me if the third one was a girl. When I found out that it was a girl, I did not go to get an abortion initially, I tried to provoke a miscarriage instead. I was hospitalised," one woman said in the meeting room of the three-story shelter, which hosts 30 women.
Almost all the women there have similar stories. Theyʹve been forced or felt obliged to have abortions at least once in their lives because they were pregnant with girls. One woman took a different path. "I had three girls and one boy. When my fifth, a girl, was born, my husband forced me to give her up for adoption. I had to. Then I had another child – it was a boy. We kept him."
Mehriban Zeynalova, chairperson of the Clean World Aid to Women Public Union NGO and the manager of the shelter, told Qantara that sex-selective abortion is a huge problem in the country. "But women here are not aware that they actually are victims of this problem. They don't make official complaints for being forced into sex-selective abortions," Zeynalova said.
Troubling times ahead
According to demographic and health surveys of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Azerbaijan, approximately one in two pregnancies in the country is terminated through abortion. Azerbaijani laws permit abortion up to 12 weeks into pregnancy. Women can also request it up to 22 weeks – under specific financial or social circumstances.
Talking up the value of girls in a patriarchal society: sociologist Javid Shahmaliyev has been taking part in projects designed to tackle the issue since 2010. "We talk to them in the teahouses, we talk to them in the mosques. We raise awareness among religious leaders. Even though Azerbaijan is a Muslim country, Islamic ideas are not that known, so we tell people what Islam says about the value of girls. The co-operation of the religious leaders and imams has brought tremendous results"
The UNFPAʹs reports underline that in Azerbaijan the ratio of boys to girls was 116 to 110 at the beginning of the 2010s, although the biological norm in the world is 105 boys to 100 girls. In 2016 this number declined to 114 boys, but is still high.
"If such an increase in the number of men and boys continues, the country will soon face a negative impact including, for example, a wider gender gap in education, a reduction in the proportion of women in the labour market and masculinisation in all spheres of public life. Such masculinisation will impede the promotion of women and lead to increased levels of crime, including human trafficking," the UNFPAʹs report warned.
The same report indicated that son preference is strong and clear among both men and women from different generations, socio-economic backgrounds and regions in the country. Sons are preferred as "assets" since they can contribute to the family, while daughters on the other hand are regarded as "liabilities".Talking man-to-man
Sociologist Javid Shahmaliyev has been taking part in projects designed to tackle the issue and promote the value of girls since 2010. Over the last three years, however, heʹs been faced with a very challenging task: re-educating the male representatives of this patriarchal culture.
"There are several awareness programmes throughout Azerbaijan that are either social media or event-based. But there are some people, especially those in rural areas, who either donʹt have Facebook or are unlikely to attend such events. They can only be convinced if you speak to them face-to-face. Weʹve been going from one teahouse to the next, talking to them man-to-man," explained Shahmaliyev.
Overcoming initial resistance: Talking about the Prophet Muhammad who had no son but a daughter, named Fatima, is a good way to capture peopleʹs attention, says Quliyev."We tell them there is no difference between the pre-Islamic tradition of burying girls right after they are born and sex-selective abortion. We also tell them that the Koran specifically mentions daughters as being bearers of good news"
He added that at the beginning it was difficult to gain their attention and respect, but over time, as instructors, they have been able to develop ways of communicating with them.
"They would consider talking about abortion, but because it is a taboo, we talk to them instead about the value of girls. We talk to them in the teahouses, we talk to them in the mosques. We raise awareness among religious leaders. Even though Azerbaijan is a Muslim country, Islamic ideas are not that known, so we told people what Islam says about the value of girls. The co-operation of the religious leaders and imams has brought tremendous results."
Daughters as blessings
One such imam who tackles sex-selective abortions is Oktay Quliyev. He participates in awareness projects and uses his weekly TV programme on a national channel to convince people that the practice is wrong. At the beginning, he said, he faced resistance from society, but talking about the Prophet Muhammad who had no son but a daughter, named Fatima, was a good way to capture peopleʹs attention.
"We mention verses from the Koran that prohibit the pre-Islamic tradition of burying girls right after they are born. We tell them there is no difference between this tradition and sex-selective abortion. We also tell them that the Koran specifically mentions daughters as being bearers of good news."Quliyev suggested that banning abortion and prohibiting revealing the sex of the foetus to the parents during pregnancy, the way South Korea did during the 1990s when it was facing sex-selective abortions, could be one way of tackling the issue.
But most of the Azerbaijanis surveyed, including sociologist Shahmaliyev and activist Zeynalova, believe that bans would not be provide an answer to the problem, as the UNFPA report also indicates.
According to the report there was wide consensus amongst the government officials and others interviewed that bans are not the answer. First, they would be very difficult to enforce, as doctors can just give a different reason for conducting the abortion. Second, they run the risk of pushing women to have abortions under less safe circumstances. Besides, technological developments are making it ever easier to detect the sex of the foetus early in pregnancy.
Rather than bans, what Azerbaijan society needs is a large-scale action plan. Indeed a measure to this end is actually ready and awaiting governmental approval.
Implementing the action plan
Elnur Suleymanov, the head of a department at Azerbaijanʹs Labour and Social Protection of Population Ministry, said that the efforts of imams, groups and ministries are important, but insufficient when it comes to tacking the problem.
"We have prepared an action plan with the UNFPA. We are asking other state institutions for their opinions on this plan, which is based on raising awareness and running campaigns aimed at gender equality. This plan will present a comprehensive roadmap for effective intervention strategies to reduce sex-selective abortions; it will have its own budget, executive committee and measures. We need it to protect the future of our society."
Ayse Karabat
© Qantara.de 2019
The UNFPA in AzerbaijanAbortion in Afghanistan: Trying to break a major societal tabooFighting forced marriage in Kyrgyzstan: Bride abduction is not coolDesperate measures: Pakistani women seek abortions as birth control
Source URL: https://en.qantara.de/content/azerbaijans-struggle-to-promote-the-value-of-girls-imams-against-sex-selective-abortion
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SciBook
By Chapters:
Unvaccinated
Papilloma
Allergies and autoimmunity
DTP Vaccine
Since the 1950s, not a single vaccine against pertussis has been manufactured. Instead, it is always administered as part of a combined vaccine that also includes diphtheria and tetanus. This vaccine, DTP, is a whole-cell pertussis vaccine (plus diphtheria and tetanus). This means that it contains whole bacteria, which have been killed with formalin. While this vaccine has not been used in developed countries since 2001 because of its reactogenicity, it is still used throughout the rest of the world.
DTaP, on the other hand, is an acellular pertussis vaccine, meaning that instead of containing whole bacteria, it merely contains individual bacterial membranes and the pertussis toxin. This vaccine is intended for children, administered in five doses at 2, 4, 6, and 15 months and at 5 to 6 years. In recent years, some countries have also introduced a sixth dose of the vaccine.
Tdap is a DTaP-like vaccine with a reduced amount of diphtheria and pertussis antigen designed for adults. Today, however, DTaP is rarely used; most countries have switched to five- and six-valent vaccines, which also intend to immunize the subject against hepatitis B, poliomyelitis and Hib.
The whole-cell vaccine (DTP), which can cause a large number of neurological side effects, is the most dangerous vaccine that has ever existed.
The True Story of Pertussis Vaccination: A Sordid Legacy? 2002, Geier, J Hist Med Allied Sci.
A long but informative article on the history of the pertussis vaccine. If you still believe that the main goal of pharmaceutical companies is to create effective and safe drugs, this article might make you see things differently; we highly recommend reading it!
- The pertussis toxin is added to the whole-cell vaccine. This toxin increases the permeability of the blood-brain barrier, rendering this barrier more penetrable to other toxins and viruses. In fact, the pertussis toxin itself is a neurotoxin.
- Since the 1930s, it has been known that the whole-cell pertussis vaccine (DTP) is somewhat dangerous and can lead to neurological consequences.
- Since the 1950s, scientists analysed DTP vaccine toxicity in mice, evaluating toxicity based on mice survival and weight. In 1963, it became apparent that there was no correlation between the results in mice and the number of neurological consequences in children.
- In addition to the pertussis toxin (an exotoxin – a toxin that is secreted by a living bacterium), the vaccine component itself contains an endotoxin (a toxin released from a bacterium only after its decay). This endotoxin, whose presence was carefully concealed by the vaccine manufacturers, is in fact, very toxic.
- In an article from 1953, it was stated that practically every vaccinated child suffered systemic intoxication, with often permanent CNS lesions.
- The first acellular vaccine appeared in 1937. While it was widely used in the 1940s, it was later discontinued as the company did not want to invest in clinical trials. In the 1960s and 1970s, other acellular vaccines were widely used, but also got withdrawn from production due to their higher costs.
- After two babies died from vaccination in Japan, the Japanese developed the acellular vaccine that has been used since 1981.
- Sweden banned the whole-cell vaccine in the late 1970s. From 1970 to 1985, no child died of pertussis.
- In Tennessee in 1979, four children died after being vaccinated with the same lot of the pertussis vaccine. At this point, the CDC discovered that the vaccine was associated with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). While the director of the vaccine department of the FDA was on vacation, the FDA decided to withdraw the entire lot from circulation. However, when the director returned, he ordered that the whole lot be returned for distribution, apologizing to the pharmaceutical companies and promising them that it would not happen again. After this incident, manufacturers stopped sending entire lots to the same place, and instead, began distributing each lot throughout the country.
- This paper is also about how the pertussis vaccine led to the approval of a law for compensating victims of vaccinations. It also mentions how the Department of Health does everything possible to not compensate the injured, how almost all vaccine experts have a conflict of interest, and how the experts of committees investigating vaccine side effects are selected, and much more. The United States switched to the safer, acellular vaccine in 2001, 60 years after it was developed, and 20 years after Japan started using it. Nonetheless, not only is the whole-cell vaccine still licensed in the US, but pharmaceutical companies still sell the vaccine to the WHO, who then distribute it to other countries whose residents are improperly informed about the potential risks.
Delay in diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus vaccination is associated with a reduced risk of childhood asthma. 2008, McDonald, J Allergy Clin Immunol
In an analysis of 11,000 children who received a whole-cell vaccine in Canada, those who received the first dose of the vaccine two months later than usual developed asthma far less often (2-fold lower chance). Furthermore, those who received all three doses of the vaccine later in childhood had a 2.5-fold lower risk of developing asthma.
This phenomenon is due to the fact that the immune reaction shifts towards Th2. The exact cause of asthma is not yet known, but according to one of the prevailing theories, asthma is caused by increased hygiene. When children grow up in an extremely sterile environment, they do not come into contact with bacteria. This leads to the production of IgE antibodies. These IgE antibodies are responsible for asthma, allergies, dermatitis, and other problems that are much more common in vaccinated children. This is because vaccinations shift immunity towards Th2, which happens directly (due to vaccine antigens), and indirectly (due to protection against bacteria) affected.
Effects of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis or tetanus vaccination on allergies and allergy-related respiratory symptoms among children and adolescents in the United States. 2000, Hurwitz, J Manipulative Physiol Ther
The vaccinated had asthma twice as often as the unvaccinated. The authors believe that 50% of asthma cases (2.9 million) in US children and adolescents would be prevented if the DTP or tetanus vaccination was not administered. More: [1]
Early childhood infection and atopic disorder. 1998, Farooqi, Thorax
In vaccinated with whole-cell vaccine, the risk of allergy was 76% higher. In those who took antibiotics in the first two years of life, the risk of allergy was 2 times higher.
Taking one course of antibiotics increased the risk of developing an allergy by 85%, two courses of antibiotics increased the risk 3-fold, and three courses of antibiotics increased the risk 8-fold.
Those who had measles and had not received the vaccine, had a 45% lower risk of developing an allergy (note: in this case there was no statistical significance).
Pertussis vaccination and asthma: is there a link? 1994, Odent, JAMA
Those individuals who had been vaccinated with a whole-cell vaccine, had a 5.4-fold greater chance of developing asthma compared to unvaccinated individuals.
Possible temporal association between diphtheria-tetanus toxoid-pertussis vaccination and sudden infant death syndrome. 1983, Baraff, Pediatr Infect Dis
The DTP vaccine has been associated with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in Los Angeles, and visits to the doctor have also been associated with SIDS.
Severity of whooping cough in England before and after the decline in pertussis immunization. 1984, Pollock, Arch Dis Child
After the vaccination coverage in England fell sharply due to fear of the DTP vaccine, the number of pertussis cases and pertussis-related deaths fell 4-fold.
Films and Lectures:
DPT Vaccine Roulette A 1982 film about the DTP vaccine was shown on NBC. The main point of this film was to explain that the US switched to the acellular vaccine, and that the legislation related to vaccination was completely changed. It's impossible to imagine that this is shown on TV.
Dr. Suzanne Humphries
Attributable risk of DTP (diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and pertussis vaccine) injection in provoking paralytic poliomyelitis during a large outbreak in Oman. 1992, Sutter, J Infect Dis
Nothing changed since the 1950s, however. There was a poliomyelitis outbreak in Oman in 1988-1989, despite the 87% vaccination coverage. No association between the number of vaccine doses and paralysis was found. However, a lot more children who received a DTP vaccine within past 30 days got sick. 25% of children got sick because of the DTP vaccine. In 1993, 89% of 152 children suffering from paralytic poliomyelitis received an unnecessary injection 48 hours prior to the onset of paralysis. Almost always the paralysis developed at the injection site. Other studies in Pakistan showed a similar pattern. The same was observed in India.
Content above is licenced under Creative Common Attribution—NonCommercial—NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence,
i.e. it is free for non-commercial distribution and citation with this reference being provided: scibook.org, amantonio, using the content to create another product or meaning is prohibited.
scibook.org, 2017-2019
Acute flaccid myelitis
Acute otitis media
C. difficile infection
Eczemae
Empyema
Febrile seizures
Gas gangrene
Guillain–Barré syndrome
Hemorrhagic Vasculitis
Influenza A (H1N1) Variant Virus
Lymphoblastic leukemia
Macrophagic myofasciitis
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus
Moraxella catarrhalis
Neonatal tetanus
Neurologic diseases
Orchitis
Orthostatic intolerance
Parotitis
Simian vacuolating virus 40 (SV40)
Skin сancer
Thrombocytopenic purpura
Vaccine-Associated Paralytic Poliomyelitis (VAPP)
Antipyretics
DTaP/Hib Vaccine
Human Chorionic Gonadotropin
Infanrix Hexa
MMRV Vaccine
MUC1 Protein
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs
Oseltamivir
PCV13 Vaccine
PCV7 Vaccine
Tdap Vaccine
Zanamivir
Hyperimmunization
Molecular mimicry
Original antigenic sin
Strain replacement
VAERS
↑ scrollable with mouse over ↑
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Istanbul - matter of honor or to succeed until 2023
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 10
By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:
The cancellation of election results and the holding of new elections in Istanbul is a matter of time as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the main ally of the Justice and Development Party, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party Devlet Bahceli do not rule out the cancellation of the election results in Istanbul.
While commenting on this issue, candidate for the post of head of Istanbul from the Republican People’s Party Ekrem Imamoglu said that he is ready to hold new municipal elections in Istanbul, but he does not think it would come to that.
The matter rests in the fact that the ruling party did not oppose the results of the municipal elections in Ankara, where candidate of the Republican People’s Party Mansur Yavas gained 50.93 percent of votes.
Ankara as the capital of Turkey is important, but one must not forget that cultural and economic and of course, the ideological capital of the country is Istanbul - the capital of three empires.
After candidate of Republican People’s Party Ekrem Imamoglu announced his victory in Istanbul, a campaign was launched in social networks that the ruling party lost not only Istanbul but also Palestine, Mecca and the entire Islamic world.
If the defeat of the ruling party at the municipal elections in Istanbul is the decline of political Islam for the opposition forces, then this is a matter of honor and not only this for the ruling party.
As it is known, the ruling party has the Vision 2023 plan which is rarely announced in the media.
The 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Republic will be marked in 2023. Moreover, the Lausanne treaty will expire in 2023. President Erdogan has repeatedly voiced his intention to consider this treaty.
Earlier, President Erdogan said that Turkey’s opponents tried to present the Lausanne treaty as a victory.
“They submitted the Treaty of Sevres to us in 1920, they forced us to conclude the Lausanne treaty in 1923,” President Erdogan said.
“Some people tried to mislead us, presenting Lausanne as a victory,” the president said, adding that according to the Lausanne treaty, islands in the Aegean Sea were given to Greece. “Is this a victory? The islands were ours, our mosques are there and we are still discussing the future of the continental shelf in the Aegean Sea, the maritime and air boundaries, we are still fighting for that.”
Although there is not a single document in the Turkish archives testifying that the Lausanne treaty will expire in 2023, Turkey on behalf of President Erdogan does not hide the fact of the consideration of the details of this treaty.
But taking all this into account, a number of Turkish historians say that the Lausanne treaty will expire in 2023 and Ankara will consider all the details of the treaty, including the status of islands in the Aegean Sea.
Turkey must first solve economic problems and become stronger militarily to demand to change the details of the Lausanne treaty.
All economic, energy and military projects which are being implemented by the ruling party are aimed at becoming more powerful until 2023.
Istanbul is the center of mega projects initiated by the ruling party. Before the municipal elections, the opposition spoke against the implementation of almost all important projects, including the shipping channel and the new airport in this city.
Rufiz Hafizoglu, deputy editor-in-chief of Trend
Follow him on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Rufiz Hafizoglu
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National Iranian South Oilfields Company to buy spare parts for equipment via tender
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West Africa Region and Selected Countries
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Crop Value Chains: Yams in Nigeria
This report provides a general overview of the markets for yams in Nigeria. The first section describes trends in yam production and consumption and international trade since 1990. The second section summarizes the varieties grown in Nigeria and their uses, followed by a discussion of the importance of yams as a source of nutrition and household income. The final section provides details about the production and marketing systems for yams in Nigeria, including environmental and gender considerations. Nigeria is the world’s largest yam producer in terms of quantity. Yam production and consumption have increased over the past twenty years, though more recently, production has been somewhat in decline and yields have been stagnant. The Nigerian government has played a more active role in improving agricultural production and export of root and tuber crops including yams in recent years, but so far with limited success. Yam producers and traders report diverse constraints to their full participation in the market, including high cost of inputs, planting materials and labor, lack of credit, limited access to proper, secure storage facilities, and high transportation costs.
Crop Value Chains: Yams in Ghana
This report provides a general overview of the market for yams in Ghana. We begin by describing historical trends in yam production and consumption since 1996, recent international trade, and prices. The second section summarizes the varieties grown in Ghana and their uses. The next several sections review available information about the production and marketing systems, followed by a discussion of the importance of yams as a source of nutrition and household income. The limited information available on sweet potato production in Ghana is presented in the appendix. We find that yam production in Ghana has increased steadily over the last 15 years, and that while yam yields have increased from 12.8 MT/Ha in 1996 to 15.6 MT/Ha in 2011, an estimated yield gap of 33.4 MT/Ha persists. Yam export levels have varied over the past 15 years, but show a generally positive trend. Most yam farmers are male smallholders with low levels of education, while most retailers, wholesalers and cross-border traders are women.
Crop Value Chains: Cassava Global Analysis
Cassava is a tuber crop originating in South America and grown in tropical and subtropical areas throughout the world. Cassava use varies significantly by region. In Africa, cassava is primarily grown for food. In Asia, production is typically for industrial purposes, including ethanol, while in Latin America and the Caribbean it is commonly used in animal feed. Both roots and leaves are consumed, though most information on production focuses on roots. There are bitter and sweet varieties; bitter cassava has a high cyanide content and must be processed prior to consumption, while sweet varieties can be eaten directly. This report presents information about current production, constraints, and future potential of cassava. We discuss cassava’s importance in Africa, current worldwide production, projections for supply and demand, production constraints, and current policies affecting cassava production and trade. We include global information but focus on Africa, particularly Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania.
Agricultural Risks Management in Africa
This brief presents selected material from the Fourth African Agricultural Markets Program (AAMP) policy symposium, Agricultural Risks Management in Africa: Taking Stock of What Has and Hasn’t Worked, organized by the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa that took place in Lilongwe, Malawi, September 6-10, 2010. We draw almost exclusively from Rashid and Jayne’s summary, “Risk Management in African Agriculture: A review of experiences.” This article summarizes across the background papers, with major findings grouped into three broad categories: cross cutting, government-led policies, and modern instruments.
EPAR Technical Report #82
Poultry Markets in West Africa: Overview & Comparative Analysis
EPAR’s Poultry Markets in West Africa series provides an overview of poultry market trends across West Africa and compares the opportunities for poultry sector development in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone. The briefs in this series provide detailed country-specific poultry market analyses. The primary resources for these analyses included many reports prepared in response to the avian influenza epidemic, which may explain some of the emphasis on the importance of biosecurity in the available literature. We find that the West African poultry sector faces high production costs, safety concerns due to lack of sanitary controls, and technical constraints in processing and marketing. In addition to biological issues, the lack of breeders, marketing, and processing technology present technical constraints to poultry sector growth.
Poultry Markets in West Africa: Benin
This report provides an overview of poultry market trends in Benin as compared to the wider West African region. In Benin, live chickens, hens, poultry meat, and eggs for consumption are subject to the 20 percent Common External Tariff (CET), which facilitates an influx of cheap poultry imports from the European Union (EU). Live turkeys and other poultry, reproducers, and hatching eggs are subject to a 5 percent tariff. In the late 1990s, Benin experienced an influx of cheap poultry products primarily from the EU. By 2002, annual poultry imports reached approximately 24,000 tons, more than the poultry imports of any other country in West Africa. In 2004 and 2005, Benin banned imports of poultry and poultry by-products from countries affected by avian influenza. Current information about the poultry industry in Benin is limited. The primary sources for this analysis are a FAO poultry sector review from 2006, a poultry sector project report from the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), and a 2006 assessment by the Benin Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fishing. We find that the poultry sector plays an important economic, social and cultural role in Benin. Poultry and egg production is a major contributor to the agricultural sector and is an important source of nutrition and income for Beninese households. The poultry sector in Benin has the potential to improve the nutritional wellbeing and income security of a large percentage of the population. Traditional smallholders produce the majority of poultry products domestically; however, current production is limited due to low productivity, poor biosecurity, and lack of inputs. We find that a reduction of foreign imports and greater institutional support for the industry may help domestic producers reach their potential.
Poultry Markets in West Africa: Sierra Leone
This report provides an overview of poultry market trends in Sierra Leone as compared to the wider West African region. Sierra Leone did not adopt the Common External Tariff (CET) until 2005, however 2004 tariff rates were already on par with official CET rates. The tariff for live chickens, hens, poultry meat and eggs for consumption remains at 20 percent, which facilitates an influx of cheap poultry imports from Europe. Live turkeys and eggs for hatching are subject to a 5 percent tariff. There is little public information available regarding poultry production in Sierra Leone. The primary sources for this analysis are Government of Sierra Leone documents responding to the avian influenza epidemic in the West African region. This report provides a brief overview of consumption and consumer preferences, domestic production, trade, the political environment, and opportunities for future poultry development in Sierra Leone. Because of the small amount of information regarding poultry production in Sierra Leone, we find that further information is necessary to understand the scope of opportunity for poultry market development.
Poultry Markets in West Africa: Côte d’Ivoire
This report provides an overview of poultry market trends in Côte d’Ivoire as compared to the wider West African region. Côte d’Ivoire experienced an influx of cheap poultry products between 2000 and 2005, contributing to a significant increase in poultry consumption during those years. In 2005, Côte d’Ivoire banned imports from countries affected by avian influenza and increased taxes on all other imported poultry. The primary sources for this analysis are the FAO-Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) poultry sector review from 2008 and the information provided by the Interprofession Avicole Ivoirienne (IPRAVI) on their website. IPRAVI is the umbrella organization overseeing Côte d’Ivoire’s poultry sector. We find that smallholders produce the majority of poultry in Côte d’Ivoire. Common production practices lead to low productivity, poor bio-security, and limited distribution opportunities. Since the influx of cheap poultry imports between 2000 and 2005 and the import ban of 2005, overall consumption of poultry has declined along with imports, suggesting significant market potential for domestic poultry products. We provide specific areas for interventions to improve poultry productivity, based upon evidence from the African Development Bank and the FAO. Furthermore, we examine analyses from the FAO that suggest there is sufficient infrastructural capacity to expand the poultry sector and increase smallholder productivity.
Poultry Markets in West Africa: Niger
This report provides an overview of poultry market trends in Niger as compared to the wider West African region. As of 2009, Niger maintains the 20 percent Common External Tariff (CET) for live chickens and hens, poultry meat, and eggs for consumption. Live turkeys and other poultry, reproducers, and hatching eggs are subject to a 5 percent tariff. The primary source for this analysis is the presentation document by the Groupement des Aviculteurs Privés de la Communauté Urbaine de Niamey et ses Environs (GAP/CUN/E) at the FAO Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Disease Operations’ (ECTAD) Second Poultry Farming Technical Workshop, held in Dakar in June 2009. We find that the poultry sector in Niger currently exhibits poor productivity, widespread disease concerns, and poor organization. The avian influenza epidemic devastated poultry stocks in Niger and the sector has yet to fully recover. Since smallholders comprise the majority of poultry producers in Niger, developing the sector presents an opportunity to improve health and food security.
Poultry Markets in West Africa: Nigeria
This report provides an overview of poultry market trends in Nigeria as compared to the wider West African region. As a member of the Economic Community of West African States, Nigeria complies with most Common External Tariff (CET) measures, which facilitates an influx of cheap poultry imports from Europe. The country adopted a ban on poultry imports in 2002 to reduce competition from foreign producers. However, illegal imports continue to enter via land borders. The primary sources for this analysis are the 2006 FAO-Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) poultry sector review and the Pro-Poor Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Risk Reduction group’s 2008 review of Nigeria. We find that poultry keeping is ubiquitous in Nigeria’s rural areas and is increasingly common among peri-urban and urban households as a way to supplement income and increase access to protein. The commercial sector is comprised of operations at a range of sizes, including large-scale, vertically integrated facilities. We find that demand for poultry is rising and is expected to continue increasing as Nigeria’s economy grows. At all levels in the sector, the country’s poultry farmers have opportunities to expand production in response to rising demand.
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What's a scanning backlight?
by Jonathan Strickland
A scanning backlight can help reduce blur on televisions -- a great feature when you watch a lot of sports. See more HDTV pictures.
© iStockphoto.com/Pgiam
Diving into shopping for an HDTV can be an unnerving experience. Not only do you need to become familiar with a new vocabulary of jargon, but you also have to choose between competing HDTV technologies. Should you get a projection television? Do you want a flat panel TV set? Is the plasma television the right fit for you or should you buy an LCD TV?
As you work your way through all the details, you'll learn about the various strengths and weaknesses of each technology. In general, plasma televisions consume more power and take longer to warm up than LCD sets. But plasma televisions tend to be more adept at displaying fast-moving objects clearly and have a better contrast ratio than LCD displays. What gives plasma televisions the advantage?
Part of the reason is that LCD televisions have a backlight. That is, they have a light that shines from the back of the set toward the screen. An LCD television works by sending electric impulses to millions of tiny liquid crystals. The crystals change shape in response to the electrical current and allow light to pass through. The action we see on an LCD display is really the coordination of all of these tiny liquid crystals.
But this technology has a downside, too. For most LCD sets, the backlight is on whenever the television is on, even if the screen is dark. In other words, in a completely dark room, you'd still be able to see the outline of a normal LCD television screen even when it's supposed to be completely black. That means for many LCD televisions, the difference between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks isn't as great as it would be for a plasma television -- plasma TVs don't use a backlight.
Backlights also can contribute to motion blur on LCD screens. The constant backlight interferes with the display of fast-moving objects. In some cases, you may even see trails following behind particularly rapid objects on the screen.
Manufacturers of LCD televisions try to reduce blur using several different methods. One of those is the scanning backlight.
Top 10 TVs
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Precaution Statement
Terms of Use of FabCafe EC Website
These terms of use (hereinafter referred to as the “Terms of Use”) shall be commonly applicable to all persons who use the EC Website atfabcafe.com (https://fabcafe.com) (hereinafter referred to as the “Website”), owned and/or managed by FabCafe Limited Liability Partnership (hereinafter referred to as “FabCafe”). Any persons who use the Service of the Website shall be deemed to have agreed with any and all conditions stipulated in the Terms of Use. If Members and Others (as defined in Article 1, paragraph 3 below) purchase any FabCafe item through the Amazon.co.jp website, which is managed collectively by Amazon.com Int’l Sales, Inc. and Amazon Services International, Inc. (hereinafter collectively referred to as “Amazon Inc, etc.”), the Members and Others shall also be subject to any relevant procedures, guidelines and regulations etc. which regulate the services provided by the said website.
“Service” means services, in which FabCafe sells art works, craft works, design data (including those for illustrations and photographs), various service tickets and other similar products on the Website or the Amazon.co.jp website to the Members and Others (as defined in Paragraph 3 hereof), and other related services provided by FabCafe.
“Members” means those individuals and corporate customers who have accepted the Terms of Use and registered as members in accordance with the procedures prescribed by FabCafe for the use of various services available on the Website.
“Members and Others” means Members, applicants for membership registration and visitors to the Website.
“Usage Fees” collectively means commissions for the sale of the products and other items through the use of the Service, and any and all expenses arising in connection with the use of the Service.
Conditions of Use of the Service
Any persons who wish to use the Service are required to agree to the Terms of Use. A person who does not agree to the Terms of Use shall not be permitted to use the Service.
In cases where the use of the Service is prohibited under any laws of the country in which the Members and Others live or any laws of other countries including those from which such Members and Others access the services, such Members and Others shall not be permitted to use the Service.
FabCafe shall comply with laws and regulations, etc. and bear the responsibility of clearly specifying detailed information concerning the products (including the format of files to be downloaded and operating environment) and the conditions of transactions for the Members and Others.
Any information to be input by the Members upon registration (hereinafter referred to as “Members’ Information”) must be accurate information concerning the Members themselves. Each Member shall update their own Members’ Information by himself or herself if there are any changes to the information of that Member.
The Members shall be responsible for managing their IDs and passwords, which FabCafe will grant to them upon registration. Any responsibility with respect to any losses arising due to poor management of IDs and passwords, errors in usage, usage by third parties or any other similar events shall be borne by the Members and FabCafe shall bear no such responsibility at all.
Purchase of Products
The Members and Others may use the Service and purchase products which are produced by FabCafe and products which FabCafe sells after obtaining licenses to sell the products from their creators.
When the Members and Others wish to purchase the products, the Members and Others shall submit an offer to purchase the products in accordance with manners prescribed on the Website.
FabCafe, when it receives offers to purchase products from Members and Others, shall send the Members and Others an e‐mail accepting such offers to purchase, and at the time that such e‐mail is recorded in the mail server of the Members and Others in a readable condition, an individual purchase agreement (hereinafter referred to as the “Individual Agreement”) for the submitted offers to purchase shall be concluded between the Members and Others and FabCafe.
Upon the conclusion of the Individual Agreement, FabCafe shall deliver the products to the Members and Others within the time periods stated by FabCafe, and the Members and Others shall pay the price of the products (inclusive of consumption tax), shipping costs, handling costs and any other relevant costs (hereinafter referred to as the “Price and Other Costs”).
Except as expressly provided for in the Terms of Use or provided for in the applicable laws, orders placed after the conclusion of the Individual Agreement cannot be changed or cancelled. Upon the conclusion of the Individual Agreement, the Members and Others shall be deemed to have agreed to any and all terms of the Individual Agreement.
Notwithstanding the provision set forth in Paragraph 3 hereof, in cases where the Members and Others have performed fraudulent or improper acts in relation to the use of the Service, FabCafe may rescind or terminate the Individual Agreement or otherwise take appropriate measures. In the event any manifest errors are found in the sale conditions presented by FabCafe on the Website, the Individual Agreement may be terminated by FabCafe.
The products to be shipped through the Service shall be limited to addresses within Japan.
When purchasing the products, the Members and Others shall fully confirm the information concerning the products as presented by FabCafe, the contents of the offers to purchase the products made by the Members and Others, cautions from FabCafe to the Members and Others when they are submitting offers to purchase products, and the contents of the Terms of Use.
FabCafe shall reserve the right to refuse orders from any Members and Others who have been engaged in dispute(s) concerning the order of products in the past, any Members and Others who have been in breach of the Terms of Use in the past, any Members and Others where FabCafe considers that they are presently engaged in fraudulent activities due based on reasonable grounds or any other Members and Others where FabCafe considers that it should not make a transaction with them for legitimate reasons.
Notwithstanding the provisions set forth Paragraphs (3) to (9) of this Article, the Members and Others shall be subject to such procedures, guidelines and regulations etc. as are stipulated by Amazon Inc, etc. if they purchase any FabCafe item through the Amazon.co.jp website, which is managed collectively by Amazon Inc, etc.
Usage Fees of the Service and Manner of Settlement
In the course of usage of Service system there are some instances where payment of the Usage Fees is required. The exact amount of such Usage Fees and any similar fees shall be stipulated in the user’s guide etc.
The payments concerning the purchase of data and tickets set forth in the preceding Paragraph shall be settled through the online payment system provided by PayPal Pte, Ltd. with which Loftwork Inc. has executed the relevant agreement (hereinafter referred to as “PayPal”). Any matters regarding the settlement including conditions of settlement and refunds shall be governed by PayPal’s terms. FabCafe shall bear no responsibility at all with regard to any disputes arising in relation thereto.
No receipt or the like shall be issued in relation to the amounts paid for the use of the Service.
The Usage Fees of the Service are subject to future changes whenever FabCafe considers it necessary. Any changes to the Usage Fees shall become effective at the time such change is posted on the Website. Provided, however, that in the event of a rise in the Usage Fees, at least thirty (30) days prior to the changes becoming effective, an announcement regarding the changes to the Usage Fees will be posted on the Website. Such changes shall become effective after thirty (30) days have elapsed from the announcement of the change to the Usage Fees on the Website, and users shall be deemed to have accepted such change.
The provisions set forth in Paragraphs (1) to (4) of this Article shall not apply to cases where the Members and Others purchase any FabCafe item through the Amazon.co.jp website, which is managed by Amazon Inc, etc. In such cases, issues concerning the terms and conditions of settlement and refunds shall be subject to the regulations of Amazon Inc, etc.
Return or Replacement of Products
The Members and Others may, only within thirty (30) days after the arrival of the products, have such product returned, replaced or repaired by FabCafe, however, this is limited to unused and unopened products. Provided, however, that FabCafe shall not be liable to compensate for any and all damages incurred by the Members and Others for any hidden defects in the products.
Notwithstanding the preceding Paragraph, no returns on downloaded data including design data shall be accepted.
The Members and Others shall acknowledge in advance that in cases where the Members and Others fail to meet Paragraph (1) hereof, FabCafe shall not be required to accept any returns or replacements of the products. The term “unused and unopened products” as set forth in Paragraph (1) hereof, requires the product to meet any and all of the following conditions:
the products are tagged;
accessories, attached articles, bills and other similar items of the products must be returned in the same condition as when they were delivered; and
any other conditions separately designated by FabCafe.
In the case of a return or replacement of a product pursuant to Paragraphs (1) and (3) hereof, the Members and Others shall comply with the manner separately designated by FabCafe.
In the case of a refusal of receipt of a product after its delivery, or the product was returned to FabCafe due to non-delivery or absence of the Members and Others for a prolonged period of time (in accordance with the storage limitation stipulated by a delivery company) due to reasons attributable to the Members and Others, FabCafe shall deem such product to be a return of products on the Members and Others’ own accounts after FabCafe has notified thereof by e-mail or telephone within seven (7) days of such product being returned to FabCafe from the delivery company. Such fees and shipping costs arising from reshipment of the products, refusal of receipt of delivery and/or absence of the Members and Others for a prolonged period of time shall be all born by the Members and Others.
Any products and prices posted on fabcafe.com are subject to stock availability, and in the case of a product being out of stock, FabCafe shall inform the Members and Others thereof at the time the order is placed. Provided, however, that in cases where FabCafe concurrently receives several orders for the same product from Members and Others, exceptional errors or amendments to orders may occur.
In the case FabCafe is unable to ship the products ordered, FabCafe shall notify the Members and Others by e-mail or telephone as soon as possible. In such a case, the Members and Others may be asked to change their orders to another product posted on fabcafe.com or cancel such order.
Any amount of money withdrawn from the bank account of the Members and Others even though their order has been cancelled shall be refunded to the Members and Others appropriately.
FabCafe shall not bear responsibility for out of stock products or the possibility of having such products in stock again.
FabCafe shall retain the right to change the products posted on fabcafe.com at any time, without any prior notice.
Prohibited Acts
The Members and Others are prohibited from performing any of the acts listed in each of the following items (hereinafter referred to as “Prohibited Acts”):
any acts in violation of this Terms of Use;
any acts in violation of the applicable laws or ordinances (laws, cabinet orders, ordinances of the Ministry of Japan, prefectural or municipal ordinances, regulations and orders or any other similar rules) or any acts which would have the effect of soliciting or encouraging any acts in violation of such laws or ordinances;
any acts which burden the server;
any acts which disturb the management of the Service or the Service’s network system;
any acts which may cause problems with regard to access to or operation of the server by other Members and Others; and
any other acts which are offensive to the public order or common sense.
In cases where Members and Others perform any of the Prohibited Acts described in the items of the preceding paragraph, the relevant Members and Others shall jointly bear any and all responsibility arising from the performance of the relevant Prohibited Acts, including any liability incurred by FabCafe or any third party to pay damages that has arisen due to the performance of the relevant Prohibited Acts, regardless of whether such performance was intentional or negligent.
FabCafe shall bear no responsibility at all with respect to losses that arise on the part of the Members and Others or any third party due to the addition or amendment to or trouble with the content of the Service or any other unexpected reasons.
In cases where it is revealed that the Members and Others performed any acts in violation of the Terms of Use or laws or ordinances or any other fraudulent acts, FabCafe is entitled to suspend the relevant Members and Others from using the Website. FabCafe shall bear no responsibility at all with respect to any losses arising therefrom.
In order to refuse the use of the Website by such persons who have been in violation of the Terms of Use, for example, those persons who have caused losses to other Members and Others or any third party, or those persons who intend to use the service for fraudulent and/or inappropriate purposes, FabCafe may disclose to its partners the status of utilization of the Website by such persons or information pertaining to the names, addresses or any other similar information of such persons.
Any troubles among Members and Others shall be resolved among the parties concerned and FabCafe shall bear no responsibility therefor.
FabCafe shall bear no responsibility at all with respect to any and all losses arising from linked URLs of advertisements contained in e-mails sent by FabCafe to Members and Others.
FabCafe shall bear no responsibility at all with respect to any and all losses arising from or in relation to the contents of the Service, the status of provision of the Services, the access to the Services, usage environment of the Website or any other matters in relation to the Services on FabCafe’s website.
FabCafe shall reserve the right to delete the accounts of Members who have not used the Service for one (1) year or more.
Intellectual Property Rights concerning the Service
Any patent rights, trademark rights, utility model rights, design rights, know-how, programs, copyrights and any other intellectual property rights and any and all rights relating thereto with respect to contents provided by FabCafe for the Service, such as images, designs, text, characters or any other similar items (hereinafter simply referred to as “Contents”) shall belong to FabCafe or such person who provided FabCafe with the relevant Contents. Contents may only be used within the license granted by the right holder of the Contents.
Amendment of the Service and the Terms of Use
FabCafe may, without giving any prior notice to the Members and Others, make any amendment to, modification of, deletion of or addition to the Service and the Terms of Use at its discretion on a voluntary basis. Except for the provisions set forth in Article 4, Paragraph 4 of the Terms of Use, any amendment to, modification of, deletion of or addition to the Terms of Use shall become effective as of the time when it is posted at the Website and the Members and Others shall be deemed to have agreed with such amendment, modification, deletion or addition if no application for withdrawal is made by the Members and Others within ten (10) days after the date when such amendment of, modification to, deletion of or addition to the Terms of Use becomes effective or in cases where the Members and Others use the Service after such amendment to, modification of, deletion of or addition to the Terms of Use becomes effective.
FabCafe shall bear no responsibility at all with respect to any and all losses arising on the part of the Members and Others or any third party due to the amendment of, modification to, deletion of or addition to the Terms of Use, regardless of whether such damage is direct or indirect, or whether such damage is predictable or not.
Termination and/or Temporary Suspension of the Service
FabCafe may, without giving any prior notice to the Members and Others, terminate, cancel or temporarily suspend all or part of the Service at its discretion on a voluntary basis.
FabCafe shall bear no responsibility at all with respect to any and all losses suffered by any third party due to the termination, cancellation or temporary suspension of all or a part of the Service, regardless of whether such damage is direct or indirect, or whether such damage is predictable or not.
Upon terminating use of the Service, Members are required to give withdrawal notices to FabCafe pursuant to the procedure stipulated by FabCafe.
When FabCafe has received a notice as provided in the preceding paragraph from a Member and has completed the procedures required for withdrawal, the registration of the relevant Member as a member shall be extinguished and the account of the relevant Member shall be deleted by FabCafe.
Manner of Giving Notices
In cases where FabCafe considers that it is required to give notices to or make contact with the Members, FabCafe will do so by e-mail, telephone, post or otherwise to such e-mail addresses, telephone numbers or addresses described in the Members’ Information registered by the Members.
In cases where any events occur which require the Members to give notices to, make contact with or make inquiries to FabCafe, the Members shall do so to the liaison described on the Website provided by FabCafe.
In cases where any inquiries have been made by Members pursuant to the preceding paragraph, FabCafe may confirm the identity of the relevant Members pursuant to the manner prescribed internally by FabCafe at the relevant point. FabCafe may reply to such inquiries in the manner which FabCafe considers appropriate in each case (including but not limited to by e-mail, telephone, post and other manners).
The treatment by FabCafe of the personal information of the Members and Others shall be governed by the privacy policy stipulated on the website of fabcafe.com (https://fabcafe.com/privacy) which is owned and/or managed by FabCafe.
Governing Law and/or Jurisdiction
The Service and the Terms of Use shall be governed by Japanese law. Any disputes arising between FabCafe and the Members and Others with respect to the Service or the Terms of Use shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Tokyo District Court in the first instance.
The Members and Others shall agree with the contents of this precaution statement (hereinafter referred to as the “Precaution Statement”) in advance when they wish to purchase and use the design data (including those for illustrations and photographs) (hereinafter referred to as the “Design Data”) on the EC Website at fabcafe.com (https://fabcafe.com/) (hereinafter referred to as the “Website”), owned and/or managed by FabCafe Limited Liability Partnership (hereinafter referred to as “FabCafe”). If you have any inquiries, please consult with the contact service in advance described on the Website provided by FabCafe.
The definitions of any capitalized terms used in the Precaution Statement shall be the same as those defined in the “Terms of Use of FabCafe EC Website” (https://fabcafe.com/help/terms).
Extent of Licenses
FabCafe shall grant limited non-exclusive licenses to use the Design Data to the Members and Others.
FabCafe shall grant licenses to the Members and Others for them to use the Design Data to the extent described in the Precaution Statement and shall not transfer the Design Data or any rights concerning such Design Data to the Members and Others. FabCafe and / or the creators who granted licenses to FabCafe to use the Design Data shall reserve any rights concerning the Design Data and reserve any and all such rights implicitly granted to the Members and Others.
The Members and Others shall have the right to use the Design Data pursuant to the terms and conditions of licenses called ‘creative commons LEGAL CODE’ as described in the following URL, Japanese Version (hereinafter referred to as the “CCPL”). In case there are any differences between the provisions of the CCPL and the Precaution Statement, the provisions of the CCPL shall prevail.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
Prohibited / Limited Matters
The Members and Others shall agree that the Design Data will not be used for any other purpose than use of laser cutting to personal computers manufactured and sold by Apple Inc. (commonly called Mac products).
Unless so licensed by FabCafe in advance and in writing (including emails; hereinafter the same), the Members and Others may not duplicate, adapt, alter or modify all or a part of the Design Data or create derivative works and shall agree that they shall not conduct such acts and shall not enable any other parties to conduct such acts.
The Members and Others shall agree that they may not rent, lease, sell, distribute (including but not limited to online distribution using the internet), or create securities or sub-licenses over the Design Data, whether with or without charge and whether for commercial or non-commercial purpose.
Notwithstanding the provisions of the Precaution Statement, in case the Members and Others wish to use the Design Data as described in any of the following items, they shall separately apply for the same to FabCafe and shall obtain licenses in advance and in writing from FabCafe.
In case they wish to commercialize the Design Data;
In case they wish to have exclusive licenses over the Design Data;
In case they wish to duplicate, alter or modify the Design Data or create derivative works;
In any other cases separately designated by FabCafe.
The Design Data may not be used (i) so that the reputation, credit or image of the owners of the copyrights over the Design Data would be prejudiced, (ii) so that such use may leave a negative impression, (iii) for any other illegal purpose or (iv) for the purpose of advertising and/or promotion incidental thereto.
The Design Data may not be used for any purposes offensive to public order and morals.
FabCafe may cancel the Individual Agreement without any prior notice if the Members and Others breach any provision of the Precaution Statement.
The Members and Others shall cease to use any and all Design Data in the case that their Individual Agreement is cancelled by FabCafe. In such a case, the Members and Others shall destroy the Design Data pursuant to instructions given by FabCafe.
Whatever the reason is, FabCafe shall bear no responsibilities at all concerning any damage which the Members and Others or any third parties suffer due to ceasing to use the Design Data or concerning any disputes between the Members and Others and any third parties.
Compensation for Damage
If the Members and Others use the Design Data in violation of the Precaution Statement, the relevant Members and Others shall make a payment to FabCafe of an amount equivalent to three ([3]) times the normal license fee of the Design Data as a penalty.
Notwithstanding the preceding paragraph, if the Members and Others breach any provision of the Precaution Statement, the Members and Others shall jointly and severally bear any and all responsibility including liability for damages incurred by FabCafe and any third party who suffered damages due to the relevant breach whether intentionally or negligently.
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Home Culture Religions
Easter Facts
01 Easter Is Celebrated by 80% of the U.S. Population
02 Easter Is on a Different Date Each Year
03 Easter Is the Celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection for Christians
04 Easter Traditions Resemble an Ancient Pagan Celebration
05 The White House Hosts an Easter Egg Roll Every Year
06 Ham Is the Traditional American Easter Dinner
07 The Easter Bunny Began as a Legend
08 Easter Baskets Are Not Random
09 Eggs Were Thrown During Medieval Times
10 Easter Eggs Are Not a Modern Tradition
11 Easter Is Just One Day out of a Period of Important Religious Days
12 Easter Candy Is Made Year Round
13 Easter Facts – Facts about Easter Summary
Origin: Pagan beginnings
Activities: Attending church, visiting family, Easter Egg hunts
Traditions: Decorating Easter Eggs, opening Easter baskets
Movies: “It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown”, “Hop”, “The Passion of the Christ”
Meaning: Celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection
Frequency: Annual
Symbols: Eggs, rabbits, chicks
Date: First Sunday after the full moon following March Equinox
History: Biblical documentation
Popularity: Easter Is Celebrated by 80% of the U.S. Population
Date: Easter Is on a Different Date Each Year
Meaning: Easter Is the Celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection for Christians
History: Easter Traditions Resemble an Ancient Pagan Celebration
Tradition: The White House Hosts an Easter Egg Roll Every Year
Food: Ham Is the Traditional American Easter Dinner
Origin: The Easter Bunny Began as a Legend
Symbolism: Easter Baskets Are Not Random
Eggs Were Thrown During Medieval Times
Easter Eggs Are Not a Modern Tradition
Easter Is Just One Day out of a Period of Important Religious Days
Easter Candy Is Made Year Round
Easter Is Celebrated by 80% of the U.S. Population
Easter facts show that it is one of the most widely celebrated holidays. It also has a large financial impact, with the average person spending $140 on candy, clothing, gifts and other items. Most of this goes into Easter baskets, which are made by 87% of people celebrating the holiday.
Easter Is on a Different Date Each Year
Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on or after the vernal equinox, or the first day of astronomical spring. If the full moon falls on a Sunday, Easter is delayed for one week. The date of Easter affects several other Christian holidays, including Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Ascension Day and Pentecost.
Easter Is the Celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection for Christians
Easter is celebrated by Christians throughout the world in remembrance of the day that Jesus rose from the dead, three days after being crucified on the cross. The day symbolizes for Christians that they have a new beginning through Christ, and that their sins have been forgiven. It also marks the end of Lent, a month-long event of fasting and repentance.
Easter Traditions Resemble an Ancient Pagan Celebration
Easter facts show that the holiday closely resembles a pagan celebration from ancient times. Nimrod, the grandson of Noah, had become a tyrannical ruler. When he died, a religion formed that practiced demon worship and performed human sacrifices. When his widowed wife gave birth to a son, she convinced the public that the son was Nimrod reborn and that he was the promised savior. As the story was passed down over the years, she became known as the Anglo-Saxon goddess Ishtar and, by some, Easter. A fable was also told that explained how Ishtar was hatched from an egg that fell from heaven.
The White House Hosts an Easter Egg Roll Every Year
President Rutherford B. Hayes hosted the first egg roll on the South Lawn of the White House in 1878. It has become an annual tradition for families and children, and only changed location during World War I and World War II. During the wars, the event was held at the National Zoo and a few other locations.
Ham Is the Traditional American Easter Dinner
During a holiday that focuses on eggs and rabbits, one might wonder why ham is the usual dinner selection. In the days before the invention of the refrigerator, hogs were slaughtered during the fall months. The meat was then cured for at least six months, and was usually ready just in time for the Easter holiday meal.
The Easter Bunny Began as a Legend
Rabbits are viewed as a symbol of new life by many cultures. The Easter Bunny began as a legend from Germany that spoke of a woman who would leave decorated eggs hidden throughout the village for children to find during times of famine. Once they found the eggs, they would look up to see a large bunny hopping away from the scene.
Easter Baskets Are Not Random
Children Checking their Easter Basket
On Easter morning, children tend to race to see whether the Easter Bunny left them an Easter basket. For most celebrations involving gifts, the gifts are wrapped in boxes and with wrapping paper. The Easter basket is left open because the basket is supposed to symbolize a bird’s nest, where eggs are kept safe.
During Medieval church services, the priest would toss a hard-boiled egg to one of the church choirboys sometime before noon. The choirboy would toss it to someone else, and so on. The egg would be tossed as many times as possible, and whoever had the egg when the clock struck 12 in the afternoon was the winner. They would also get to keep the egg.
Throughout history, and in many cultures, eggs have been a popular gift. The tradition can be found in ancient Egyptian, Persian, Greek and Roman cultures. The egg symbolizes life, which is very fitting for Easter. Eggs are also tied to Easter because of the legend of Ishtar, who hatched from an egg in the Euphrates River. During Lent, the consumption of animal products, including eggs, was not allowed. This led to a surplus of eggs by the time Easter came, and is another reason why eggs were embraced for the holiday.
Easter can be considered a season in the Christian Church. It begins with Shrove Tuesday, also called Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, which is a final feast and celebration before Lent. Lent lasts for 40 days, which symbolizes the same amount of time that Jesus spent alone in the desert. Participants fast during this period, and repent for their sins.
The week before Easter is called Holy Week and consists of Maundy Thursday, which recognizes Jesus’ last supper with his disciples and Good Friday, the day on which Jesus was crucified. Holy Saturday is a celebration of the transition between death and life. Easter Sunday follows, and then the 50 days after are called Eastertide and celebrates Jesus’ ascension into heaven.
The demand for Easter candy is so great that it must be made throughout the year to meet the public’s needs. Easter is the second biggest holiday when it comes to candy, after Halloween. Chocolate eggs were first made in Germany in the early 1800s and are still hugely popular today. Chocolate bunnies are also popular. Some 90 million edible bunnies are made each year. Candy that isn’t chocolate is also popular for the holiday. Around 700 million Peeps are made each year, along with 16 billion jelly beans.
Easter Facts – Facts about Easter Summary
Easter facts show the history of the Christian holiday and also focus on the modern commercialized practices. Easter and similar events have been part of history for centuries, and today’s holiday is a melting pot of legends and traditions. As one of the most popular celebrated holidays, there is plenty to learn about Easter.
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The Sisters Brothers (2018)
October 11, 2018 9:28 AM - Subscribe
Based on the acclaimed 2011 novel by Patrick deWitt, the colourfully named gold prospector Hermann Kermit Warm is being pursued across 1,000 miles of 1850s Oregon desert to San Francisco by the notorious assassins Eli and Charlie Sisters. Except Eli is having a personal crisis and beginning to doubt the longevity of his chosen career.
posted by GuyZero (3 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
Like all adaptations of books I liked I'm not sure I liked the movies as much, but I am biased and have a hard time appreciating the film on its own merits as a different work than the novel. But that's my personal bias.
I thought it was a great film and the theme of death and violence runs throughout. In the end (trying to avoid a spoiler) the violence of the Sisters Brothers proves itself irrelevant as in the end death comes for us all regardless.
The performances were very good but I think I was more taken by the west coast scenery of mountains and high plains.
posted by GuyZero at 9:32 AM on October 11, 2018 [6 favorites]
I was lured into seeing this after hearing an interview with John C. Reilly, who apparently optioned the novel to get this produced. In that interview, he said that what appealed to him was that it felt like "it's a Western without the toxic masculinity". I don't think that's a completely accurate description, but I can see why he said it. (I dug the spoiler twist at the end, and how it allowed for the following final sequence; that was kind of quiet and lovely.)
Fair warning to those who haven't seen it yet that there are some body-horror elements.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:41 PM on October 16, 2018 [3 favorites]
I should have waiting longer after finishing the book before watching the movie. Because of course now I feel like the movie doesn't hold a candle to the book!
Everything about the movie is good -- the acting, the cinematography -- but the book is just a lot funnier? And more immediate somehow. I almost think the movie would have captured the book's tone better if it had been set in the modern day or something. There's something about the tone in the book that's wry and self-aware in a way that's just not there in the movie -- but I think that that's because it's such a hard note to hit with a period piece. It's a miracle that Patrick deWitt hit it in the first place.
The characterizations and plot weren't as interesting on screen, either, but I think that's mostly just because they didn't have the benefit of first-person narration and had to compress a lot. It's practically a shaggy dog story in the end, so it must have been a really difficult adaptation to write!
Anyway, Riz Ahmed was fantastic as Warm. The character is such a grizzled old bum in the book, it was funny to see this clean-cut and bright-eyed young guy playing him here, but I think it actually worked pretty well. Thematically, I think the ages/relationships in the book work better, with Warm/Morris mirroring Charlie/Eli (and Charlie/Eli's relationships with the Commodore mirroring their relationships with their father) in a somewhat different way than in the movie. But honestly, this was John C. Reilly's passion project and he's great to play Eli aside from his age, so what are you going to do? Some of the relationships were going to have to be different just because Reilly is clearly 50ish and they didn't go the route of just having an old cast.
It did crack me up when Morris told Warm that he was 35 y/o and then when Charlie and Eli were looking for him, Charlie asked if the bartender had seen a guy matching Morris's description and "about 40." I loved that little touch about how vain Morris is, lying about his age (apparently).
One place where I wish they'd stayed more faithful to the book was in the epilogue when they go to their mom's house. I really liked that in the book, because it was clear that they each had very different relationships with her, and how/why Eli's loyalties were divided between his mother and Charlie, and it was all sketched out really well. But again, I guess it was bound to be different here, because Eli was the older brother this time around.
posted by rue72 at 9:40 PM on May 1, 2019
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A quarter of cancer patients experience avoidable delay to diagnosis
One in four cancer patients experienced a delay to their diagnosis that could have been avoided, according to a new study by Cancer Research UK published today.
The study, published in Cancer Epidemiology, looked at data the national cancer registry of around 14,300 people diagnosed with cancer in England in one year.
It found that nearly 3,400 patients experienced a delay that could have been avoided.
Half of these patients waited around two months longer to be diagnosed compared with those who didn't have an avoidable delay.
The reasons for delays are complex but researchers on this study attempted to identify what could go wrong.
The study authors asked GPs to identify when the delay happened - before the patient saw their GP, while they were still being assessed by the GP practice or after they had referred them.
The data showed 13% of all avoidable delays happened before the patient saw their GP and 38% after the GP referred them to hospital.
The other half (49%) happened while the patient was being assessed by the GP surgery including waiting for tests to be done and results to be sent back.
But long waiting times for tests were responsible for a quarter of all avoidable delays across GP surgeries and hospitals.
According to Cancer Research UK, this is an indication of staffing shortages among diagnostic staff in hospitals.
Other examples of avoidable delays include patients with vague symptoms that a GP might not immediately attribute to cancer.
For instance, patients with myeloma were more likely to experience delays while being assessed by their GP than patients with breast cancer.
This could be because symptoms for myeloma can be an indication of many other conditions.
Patients with pre-existing conditions were also more likely to experience an avoidable delay.
This may be because it can be difficult to distinguish between symptoms that could be attributed to another health condition and those that could be an indicator of cancer.
Ruth Swann, lead author and Cancer Research UK's senior cancer information analyst, said: "Understanding when patients are experiencing delays leading up to their cancer diagnosis is really important to ensure people aren't waiting unnecessarily for a potential diagnosis. Our research shows there's a good opportunity to significantly reduce delays by cutting the time it takes for patients to have tests done. We need more research to develop and evaluate new diagnostic tests for patients with vague symptoms and a better way to manage them."
Over the last few years, GPs have been referring more patients with suspected cancer symptoms earlier, but hospitals do not always have the staff to meet the growing number of patients.
One in 10 diagnostic posts are vacant in the UK and thousands more will be needed in the future.
More than 363,000 people are diagnosed with cancer each year in the UK.
This will increase to over 500,000 by 2035 - one person every minute.
But as yet, it is not clear whether sufficient resources will be made available to increase NHS staffing in line with growing demand.
Sara Hiom, Cancer Research UK's director of early diagnosis, said: "Trying to find cancer in people with a range of symptoms and other conditions is very complicated. And while NHS doctors and nurses are doing everything they can to see patients quickly, the NHS is experiencing a staffing crisis. There simply aren't enough people in the NHS to read scans or report tests swiftly.
"Waiting for a possible cancer diagnosis is an extremely anxious time, so no one should have to wait longer than is absolutely necessary. The Government will never achieve the diagnosis and survival ambitions they have set unless they urgently address NHS workforce issues. Without more of the right staff, including GPs, it will be impossible to diagnose and treat patients more swiftly and effectively," added Hiom.
Dr Richard Roope, Cancer Research UK's GP expert, said: "GPs are working hard across the UK to make sure that patients are diagnosed quickly by referring more people earlier for tests. But we see patients with a huge variety of symptoms, often non-specific ones, and it can be difficult to decide when to check for cancer. Being a GP can be like working in the dark, with limited access to diagnostics, and sometimes we look back and think we could have done things differently.
"As healthcare professionals, we all play a role in ensuring people are diagnosed quickly and research that shows us where we can do better is very valuable. Remember that your GP wants to see you if you have any concerning symptoms, so if you have persistent symptoms or you notice anything that's different for you, such as weight loss, bleeding, pain or a new lump, book an appointment to see your GP as soon as you can," Dr Roope added.
These findings date back to 2014 cases, and since then referral pathways have changed, allowing for earlier investigation and referral of patients who have symptoms which could be caused by cancer.
Source: Cancer Research UK
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The 50 Most Anticipated American Films of 2018
by Dan Schoenbrun
in Filmmaking
40. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller)
What It’s About: “Based on Lee Israel’s memoir of the same name, the film follows best-selling celebrity biographer (and friend to cats) Lee Israel, who made her living in the 1970’s and 80’s profiling the likes of Katherine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, Estee Lauder and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen.” (Source)
Why It’s Included: Marielle Heller will follow-up her unflinching Sundance breakout The Diary of a Teenage Girl with a big leap up in budget and scope. The great Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant star in this ’70s-era biopic, which has the potential to be a ton of fun, and which I predict we’ll be hearing a lot about in the Oscar race this time next year.
39. Skate Kitchen (Crystal Moselle)
What It’s About: “Camille’s life as a lonely suburban teenager changes dramatically when she befriends a group of girl skateboarders. As she journeys deeper into this raw New York City subculture, she begins to understand the true meaning of friendship as well as her inner self.” (Source)
Why It’s Included: Moselle’s The Wolfpack was one of the most distinctive documentaries of 2016 — not just because of its stranger-than-fiction subject matter, but because of Moselle’s sharp eye and storytelling abilities as well. So it’s not too surprising that she’s transitioned into narrative filmmaking with this Sundance NEXT that boasts a cast of young, mostly first time actors (plus — Jaden Smith).
38. Jinn (Nijla Mu’min)
What It’s About: “A shape-shifting, pepperoni- loving, black teenage instagram celebrity converts to Islam.” (Source)
Why It’s Included: That’s quite a logline — one that initially caught my eye when Nijla Mu’min ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for this film back in April of 2016. Since then, Mu’min has shot Jinn, and was subsequently selected for Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film list. I’ve heard through the grapevine that early footage from Jinn is quite strong, which has me more excited than ever to see the finished film.
37. Jules of Light and Dark (Daniel Laabs)
What It’s About: “Chronicle of Maya’s turbulent relationship with her first love Jules in the aftermath of a major car accident.” (Source)
Why It’s Included: This list is full of Texas filmmakers who excel at beautiful regional filmmaking, and Laabs is no exception. His short work has been uniformly strong, and I can’t wait to see this, his IFP Labs feature debut, which he shot on a microbudget in his hometown of Dallas, Texas.
36. Where’d You Go, Bernadette (Richard Linklater)
What It’s About: “After her anxiety-ridden mother disappears, 15-year-old Bee does everything she can to track her down, discovering her troubled past in the process.” (Source)
Why It’s Included: Linklater’s 2010s hot streak finally ran out with last year’s flat Last Flag Flying. Let’s hope he can rebound back to his Bernie, Before Midnight, Boyhood and Everybody Wants Some! glory days with this drama. It certainly sounds like the sort of simple, character-driven film he’s capable of knocking out of the park.
35. Little Woods (Nia DaCosta)
What It’s About: “A modern Western that tells the story of two sisters, Ollie and Deb, who are driven to work outside the law to better their lives.” (Source)
Why It’s Included: DaCosta shot her Sundance Labs script last year, with a great ensemble cast including Tessa Thompson, Lily James, James Badge Dale and Lance Reddick. The logline sounds intriguing and refreshing, and I’d predict this is all but a lock for a premiere at a major spring festival.
34. The Miseducation of Cameron Post (Desiree Akhavan)
What It’s About: 1993: after being caught having sex with the prom queen, a girl is forced into a gay conversion therapy center. Based on Emily Danforth’s acclaimed and controversial coming-of-age novel. (Source)
Why It’s Included: A holdover from last year’s list, this one’s Sundance premiere is finally right around the corner. Last year I wrote, “Akhavan’s 2014 autobiographical debut, Appropriate Behavior, managed to be both hilarious and emotionally devastating at the same time.” I’m excited to see Akhavan try her hand at darker and more overtly dramatic material.
33. Don’t Leave Home (Michael Tully)
What It’s About: “An American artist’s obsession with a disturbing urban legend leads her to an investigation of the story’s origins at the crumbling estate of a reclusive painter in Ireland.” (Source)
Why It’s Included: Austin-based filmmaker Michael Tully’s last film was 2014’s Ping Pong Summer, a sun-soaked throwback to the ’80s comedies of Savage Steve Holland. His new one, an Irish-set slow-burn thriller starring the great Anna Margaret Hollyman, sounds like a welcome return to the darker cerebral territory of his microbudget thriller Septien.
32. Crime + Punishment (Stephen Maing)
What It’s About: “Over four years of unprecedented access, the story of a brave group of black and Latino whistleblower cops and one unrelenting private investigator who, amidst a landmark lawsuit, risk everything to expose illegal quota practices and their impact on young minorities.” (Source)
Why It’s Included: Stephen Maing follows up High Tech, Low Life, his eye-opening exploration of Chinese citizen journalism, with another documentary about whistleblowing. The project boasts an impressive resume of funders and supporters – including IDA, Sundance, IFP, and Tribeca. It should be an unusually candid inside look at the police and criminal justice systems.
31. Never Goin’ Back (Augustine Frizzell)
What It’s About: “Jessie and Angela, high school dropout BFFs, are taking a week off to chill at the beach. Too bad their house got robbed, rent‘s due, they‘re about to get fired and they‘re broke. Now they’ve gotta avoid eviction, stay out of jail and get to the beach, no matter what!!!” (Source)
Why It’s Included: I adore Frizzell’s 2015 short Minor Setback, which this feature is adapted from. That short, a buddy comedy about two best friends playing hooky from their dead-end jobs to go to the beach played like a punk rock, drug-fueled, feminist Ferris Bueller. The feature adaptation is premiering in Sundance’s Midnight section, which leads me to believe that Frizzell has doubled down on the anarchic chaos that made the short so refreshing.
Continued: Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5
The 2019 Village Voice Film Poll, Reconstructed by Mike D'Angelo in Filmmaking
Making a Microbudget Film about the Death of David Bowie and a Wormhole to the Future: Writer/Director Liz Manashil on Speed of Life by Liz Manashil in Filmmaking, Screenwriting
Trading Blue Chips for Uncut Gems: The NBA Cinematic Universe by Erik Luers in Filmmaking
Cinekink Announces its 2013 Line-Up By Scott Macaulay on Feb 12, 2013
Dictators, Predators and Magical Thinkers (and Some Combination Thereof): Doubling Up at DOC NYC By Lauren Wissot on Nov 6, 2019
The First Short Film Shot on the RED Dragon? By Nick Dawson on Sep 19, 2013
House of Cards, the Netflix Algorithms and Me By Scott Macaulay on Feb 3, 2013
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Palestine Solidarity, BDS and Antisemitism
December 22, 2017 — richardgoldengage
This is a guest post by Ulrich Stephane Savary a Labour Party Campaigner in South Manchester, writer at Labour Vision and a member of Momentum and the Jewish Labour Movement.
When the second Intifada started in September 2000, I was in my first year at University. Having joined my local student union, I was really pleased to have been selected as delegate for my student union in the local Pro-Palestine Committee. It was a great opportunity for me to show that I could help in organising a mass protest, with various left-wing organisations, trade unions, Christian, Jewish and Muslim organisations. It also meant that I had to be ready to broker a deal with groups that don’t always agree with each other. It is fair to say that I was aware that he French left, like the left in Britain often spend more time fighting each other than they do in working together.
So the first time I went to my Pro-Palestine Committee meeting, I knew what to expect. When I entered the room, full of trade unionists and left-wing activists all talking seriously about the influence of US imperialism in the Middle East, the role of successive French Government in the development of Zionism amongst the French Jewish Community before WW2, the allegedly corrupted leadership of Fatah and the courageous young Palestinians that were fighting the Israeli war machine with rocks, I felt like I was part of a group of people who knows, against those who don’t. But I soon realised that all them, leaders of various small Trotskyists, Anarchists, and Alt-left organisations were arguing with each other about the role played by the working class in the imminent fall of Capitalism. They were all leaders of small talking shops, tiny so-called working-class parties, with only themselves and their group of followers to believe in them. But they had the passion of those who believe that the revolution will come sooner rather than later. And when you are 19, you want to believe them, even if I couldn’t see the differences between them.
After ten minutes of this noisy and overexcited “brouhaha”, a group in their 50’s emerged from the back of the room to address the rest of the group. They were all members of the powerful CGT / CFDT, the main trade unions in France, and they were all members of either the French Communist Party as well as the Parti Socialiste.
The Trotskyists hated the CGT / CFDT group. The Anarchists, who hated the Trotskyists, hated them even more. The Alt-left left the room in disgust even before the any discussion had really started. After all, they were viewed as bureaucrats, paid by the Union to work for their respective political parties. And the fact that both parties were in a coalition Government together didn’t help make them more popular amongst the “Bolsheviks”.
And yet, as soon as the CGT / CFDT group started to talk, the entire room listened to them. And they made a very simple and valid point. The meeting wasn’t about Israel itself, but was about our solidarity with the Palestinian people. Back then, it was important to get it right. One after another, they reminded the audience, that the far-right will try to use the events unfolding in Palestine as an excuse to attack the Jewish Community, any calls to boycott Israel will be used by them, in their war against the Jews in France or elsewhere. Therefore, this committee wasn’t ready to support such things. What they wanted instead was a principled socialist position on a conflict.
Today, some may find this outrageous, other would even consider this as the ultimate evidence of a so-called Zionist lobby that controls everything, both the left and the right at the same time. But in 2000 in France, in this room packed with so many different political organisations who loved to argue with each other’s, to me this seemed to be the correct political position. Solidarity with the Palestinian people didn’t mean that all Israelis were to blame for the second intifada, so why punish those who were innocent. And this principled political position, 17 years later, is still mine.
When it comes to any political or social movement, socialists usually always start their political analysis from facts, then try to link these facts with what is called “class consciousness”, social classes that have different political and economic goals. This helps Socialists to analyse any social movement in relation to the economy and to the level of political consciousness of the actors of these movements. Karl Marx for instance, saw the political economy as the engine of mind. Therefore, consciousness reflects the political economy. A person’s thoughts tend to be shaped by his or her political and economic circumstances. That’s how all progressive social movements broadly speaking start.
Any Socialist I hope, would agree with me on that, and understand that our capitalist societies are divided between classes having different political and economic interests. However, when it comes to Israel, strong and proud socialists, tend to forget everything they know regarding social movements, the economy, Imperialism, and seem to believe that all Israelis, no matter their social conditions, no matter if they are right-wing or not, rich or poor, pro or against their own government are somehow collectively responsible for the action of their own governments. If we applied this rather strange view on Britain, it would mean that the entire British population would be collectively responsible for the action of their past and present Governments. No more class struggle, just a monolithic nation that act, think and fight together and must all be blamed.
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and its hidden agenda.
That’s why when socialists give their support to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, they renounce any kind of socialist analysis of both Israel as a nation and of Zionism as a political and national movement.
What is the main purpose of this movement? They will claim, it is to support the Palestinian People in their struggle against both Zionism and Israel. Let’s take this argument seriously and examine the results of what this campaign has achieved since it started in July 2005.
Did we get an Independent Palestinian state because of the BDS movement? The answer is obviously no. Are the Palestinians any closer to have their own Independent State from Israel? The answer is no. Twelve long years of campaigning have given no satisfactory results. If the real goal of the BDS mobement ss to help the Palestinian in their struggle against Israel, then that strategy has failed to deliver. Therefore, we should question the true goal of the BDS Movement. If after 12 long years of failing to deliver their primary goal, the BDS movement continues with its strategy of “bullying” anyone who wishes to do business, study or just live in Israel, it may mean they have a hidden agenda, something that I think should raise some concerns for all socialists. I would imagine that any socialist would understand that holding all Israelis responsiblr for the actions of their government, can only mean that the BDS movement true goal isn’t really to support the Palestinian people.
We should openly question the true motivation of an organisation, if after 12 years, it hasn’t achieved its goal. Yet, when it comes to the BDS movement, a parts of the British left seem unable to question the true motivation of this movement. And this is a serious concern.
But that’s not all. So many left-wing activists, in the broad sense of the term, will compare the political situation in Israel, with what happened in South Africa during the Apartheid regime, when the black population were considered as inferior by the white population. It was a racist regime, where the black majority living in squalid conditions, couldn’t vote or even sit on the same bus as the white minority.
Is Israel the “South Africa” of the middle East then? If this was the case, no Arab Israelis would have the right to vote. And yet, there are Arab Israelis members of the Knesset such as Masud Ghnam, Dr Jamal Zahalka or Ahmad Tibi. If Israel was really an apartheid state, there would be no Arab Israelis elected. Therefore, if Socialists argue that Israel is an apartheid state to explain why they continue to support the BDS Movement, then they are committing a gross political mistake, as they clearly don’t understand the true nature of Israel, as a modern liberal democracy.
What about those Israeli citizens who refuse to support the action of their Government in the West Bank? What about the thousands of Palestinian and Israeli women who have joined together to march through the desert for peace[5]? Don’t they deserve our support?
To be frank, I personally find the term apartheid inaccurate and inflammatory when applied to the struggle of the Palestinians. It doesn’t help us to understand the true nature of the relationship between the 3.6 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank under military rule and the Israelis settlers who live under Israelis civilian law. The Palestinians living in the West Bank are facing what we can characterise as a modern form of colonialism. And yes, Socialists should oppose it. But the left should also recognise that the Israeli society is as divided as any other society and doesn’t constitute a monolithic bloc around the Israeli government. For us socialists, there is no such thing as national solidarity, but only national class struggle and international solidarity.
If this obsession with condemning Israel, does nothing to advance peace or help the Palestinians, it does however help to enforce the belief that Israelis are all guilty. We should be suspicious of any left-wing organisations obsessed with Israel, to the point that they don’t seem to vigorously campaign on any anything else. And this obsession raises other questions. Why some sections of the British left continue to use a false definition of the nature of Israel. Does it fit another political agenda, something that they don’t want to confess? Let’s say it, aren’t they a bit anti-sematic? Of course, they will vehemently refute the term, and will accuse anyone who raises this as a “Zionist” like it was an insult.
The truth is that many on the left aren’t conscious that their own actions can reinforce anti-Semitism in Britain or elsewhere in the world, however some do embrace it plainly.
The Great International Zionist Conspiracy that will destroy Britain, the Labour Party and the world.
How many times have we seen labour party members, trade unionists or far-left activists claiming that the media is being controlled by Zionist or Israel. This is a recurrent theme of the British left. The BBC and with it, the mainstream media, are all seen to have a hidden agenda against the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn and the world in general. And often, they are all Zionists. What about our Parliament or the “right wing of the Labour Party”? Have a guess. They are all under the Zionist or Israelis lobby influence too. Zionists are seen everywhere, and I am sure that some may even believe that I am part of this conspiracy too.
Even if I have utter contempt for any so-called socialists that use such disgusting anti-Semitic propaganda, to explain pretty much everything that is happening in the world, let’s for a moment take their point seriously.
Believing that Israel, as a nation, can corrupt, control, international organisations and then dominate the entire European or American establishment, is basically believing that Israel is the most powerful nation on earth. If taken this seriously, we should all be asking how this tiny nation, who needs the US support to maintain its regional power, can have such power?
This defies logic. In the hierarchy of Imperialist nations, Israel is no more than a small player. It is a regional power, like Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are too. They don’t have the capacity to topple successive presidents in Africa, like France has done so many time since the 1960’s, they don’t have military bases in each continent, like USA have and they wouldn’t have been able to start a war with Argentina, and to win it, like United Kingdom did during the Falklands War in 1982. So how can any socialist explain that “Zionists”, no sorry Israel have such an influence.
The only logical explanation would be that all Zionists have some sort of magical powers. They must be super humans too as how could anyone explain the Zionists can control the world from Tel-Aviv, New York, Paris, London and Frankfurt since 18th Century or even before, whilst no one can see them gathering together at some point. The “illiterate socialists” who believe in a gigantic Zionist worldwide conspiracy, must also believe that Zionists have some sort of supernatural powers. There are no other explanations possible.
When it isn’t Israel itself, it is “the master of the puppets”, Rothschild himself that is behind everything. Of course, Israel and Rothschild must be working together. They are all Jews, no sorry Zionists.
This anti-Semitic Left-Wing Conspiracy has no valid political ground, and yet it is what some “illiterate Socialists” want to believe.
What is their best line of defence? Anti-Zionism isn’t anti-Semitism. When it comes to Israel, for them, it means that Zionism isn’t truly Jewish, therefore it isn’t anti-Semitic to believe that Zionist control the world.
Sometimes they even see Israel as some sort of a capitulation to anti-Semitism. If Jews are leaving Europe to live in Israel, it’s because they refuse to fight for their own right to stay and live in Europe. Even if today many Jews see Israel as a safe place, a last resort against Anti-Semitism, this section of the anti-Zionist left will see them not as victims, but as defeatists, or worse. Let’s not mention to them the Holocaust, to explain why so many Jews consider themselves as Zionists. Some of them will even claim that Zionist and Nazis were working together against Jews, to create a situation where all Jews had to leave Europe.
Even if their Anti-Zionism wasn’t linked to their Anti-Semitism, it is a fact that the Anti-Zionist Left don’t want to offer any credible alternative to Zionism, as they don’t perceive it as a political, national movement worth of interest. As Steve Cohen explained, in his fantastic book “That’s Funny You Don’t Look Anti‐Semitic” the left has historically offered nothing more than so-called “assimilation” to fight against anti-Semitism. Don’t be Jew and then you won’t be victims of anti-Semitism. Even today many on the left have nothing more to offer to the Jewish Community.
“It’s funny you don’t look anti-Semite”
The “Anti-Zionist Left” often uses other tricks to claim that those who oppose them are all wrong. Jewish and Socialist authors have been opposed to Zionism in the past. To be perfectly clear, and especially in the context of Europe before Hitler and the Holocaust, many socialist Jews were against Zionism. Today, some Jews are even deeply involved in the Anti-Zionist BDS Movement and the Anti-Zionist Left. Therefore, the conclusion that the “anti-Zionist” naturally draw is that Anti-Zionism isn’t anti-Semitism.
The Anti-Zionist Left see the world as if it was divided between “good Jews” opposed to the “bad Jews”. The “good Jews” must be against Israel as a state, and must spend their entire political lives opposing Israel. There is no escape because the Anti-Zionist left love using them as evidence that they aren’t anti-Semitic. All accusations of anti-Semitism are simply an attack organised by Israel, the Zionists or the “bad Jews”.
In his essay On the Jewish Question, one of the clearest example of acceptance of anti-Semitism to the point that the individual himself – here Marx- includes anti-Semitism as part of his thinking is this:
ʺWhat is the secular cult of the Jew? Hagglingʺ.
ʺWhat is his secular god? Moneyʺ.
ʺExchange is the true god of the Jewʺ.
ʺThe chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchantʺ.
ʺThe emancipation of the Jew is, in the last analysis, the emancipation of mankind from Judaismʺ.
As Steve Cohen explained, this is not to make the reactionary claim that Marxism as a philosophy is anti-Semitic, but to show that victims of anti-Semitism can assimilate themselves to an anti-Semitic environment to the point that the victims themselves become anti-Semitic.
Therefore, when the “anti-Zionist left” uses Jewish writers as a line of defence against accusation of anti-Semitism, it only proves that they either don’t understand the true nature of anti-Semitism or that they are themselves anti-Semitic.
They aren’t good or bad Jews, but as soon as the “anti-Zionist left” makes this distinction between “anti-Zionist Jews” and “Zionist Jews”, the latter being the bad ones, they just show the true nature of their opposition to Israel. It has little to do with the Palestinian people, but has everything to do with their own anti-Semitism.
Of course, I know that many good and decent people members of this section of the British Left truly believe that they aren’t anti-Semitic, however as Democratic Socialists, it our duty to re-evaluate our own political beliefs, especially when it considers an entire nation responsible for the mistakes of their own government, to the collective culpability of all Jews who are not anti-zionist
It is of the utmost importance that the left starts educating itself on antisemitism, as not understanding the true nature of anti-Semitism can lead to grave political mistakes which in return pave the way for discrimination and racism. If we, Socialists are serious about our support for Palestine, Palestinians and their fight for an independent state, as well as our commitment towards peace in the Middle East, we must step up our game, and work with all of those who truly want peace between Israel and Palestine.
[1] Mainly antifascist skinhead movement.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masud_Ghnaim
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_Zahalka
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Tibi
[5] http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/09/middleeast/israeli-palestinian-women-peace-march-desert/index.html
Posted in analogy - apartheid/Israel, anti-racism, anti-Zionism, antisemitism, boycott divestment & sanctions, Israel, Palestinians, The Left, Uncategorized. Leave a Comment »
The Context of Boycotts
December 23, 2013 — weekonly
‘Liberal Delusion’ wrote this comment ‘below the line’ in an earlier thread. We thought it worth reproducing.
The BDS movement places the boycott in the context of SA (and so have to inflate Israeli human rights contraventions as ‘apartheid’). However, the vast majority of Jews place the idea of a boycott against Jews in a very different history; a history in which Jews have been singled out for allegedly unique crimes and unique wrongs despite the fact that they were no worse than many, if not all others and/or were total fabrications, and, as a consequence of these claims suffered ‘boycott’ – see e.g. the 1904 Limerick boycott where Jews were accused of price manipulation.
The problem is that when Jews raise these concerns, especially through the question – why Israel? – no sensible answer is given – the ASA’s comment, that ‘we have to start somewhere’ begs the question. (Despite the above response, the BDS movement is not supported by the PA or Hamas, and was, far from emanating from Palestine, devised by two members of the SWP here in London – and even if it did emanate from Palestinian civil society, that does not involve an immediate and unmediated response – what is right in Palestine, may not appear so right in a different context, and for very good reasons).
Rather than recognising this history and this sensitivity in its critical dealings with Israel, many BDSers simply claim that Jews are abusing this history of antisemitism (and anti-Jewish boycotts), of using ‘real’ antisemitism (and the Shoah) as a magic talisman to ward off ‘criticism’ (which is conflated by the BDS movement with exclusion) and of acting in bad faith.
In so doing, the BDS movement show that along with their support for Palestinians is an attempt to antagonise and confront non-Israeli Jews who, for those who disagree with their boycotting (what Claire Potter confused with scrutiny) are transformed into ‘supporters of Israel’ and for whom no quarter must be given.
If those in the US and Europe were serious about antisemitism and its history as well as being serious about Palestinian solidarity, they would actually realise what boycotts mean to Jews (and progressive forces in general). They would need to think of a new strategy, one that is not hostile to Jews, but which at the same time allows them (and many Jews) to move forward to achieving a just and equitable peace in the Middle East; a move forward that does not rely, replicate and bring into the present the antisemtism of the (not so distant) past.
Posted in academic boycott, academics, analogy - apartheid/Israel, anti-racist antisemitism, anti-Zionism, antisemitism, boycott divestment & sanctions, boycott opposition, peace activism, Uncategorized. 6 Comments »
Chip Berlet interviews David Hirsh on Contemporary Antisemitism and Conspiracy Theory
September 6, 2012 — David Hirsh
Chip Berlet’s interview with David Hirsh is on PublicEye.org.
This conversation happened on Monday, June 29th, 2009 but was not published until September 2012.
The Public Eye: Interview with David Hirsh
Chip Berlet is a US-based investigative journalist and expert on the far right and conspiracy theories.
David Hirsh is a Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmith’s College, University of London. He is the author of Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Cosmopolitan Reflections, The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism, (YIISA) Working Paper Series #1, New Haven CT, 2007; and “Law Against Genocide” in Freeman, M, (ed) Law and Sociology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Hirsh did an MA in Philosophy and Social Theory at Warwick University and he wrote his PhD there on Crimes against Humanity and International Law. He was interviewed in June 2009.
BERLET: It seems that people who think of themselves as anti-racist and of some sort of progressive political bent have a hard time recognizing antisemitism, even if they recognize antisemitic statements they have a hard time seeing it in the same context of a broader global anti-racist struggle. Why do you think that is?
HIRSH: I think people are very good at recognizing some kinds of antisemitism. If it wears a Nazi uniform they understand it, if it’s right-wing they understand it, if it’s some sort of very simple worldview of racism and anti-racism. If it comes from the left and it comes from people who are anti-racist, then there’s often much more difficulty in recognizing and understanding what’s going on. There [are] many reasons for that.
One is that we think of antisemitism as being Nazism. Nazism was actually an unusual form of antisemitism; it was very clear, it allowed no exceptions; it allowed no escape for Jews. Most forms of antisemitism haven’t been like that., Christian antisemitism allowed people to convert to Christianity and therefore make themselves clean; also political antisemitism allowed Jews to put themselves on the right side of history. One of things we shouldn’t get too hung up on is the idea that antisemites are all like Adolph Hitler, because they’re not.
BERLET: In recent years, it’s been clear that a lot of folks on the left have been part of a global anti-Zionist struggle and they don’t seem to recognize the boundaries. There’s another question which is embedded within that [in], which there seems to be a misunderstanding of Zionism as a monolithic project that has remained unchanged since the late 1800s, and that creates all sorts of problems. Can you explain what you’ve written about that, in terms of the basic misunderstanding of [Zionism] being a monolithic project?
HIRSH: It’s actually very interesting, because although these anti-Zionists think of themselves as being very macho, Marxists [and] historical materialists, yet their narrative and how they explain Zionism is almost solely in terms of ideas. So it’ll be explained that Theodore Herzl had an idea in the late nineteenth century which it will be explained [as] a racist idea that Jews and other people couldn’t live together. And every subsequent manifestation of Zionism (or at least of what we don’t like about Zionism) is explained in terms of the idea that Herzl had. Now of course, one of the flaws of that kind of reasoning is that material things happened in Europe and in the Middle East and in Russia in the 20th century which transformed Zionism from a whole set of rather utopian movements into a really existing state. So, I think sure, we should look at the ideas and the fight over ideas that have been going on ever since the beginning of Zionism, but we also need to understand the social and material realties of Jewish life.
BERLET:Clearly one of the most significant things that happened was the Nazi genocide of Jews and others in WWII., The formula that has emerged in anti-Zionist circles recently is that what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, especially. in Gaza, is tantamount to what the German Nazis did to the Jews during WWII., That seems to be historically inaccurate but it also changes the understanding that Zionism changed dramatically after WWII because of the Holocaust.
HIRSH: Well, one can do all sorts of strange things with analogies. The important thing about Nazism, the reason that Nazism is Nazism in the popular and political imagination, is because it set out to exterminate the Jews. And extermination is a project that’s even rather different from mass murder. So Nazism is known for extermination. Now the idea that what is happening in the Israeli-Palestine conflict is anything similar to that is just wrong. There’s no extermination, there never was a plan of extermination, and there is no mass murder and there is no genocide. So why do people keep raising that as an analogy?
It seems to me that one of the reasons people raise that as an analogy is because they think it has a particular effect on Jews when it is said that the Jews or Israelis have become similar to those who persecuted them. And of course it does have a particular effect on Jews. It has an effect of upsetting Jews. I think that that’s really the point of it, the point of it isn’t to come out with a serious [analysis]. There are all sorts of serious historical analogies for the rise of Jewish and Palestinian nationalism in the Middle East. One can look at Europe in the 19th century, one can look at the breakdown of the 0ttoman Empire, one can look at the Balkans, one can look at many, many things. It’s not similar to Nazism. Why do people say it’s similar to Nazism? They say it’s similar to Nazism in order to wind up the Jews, so actually the charge that the Israelis are the new Nazis is a kind of Jew-baiting. It’s literally that. It is a charge whose function is to upset and to annoy and to wind up.
I also find that it’s one of those things people think of, and they actually think they’re very clever when they think of it. They say ‘the Jews have become the Nazis.’ There’s a kind of kernel behind it [that] one can understand, the idea that if one has been subject to persecution then one should be able to recognize it and one should be less willing to become a part of something like that it in the future. But it seems to me a fundamentally flawed kind of logic, partly because one only has to ask the question what were the Jews supposed to learn at Auschwitz?
The question itself is fundamentally flawed. Auschwitz wasn’t any kind of positive learning experience, and the overwhelmingly majority of the Jews who had anything to do with the Holocaust learned nothing from it because they were killed by it. It wasn’t a learning experience and it wasn’t an experience which made people better, or more left-wing, or more anti-racist. There was no silver lining to the Holocaust.
What did people learn? People learned next time, don’t rely on western civilization to prevent antisemitism and genocide, next time have bigger friends, next time have a state with which you can defend yourself and next time have more tanks. Now that’s not my lesson it’s not my politics
The idea that the Jews should have learned something from the Holocaust is a kind of category error in thinking about the Jews as one people, as a unity. Because in truth different Jews learned different things from the Holocaust, and different Jews have different kinds of politics and different kinds of worldviews and different kinds of attitudes to what goes on. And the idea that the Jews collectively should think one thing or learn one thing is problematic. It’s an idea which comes up again and again, and I think it doesn’t make much sense.
I’m afraid to articulate the thought, what should the Blacks have learned from slavery? You just have to articulate the thought to realize what a vile kind of way of thinking it is, yet people say this about the Jews routinely – and some serious people. Jacqueline Rose, the well-known literary theorist and psychoanalyst, has asked these questions in the press in quite a kind of angry way, and has put forward the analogy between Jews and Nazis. In my own institution, I went down the corridor six months ago and was handed a leaflet saying that what was happening in Gaza was the same as what happened in the Warsaw Ghetto. The leaflet advertise[d] a meeting for students at which a women who was presented as a Holocaust survivor was going to make this argument. And this meeting was very well-attended
Because there was a Jewish woman making the argument, and because she called herself a Holocaust survivor, people really thought that that came with a significant authority. If one raised the question about the appropriateness of that kind of discussion on campus, the answer would be very straightforwardly, well [she’s] a Holocaust survivor making this argument not us. How can you raise the question in that context?
BERLET: In terms of the consistency issue. If critics of the idea of the state of Israel – let’s define that [as a state resulting from] Zionism [which itself is] a project that has a lot of different historical moments and a lot of different aspects—but people will argue that the idea of the state of Israel is itself a form of colonialism and settlerism. And what I find dramatically obvious is that the same people who raise that argument do not raise it in the same way with countries like Australia, New Zealand or even the United States. And it seems that very often in these discussions people exceptionalize Israel. They run away from logical and sequential arguments that would be much more powerful if you wanted to be a critic, and yet they get away with it.
HIRSH: Well, I think the way you phrase it is very interesting…There’s an old Jewish joke which was around I believe in the 1920s that asks, what’s the definition of a Zionist? And the answer is a Zionist is one Jew who gives money to a second Jew so a third Jew can live in Palestine. Point being, Zionism was a utopian movement, it was a movement which didn’t have much mass purchase in Europe in the 1920s. Why? Because nobody wanted to go live in a swamp on the coastal plain of Palestine.
So Zionism was an idea, it was a political movement which one could be for or one could be against. One could be a Bundist, one could be a socialist – actually all of these movements were movements of the left, were radical movements, were anti-racist movements. And of course the [political] Right didn’t want to have anything to do with any of them.
Zionism was a minority and a rather utopian movement at that time – it was an idea with which one could agree or disagree and enter into discussions.
Things changed. After the experience of antisemitism in Europe, after the Holocaust when Europe attempted to wipe itself clean of Jews, after the pushing out of the Jews from the cosmopolitan cities of the Middle East, after the experience of antisemitism in Russia, after 1948 and the setting up of the state of Israel, after the wars of ‘48 and ‘56 and ‘67 and ‘73, Israel is no longer an idea, actually.
I think it’s very important because Israel is often talked about as though it is an idea or Zionism is an idea or Israel is some kind of a political movement. One will often hear people talking about “the Zionists”: The Zionists do this, the Zionists should be driven out, the Zionists think that.… I don’t use the term “the Zionists” in that way because I don’t think Israel is a political movement. Israel is a nation-state, rather like other nation-states. To talk about Israel as though it were a political movement is to ask whether it’s a good political movement or a bad political movement. And one doesn’t do that with Croatia or with France or with the United States – is the United States a good idea or a bad idea? Well, who cares— the United States exists. We oppose destructive kind of nationalism, we have a political program against racism, blah blah blah. But nation-states are not political movements and Israel isn’t a political movement.
BERLET: There are a bunch of settler nations in the world.….
HIRSH: Well, I suspect that the overwhelming majority of nations are settler-nations in some sense.; Nations classically and pretty well always have been carved out by national movements which aim to create an idea of nationhood which defines itself against people who didn’t fit into that idea of nationhood. It’s a classic and ordinary history for nation-states, and its not pleasant anywhere actually, and of course Israel has particular unique features to its history. It’s more recent than many states, but not than many others—because after the fall of the Soviet Union. for example, there was another huge wave of nationalism and the creation of nation-states and national self-determination. That came often with the defining of people who didn’t fit. So Israel isn’t anymore all that new, and isn’t in any sense unique.
I think there’s quite a lot at stake in the idea that Israel is unique. Antisemitism, I think, has always tried to understand and to construct the Jews as being centrally important to everything that happens in the world. The Jews are not centrally important to everything that happens in the world. Jews are a rather small and rather insignificant group of people, actually.
So antisemitism always created out of them a kind of huge threat, usually through conspiracy theory; or a huge threat because the Jews didn’t accept Jesus; or a huge threat because the Jews were heralds of modernity and therefore [behind] the breakdown of traditional values. So Jews [were always constructed] as centrally important to what happened in the world, and they’re not. And I think that when one sees the construction of Israel as though it were centrally important to everything that happens in the world, then one is in danger of seeing a similar pattern emerging.
One often sees people who claim that the Israel-Palestine conflict is the key to world peace, or even the key to peace in the Middle East. There was an interesting version of that in the … Observer. The morning after the election in Iran, there was an editorial which was very fresh, nobody really knew what had happened in the election [yet], and the editorial said, ‘the election may have been stolen by Ahmadinejad – it may have been stolen, there’s people in the streets, we don’t know what’s happened yet, time will tell. Whatever happens, the most important event is Bibi Netanyahu’s speech at Bar-Ilan University next week about the peace process.’
Now, I don’t think that’s true – I don’t think a rather tedious speech by a rather tedious Israeli politician is more important than the stealing of an election in Iran and the fact that there’s a huge mass popular movement against that stealing of that election. Iran is hugely important in its own right, for Iranians. It’s an old state with a huge culture of its own, with a democratic tradition of its own, with a revolutionary tradition of its own. It’s a state where there’s been fighting over democracy for decades, where the busworkers from Tehran were brutally suppressed about a year ago when they went on strike, where’s there a tradition of the Left.
So why would the Observer newspaper just kind of say ‘well, we don’t know yet what’s going to happen in Iran, but the most important thing is Netanyahu’? The reason it does that, I think, is because that there’s such a temptation to understand Israelis and Palestinians as being symbolic of much, much bigger, much, much more important things. So the importance of Israelis and Palestinians is blown up out of all proportion.
What comes with that then is an idea that Palestinians become the symbolic oppressed of the whole world, and Israelis and the Jews who argue [on the side of Israel] become symbolic of the oppressors throughout the world. One can see very straightforwardly how that can lead easily to conspiracy theory and to a reconstruction of the Jews as being central to everything that goes wrong in the world. So a lot of these debates about uniqueness are very important because Israel and Palestine are treated as though they were unique by many people, by many anti-Zionists.
Anti-Zionists claim to be universalists and cosmopolitans and anti-nationalists, but in truth, the way they relate to Israel is not the way they relate to anywhere else on the planet. For example, the boycott [sanctions and divestiture movement]. If you look at the debate which happened over the boycott in my trade union recently it was interesting because there was a lot of rhetoric [about] the Israeli incursion into Gaza in December/January [2009] that was very, very unpleasant. The Israelis went in chasing after Hamas fighters and they killed a lot of people who were in and around the targets – [and] of course the targets base themselves in civilian areas.
So the war in Gaza was very, very unpleasant, and in my view the Israelis shouldn’t have been doing it. However, a month later in Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan state did to the Tamil Tigers what the Israelis didn’t to Hamas – that is, they went in, they separated the fighters from the civilians, they put the civilians in camps, they killed many thousands of people, they shelled the camps, they finished off the fighters, they took their territory and then they went through the civilians one by one and found the Tamil Tigers and dealt with them.
Now I think that’s appalling, and I’m very pleased that the Israelis don’t behave like that in Gaza. So why is it that at my union conference there’s an emergency motion about Sri Lanka, and people talk reasonable sense about Sri Lanka: people get up and say there’s a history of colonialism and a peace movement which fell apart, there’s important things we have to understand about the conflict, what we have to do as a trade union is to forge links with Sinhalese and Tamil [the two major ethnic groups] trade unionists, and we need to fight for politics of peace and reconciliation between Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka. [These are ideas reflecting] perfectly normal [and] reasonable trade union values.
The debate then moves straight on to Israel, and the debate hinges only around the idea of boycotting Israeli academics — the idea that Israeli academics need to be punished and Israelis needs to be shown that their academics are not part of a global academic community. What about the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka? Nothing. So [we have] a much more serious situation in Sri Lanka, but much more serious anger against Israelis than against the Sri Lankan state. And an anger which spreads not only to the Israeli state but to Israeli civil society, because one of the tropes of anti-Zionism is to portray Israel as though there’s no distinction between the people and the state. So who do we punish? We punish the people, the academics. Why? Because they are the state.
[That’s a] very threatening and menacing view, to say that working-class people or civil society or ordinary people in a city are the state. We don’t normally do that. Anti-Zionists do that with Israel and they shouldn’t do it.
BERLET: It would seem, conceptually, that attacking two large office buildings in downtown New York would be the same categorical error, that by punishing people in an office building which is viewed as the center of power is equally wrong. Once any group looks at a nation-state and says that they are a loci of power and therefore it is legitimate [to argue that] every civilian is a target. That’s a collapse of understanding how complicated nations, governments, [and] societies are.
With the issue of Israel it’s collapsed even further so that not only is it the state of Israel and the government of Israel and the Israeli people, but Jews worldwide [who] are all complicit in this “conspiracy.”
HIRSH: During the conflict in Gaza, one of the official spokesmen of Hamas actually said publicly that since the Israelis are killing Palestinian children, then the Hamas movement is calling for the killing of Jewish children across the world. One would think that that was a kind of big, important statement from an antisemitic movement which was promising to kill Jewish children across the world. It wasn’t taken seriously by anybody, by anti-racists, —nobody expressed surprise or shock, it was just said, ‘well, what do the Israelis expect’?
One of the things about 9/11 is that people are able to look symbolically again. The Twin Towers are raised to symbolize something in people’s imagination in a similar way that Israelis are raised to symbolized something in people’s imagination. But really who was in the office boxes of the twin towers? They were cleaners and technicians and all sorts of people; they weren’t all bankers, they weren’t all the architects of global capital. And of course similarly —even more clearly— when buses are blown up in Tel Aviv. Rich people in Tel Aviv don’t go around in buses [partly] because they get blown up. So there’s a symbolism to the blowing up of buses which has nothing to do with the reality of it. There’s a kind of likemindedness to it – ‘wasn’t it interesting to see the symbolism of capitalism in New York collapse; isn’t it interesting to see the Palestinians gaining some revenge’? It’s a kind of simple, likeminded symbolic thinking which has no relation to politics, to a serious political tradition of the left of anti-hegemonic politics which says … ‘we have to build a politics that doesn’t replicate what we’re fighting against.’
It’s often said ‘well what can one expect from Palestinians who endure occupation, one can only expect that they will be angry with Jews.’ And I have some sympathy with that, actually, although in truth many, many Palestinians don’t adopt that kind of racist politics. In Palestine there are…political discussions and many, many people find ways of expressing their politics and their resistance [other] than killing Jews.
Then there’s another level [of] that discussion, which is one might say that if you were brought up in a Palestinian refugee camp policed by Jewish Israelis, you might dislike Jews. But what about us, in universities outside of Palestine? What’s our responsibility in those discussions? And it seems to me that we have a particular responsibility to stand up against the kind of politics of hatred which is in some sense is understandable within Palestine.
BERLET: A point you’ve made is that in other forms of racism and oppression—institutionalized or systematic [forms]—it is very unusual to analyze the situation in terms of what the victims are doing to make people hate them. And yet that seems to be part of the equation of discussing not just the state of Israel and the politics of the government of Israel, but the whole Middle East conflict. [This is then] extended out to what is uncarefully described as the Jewish Lobby or the Zionist Lobby.
HIRSH: I think that’s a very important point. The argument goes that Israel behaves badly, and I don’t disagree with that. I think Israel often behaves badly, it often behaves stupidly, it often behaves in a way which is reckless of Palestinian life. I think in order to organize the kind of occupation that the Israelis find themselves organizing, a sort of daily regime of violence and humiliation and racism just goes along with that territory. That’s why it’s very important the occupation should come to an end and there should be a settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians.
But having said that, I think the idea that because Israel behaves badly in Palestine then its reasonable for people to hate Jews, takes a whole other step. [This] is a logic which people buy into in different kinds of ways, sometimes explicitly and sometimes not. One doesn’t do that in other places. If one said ‘well, its reasonable to be misogynistic because women do nag a lot and they do get annoying, and if they stop nagging people would stop being misogynistic,’ there’s nobody who wouldn’t be able to see through that kind of logic. But the logic which says ‘well Jews behave badly in the Middle East and all over the world; they kind of act as a sort of lobby in order to defend that bad behavior… and therefore its not all too surprising that people hate them’, then that would be considered as some kind of legitimate argument amongst anti-racist circles. Why? There’s no reason for that I think. I think that one has to take seriously the transformation of hostility against human rights abuses into racist forms. One has to take that seriously.
I was in a debate with Seumas Milne who is a Guardian columnist …..I think we can go together some distance and I think we can agree that when the Palestinians are involved in fighting Jewish soldiers […] the hostility which they may feel [can be] manifested in a language of antisemitism or in a trope of antisemitism.
How do we deal with that, how do we understand that? Now it seems to me that Seamus Milne’s argument was what we have to do is translate it back into the language in which it was meant. He invents a rather Stalinist and a rather mystical notion of the real spirit of Palestinian resistance. And the real spirit of Palestinian resistance [Milne says] has been democratic and liberational. If it happens at one time or another to be expressed or manifested in the language of antisemitism, then what we need to do is translate it back into the real language of Palestine of resistance and liberation.
Now, I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that. I think that antisemitism may ….You know racism starts with something real in the world. It starts with some real grievance or some real hatred or some real thing and it becomes entrenched into a racial way of thinking. And it’s that transformation of real grievance into a racial way of thinking that we have to take apart and we have to oppose. One of the reasons we have to oppose that is because then it becomes a thing in itself. So white people who are worried about poverty or poor housing—if they then translate that into a racist narrative and say ‘well the blacks are taking our houses, the blacks are taking our jobs’ then one loses any possibility of fighting over good housing and good jobs.
Racism always has some kind of legitimate grievance somewhere in its history. But one has to take seriously the forms that it takes. And if hostility to the occupation in Palestine is articulated through the language of Jew-hatred then we have to take that seriously.
There was something else I wanted to say, to go back to your question. [It] is the idea of…institutionalized antisemitism, because I think that’s rather important. I don’t think people who do antisemitic things or who say antisemitic things in Britain today are Jew-haters, [I don’t think] they hate Jews. I think what they do is stumble into antisemitic ways of thinking of which they’re not really aware. So I think the question shouldn’t be ‘does somebody intend to harm Jews or does someone intend to feel a hatred of Jews?’ The question should be ‘what is the nature of the arguments people are making?’ If they are making a unique argument that Israeli Jews should be excluded from campuses; or if they’re saying Israel is the uniquely bloodthirsty state, or a uniquely child-killing state—then one should relate that back to where those kinds of ideas come from.
If one is saying that the Jews or the Israel lobby are responsible for the Iraq War, then one has to relate that back. The Jews have been held responsible for every war – there’s nothing new about this. In the Hamas charter it says explicitly the Jews were responsible for the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution and [for] global imperialism, for the First World War and for the Second World War….
In Britain there was a peace movement against the Boer War, and many people in that movement argued that the British Empire was being manipulated by Jewish diamond interests in Southern Africa.
Now I don’t think the people in the Stop The War coalition today have any clue that their talk about the Israel lobby is similar to [the rhetoric of] the people who were in the Stop The War coalition at the time of the Boer War….who said that behind this imperialist action is Jewish diamond interests. There’s no conception of the history in which people find themselves. So my point is that one shouldn’t ask ‘do people hate Jews?’ and one shouldn’t ask ‘do people know what they’re doing?’ – one should ask why are these tropes and these images being replayed and refound [today] when one talks about Israel and Palestine?
In a sense it shouldn’t surprise us – people have a hostility to Israel, some of it legitimate and some of it justified and some of it not. But putting that aside for one moment – if you want to express hostility to Israel and if you want to express hostility to the Jews who you think defend Israel’s human rights abuses, then available to you is a huge cultural reservoir of ways in which you can express hostility to Jews.
There’s conspiracy theory, there’s blood libel, there’s a whole set of ways of thinking. Now I can demonstrate that very often in rhetoric which is anti-Israeli, these tropes and these images from previous antisemitisms are replicated. Now if you’re replicating these tropes and these ideas and these images you may well not know that you’re doing it – you’re not doing it because you hate Jews or because you’re a convinced racist, you’re doing it because there is a reservoir of resources available to you if you want to make propaganda against Jews.
Let me give you one example. There was a poster which…had a picture of a Jaffa orange and it had blood coming out of the orange and it said ‘Don’t buy a Jaffa, squeeze the occupation’ – something like that. Now, anybody who knows anything about the history of antisemitism will know immediately that a combination of blood and food and Jews is already problematic. And the message of that poster is very clear – the message of that poster says that Jews are trying to give you food which is contaminated by the blood of the children that they’ve killed. Don’t buy it, don’t eat it, it should disgust you, it should encourage you and remind you to boycott Jaffa oranges.
There is a long history of this idea that Jews mix the blood of the people they kill and eat it—mix it with their food. Now, I don’t think that the person who designed this rather striking poster knows anything about that. I don’t think that the person who designed that poster is an antisemite. It’s quite conceivable that [the designer] has never heard of the blood libel. Yet they produce a classic blood libel image. So this should be a lesson to us that we need to be careful. Yet, just asking people to be careful very often elicits a kind of hostile and angry response. The response is absolutely standard – the response to anyone who raises the issue of antisemitism in relation to hostility to Israel, to Zionism— the response is that ‘you’re accusing me of antisemitism not because you believe there is antisemitism but in order to play the antisemitism card, in order to make it impossible to delegitimize criticism of Israeli human rights abuses.’
Anyone who’s ever called on this or that antisemitic comment…produces the same response. The response is to accuse the Jews who raise the issue of antisemitism of doing so in a despicably and dishonest way in order to close down free speech. [It is a] very serious allegation. It’s an allegation that in my work I’ve come across explicitly and implicitly. It’s an allegation that says that I’m not an academic…not a sociologist. I’m just some kind of scribbler for Israel.
This same [experience] happened to Harold Jacobson, the novelist. Howard made a very serious critique of Caryl Churchill’s play “Seven Jewish Children.” The play made an argument that the conflict in Gaza was a result of the neurotic ways in which Jews bring up their children to be unconcerned about the killing of the “Other”—about the killing of Palestinian children. Howard Jacobson made this [serious critique of the play and] he said the play was antisemitic. Caryl Churchill replies ‘Well he would say that wouldn’t he, it’s the usual tactic.’ Meaning Howard Jacobson [is] not an intellectual, he’s not a novelist, he’s not interested really in talking about antisemitism. He’s really interested in doing is using antisemitism as a kind of despicable tactic to defend Israeli human rights abuses in Gaza.
BERLET: This is a question I struggle with. How do you approach a criticism of Israel or Zionism in a constructive way when you think some form of demonization or scapegoating is involved? Or a conspiracy theory that ties back to these historic tropes about Jews having power and control and plotting subversive [activities]. [Especially when we live in] a society that doesn’t teach people about the history of allegation against the “Other.” A lot of these criticisms that talk about global Jewish power track back to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
[In the] United States prior to [the Protocols] the same narratives were used against faceless plutocrats during the Populist movement and later deformed into open antisemitism. But all the way back to the late 1700s when in both France and Scotland there were books written that made the exact same allegations against the “Other.” In this case being the Freemasons [and the] Illuminati.
We as a society have replicated…these analogues to the Protocols. We know there are techniques people use to demonize an “Other,” and yet we don’t seem to be teaching schoolchildren that this is in fact one of the techniques that they should be aware of and not copy.
HIRSH: I think it’s very interesting because I think one of the things about the society in which we live, about modernity, is that it looks a bit like a conspiracy. We live in a world where the power is in the hands of a small number of people, and it looks as though the media does their bidding and does what’s in their interests. It looks like the whole of society is set up for the benefit of the powerful. So it’s not idiotic to believe in a conspiracy. But there’s a history to this, and the history is very interesting.
People like Max Weber and Emil Durkheim and Karl Marx invented structural accounts of how the world works to explain how a minority of people take all the power to themselves which didn’t rely on conspiracy theory. I think there’s an argument which says sociology itself was invented in order to undercut conspiracy [theory]; and possibly quite explicitly to undercut antisemitic conspiracy theory. Marx—whether you like Marx or you don’t like Marx—he offers a structural account of capitalism which doesn’t rely on a conspiracy of the few interests. I teach Marx to our first-years, and it’s quite difficult to teach because a lot of them they come away with the idea that that’s precisely what [Marx] does. They write in their essays, ‘well there are a small number of rich people who exploit everybody else’ and they come out with conspiracy theory. But of course Capital is much more interesting than that.
More recently… there’s something interesting that’s happened to Marx and Durkheim and Weber and social theory; which is that the critiques of social theory and structure have…come to the fore.
It’s actually very easy to critique anything about the world that exists.
You and me, we’re clever guys; we can sit down and critique democracy. And we can critique law, and we can critique social theory. We can show that the powerful are in charge even if law says that everybody is equal. We can take very thing apart. We can even take the idea of truth apart. We can show how truth is related to power, and how knowledge is related. We can do all that.
The problem is that if one critiques everything simply negatively then one ends up with nothing. I think it’s a kind of rather frightening view that people like George Orwell, for example, were very aware of. George Orwell was very aware that the people who critiqued everything in bourgeois society the most successfully were the totalitarians.
It was the totalitarians who said ‘we don’t believe in bourgeois law, it’s just a trick. We don’t believe in bourgeois democracy, it’s just a trick, we don’t believe in truth, it’s just a trick. We know who really runs the world.’
Those kinds of ideas, and the collapse of structural ways of trying to understand the world, [have made it] illegitimate to try to understand the world. And this is true on a popular level, but also in a serious professorial level.
So it doesn’t surprise me that when everything is critiqued then we move back to conspiracy theory, because all we are left with is power. If all notions of authority or democracy or law or anything become dissolved into power, than the question becomes ‘well, who are the powerful?’ And then take your pick: the Jews, the gays, the Muslims, whatever.
But I think there is a kind of bigger underlying problem, which leads towards this way of thinking, and I think it’s a cynicism about the values of democracy, but [also about the] values of the Left. The Left I was brought up in was a place where we tried to understand how the world worked, and we tried to change the world. Changing human beings was part of changing the world. Now it’s evident that there is a totalitarian moment to that as well. But I think we need to keep hold of that problem, but also keep hold of the original problem.
As my good friend Robert Fine [in Political investigations: Hegel, Marx, Arendt] puts it we have to hold the critique of existing society in one hand—and we also have to understand the critique of the critique. We have to understand that the people who have most successfully critiqued existing society were the totalitarians: the Stalinists and the Nazis. So I don’t think there’s anything surprising about the rise of conspiracy theory.
Posted in academics, analogy - apartheid/Israel, anti-racism, anti-racist antisemitism, anti-Zionism, antisemitism, boycott divestment & sanctions. 9 Comments »
Alice Walker’s Apartheid Analogy – Jonathan Judaken
August 9, 2012 — David Hirsh
Alice Walker’s recent decision not to allow an Israeli publisher, Yediot Books, to translate The Color Purple into Hebrew was a missed opportunity. The opening paragraph of her letter to the publisher indicated her reasons:
As you may know, last Fall in South Africa the Russell Tribunal on Palestine met and determined that Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories. The testimony we heard, both from Israelis and Palestinians (I was a jurist) was devastating. I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse. Indeed, many South Africans who attended, including Desmond Tutu, felt the Israeli version of these crimes is worse even than what they suffered under the white supremacist regimes that dominated South Africa for so long.
Her whole argument hangs on an analogy: Israel is an apartheid state like South Africa. The analogy is the centerpiece of the growing BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) against Israel, modeled on the success of the anti-apartheid campaign.
The untranslatable Afrikaans appellation for South African’s racial state has indeed become the term of the moment for opposition to Israel. The magical label “apartheid” serves to denounce in a single word. Jacques Derrida, the famous French philosopher who coined the much-abused term “deconstruction,” once contributed an article to a catalog of an art exhibit protesting apartheid, which he titled, “Racism’s Last Word.”
Walker’s stance on the translation of her book is a good opportunity to think through “racism’s last word,” something Walker’s facile denunciation certainly has not done, but that demands doing. For all those committed to undoing the Israeli occupation thinking through this analogy is a neglected imperative. The risk for those who reflexively oppose Israel without reflectively thinking about the terms of that opposition is that the analogy they rest upon would be deconstructed.
Walker should have allowed The Color Purple to be translated. She should have seized it as a chance to actually reflect on the equation in political discourse between racism, apartheid, and Israel. Rather than a momentary splash of publicity for her cause, translating the book would have enabled sustained and ongoing reflection on the issues the book raises, which are the very heart of her protest.
This is important for if you want to upend the injustices towards Palestinians, convincing Israelis of the abiding oppression that they participate in is certainly going to have to be part of the equation. Moving Israeli public consciousness, along with raising global consciousness, should surely be part of the goal of this protest, if the desire is to change the situation of Palestinians.
What is more, if the apartheid analogy holds, then Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel could have aided in this. The first obstacle would have been the technical problems raised by the translation of her book. Written as an epistolary novel, the idiom of the narrator is that of its protagonist, Celie, a fourteen-year-old victim of rape, incest, and the institutionalized violence that was wound into the fabric of the Jim Crow South. Capturing her moving idiosyncratic language in Hebrew would have been a huge accomplishment in its own right, translating into the language of Israelis the experience of blacks under “American apartheid.”
If this could be done, the question remains whether readers in Israel would have followed Walker in seeing the connections between their world and that of Celie’s: between Israeli occupation and Palestinian oppression and Jim Crow racism. Here there is an imaginative leap that Walker might have actually addressed in a preface, explaining to an Israeli public the relevance of Celie’s tale for the political configuration that defines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today.
My gambit is that Walker could not actually perform this task. She would certainly have to do without the hyperbole that characterizes her protest. For surely anyone who actually thinks through the analogy is not going to claim that the occupied territories are “worse” for Palestinians than what Celie suffers, let alone the more brutal, state-sanctioned racism of apartheid.
Sure there are analogs. This is what permits an unexamined analogy to take hold. It is why when Peter Beinart made the call “To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements” he had a point. But his protest is different from Walker’s because it does not reduplicate the “us vs. them,” homogenizing rhetoric that buttresses racism. Beinart not only speaks from a place of empathy for Israel and Zionism (as the Jewish liberation movement), but he makes crucial distinctions in his call to action. He acknowledges the brutalities and contradictions that characterize the Israeli occupation of non-democratic Israel. But he makes no blanket condemnation of Israel.
Thinking through the Israeli-Palestinian conflict demands attending to its tragic dimensions, which are underpinned by an irreconcilable pair of narratives both of which have legitimacy. This is something that Jean-Paul Sartre, who headed up the original Russell Tribunal, understood in his stance on the conflict. As such, part of what differentiates the situation in Israel/Palestine from Jim Crow racism and apartheid is that it is not an either/or, black or white problem.
Without attention to the distinctions between Celie’s world, Desmond Tutu’s world, and that of Palestinians today, it is going to remain easy for the majority of Americans and Brits to dismiss the BDS movement. What is called for now is a sustained reflection on the analogy that underpins that movement. It is a pity that Alice Walker, of all people, has not aided us in doing that thinking.
Jonathan Judaken is the Spence L. Wilson Chair in Humanities at Rhodes College.
Posted in analogy - apartheid/Israel, boycott divestment & sanctions. 18 Comments »
Why call Israel an Apartheid State? – Guest Post by Sharmini Brookes
September 23, 2011 — David Hirsh
Sharmini Brookes
‘Is Israel the New Apartheid?’ was the topic of debate at the 21st Wednesday Seminar of the Departments of Sociology, Anthropology and Development at the University Of Johannesburg (UJ). In March of this year the UJ senate of 72 members voted 60-40% to allow their formal institutional arrangement with Israel’s Ben Gurion University to lapse after a debate that referred to Israel as an Apartheid State and justified boycotts on the same grounds as those imposed by anti-Apartheid activists on South Africa. The vice-chancellor, Professor Ihron Rensburg denies this is a boycott (as individual academics are allowed to continue relationships) but it is a very public censure of an institution and will inhibit full and free dialogue amongst individual academics as those who wish to do so will court the opprobrium of their peers for voluntarily maintaining links with what is now viewed as a pariah state.
‘It is wrong to refer to Israel as an Apartheid State’ said the speaker against the motion, Benjamin Pogrund, author, journalist and campaigner with the Israeli Centre for Dialogue. He accepted that there were problems of discrimination in housing, education, land ownership and citizenship but that these were the consequence of the 1948 war for the survival of the Jewish State and not of any consciously articulated government policy of racial discrimination and separate development as instituted by Hendrik Verwoerd and his predecessors in South Africa. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the creation of the State of Israel, then supported by the UN, did violate the right of self-determination for Palestine and has been the source of continuing conflict ever since.
The speaker for the motion, Naeem Jeenah, Executive Director of the Afro-Middle East Centre and formerly lecturer at Wits University, insisted that it was legitimate to call Israel an Apartheid State based on article 2 of the UN Convention on Apartheid. However, as Benjamin Pogrund noted, this is an expanded description of situations some of which resemble those experienced under Apartheid and which could equally apply to a number of existing countries where human rights are regularly breached. What it fails to recognize is the conscious and deliberate policy that made South Africa unique.
In addition, the assumption that the Apartheid regime was brought down by the success of the international boycott campaign is false. Governments and companies continued their relations with South Africa while paying lip service to anti-apartheid rhetoric and the Sullivan principles until the mass uprisings in the 1980’s by the indigenous black population made continued investment unprofitable. The final death blow to Apartheid was delivered with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of a communist threat to capitalism. It was the convergence of black unrest with the death of communism that brought De Klerk to the negotiating table and not the self-regarding boycott campaign.
The attempt of so-called liberals and pro-Palestinian groups to label Israel as Apartheid is a lazy attempt to win support by piggy-backing on this popular international revulsion against Apartheid in the 80’s rather than to consider the more complicated reality of the situation in the Middle East.
It is a tragic and revealing irony that Zionism, presented as the salvation of persecuted Jews throughout the world, but in reality a desperate resort resulting from the failure to progressively transform the societies in which the Jews resided, has not led to security for Jewish Israelis nor has it challenged anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, whatever the rights and wrongs of the original creation of the Zionist state, Israel and Israelis exist and cannot be wiped off the earth. That Arabs and Israelis do live and work together in Israel is a fact and it is not inconceivable that a negotiated settlement can be achieved where both can live in peace if only external forces kept their noses out and allowed the locals to work towards their own solution. Unfortunately, the use of the loaded term ‘Apartheid’ with the Israeli state is not only wrong but tragically serves to isolate progressive Israelis from all contact with enlightened individuals in the rest of the world and hinders any chance of reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis.
Sharmini Brookes 15/09/11
Battle of Ideas Committee member and convenor
Posted in analogy - apartheid/Israel, anti-Zionism, antisemitism, Uncategorized. 70 Comments »
Eric Lee, Kim Berman, Salim Vally on Israel and apartheid
July 23, 2011 — David Hirsh
Eric Lee writes on his blog:
I visited South Africa twice in recent years, both times as the guest of the trade union movement. On my second visit, to Cape Town, I found myself walking along a beautiful beach with a leader of South Africa’s Communication Workers Union. He told me that under apartheid, if he’d be found walking on this beach, he could have been shot. This was a whites-only beach. That’s what apartheid means. It means you can be shot for walking on the wrong beach.
As for “apartheid Israel,” suffice it to say that my two sons were born in a hospital that serves the residents of the Jezreel Valley — Jews and Arabs. The staff, including doctors and nurses, were a mix of all ethnic groups and religions, as were the patients. There was no segregation, no separate facilities, no differences at all in how Jews and Arabs were treated.
Does this mean that Israel is a perfect society, a real paradise on earth for everyone? Of course not.
But if one cannot see the difference between running the risk of being shot for being on the “wrong” beach — and having your child born in a hospital full of Jews and Arabs working together — if you can’t see that difference, you understand nothing at all.
See the whole piece, on Eric Lee’s blog.
Eric’s piece relates to Kim Berman’s open letter to Salim Vally, originally published onEngage.
Salim Vally’s reply is here, on the UJ website
David Hirsh on the UJ boycott; and letter responding to a boycotter; and on how it is progressing at UJ; and Hirsh on the apartheid analogy.
For the Engage archive on the Israel / Apartheid analogy click here.
John Strawson on UJ.
For the debate around the South African campaign for an academic boycott of Israel, with Desmond Tutu, David Newman, Neve Gordon, David Hirsh, Robert Fine, Ran Greenstein, Uri Avnery, Farid Essack click here.
Posted in academic boycott, academics, analogy - apartheid/Israel, boycott divestment & sanctions. 65 Comments »
RIP Arthur Goldreich
“Arthur Goldreich, 82, who helped the anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela hide on a farm by posing as his employer, died May 24 in Tel Aviv. No cause of death was reported.”
“In his autobiography, Mandela describes the South African-born Mr. Goldreich as having fought in the 1940s with the military wing of the Jewish National Movement in Palestine. Mandela says Mr. Goldreich provided some guerrilla expertise to the then-nascent armed wing of the African National Congress.”
More in the Washington Post. via HP
Posted in analogy - apartheid/Israel. Leave a Comment »
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National Education Channel to begin broadcasting January 1
by VTV29 December 2015 Last updated at 06:00 AM
VTV.vn - The TV channel VTV7 specialising in educational programmes will come on the air on January 1, 2016, announced Vietnam Television on December 28.
The channel, jointly run by the Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam Television and the AIC Group under the motto 'For a leaning society', will present educational issues both at home and in schools.
The channel will also assist pupils across the country in learning through TV and in accessing knowledge from the database of Vietnam Television and other TV channels in the region and the world.
In the first stage, VTV7 will be aimed at preschool children and primary pupils. It will also broadcast programmes suitable for secondary and high school students.
In the first stage, VTV7 will be aimed at preschool children and primary pupils.
On air for18 hours per day starting from 6am, VTV7 will broadcast programmes including VTV7 English, VTV7 School, Discovery, VTV7 Books, and the Education Talk Show among others with the focus on education at school (VTV7 School).
Deputy Director of the Vietnam Television Pham Viet Tien said VTV7 is a specialised channel in the system of Vietnam national TV channels which will reflect many new educational issues in partnership with the MoET and educational experts.
He noted that VTV7 will provide students with new knowledge in addition to exciting entertainment programmes based on careful research of their psychophysiology.
"Although VTV7 is the youngest channel of ours, it is also the one that took us the longest time to nurture. The idea of creating it has been set for 20 years. We are proud to have an educational channel to be aired nationally," said Pham Viet Tien, deputy director of VTV.
Previously, Nguyen Nhat Hoa, head of the educational programmes producing centre, said this was, indeed, a special educational channel.
"We bring inspiring facts into all the programmes we produce, so that students will learn from our channel. But they must first develop an interest in subjects and study on their own," Hoa said.
In the first phrase of broadcasting, the channel's targeted audience group will be children in kindergarten and primary schools. It will also offer programmes for high schoolers, adults, ethnic minorities and the disabled.
VTV7 is scheduled to begin broadcasting on January 1, 2016.
Quang Binh set to host Vietnam television producers festival(11.12)
VTV7 trial broadcast features(22.11)
Poland's Next Top Model films in VN(20.11)
Talk Vietnam: Kenny G - Passion never fades(12.11)
Vietnam national broadcaster to divest share in three major pay TV firms(02.11)
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(-) Remove Italy (6) filter Italy (6)
(-) Remove Switzerland (3) filter Switzerland (3)
Project acronym BETLIV
Project Returning to a Better Place: The (Re)assessment of the ‘Good Life’ in Times of Crisis
Researcher (PI) Valerio SIMONI RIBA
Host Institution (HI) FONDATION POUR L INSTITUT DE HAUTES ETUDES INTERNATIONALES ET DU DEVELOPPEMENT
Summary What makes for a valuable and good life is a question that many people in the contemporary world ask themselves, yet it is one that social science research has seldom addressed. Only recently have scholars started undertaking inductive comparative research on different notions of the ‘good life’, highlighting socio-cultural variations and calling for a better understanding of the different imaginaries, aspirations and values that guide people in their quest for better living conditions. Research is still lacking, however, on how people themselves evaluate, compare, and put into perspective different visions of good living and their socio-cultural anchorage. This project addresses such questions from an anthropological perspective, proposing an innovative study of how ideals of the good life are articulated, (re)assessed, and related to specific places and contexts as a result of the experience of crisis and migration. The case studies chosen to operationalize these lines of enquiry focus on the phenomenon of return migration, and consist in an analysis of the imaginaries and experience of return by Ecuadorian and Cuban men and women who migrated to Spain, are dissatisfied with their life there, and envisage/carry out the project of going back to their countries of origin (Ecuador and Cuba respectively). The project’s ambition is to bring together and contribute to three main scholarly areas of enquiry: 1) the study of morality, ethics and what counts as ‘good life’, 2) the study of the field of economic practice, its definition, value regimes, and ‘crises’, and 3) the study of migratory aspirations, projects, and trajectories. A multi-sited endeavour, the research is designed in three subprojects carried out in Spain (PhD student), Ecuador (Post-Doc), and Cuba (PI), in which ethnographic methods will be used to provide the first empirically grounded study of the links between notions and experiences of crisis, return migration, and the (re)assessment of good living.
What makes for a valuable and good life is a question that many people in the contemporary world ask themselves, yet it is one that social science research has seldom addressed. Only recently have scholars started undertaking inductive comparative research on different notions of the ‘good life’, highlighting socio-cultural variations and calling for a better understanding of the different imaginaries, aspirations and values that guide people in their quest for better living conditions. Research is still lacking, however, on how people themselves evaluate, compare, and put into perspective different visions of good living and their socio-cultural anchorage. This project addresses such questions from an anthropological perspective, proposing an innovative study of how ideals of the good life are articulated, (re)assessed, and related to specific places and contexts as a result of the experience of crisis and migration. The case studies chosen to operationalize these lines of enquiry focus on the phenomenon of return migration, and consist in an analysis of the imaginaries and experience of return by Ecuadorian and Cuban men and women who migrated to Spain, are dissatisfied with their life there, and envisage/carry out the project of going back to their countries of origin (Ecuador and Cuba respectively). The project’s ambition is to bring together and contribute to three main scholarly areas of enquiry: 1) the study of morality, ethics and what counts as ‘good life’, 2) the study of the field of economic practice, its definition, value regimes, and ‘crises’, and 3) the study of migratory aspirations, projects, and trajectories. A multi-sited endeavour, the research is designed in three subprojects carried out in Spain (PhD student), Ecuador (Post-Doc), and Cuba (PI), in which ethnographic methods will be used to provide the first empirically grounded study of the links between notions and experiences of crisis, return migration, and the (re)assessment of good living.
Project acronym FLOS
Project Florilegia Syriaca. The Intercultural Dissemination of Greek Christian Thought in Syriac and Arabic in the First Millennium CE
Researcher (PI) Emiliano FIORI
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA
Summary FLOS will focus on the metamorphoses of Greek Christian thought in Syriac (Aramaic) and Arabic in Late Antiquity, within the timeframe of the first millennium CE. Syriac Christianity was a pivotal mediator of culture in the Late Antique epistemic space, but is little-known today. FLOS aims to bring to light for the first time a body of highly relevant Syriac and Christian Arabic sources that have hardly ever been studied before. At the end of the millennium, in Islamic-ruled Syria, Mesopotamia, and Iran, Syriac Christians strived to define their religious identity. One of their strategies was the production of florilegia, i.e. anthologies that they used to excerpt and reinvent the patristic canon, a corpus of Greek Christian works of the 2nd–6th centuries shared by European and Middle Eastern Christian cultures. A Greco-centric bias has prevented scholars from viewing these florilegia as laboratories of cultural creativity. FLOS will reverse the state of the art through two groundbreaking endeavours: 1) open-access digital editions of a set of Syriac florilegia of the 8th–10th centuries; 2) a study of many neglected writings of Syriac and Christian Arabic authors of the 8th–11th centuries. These tremendously important writings drew from Syriac patristic florilegia to pinpoint topics like incarnation and the Trinity against other Christians or Islam, showing how patristic sources were used to create new knowledge for the entangled environment of the Abbasid era. FLOS will thus dramatically improve our understanding of the cultural dynamics of Late Antiquity; patristic Christianity will emerge as a bridge between the intellectual history of Europe and of the Middle East. By studying how this shared patrimony was transformed in situations of interreligious interaction, especially with Islam, FLOS will facilitate the comprehension of Europe’s current religious discourses, and the preservation of the endangered cultural heritage of the Syriac Christians.
FLOS will focus on the metamorphoses of Greek Christian thought in Syriac (Aramaic) and Arabic in Late Antiquity, within the timeframe of the first millennium CE. Syriac Christianity was a pivotal mediator of culture in the Late Antique epistemic space, but is little-known today. FLOS aims to bring to light for the first time a body of highly relevant Syriac and Christian Arabic sources that have hardly ever been studied before. At the end of the millennium, in Islamic-ruled Syria, Mesopotamia, and Iran, Syriac Christians strived to define their religious identity. One of their strategies was the production of florilegia, i.e. anthologies that they used to excerpt and reinvent the patristic canon, a corpus of Greek Christian works of the 2nd–6th centuries shared by European and Middle Eastern Christian cultures. A Greco-centric bias has prevented scholars from viewing these florilegia as laboratories of cultural creativity. FLOS will reverse the state of the art through two groundbreaking endeavours: 1) open-access digital editions of a set of Syriac florilegia of the 8th–10th centuries; 2) a study of many neglected writings of Syriac and Christian Arabic authors of the 8th–11th centuries. These tremendously important writings drew from Syriac patristic florilegia to pinpoint topics like incarnation and the Trinity against other Christians or Islam, showing how patristic sources were used to create new knowledge for the entangled environment of the Abbasid era. FLOS will thus dramatically improve our understanding of the cultural dynamics of Late Antiquity; patristic Christianity will emerge as a bridge between the intellectual history of Europe and of the Middle East. By studying how this shared patrimony was transformed in situations of interreligious interaction, especially with Islam, FLOS will facilitate the comprehension of Europe’s current religious discourses, and the preservation of the endangered cultural heritage of the Syriac Christians.
Project acronym HISTANTARTSI
Project Historical memory, Antiquarian Culture and Artistic Patronage: Social Identities in the Centres of Southern Italy between the Medieval and Early Modern Period
Researcher (PI) Bianca De Divitiis
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II
Summary From the 12th-century southern Italy was overrun by foreign rulers and their houses and saw fierce dynastic struggles for succession. In attempting to cope with these sudden changes and upheavels, the local urban communities continually found themselves faced by the need to legitimize and reconfirm their status through actual negotiations with the king, and eventually with the baron. In this context the procedures and methods used to construct specific local identities take on particular importance, as do those used by individuals and families to affirm their social position. Through an interdisciplinary team the project seeks to identify the conscious and strategic use of archival and literary sources, and of local antiquities, in methods of self-representation adopted by the elite and by the local communities in the Regno di Napoli between the medieval and early modern period beginning with Campania and then extending to Puglia, Calabria, Lucania, Molise and Abruzzo. The aim of the project is to establish a balanced view of southern continental Italy and to create new instruments which will improve not only international academic knowledge but can benefit civil society as a whole, as well as institutions in laying the foundations for a new conservation strategy to protect and manage the cultural patrimony of southern Italy, a region which has contributed significantly to the formation of a European identity. An accessible database on the Internet will be specifically designed and programmed to gather together all the data from this research pre-requisite for studying such themes, and will provide a new instrument and new prospects of research for scholars world-wide.
From the 12th-century southern Italy was overrun by foreign rulers and their houses and saw fierce dynastic struggles for succession. In attempting to cope with these sudden changes and upheavels, the local urban communities continually found themselves faced by the need to legitimize and reconfirm their status through actual negotiations with the king, and eventually with the baron. In this context the procedures and methods used to construct specific local identities take on particular importance, as do those used by individuals and families to affirm their social position. Through an interdisciplinary team the project seeks to identify the conscious and strategic use of archival and literary sources, and of local antiquities, in methods of self-representation adopted by the elite and by the local communities in the Regno di Napoli between the medieval and early modern period beginning with Campania and then extending to Puglia, Calabria, Lucania, Molise and Abruzzo. The aim of the project is to establish a balanced view of southern continental Italy and to create new instruments which will improve not only international academic knowledge but can benefit civil society as a whole, as well as institutions in laying the foundations for a new conservation strategy to protect and manage the cultural patrimony of southern Italy, a region which has contributed significantly to the formation of a European identity. An accessible database on the Internet will be specifically designed and programmed to gather together all the data from this research pre-requisite for studying such themes, and will provide a new instrument and new prospects of research for scholars world-wide.
Project acronym KIDNEY CANCER
Project Molecular mechanisms underlying control of renal epithelial proliferative homeostasis
Researcher (PI) Ian James Frew
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT ZURICH
Summary This research grant has two major aspects. The first seeks to understand the molecular and cellular basis of the evolution of clear cell renal cell carcinoma(ccRCC), the most frequent form of kidney cancer. We will utilise an integrated approach based on mouse genetics, the use of primary kidney epithelial cell culture systems, genetic screening approaches using RNA interference libraries and analysis of the genetic and molecular changes that arise in human kidney tumours. The rationale behind these studies is that by better understanding the molecular causes of ccRCC it will be possible to identify new molecules or signaling pathways that could serve as appropriate therapeutic targets. The second aspect of this grant relates to the development of a flexible experimental platform that will allow the rapid and simultaneous up- and down-regulation of gene expression in the mouse kidney in a manner in which the affected cells are marked by a luminescent marker. This system will be based on the injection of modified lentiviral gene overexpression and gene knockdown vectors, allowing us to exploit recently-developed genome-wide cDNA libraries and RNA interference libraries. This experimental system should be equally applicable to other organ systems and will allow for the first time a systematic approach to the manipulation of gene expression in living mice, additionally bypassing the time limitations associated with conventional mouse genetic approaches. We aim to develop this system within the biological context of this grant and will combine it with live-animal imaging approaches to generate a series of mouse models of ccRCC. These will ultimately serve as invaluable tools for testing novel therapeutic approaches against this currently untreatable disease.
This research grant has two major aspects. The first seeks to understand the molecular and cellular basis of the evolution of clear cell renal cell carcinoma(ccRCC), the most frequent form of kidney cancer. We will utilise an integrated approach based on mouse genetics, the use of primary kidney epithelial cell culture systems, genetic screening approaches using RNA interference libraries and analysis of the genetic and molecular changes that arise in human kidney tumours. The rationale behind these studies is that by better understanding the molecular causes of ccRCC it will be possible to identify new molecules or signaling pathways that could serve as appropriate therapeutic targets. The second aspect of this grant relates to the development of a flexible experimental platform that will allow the rapid and simultaneous up- and down-regulation of gene expression in the mouse kidney in a manner in which the affected cells are marked by a luminescent marker. This system will be based on the injection of modified lentiviral gene overexpression and gene knockdown vectors, allowing us to exploit recently-developed genome-wide cDNA libraries and RNA interference libraries. This experimental system should be equally applicable to other organ systems and will allow for the first time a systematic approach to the manipulation of gene expression in living mice, additionally bypassing the time limitations associated with conventional mouse genetic approaches. We aim to develop this system within the biological context of this grant and will combine it with live-animal imaging approaches to generate a series of mouse models of ccRCC. These will ultimately serve as invaluable tools for testing novel therapeutic approaches against this currently untreatable disease.
Project acronym NeMoSanctI
Project New Models of Sanctity in Italy (1960s-2010s).A Semiotic Analysis of Norms, Causes of Saints, Hagiography, and Narratives
Researcher (PI) Jenny PONZO
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO
Summary In cultures with a strong Catholic tradition saints represent models of life perfection, dialectically elaborated by a plurality of subjects and expressed in a thick intertextual network. Since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), when the Church promoted a policy of adaptation of her tradition to the modern world, the modeling of sanctity has undergone a deep transformation. In a context of global change, new models of sanctity have assumed a central role in guiding the faithful by proposing a renewed religious alternative to growing secularization. NeMoSanctI intends to study how models of sanctity have changed after the Second Vatican Council and their relationship with the culture of a country exemplum of strong Catholicism: Italy. To this end, it will apply a pioneering semiotic method based on the study of values, which will allow the comparative analysis of a corpus of texts of different genres: - normative texts regulating sanctity emanating from the Church; - judicial texts, i.e. causes of canonization of three famous Italian saints (Padre Pio, Gianna Beretta Molla, and Gerardo Maiella), with a focus on the dialectics between the models proposed by laic witnesses and by ecclesiastic inquirers; - narrative texts, i.e. a sample of popular hagiography about the three saints, of official hagiographic collections, and of Italian literary texts, where the theme of sanctity tends to be unconventionally elaborated and dissociated from Catholic values. Despite its relevance for a deeper understanding of the role of religion in today’s culture, a systematic research on new models of sanctity and on their intertextual codification is still missing. By carrying out this research and by proposing an innovative semiotic method for the analysis of models of life perfection, NeMoSanctI will have a significant impact on numerous disciplines, especially semiotics, religious and cultural studies, critical studies of hagiography and canon law, literary and Italian studies.
In cultures with a strong Catholic tradition saints represent models of life perfection, dialectically elaborated by a plurality of subjects and expressed in a thick intertextual network. Since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), when the Church promoted a policy of adaptation of her tradition to the modern world, the modeling of sanctity has undergone a deep transformation. In a context of global change, new models of sanctity have assumed a central role in guiding the faithful by proposing a renewed religious alternative to growing secularization. NeMoSanctI intends to study how models of sanctity have changed after the Second Vatican Council and their relationship with the culture of a country exemplum of strong Catholicism: Italy. To this end, it will apply a pioneering semiotic method based on the study of values, which will allow the comparative analysis of a corpus of texts of different genres: - normative texts regulating sanctity emanating from the Church; - judicial texts, i.e. causes of canonization of three famous Italian saints (Padre Pio, Gianna Beretta Molla, and Gerardo Maiella), with a focus on the dialectics between the models proposed by laic witnesses and by ecclesiastic inquirers; - narrative texts, i.e. a sample of popular hagiography about the three saints, of official hagiographic collections, and of Italian literary texts, where the theme of sanctity tends to be unconventionally elaborated and dissociated from Catholic values. Despite its relevance for a deeper understanding of the role of religion in today’s culture, a systematic research on new models of sanctity and on their intertextual codification is still missing. By carrying out this research and by proposing an innovative semiotic method for the analysis of models of life perfection, NeMoSanctI will have a significant impact on numerous disciplines, especially semiotics, religious and cultural studies, critical studies of hagiography and canon law, literary and Italian studies.
Project acronym PALaC
Project Pre-Classical Anatolian Languages in Contact
Researcher (PI) Federico Giusfredi
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI VERONA
Summary The aim of the PALaC project is to provide a systematic and complete study of language-contact in pre-classical Anatolia, from the XVIII century BCE up the Anatolian and Syro-Anatolian cultures of the Iron ages. Language contact is a specific phenomenon present in all phases of modern and historical languages, and requires to be investigated using the language-internal methodologies of contact-linguistics. The project will provide a rigorous and complete description of the linguistic interactions in ancient Anatolia, a unique historical and geographical gateway where Indo-European, Semitic and isolated languages interacted with each other, on the ideal boundary between the East and the West. PALaC will deal with the analysis of the textual data from the different Ancient Anatolian corpora, that will be assessed both from a linguistic and from philological perspective. The final results will also be integrated in the general framework of historical and cultural contact in the Ancient Mediterranean world by a dedicated work-package. The project will take advantage of the methodological expertise of a team of researchers who are well trained both in the philological study of the Ancient Near Eastern texts and in the linguistic study of languages in contact.
The aim of the PALaC project is to provide a systematic and complete study of language-contact in pre-classical Anatolia, from the XVIII century BCE up the Anatolian and Syro-Anatolian cultures of the Iron ages. Language contact is a specific phenomenon present in all phases of modern and historical languages, and requires to be investigated using the language-internal methodologies of contact-linguistics. The project will provide a rigorous and complete description of the linguistic interactions in ancient Anatolia, a unique historical and geographical gateway where Indo-European, Semitic and isolated languages interacted with each other, on the ideal boundary between the East and the West. PALaC will deal with the analysis of the textual data from the different Ancient Anatolian corpora, that will be assessed both from a linguistic and from philological perspective. The final results will also be integrated in the general framework of historical and cultural contact in the Ancient Mediterranean world by a dedicated work-package. The project will take advantage of the methodological expertise of a team of researchers who are well trained both in the philological study of the Ancient Near Eastern texts and in the linguistic study of languages in contact.
Project acronym RISK
Project Republics on the Stage of Kings. Representing Republican State Power in the Europe of Absolute Monarchies (late 16th - early 18th century)
Researcher (PI) Alessandro METLICA
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA
Summary RISK investigates Republican pageantry and encomiastic production from late 16th- to early 18th-century Europe, with regard to the Italian city-states that maintained their independence throughout this timeframe (Venice, Genoa, Lucca), the Republic of Ragusa (today in southernmost Croatia) and the Dutch Republic. A multidisciplinary corpus of sources is taken into account, including: praising texts celebrating Republican values; paintings and engravings displaying civic rituals, or portraying mythological prosopopoeias of the Republic; and written accounts of public ceremonies, such as the election of the Doge or the triumph performed after a victorious campaign. RISK provides the first comprehensive overview of these Republican displays of state power in an era - the so-called Ancien Régime - that is generally perceived to have been marked by the rise of a unique political model, i.e. the absolute monarchy. By comparing the representation of kingship and the staging of the Republican state, RISK analyses to what extent the absolutist framework influences the display of ideals such as freedom, equality, and the common good. The goal is to comprehend how the rhetorical devices of Baroque culture extoll a power that does not apply to someone (the King), but rather to something (the Republic and Republican virtues). RISK is expected to lead to a paradigm shift in our understanding of early modern cultural policy and propaganda. Indeed, Ancien Régime republicanism offers a repertoire of images and concepts that embodies an alternative mode of thinking about the state. This legacy allows us to challenge the perceived idea of a Janus-faced early modern Europe, where a series of binary oppositions would supposedly herald the transition towards modern democracy (monarchy versus republic, absolutism versus Enlightenment, court versus public sphere). RISK undermines these juxtapositions, as it highlights the richness and the plurality of our cultural heritage.
RISK investigates Republican pageantry and encomiastic production from late 16th- to early 18th-century Europe, with regard to the Italian city-states that maintained their independence throughout this timeframe (Venice, Genoa, Lucca), the Republic of Ragusa (today in southernmost Croatia) and the Dutch Republic. A multidisciplinary corpus of sources is taken into account, including: praising texts celebrating Republican values; paintings and engravings displaying civic rituals, or portraying mythological prosopopoeias of the Republic; and written accounts of public ceremonies, such as the election of the Doge or the triumph performed after a victorious campaign. RISK provides the first comprehensive overview of these Republican displays of state power in an era - the so-called Ancien Régime - that is generally perceived to have been marked by the rise of a unique political model, i.e. the absolute monarchy. By comparing the representation of kingship and the staging of the Republican state, RISK analyses to what extent the absolutist framework influences the display of ideals such as freedom, equality, and the common good. The goal is to comprehend how the rhetorical devices of Baroque culture extoll a power that does not apply to someone (the King), but rather to something (the Republic and Republican virtues). RISK is expected to lead to a paradigm shift in our understanding of early modern cultural policy and propaganda. Indeed, Ancien Régime republicanism offers a repertoire of images and concepts that embodies an alternative mode of thinking about the state. This legacy allows us to challenge the perceived idea of a Janus-faced early modern Europe, where a series of binary oppositions would supposedly herald the transition towards modern democracy (monarchy versus republic, absolutism versus Enlightenment, court versus public sphere). RISK undermines these juxtapositions, as it highlights the richness and the plurality of our cultural heritage.
Project acronym SymPAtHY
Project A neurosplenic pathway coupling Immunity and Hypertension
Researcher (PI) Daniela CARNEVALE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA
Summary Hypertension (HTN) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. During past decades, several therapies have been developed to afford an optimal blood pressure (BP) regulation. However, the prevalence of uncontrolled HTN continues to rise, with a number of patients still resistant to all ongoing antihypertensive treatments, raising unsolved mechanistic challenges. In the last years, the most attractive novelty in HTN postulated that immune system has a crucial role in BP raising, as well as in end-organ damage. Several advances have been done in this field, but clear mechanistic explanations of how the immune system gets activated under hypertensive challenges is still unknown. It is becoming increasingly clear that, even in the regulation of body hemodynamic, the immune system and the autonomic nervous system serve as two major “sensory organs” capable to be activated upon manifold hits that perturb homeostasis. SymPAtHY is a multidisciplinary strategy aimed at discovering how nervous and immune systems couple in HTN. The concept of this project is to dissect the neuro-immune pathway responsible for BP rising and end-organ damage. The articulation in 3 MAIN AIMS will allow to afford the mechanistic insights from different perspectives. The overall objectives are as follows: 1) Central nervous system relay station coupling immunity and hypertension. 2) Splenic immune mechanisms: from sympathetic drive to T cell egress; 3) T cells in target organs: from the spleen to vessels and kidney. The results of this strategy will unravel important new mechanistic insights in HTN and particularly will have significant implications for understanding how immunity and autonomic nervous system cooperate to rise BP. Based on the emerging view of HTN as an “immune disorder”, we believe that this strategy will add decisive knowledge in this field that could pave the way for developing immunotherapies for the treatment of resistant HTN.
Hypertension (HTN) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. During past decades, several therapies have been developed to afford an optimal blood pressure (BP) regulation. However, the prevalence of uncontrolled HTN continues to rise, with a number of patients still resistant to all ongoing antihypertensive treatments, raising unsolved mechanistic challenges. In the last years, the most attractive novelty in HTN postulated that immune system has a crucial role in BP raising, as well as in end-organ damage. Several advances have been done in this field, but clear mechanistic explanations of how the immune system gets activated under hypertensive challenges is still unknown. It is becoming increasingly clear that, even in the regulation of body hemodynamic, the immune system and the autonomic nervous system serve as two major “sensory organs” capable to be activated upon manifold hits that perturb homeostasis. SymPAtHY is a multidisciplinary strategy aimed at discovering how nervous and immune systems couple in HTN. The concept of this project is to dissect the neuro-immune pathway responsible for BP rising and end-organ damage. The articulation in 3 MAIN AIMS will allow to afford the mechanistic insights from different perspectives. The overall objectives are as follows: 1) Central nervous system relay station coupling immunity and hypertension. 2) Splenic immune mechanisms: from sympathetic drive to T cell egress; 3) T cells in target organs: from the spleen to vessels and kidney. The results of this strategy will unravel important new mechanistic insights in HTN and particularly will have significant implications for understanding how immunity and autonomic nervous system cooperate to rise BP. Based on the emerging view of HTN as an “immune disorder”, we believe that this strategy will add decisive knowledge in this field that could pave the way for developing immunotherapies for the treatment of resistant HTN.
Project acronym TRANSREG
Project Dissecting the role of Translational Regulation in Tumorigenesis
Researcher (PI) Ataman SENDÖL
Summary The control of translation is a key determinant of protein abundance, which in turn defines cellular states. The impact of translational regulation may be even greater during the transition from homeostasis to malignancy, as revealed by the surprisingly low correlations between mRNA and protein levels in human cancer databases. This raises the intriguing possibility that through an ability to generate aberrant downstream networks of translational regulators, oncogenic drivers might impose altered protein synthesis programs that become the driving force for tumor formation and malignant progression. We recently unveiled a hitherto unappreciated role for upstream open reading frame (uORF) translation in tumorigenesis and unearthed a novel switch from conventional EIF2 initiation factor-mediated to alternative EIF2A-mediated uORF translation. These observations suggest that uORFs constitute an exciting new frontier in the field of translational regulation with the potential to fundamentally impact cellular fate. Here, I propose to systematically analyze the function of uORFs during tumorigenesis. First, we will conduct an in vivo CRISPR/CAS9-based screen in mice to elucidate the role of thousands of uORFs in development, differentiation and upon oncogenic transformation. Second, focusing on select uORFs surfacing in the screen, we will document their role during tumor initiation and progression. Third, we will develop novel tools to detect uORF translation in vivo, exploit them to monitor uORF translation during different stages of tumorigenesis, gain mechanistic insight into their function and finally test the relevance of these findings in human cancer. Collectively, these approaches will provide unprecedented and comprehensive insight into the function of uORFs, unravel new paradigms in the control of gene expression and expose novel strategies for cancer diagnostics and treatment.
The control of translation is a key determinant of protein abundance, which in turn defines cellular states. The impact of translational regulation may be even greater during the transition from homeostasis to malignancy, as revealed by the surprisingly low correlations between mRNA and protein levels in human cancer databases. This raises the intriguing possibility that through an ability to generate aberrant downstream networks of translational regulators, oncogenic drivers might impose altered protein synthesis programs that become the driving force for tumor formation and malignant progression. We recently unveiled a hitherto unappreciated role for upstream open reading frame (uORF) translation in tumorigenesis and unearthed a novel switch from conventional EIF2 initiation factor-mediated to alternative EIF2A-mediated uORF translation. These observations suggest that uORFs constitute an exciting new frontier in the field of translational regulation with the potential to fundamentally impact cellular fate. Here, I propose to systematically analyze the function of uORFs during tumorigenesis. First, we will conduct an in vivo CRISPR/CAS9-based screen in mice to elucidate the role of thousands of uORFs in development, differentiation and upon oncogenic transformation. Second, focusing on select uORFs surfacing in the screen, we will document their role during tumor initiation and progression. Third, we will develop novel tools to detect uORF translation in vivo, exploit them to monitor uORF translation during different stages of tumorigenesis, gain mechanistic insight into their function and finally test the relevance of these findings in human cancer. Collectively, these approaches will provide unprecedented and comprehensive insight into the function of uORFs, unravel new paradigms in the control of gene expression and expose novel strategies for cancer diagnostics and treatment.
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Investigators to complete preliminary crash report in March
LocalJanuary 8, 2019January 8, 2019 at 5:30 am Royston Jones Jr.
NASSAU, BAHAMAS – While the Air Accident Investigation Department (AAID) continue to probe a plane crash that took place last November in waters off Nirvana Beach, investigators will complete their preliminary report and make it available to the public in March.
Kendall Dorsett, the operations investigator for the AAID, told Eyewitness News Online that in absence of key components of the aircraft, including the engine, the scope investigation of the investigation and analysis has been limited.
However, he said investigators have ruled out weather as a factor which may have contributed to the crash.
“The investigation is ongoing and we have reviewed aspects relating to weather and we have ruled that out,” Dorsett said.
“…Let me start by saying in the absence of aircraft or major components of the aircraft — engine, airframe etc. — the investigation has sort of been in limited in its analysis phase.
“Subsequently, we have had to rely on other forms of records to compile our investigation and that is ongoing.
“The preliminary report will be made available in March; outlining where we are in the process of the investigation, with the final report to be completed hopefully within a year’s time [of the incident].”
As has been widely reported, Air Traffic Control lost radar contact with the six-seater aircraft flown by captain Byron Ferguson after he reported that he was experiencing difficulties.
The plane plunged into the sea two nautical miles from the airfield at Lynden Pindling International Airport.
A week after the crash, volunteers and civilian divers discovered debris believed to be from the aircraft in waters near the crash area, around a quarter of a mile off Nirvana Beach.
In the days following the crash, the RBDF was widely criticized for its handling of the search efforts.
Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis has promised a full review.
Meanwhile, the Ferguson family continues to search for the aircraft, but has been challenged to raise the necessary funds to acquire a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that can reach depths of up to 10,000 feet.
A GoFundMe page, titled ‘Bring Byron Home’ has raised over $25,000.
Speaking with Eyewitness News Online recently, Ashton Ferguson, Byron’s brother said his family was exploring options, but the proposals to engage an ROV and specialist to operate the equipment has been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
According to Dorsett, if any additional debris or otherwise is found at any point in time the investigation will be reopened and reviewed.
Always a headline ahead, Bahamas news, ewnews.com, Eyewitness News, www.ewnews.com
About Royston Jones Jr.
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Board index General Forums Culture
What song are you listening to right now? 3
This forum is to learn about foreign cultures and habits, because language skills are not everything you need as a world citizen...
Re: What song are you listening to right now? 3
Neyuki by Uttara-Kuru
https://youtu.be/XOSc85CL0eg
Monzombo a.k.a. Monzombo, Mondjembo, and possibly Kpala/Kwala/Yango, is an Ubangian language spoken at and around the Equator in both the ROC and the DRC. This is a song that I'm at least guessing is in Monzombo (I'm not sure from which side of the Congo River exactly EDIT: It's probably from the ROC since it says it was filmed in Mossaka, which is in the ROC):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2sy9lG6uvw
ceid donn
Postby ceid donn » 2018-08-01, 14:50
Someone on Duolingo mentioned Cheb Kahled's "Aiche" last night and it's been stuck in my head since. This is a fan-made video, as I can't find the original music video for this--seems someone is getting fussy about copyright in their old age
I'll use the Algerian flag as Khaled is Algerian, but this French language song is arguably his best known hit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Peklmy6CFbg
Morning jams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQFQgItsm18
https://youtu.be/-glqbmlDBq8
One of Ivan Kupala's songs was buffalaxed into Malayalam.
The Banda languages are a group of Ubangian languages spoken in Central Africa, especially in the Central African Republic but also to some extent in South Sudan and the DRC. This is a a clip of religious (Christian evangelical?) music in one of the Banda languages, but I'm not sure which one yet. It's apparently from the Central African Republic and called "Tolotche"; the group is called "Réveil de l'orient," and the producer is Aboubakar Hadji:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tCj1yaKXDU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY-oNy-JF0U
Ngbandi is a dialect continuum of the Ubangian family spoken in the CAR and DRC, and Northern Ngbandi is the lexical source of Sango, the lingua franca of the CAR. IIUC, the songs in the background of this video are in Ngbandi, and the dance in this video is called gbaduma and is one of the traditional dances of the CAR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPCpAw2HYgA
Postby ceid donn » 2018-08-03, 4:41
Study music at the moment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=741&v=vLEek3I3wac
Again, I don't make any claim that binaural/monarual beats work as advertised. I just like listening to this stuff when I study.
This is a live stream of more hip-hop style beats for studying that I was listening to earler today: ChilledCow. The chat is a little distracting so I just put the video on fullscreen. It's a cute animation at least.
Sami language
https://youtu.be/kprl0CECykA
Binza a.k.a. Binja or Libinza is one of the Bangi-Ntomba languages, somewhat closely related to Bangi and Lingala, but from a different branch of the group. This video I think may just be in Lingala and is actually an interview, it seems, but it begins and ends with the same song AFAICT, and I think that song could be in Binza (or that could just be my wishful thinking ) along with a tiny bit of spoken French:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRU0NhHrdqU
https://youtu.be/L3wKzyIN1yk
Real Name: Iván
Country: Spain (España)
Postby Iván » 2018-08-04, 13:17
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woEcdqqbEVg
Minkä nuorena oppii, sen vanhana taitaa.
I'm feeling low this morning (dealing with some depression and anxiety). Trying to get myself into a different headspace with Buridane...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVMTM3rR88
This is a video of African music from Encarta 2007 (apparently). I'm just listening to the instrumental piece from 2:36 to 2:59, "Trumpets" performed by speakers of one of the Banda languages in the Central African Republic. I grew up with most of the songs in this video (except the Ugandan one EDIT: and the one at the end by Youssou N'Dour) and have posted the full versions of some of these songs on this forum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGRAVDOPi5Q
https://youtu.be/Mdvi6LdBtjg
Yansi a.k.a. Yanzi, Yans(?), or Eyansi is a Bantu language, apparently of uncertain affiliation, spoken in the southwestern DRC, not far from the town of Bandundu (the language indigenously spoken in Bandundu is apparently Ibali Teke). This is a song in Yansi that I guess is called "Bana 'A Yansi":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWMI_9DlqPE
뷰파인더 세상 (Viewfinder World) by Belle Époque
https://youtu.be/KesHNAaNeHM
Mbala a.k.a. Gimbala or Rumbala is another Bantu language spoken in the DRC near Bandundu. It's apparently part of a small group of Bantu languages called Holu-Pende. This is a song apparently in Mbala and called "Mumembu." The video title makes it sound like it's a folk song, but the style of the song doesn't sound so much like it to me at least:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W79Qf9fOC6s
Postby Antea » 2018-08-08, 9:43
https://youtu.be/dJVxoMvhRbY
Pende a.k.a. Phende or Giphende is another Bantu language spoken in Bandundu Province (but spoken further away from the city of Bandundu and closer to the border with Angola), apparently closely related to Mbala. This is apparently a song in Pende by Gisupha T. Mungandji called "APhende":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVR9Wv8sZmg
Return to “Culture”
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DENTON, TX _ Vaqueros goalkeeper Ammon Borjas made the biggest save of his career with Fort Worth on Thursday in the 8th round of penalty kicks to secure a Vaqueros victory in the first round of the playoffs.
After a 1-1 draw in regulation and 30 minutes of overtime, the Vaqueros-Diablos match went to tie-breaking penalty kicks.
Fort Worth defender Rio Ramirez stepped to the spot to begin the 8th round after both sides scored four apiece. Ramirez converted his penalty to give Fort Worth the 5-4 margin.
Borjas then secured the victory with a diving save to his left and then was mobbed by his teammates.
“I felt that the win was a complete team effort,” Borjas said. “Those men out there made the whole game manageable.”
As for making the game-winning save Borjas added, “I felt grateful to my team, my coach and God who made it so that I could be there with my friends and family.”
Denton took the early lead in the match in the 8th minute as they have done so often in this, their inaugural season.
The Vaqueros fought back and finally knotted things up on a beautiful combination capped off by forward Kalle Sone in the 54th minute. Fort Worth created chances throughout the match, including a pair of shots off the frame.
The Vaqueros head west at 7:15 p.m. Saturday to face the Midland-Odessa Sockers in the next round of the playoffs at Midland’s Grande Communications Stadium.
Vaqueros earn decisive victory vs. Katy Playoffs begin 7:15 p.m. Thursday in Denton
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HomeAfter Getting Kicked Off Birthright, Trio Regroups In West Bank
After Getting Kicked Off Birthright, Trio Regroups In West Bank
Ari FeldmanDecember 24, 2018Courtesy of the author
A day after being kicked off a Birthright Israel trip, three young American Jews went to the exact place Birthright would never take them: the West Bank.
They are meeting with residents of a Bedouin village to ask them about living under Israel’s occupation of the territory, Emily Bloch said. Bloch, 29, along with Shira Tiffany, 29, and Benjamin Doernberg, 29, were dismissed from their Birthright trip Sunday.
“We’re just figuring stuff out,” Bloch said. “We didn’t have any plans because we weren’t planning to get kicked off.”
Bloch, Doernberg and Tiffany are all members of IfNotNow, a left-wing group that is opposed to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Members of IfNotNow left their Birthright trips over the summer to visit locations in the West Bank. The group has recently passed out packets of information about Israel and its occupation of the West Bank to Birthright participants in airports ahead of their trips.
IfNotNow provided contact information for Bloch, Doernberg and Tiffany to the Forward. Doernberg and Tiffany did not respond to requests for comment from the Forward.
The trio were asked to leave their trip after what Bloch described as a “pretty heated discussion” occurred between her and an Israeli tour guide leading the trip after Bloch asked about the wall that separates Jerusalem from the West Bank. Bloch said she asked about the wall because she is an immigrants’ rights activist in Boston.
The trio were then taken to a Birthright office in Tel Aviv, where they were told they could either go immediately to the airport and fly home, or stay on their own dime, and forfeit their flight home and $250 security deposit.
“I felt like I hadn’t gotten what I’d come here for, so I decided to stay and learn more,” Bloch said.
Bloch said that Birthright staff did not specifically tell them why they were being kicked off the trip, only saying that they had broken the program’s “rules and regulations.” Bloch said she took that to mean that they had infringed recently added language in Birthright’s code of conduct, which includes a ban on “hijack[ing] discussion.”
“They’re drawing the line, that if you want to ask questions about the occupation, you’re not welcome anymore,” Bloch said.
In a statement, Birthright called the trio “activists,” and said that the organization has a policy of asking participants to leave when they “disrupt the experience of other participants.”
“Birthright Israel always welcomes participants’ views and questions, which are essential to the success of the experience, so long as they are shared in a constructive and respectful manner,” the statement read. “We will not condone any coordinated plans to ruin the experience for others in order to promote a specific agenda.”
Birthright did not immediately respond to further questions asked by the Forward.
After being asked to leave, Bloch said that she, Doernberg and Tiffany stayed at a friend’s home in Tel Aviv, before going to the West Bank Monday morning. They are visiting Umm al-Khair, a Bedouin village near Hebron, which has seen tent homes demolished by the Israeli government.
Bloch says that the trio are self-funded, and may start a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for their travel expenses and flights back to the U.S., as several Birthright participants who were kicked off their trips in August did.
Bloch said that tonight they are staying with an acquaintance in Jerusalem.
“A lot of people have reached out over social media and offered us places to stay, and connections,” she said.
Tomorrow they are planning to go see a main checkpoint between Israel and the West Bank.
“The checkpoint is the gate of the border wall,” Bloch said. “That’s where I think you can often see a lot of what it’s like to live separated, on either side of the wall.”
Bloch said she was disappointed to be kicked off the trip. She said she had previously tried to go on a Birthright trip, in 2014, before it was cancelled because of Israel’s war with Gaza that year, and this is her first time in Israel.
“I wanted to see Israel with my own eyes,” she said. Birthright “is the opportunity presented to so many people in our generation as the way to do that.”
But, she said, they’re not helping American Jews have a “complex and nuanced relationship with Israel.”
“They want unwavering support for their political agenda,” she said.
Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at feldman@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman
Ari Feldman
Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at feldman@forward.com. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.
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Hidden Door Launch Party Review
via Hidden Door Blog
For the music lovers of Edinburgh, it can be frustrating to find out that the live music scene is dying. Some of Edinburgh’s most creative and bravest minds are coming together to put an end to the malaise. The Hidden Door festival is a brilliant concept. In 2017, they took the abandoned Old Leith Theatre and turned it into the main festival venue. This year, right across, they discovered the abandoned Former State Cinema. The festival aims to provide a mainstream platform to audiences who are looking to establish themselves in the music industry. Local artists from Edinburgh are obviously favoured.
The Launch Party, which was hosted at the Liquid Rooms, featured three acts. Four acts were initially intended, but due to the weather conditions, Pronto Mama, weren’t able to come and perform. The show carried on with the other three scheduled performers, Midi Paul, Reverse Engineer and Ela Orleans. Midi Paul was the opener, walking onto the stage with his bass guitar, hooked up to the various gadgets on the DJ table. He started off with a synthy post-disco groove. He simultaneously played the bass, while adding instrumental layers with midi launch pad in front of him. Midi Paul’s artistic diversity was really on display, blending elements of electronic, progressive rock and dub into his set. While the music was mixed well and Paul is obviously talented, the set up limited the experience of the performance a bit. The long table that stretched from one end of the stage to the other felt like a barrier that led to somewhat of a restrained performance. At times, it felt like the audience checked out of the music, focusing more on their conversations than the music.
Reverse engineering was up next, offering a mix of proto-jungle, proto-techno and house. His music emits the nostalgia of a music scene from the 70s or the 80s. The energy slow seeps into the crowd, as people begin to dance. The Reverse Engineer has a very meticulous approach to his sets, incrementally adding a new sound into the fold as the mix goes on. It’s easy to tell that The Reverse Engineer is excited to be here, getting jiggy to his music, behind the table. Again the table, really feels like a barrier to enjoying this launch party more. Scenes for genres such as house and electric usually have a very intimate setting, at the end of the day DJ’s are really just normal people like us. Considering that this is not a big arena, the confrontational nature of the setting is a bit of limitation when it comes to enjoying the concert more.
Ela Orleans is the closer. To see the talented Polish artist, based in Glasgow is an exciting prospect. Orleans joins the stage and begins to set up, asking the audience to quiet down. They oblige. The barrier-like set up of the tables suits her personality best, as you get the sense that she is more of an introverted type who conveys the intimacy of her music through the sounds she uses. Ela Orleans is like a more refined blend of the first two performances at the launch. She provides some very swingy beats, which slowly transform into beautifully harmonized tunes. A lot of personality is felt with the quirky sounds that she adds into each song. Orleans’ vocals give off an eerie-sort of vibe, they seem to have an important role in the overall experience of her music. At times the music can get irritating as it’s impossible to really hear Orleans’ vocals properly. While you get a basic sense of the pitch and the tone, it feels like you’re not truly experiencing true extent of Orleans’ talent.
The Hidden Door Festival is obviously a huge deal. It should be a mandatory event for every resident in Edinburgh, if such a law existed. While you get a bit of a taste of what to expect through the visuals and the musical performances, the launch wasn’t without its dull moments. It’s perfectly fine for music to be a conversational lubricant, but at times it felt like people were more interested in their conversations than the music. That might speak to the people in attendance or the fact that there weren’t any performers who could really get the crowd up and dancing. After all, the launch is for a festival, the performers are obviously talented, but it was hard to truly get a festive sense from the event.
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Home Gossip Olympian Diana Taurasi net worth. See how much she earns with her WNBA career. Is she Lesbian?
Olympian Diana Taurasi net worth. See how much she earns with her WNBA career. Is she Lesbian?
Ashmita Karki Wed Nov, 2016
Olympic gold medalist Diana Taurasi is a very talented lady. Professional basketball player Taurasi has an amazing net worth of $1.5 million. She is widely known among basketball fans. Till date, Taurasi has been awarded many awards. You might be delighted to know that Taurasi’s salary is as high as her net worth. She earns $500 thousand annually.
Diana Taurasi's Manhattan Beach house
Taurasi owns a luxurious house in the Manhattan Beach. She bought the mansion for $3.3 million. It is a three-storied house which covers an area of 2,040 square feet. It has three bedrooms, three bathrooms and other facilities such as the spa, walk-in closet, ocean facing balcony, hardwood flooring, and gorgeous kitchen. The surrounding of Taurasi’s Manhattan mansion is also very beautiful.
Image: Diana Taurasi's house
Diana Taurasi's Kobe shoes
Taurasi is a shoe lover. However, she does not wear cheap shoes. Her basketball shoes are also very expensive. She once posted a photo of her Kobe Venomenon III on her Instagram.
#kobe#venomenon#3#purple#white ??????
A photo posted by @dianataurasi on Apr 14, 2013 at 10:13am PDT
Diana Taurasi's tremendous career
Diana Taurasi got the opportunity to work in the 2004 WNBA Draft by the Phoenix Mercury. She mainly plays guard but sometimes Taurasi is also seen as a forward. During her career, she helped her team win several times. During her early days at WNBA, Taurasi made her team win a match against Seattle Storm. Despite being injured, Taurasi acquired 16.0 points along with 4.2 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game in 2005. In 2006, Taurasi broke Katie Smith’s league record. In the same year, her score rose up to 25.3 points, 4.1 assists and 3.6 rebounds per game. In 2007, Taurasi and her teammates made their team Mercury to win the first WNBA title. It was when Taurasi won a NCAA title, a WNBA title, and an Olympic gold medal. Her career did not just stop there.
Image: Diana Taurasi
Her international career began in the year 2005. She played for Dynamo Moscow then. In 2010, she played for Turkish champion Fenerbahce. In 2011-2012 Taurasi played for Galatasaray. Taurasi signed a contract with UMMC in on 16th May 2012. Even at present Taurasi plays for UMMC.
This is how Taurasi has earned all her net worth.
Diana Taurasi's awards
Till date, Taurasi has won various awards. She is the winner of three WNBA championships that happened in the year 2007, 2009 and 2014. She is the recipient of the WNBA Most Valuable Player Award, two WNBA Finals MVP Awards, four Olympic gold medals, five and the WNBA Rookie of the Year Award (2004). Moreover, Taurasi is one of the 9 women to win an Olympic Gold Medal, a NCAA Championship, and a WNBA Championship. She has also been voted as one of the WNBA's Top 15 Players of All Time.
Diana Taurasi kissed Seimone Augustus
Talking about Taurasi’s personal life, Taurasi does not have a boyfriend yet and she is not married too. However, her fans are doubtful about her sexual preference. She has been rumored of being lesbian because of her kiss with Seimone Augustus. The photo where Taurasi was seen kissing Augustus went viral. However, Taurasi has never spoken anything regarding this matter.
Image: Diana Taurasi kissing Seimone Augustus
What do you think about Diana Taurasi? Please leave your opinion in the comment box below.
Jenn Blosil
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Executive summary of the EURA case
Slovak textile importer EURA Slovakia, s.r.o. is facing EUR 5600 in fines because it did not buy and use the Microsoft Windows operating system for submitting electronic tax reports. Slovak tax administration gave EURA only two options: either to buy and use Microsoft Windows or face the fines. This is also how we could briefly summarize the decision of Slovak tax administration from a few weeks ago. The administration imposed several fines on a company, EURA Slovakia, which submitted its tax reports on paper, because the use of electronic form was impossible as the state's web application worked only on the Microsoft Windows operating system. The company now plans to appeal to the court and to demand that the state stops forcing businesses to use a certain product, instead of requiring that the public administration uses a multi-platform technical solution based on Open Standards that is available for everybody.
Background of the case
Since January 2010 Slovakia has a law requiring every monthly tax report concerning value added tax (VAT) to be submitted by electronic means and signed by a certified electronic signature. As many Slovak companies still don't have certified electronic signatures, the law enables an exception under which the company can enter into an agreement with the tax office and then use a special web-based application called “eDane”.
However, the eDane application works only under the Windows operating system together with the Internet Explorer web browser. None of the other operating systems can run this application. As EURA Slovakia uses a competing operating system in the entire company and despite help from its IT staff, it was impossible for it to send anything electronically. When the company notified the tax administration about this problem, nothing happened. The company thus decided to fulfill its statutory obligations at least by submitting the tax reports in classical paper form. The tax office however, consider this to be contrary to the law.
Imposing the fines
When the company pointed to the fact that it could not electronically fulfill its obligation, it received 12 fines from the Slovak tax administration. "We were really trying to respect the law, but in Slovakia there is no state-certified application that would support the electronic signature on the other operating system than Windows. We therefore had to enter into the agreement with the tax office and try to use the web-based application. Unfortunately, neither us, nor our technicians with years of experience, were able to run it," says the director of EURA Slovakia, Mr. František Slivka.
For submitting the tax report in the paper form, the company was fined several times, and so far wasn't successful with a single appeal before various administrative bodies. It has therefore decided to appeal to the court. "Thousands of Slovak companies resigned on this behavior of the Slovak tax administration and simply bought a license to the Windows operating system only to be able to submit this monthly electronic reports. We believe that it is unfair. The administration thus directly forces Slovak companies to buy Windows, even though they do not need it for other purposes," says Slivka.
European problem
"If the state requires the electronic form as a only way of fulfilling the statutory obligation, it has to offer the multi-platform solution, which is available to everybody. Otherwise, the state in advance precludes its citizens to behave in accordance with the law," comments Martin Husovec, member of the FSFE Legal, who assists the Slovak company in filling the case before the court. This problem is not unique for Slovakia.
Many companies in the other member states of the European Union have to deal with the very same problem. However, the Slovak case at hand is one of the most blatant and striking examples of the injustice in society caused by ignorance of the Open Standards in the digital world. It shows that the negligence of state in the field of open standards not only leads to the social injustice, but also hurts the competition, increases costs for the small companies and bureaucracy.
In its effect it also conflicts with European rules and recommendations, like the European Interoperability Framework, which clearly states that "Member States setting up ICT-supported national public services need to be more aware of the risk of creating new electronic barriers if they opt for solutions that are not interoperable. Such so-called ebarriers fragment the internal market and hinder it from functioning properly. Member States and the Commission should step up their efforts to avoid this."
These new electronic barriers "digitally" handcuff the citizens and thus prevent them from behaving in accordance with the law. FSFE calls for a change in this practice.
Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to control technology.
Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives. It is important that this technology empowers rather than restricts us. Free Software gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt and share software. These rights help support other fundamental rights like freedom of speech, freedom of press and privacy.
Last changed: 2020-01-01 15:12:29 (automatic)
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. JavaScript Licences
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network that protective danger other used paragraph overhead earth distributor reasonably supply specified than this protection with circuit under means these equipment notice circuits line electrical such event which part person electricity connected installation voltage shall requirements have regulations regulation will from state system where cable steel conductor cables ring JoelLipman.Com
Electricity at work act
Mines only
Places a legal responsibility on employers and employees, as duty holders, to ensure that electrical systems used at work under their control are safe.
Legal Requirements:
To achieve compliance with the legal requirements of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 requires proof that an electrical system is safe, which involves amongst other things, proper inspection and testing of a system by competent people and the creation and maintenance of records.
Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 is law in the United Kingdom.
Electricity At Work Regulations 1989 (EAWR)
The regulations as stated below are an overview of the UK regulations. For a comprehensive guide please refer to the latest version of the HSE document "Memorandum of Guidance on the Electricity At Work Regulations" - available from HMSO or technical bookshops.
Citation and commencement
1. These Regulations may be cited as the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 and shall come into force on 1st April 1990.
"approved" means approved in writing for the time being by the Health and Safety Executive for the purposes of these Regulations or conforming with a specification approved in writing by the Health and Safety Executive for the purposes of these Regulations;
"circuit conductor" means any conductor in a system which is intended to carry electric current in normal conditions, or to be energised in normal conditions, and includes a combined neutral and earth conductor, but does not include a conductor provided solely to perform a protective function by connection to earth or other reference point;
"conductor" means a conductor of electrical energy;
"danger" means risk of injury;
"electrical equipment" includes anything used, intended to be used or installed for use, to generate, provide, transmit, transform, rectify, convert, conduct, distribute, control, store, measure or use electrical energy;
"firedamp" means any flammable gas or any flammable mixture of gases occurring naturally in a mine;
"injury" means death or personal injury from electric shock, electric burn, electrical explosion or arcing, or from fire or explosion initiated by electrical energy, where any such death or injury is associated with the generation, provision, transmission, transformation, rectification, conversion, conduction, distribution, control, storage, measurement or use of electrical energy;
(a) any coal mine; or
(i) there has occurred below ground an ignition of firedamp; or
"system" means an electrical system in which all the electrical equipment is, or may be, electrically connected to a common source of electrical energy, and includes such source and such equipment.
(ii) more than 0.25% by volume of firedamp is found on any occasion at any place below ground in the mine;
(b) any other mine in which-
"safety-lamp mine" means-
(a) a numbered regulation or Schedule is a reference to the regulation or Schedule in these Regulations so numbered;
(b) a numbered paragraph is a reference to the paragraph so numbered in the regulation or Schedule in which the reference appears.
2.—(1) In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires-
(2) Unless the context otherwise requires, any reference in these Regulations to-
(a) employer and self-employed person to comply with the provisions of these Regulations in so far as they relate to matters which are within his control; and
(b) manager of a mine or quarry (within in either case the meaning of section 180 of the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 to ensure that all requirements or prohibitions imposed by or under these Regulations are complied with in so far as they relate to the mine or quarry or part of a quarry of which he is the manager and to matters which are within his control.
(a) to co-operate with his employer so far as is necessary to enable any duty placed on that employer by the provisions of these Regulations to be complied with; and
(b) to comply with the provisions of these Regulations in so far as they relate to matters which are within his control.
Persons on whom duties are imposed by these Regulations
3.—(1) Except where otherwise expressly provided in these Regulations, it shall be the duty of every-
(2) It shall be the duty of every employee while at work-
(a) to co -operate with his employer so far as is necessary to enable any duty placed on that employer by the provisions of these Regulations to be complied with; and
Systems, work activities and protective equipment
4.—(1) All systems shall at all times be of such construction as to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, danger.
(2) As may be necessary to prevent danger, all systems shall be maintained so as to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, such danger.
(3) Every work activity, including operation, use and maintenance of a system and work near a system, shall be carried out in such a manner as not to give rise, so far as is reasonably practicable, to danger.
(4) Any equipment provided under these Regulations for the purpose of protecting persons at work on or near electrical equipment shall be suitable for the use for which it is provided, be maintained in a condition suitable for that use, and be properly used.
Strength and capability of electrical equipment
5. No electrical equipment shall be put into use where its strength and capability may be exceeded in such a way as may give rise to danger.
(a) mechanical damage;
(b) the effects of the weather, natural hazards, temperature or pressure;
(c) the effects of wet, dirty, dusty or corrosive conditions; or
(d) any flammable or explosive substance, including dusts, vapours or gases,
Adverse or hazardous environments
6. Electrical equipment which may reasonably foreseeably be exposed to-shall be of such construction or as necessary protected as to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, danger arising from such exposure.
(a) be suitably covered with insulating material and as necessary protected so as to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, danger; or
(b) have such precautions taken in respect of them (including, where appropriate, their being suitably placed) as will prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, danger.
Insulation, protection and placing of conductors
7. All conductors in a system which may give rise to danger shall either-
Earthing or other suitable precautions
8. Precautions shall be taken, either by earthing or by other suitable means, to prevent danger arising when any conductor (other than a circuit conductor) which may reasonably foreseeably become charged as a result of either the use of a system, or a fault in a system, becomes so charged; and, for the purposes of ensuring compliance with this regulation, a conductor shall be regarded as earthed when it is connected to the general mass of earth by conductors of sufficient strength and current-carrying capability to discharge electrical energy to earth.
Integrity of referenced conductors
9. If a circuit conductor is connected to earth or to any other reference point, nothing which might reasonably be expected to give rise to danger by breaking the electrical continuity or introducing high impedance shall be placed in that conductor unless suitable precautions are taken to prevent that danger.
10. Where necessary to prevent danger, every joint and connection in a system shall be mechanically and electrically suitable for use.
Means for protecting from excess of current
11. Efficient means, suitably located, shall be provided for protecting from excess of current every part of a system as may be necessary to prevent danger.
(a) cutting off the supply of electrical energy to any electrical equipment; and
(b) the isolation of any electrical equipment.
Means for cutting off the supply and for isolation
12.—(1) Subject to paragraph (3), where necessary to prevent danger, suitable means (including, where appropriate, methods of identifying circuits) shall be available for-
(2) In paragraph (1), "isolation" means the disconnection and separation of the electrical equipment from every source of electrical energy in such a way that this disconnection and separation is secure.
(3) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to electrical equipment which is itself a source of electrical energy but, in such a case as is necessary, precautions shall be taken to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, danger.
Precautions for work on equipment made dead
13. Adequate precautions shall be taken to prevent electrical equipment, which has been made dead in order to prevent danger while work is carried out on or near that equipment, from becoming electrically charged during that work if danger may thereby arise.
(a) it is unreasonable in all the circumstances for it to be dead; and
(b) it is reasonable in all the circumstances for him to be at work on or near it while it is live; and
(c) suitable precautions (including where necessary the provision of suitable protective equipment) are taken to prevent injury.
Work on or near live conductors
14. No person shall be engaged in any work activity on or so near any live conductor (other than one suitably covered with insulating material so as to prevent danger) that danger may arise unless-
Working space, access and lighting
15. For the purposes of enabling injury to be prevented, adequate working space, adequate means of access, and adequate lighting shall be provided at all electrical equipment on which or near which work is being done in circumstances which may give rise to danger.
Persons to be competent to prevent danger and injury
16. No person shall be engaged in any work activity where technical knowledge or experience is necessary to prevent danger or, where appropriate, injury, unless he possesses such knowledge or experience, or is under such degree of supervision as may be appropriate having regard to the nature of the work.
+2 #1 Myrtle 2014-04-19 10:49
Hello there, I discovered your blog by means of Google even as searching for a related matter, your website came up,
it looks great. I have bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.
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Gamer Horizon
Ari Margo
Christian Murillo
Ted Polak
Sean Mesler
Thief sets release date for early next year
Posted on August 16, 2013 March 21, 2015 by Gamer Horizon Classic Import
Square Enix and Eidos Montreal have set an official release date for the next iteration in the Thief franchise. Thief tells the story of Master Thief Garrett as he becomes increasingly entangled in a conflict between Barron Northcrest and the oppressed masses led by Orion. Both factions believe in their own causes and are willing to go to any length to achieve their goals.
Barron Northcrest is a man who believes in the fires of industry and progress. “This city will not die with the old and the poor holding it back. The time has come for a new future.” Orion is the voice of the people who wants a return to the old ways. “No more will our homes be taken and our families starved. This City belongs to the people. We must seize it back.”
Garrett is caught in the middle of this growing divide that threatens to tear the city apart. There is a revolution coming and Garrett must walk a fine line that separates politics, the people and his own beliefs. Thief launches early next year on February 25th, 2014 in North America and February 28th, 2014 in Europe. Platforms include PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
Tags: Eidos Montreal, PC, playstation 3, PlayStation 4, Square Enix, thief, Xbox 360, Xbox OneCategories: Moments, News
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The Greater Caribbean For Life
Lloyd Barnett
Carmelo Campos Cruz
Mariana Nogales Molinelli
Mario Polanco Pérez
Leela Ramdeen
Fenella Wenham
Info by Country
Retentionist
Abolitionist in Practice
Abolitionist in Law
11th World Day against Death Penalty
Speaking Tour
GCL MEMBERS
EU Conference in Guyana for The Abolition of The Death Penalty
November 27, 2015 · by gcforlife2015 · in Uncategorized. ·
The Death Penalty As A Deterrent: Does It Work?
Leela Ramdeen, Chair, Greater Caribbean for Life (TT) )
Good afternoon, my friends. We all know the saying by the 19th Century writer: Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables (1802-1885). He said: “What says the law? You will not kill. How does it say it? By killing!” And, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in his message to those of us who gathered in Madrid at the 5th World Congress against the Death Penalty in 2013: “There is no justice in killing in the name of justice, and no godliness in exacting vengeance.”
Too often it is the poor/working class, and individuals from minority ethnic communities who are over represented on death row/receive the death sentence. As the saying goes: “Capital punishment is for those who have no capital.”
Let me state from the outset that GCL believes that society has a right to protect itself from persons who commit heinous crimes and offenders must be held accountable. However, we believe that non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect society from offenders.
While GCL condemns the rise of violent crime in the Greater Caribbean region, and stands in solidarity with the victims of crime, members reject the notion that capital punishment will act as a deterrent or foster respect for life in our communities. What is urgent is for governments to consider the root causes of crime.
See General Assembly of the United Nations:Resolution 65/206 of 2012 and 69/186 of 18 Dec 2014 –– endorse the claim that there is “no conclusive evidence of the deterrent value of the death penalty.“ Convinced that a moratorium on the use of the death penalty contributes to respect for human dignity and to the enhancement and progressive development of human rights, and considering that there is no conclusive evidence of the deterrent value of the death penalty…”
Here in our Caribbean region, The Honourable the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Ivor Archieof Trinidad and Tobago, said at the opening of the Law Term, 2010: “I am yet to see any persuasive empirical evidence that executions significantly reduce murder or crime rates generally… social scientists…suggest(s) that the certainty of conviction, and within a reasonably quick time, is a more potent factor.”
And at the opening of the Law Term this year (16 September 2015), he said that:
“Over the past few years the number of persons awaiting trial for murder has risen to more than 514. Common sense tells me that by itself the death penalty is not the solution. Apart from the dubiousness of its value as a deterrent…
* Frank Friel, Former Head of Organized Crime Homicide Task Force, Philadelphia, rightly says: “The death penalty does little to prevent crime. It’s the fear of apprehension and the likely prospect of swift and certain punishment that provides the largest deterrent to crime.”
It is worth notingwhat some other judges had to say about the deterrence argument in relation to the death penalty. I refer to the landmark decision by the 11 members of the Constitutional Court of South Africa – which consisted of jurists from different races, religions and age groups – in the South African case of The State v Makwanyane and Mchunu. Judgment was delivered on 6 June 1995. The court ruled that capital punishment was incompatible with the protection against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” in the Interim Constitution of 1993. It therefore abolished the death penalty in South Africa. The attorney general of Witwatersrand had pressed for the death penalty for two convicts.
The Presiding Judge, President Arthur Chaskalson, stated that the most effective deterrent is the knowledge that the offender will probably be caught, convicted, and punished. In striking out the use of the death penalty, the Court said: “We would be deluding ourselves if we were to believe that the execution of the few persons sentenced to death during this period, and of a comparatively few other people each year from now onwards will provide the solution to the unacceptably high rate of crime. There will always be unstable, desperate, and pathological people for whom the risk of arrest and imprisonment provides no deterrent, but there is nothing to show that a decision to carry out the death sentence would have any impact on the behaviour of such people, or that there will be more of them if imprisonment is the only sanction. No information was placed before us by the Attorney General n regard to the rising crime rate other than the bare statistics, and they alone prove nothing, other than that we are living in a violent society, in which most crime goes unpunished, something that we all know.”
He noted that the Attorney-General had admitted that it was impossible to prove convincingly that the death penalty was a deterrent, and that inevitably there was an element of speculation in such a conclusion. ‘It is’, he said, ‘a proposition that is not capable of proof, because one never knows about those who have been deterred; we know only about those who have not been deterred, and who have committed terrible crimes.’
“…Justice Kerigler stated in his concurring reasons: ‘…no empirical study, no statistical exercise, and not theoretical analysis has been able to demonstrate that capital punishment has any deterrent force greater than that of a really heavy sentence of imprisonment.’
“Therefore, ‘it simply cannot be reasonable to sanction judicial killing without knowing whether it has any marginal deterrent value.’”(See p.64 of the book: The Death Penalty as Cruel Treatment and Torture…
https://books.google.tt/books?isbn=1555532683 )
NYU Professor David Greenberg and Virginia Tech University Professor Biko Agozinoconducted a study in Trinidad and Tobago in 2011. They found no correlation between executions, imprisonment and crime: “over a span of 50 years, during which these sanctions were being deployed in degrees that varied substantially, neither imprisonment nor death sentences nor executions had any significant relationship to homicides. In the years immediately following an appeals court’s determination limiting executions, the murder rate fell.”
In particular, the study showed that between 1950 and 1980, while executions were carried out regularly every year, homicides rates remained fairly stable. In the years since 1980, although courts continued to impose death sentences, executions took place in just two of those years. This drop in executions had no large, immediate impact on murder rates, which only began to rise sharply from 2003, when the consequences of drug trafficking and illegal possession of weapons also began taking its toll on the country.)
A recently launched book, entitled: Moving Away from the Death Penalty: Arguments, Trends and Perspectives, has a helpful section on the issue of Deterrence. Federico Mayor,President of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, rightly states in his chapter in this book: Leadership and the abolition of the death penalty: “Rejecting capital punishment is about choosing what kind of society we want to live in, and which values—including human rights and dignity, democracy and the rule of law—we want to uphold….Principled political leadership, within the domestic realm and internationally, is an essential factor in the momentum that is driving the movement for the abolition of the death penalty.
Ultimately, it is the state that must decide to abolish the death penalty and protect the fundamental human right to life. Political leadership has been very important in overcoming domestic opposition to abolition in several countries. Political leaders have recognized that while public opinion is relevant, nations face difficulties if popular sentiment, which is difficult to gauge accurately, is allowed to determine penal policy. Experience shows that the majority of the public is willing to accept abolition of capital punishment once it is achieved.”
— Federico Mayor (UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR),( Moving Away from the Death Penalty: Arguments, Trends and Perspectives, 2014, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/54a684144.html [accessed 12 November 2015]
A comprehensive review of the research on the issue of deterrence over 34 yearswas conducted by a Committee of The National Research Council of the National Academies in the USA. The Committee confirmed in its April 2012 report that: “research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is not useful in determining whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on these rates. The key question is whether capital punishment is less or more effective as a deterrent than alternative punishments, such as a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Yet none of the research that has been done accounted for the possible effect of non-capital punishments on homicide rates.”
These findings are consistent with research undertaken in 1988, and updated in 2002 by one of the leading authorities on the death penalty. A survey of research findings on the death penalty and homicide rates concluded that “it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment…deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment.” (Roger Hood and Carolyn Hoyle, The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective, Oxford, OUP, 4th edition 2008).
In their chapter entitled: Myth of Deterrence, in the book Moving Away from the Death Penalty: Arguments, Trends and Perspectives, Carolyn Hoyle and Roger Hood state: “The empirical research conducted over the past few decades demonstrates that no matter what politicians argue or the public believe, neither deterrence nor public opinion should be seen as barriers to abolition.
It is well-known that some categories of offenders would not be deterred by the threat of being executed. Federico Mayor stated that many of those sentenced to death have mental health issues or were under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the offence, both of which suggest the defendant may not have thought through the consequences of their actions or the possibility they may be executed. Moreover, Mayor stated, organized crime groups make “calculated decisions and believe that detection and convictions are unlikely” while “those who commit terrorists acts for political ends…are often prepared to die for that cause…[and] unlikely to be deterred by the death penalty.” (See my background information from The American Civil Liberties Union etc.)http://www.ohchr.org/Lists/MeetingsNY/Attachments/27/moving_away_from_death_penalty_web.pdf )
And then we have the work of Prof Michael Radelet, Chair, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado- Boulder, and Traci Lacock, conducted in 2008. This was a survey of experts from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association.
The survey asked the expert opinions of the world’s leading criminologists whether empirical research (not their own views) “supports the contention that the death penalty is a superior deterrent. The findings demonstrate an overwhelming consensus among these criminologists that the empirical research conducted on the deterrence question strongly supports the conclusion that the death penalty does not add deterrent effects to those already achieved by long imprisonment.” (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/DeterrenceStudy2009.pdf ).
The findings are published in an article in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 99 (489-508) – entitled: “Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists.” In the article, they state that the research reported was designed toupdate the 1996 study by Radelet and Akers who had surveyed 67 leading American criminologists on the issue of deterrence and the death penalty. The 2008 study also assessed “if any recent deterrence studies have modified the beliefs of the world’s leading criminologists. The results indicate that only a small minority to top criminologists – 10% or less, depending on how the question is phrased- believes that the weight of empirical research studies supports the deterrence justification for the death penalty.”
In this article they comment on a number of “widely-cited studies” conducted in the 6 years prior to the article, and written primarily by economists. These studies claimed to show the death penalty has deterrent effects that criminologists have not spotted (see Criminal Justice Legal Found, Articles on Death Penalty Deterrence, (www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPDeterrence.htm ).
Radelet and Lacock state that “the importance of the deterrence justification for capital punishment has declined precipitously in recent years among the general public. In the mid-twentieth century and up through the 1970s, it was unquestionably the top argument in favour of executions” p492. However, as they noted, in a Gallup Poll the proportion of respondents who stated that the death penalty was not a deterrent doubled by 2004, from 31% in 1985 to 62%. (p492).
A comparison of the results of Radelet’s and Akers’ 1996 survey and that of the 2008 survey of Radelet and Lacock, are as they say: “remarkably similar”.
88.2% of the polled criminologists stated that there is little empirical evidence from existing research to support the deterrent effect of the death penalty (up slightly from 83.6% in 1996). (5.3% believe it is deterrent vs 11.9% in 1996 survey).
Radelet and Lacock state in the above article: “Our survey indicates that the vast majority of the world’s top criminologists believe that the empirical research has revealed the deterrence hypothesis for a myth…the consensus among criminologists is that the death penalty does not add any significant deterrent effect above that of long-term imprisonment.”
90% of the criminologists polled said that the death penalty had little effect overall on the committing of murder.
Over 75% of those polled do not believe that increasing the number of executions, or decreasing the time spent on death row before execution, would produce a general deterrent effect.
91% said that politicians support the death penalty as a symbolic way to show they are tough on crime.
75% said that it distracts legislatures from focusing on real solutions to crime.
91.6% said that increasing the frequency of executions would not add a deterrent effect.
There is also the result of a 1995 survey entitled: On the Front Line: Law Enforcement Views on the Death Penalty. The Death Penalty Information Center and commissioned Peter D. Hart Research Associates who in January 1995 (See: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/front-line-law-enforcement-views-death-penalty) “conducted a national opinion poll of randomly selected police chiefs in the United States. In that poll, the chiefs had the opportunity to express what they believe really works in fighting crime. They were asked where the death penalty fit in their priorities as leaders in the law enforcement field.”
“Police chiefs ranked the death penalty last as a way of reducing violent crime, placing it behind curbing drug abuse, more police officers on the streets, lowering the technical barriers to prosecution, longer sentences, and a better economy with more jobs.”
Police Chiefs did not believe that murderers think about the range of possible punishments. Police Chiefs considered strengthening families and neighbourhoods, punishing criminals swiftly and surely, controlling illegal drugs, and gun control (to be) more important than the death penalty. The death penalty was rated as the least cost- effective method for controlling crime. They did not believe that the death penalty significantly reduces the number of homicides, nor did they believe that murderers think about the range of possible punishments.
In the past few years, the governors of Washington, Colorado, and Oregonhave put a halt to executions in their states because of problems in the death penalty system. Below are some of the reasons they gave for their actions. (And see: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-penalty-flux/#exe for States where there is a hold on executions – for various reasons – on hold either by court or executive order).
Governor Jay Inslee, Washington, February 11, 2014
“Equal justice under the law is the state’s primary responsibility. And in death penalty cases, I’m not convinced equal justice is being served. The use of the death penalty in this state is unequally applied, sometimes dependent on the budget of the county where the crime occurred.”
“There are too many flaws in the system. And when the ultimate decision is death there is too much at stake to accept an imperfect system. ”
“When the majority of death penalty sentences lead to reversal, the entire system itself must be called into question.”
Governor John Hickenlooper, Colorado, May 22, 2013
“If the State of Colorado is going to undertake the responsibility of executing a human being, the system must operate flawlessly. Colorado’s system for capital punishment is not flawless.”
“As one former Colorado judge said to us, ‘[The death penalty] is the result of happenstance, the district attorney’s choice, the jurisdiction in which the case is filed, perhaps the race of economic circumstance of the defendant.'”
“The death penalty is not making our world a safer or better place.”
Governor John Kitzhaber, Oregon, November 22, 2011: “I do not believe that those executions made us safer; and certainly they
did not make us nobler as a society.”
“The death penalty as practiced in Oregon is neither fair nor just; and it is
not swift or certain. It is not applied equally to all.” “I am convinced we can find a better solution that keeps society safe, supports the victims of crime and their families and reflects Oregon values.”
A key issue to be considered in this discussion is the state of mindof those who commit murders. As Willie L. Williams, Police Chief, Los Angeles, CA said: “I am not convinced that capital punishment, in and of itself, is a deterrent to crime because most people do not think about the death penalty before they commit a violent or capital crime.”
It is also worth noting that in the USA, where 31 States maintain the death penalty and 19 States and DC have abolished it, States without the death penalty have had consistently lower murder rates.
(http://deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=82) On p.502 of Radelet’s and Lacocks article (see above), they state that “death penalty states have consistently higher homicide rates than non-death-penalty states. In 2007, for example, the homicide rate in states with active death penalty statutes was 42% higher than that of non-death-penalty states.”
“The South, which carries out over 80% of the executions in the US, has the highest murder rate of the four regions.”http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-deterrence-and-death-penalty . One can say that this adds weight to the point that the death penalty is not a deterrent.
“In Canada, the homicide rate per 100,000 population fell from a peak of 3.09 in 1975, the year before the abolition of the death penalty for murder, to 2.41 in 1980. In 1993, 17 years after abolition, the homicide rate was 2.19 per 100,000 population, 27 per cent lower than in 1975.”
(https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/…/asa330092013en.pdf ).
Our response to crime in our region is a moral test for all of us. Any discussion of the death penalty must be considered in the context of, for example, nation-building, character development of citizens and so on. All countries in our region and in the world at large are grappling with challenges faced in producing comprehensive crime plans. But such plans are not created in a vacuum. We need crime plans based on evidence and evidence must be gathered from many sources because crime is a complex phenomenon that requires a multi-faceted/multi-sectoral approach. GCL believes that any approach that prioritises capital punishment as a crime reduction strategy is doomed to fail.
I firmly believe that these strategies, many of which were recommended by the UNDP in their 2012 report: Human development and the shift to better citizen security, can contribute to build safer, more democratic and just societies in the region. At the launch of the report in TT in Feb 2012, UNDP Administrator, Helen Clark stated:
“This report stresses the need to rethink our approaches to tackling crime and violence and providing security on the ground. We need to follow approaches that are centered on citizen security and address the causes of this recent increase in violent crime, including social, economic, and political exclusion.”
The Report reviewed “the current state of crime as well as national and regional policies and programmes to address the problem in seven English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.”http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/hdr/caribbean-human-development-report-2012-l.html
“Key recommendations from the Report: High rates of violent crime can be turned around by achieving a better balance between legitimate law enforcement and preventive measures, with a stronger focus on prevention;
Governments should create or invest more in units to address gender-based violence and adopt more preventive measures to ensure that violence against girls and women is no longer tolerated
Because crime harms social cohesion, Caribbean nations must better address youth violence and street gangs, whose crimes are rarely prosecuted
Public security requires community collaboration” (See above link for source).
In the final analysis, the Report stated that while “Crime has become one of the main challenges threatening economies and livelihoods in Caribbean countries…the right mix of policies and programmes can halt the problem.”
We continue to address the symptoms of crime and not the root causes. In spite of the billions of dollars that our countries allocate in annual national budgets for national security, citizens do not feel safe. Death and destruction continue to stalk our lands.
***In March 2015, Pope Francis said: “For the rule of law, the death penalty represents a failure, as it obliges the state to kill in the name of justice… There is discussion in some quarters about the method of killing, as if it were possible to find ways of ‘getting it right.’ … But there is no humane way of killing another person.”
In conclusion, it is clear that the death penalty is not a deterrent. It is time that we acknowledge that this myth has been exposed. Political will is what is needed today. We need courageous, visionary leaders in our region who will develop their understanding of the nature of the problems we face in the region and who will be prepared to lift their heads above the parapet and speak out/act for what is right and just.
Rather than baying for blood, let’s all work with our respective governments to: strengthen family life; fix our broken institutions – including the re-engineering of the criminal justice system; devise and implement more effective victim support initiatives; invest in education, youth development and job creation; reduce poverty and socio-economic inequality; protect children from risk-factors related to crime; work to restore respect for law, life and human rights by e.g. promoting a renewed ethic of justice, responsibility and community.
Let us go forth from this Conference, strengthening our resolve to stop crime not lives; to build a death-penalty-free world!
GCL Delegation in Guyana
← 13th World Day against the Death Penalty
CARIBBEAN REGIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS →
Puerto Rican Coalition Against the death penalty
International Commission against the death penalty
Community of Sant’Egidio
Death Penalty Project
World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
Newsletter #5 December 2015
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He has a Mastership in the AGD, from which he also received the Lifelong Learning and Service Recognition award in 2009 and 2014.
Susan McMahon, DMD
A dentist, author and lecturer, Dr. Susan McMahon has devoted her professional career to the pursuit of advanced technologies in cosmetic dentistry and smile design. She has served as a clinical instructor in prosthodontics and operative dentistry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine, as well as a guest lecturer at the West Virginia University School of Dentistry. As an accredited member of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (AACD), Dr. McMahon has received seven AACD Annual Smile Gallery awards, including two gold medals.
Robert A. Horowitz, DDS
Dr. Robert A. Horowitz completed his Bachelor of Science degree in genetics and microbiology at Cornell University, and in 1982 graduated from the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine. Since that time, he has provided dental care to patients in Scarsdale and other areas of Westchester County, New York. Dr. Horowitz has been a researcher and assistant professor at New York University for 21 years, and a member of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at NYU for 10 years. In addition, he has been an editor for six major journals in the fields of periodontics and implant dentistry.
Mark Romano
Mark Romano is cofounder and co-owner of Now Media Group, a San Diego-based marketing firm that specializes in web design, social media, advertising and content curation to promote dental practice growth. With over a decade of experience in the dental marketing industry, Mark has positioned his firm as a dependable business partner for dentists and has served more than 750 clients in the U.S. and in multiple countries around the world.
John Bernhard
John Bernhard has more than 20 years of product management experience, which includes developing a broad spectrum of clinical and laboratory portfolios for leading dental companies in the areas of practice management software, digital X-ray, 3D CBCT, endodontics, teeth whitening and lasers. In 2018, John joined Glidewell Dental as senior product manager for dental materials, including BruxZir® Solid Zirconia, Obsidian® lithium silicate ceramic, Camouflage® NanoHybrid Composite, and BioTemps® Provisionals.
2017 PHOTOBOOTH
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Reportage. We traveled to Bahrain and reported without official accreditation in order to bring the ground truth to light. Speaking with us at great risk to themselves, critics of the monarchy describe the violent tools of repression, which tolerate no dissent.
Bahrain uses torture, prison and censorship to repress Shia and maintain power
To browse the Bahraini newspapers is reassuring. Everything, they write, is going great under the reign of King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa. Women are reaching important milestones, and the meetings conducted by members of the royal family around the world are always a success. Bahrain, they say, is a model for the coexistence of different faiths and ethnicities. And even the economy is said to be doing well, despite the budget deficit that the wealthy “brothers” from Saudi Arabia and the UAE are called to cover from time to time, to the tune of billions of dollars. And, last but not least, the Formula 1 Grand Prix in the spring showcased this tiny Gulf archipelago, with an area of just 765 square kilometers.
But this facade hides a ruthless regime that shows no mercy to opponents and in recent years has implemented vicious repression in order to extinguish any expression of dissent, on the pretext of fighting terrorism and “interference” by the Iranian enemy. We experienced this climate of fear firsthand during our short stay in the country in the past week. In Bahrain, it is extremely dangerous to talk to foreign journalists, and those who do risk arrest.
In the “fairytale kingdom” touted by the mainstream press, a disrespectful tweet about the regime of the ruling al Khalifa family can get you sentenced to years in prison. For this reason, we have to keep all our sources strictly anonymous and avoid identifying in any way the people who have agreed to tell us how things really are. I chose to do my reporting in an underground fashion, without the official journalist accreditation that would have strictly limited the possibility of doing investigative work.
“Freedom of the press does not exist,” one political leader told me. “The only independent newspaper, Al-Wasat, has been closed down by the authorities, and opposition political parties such as the socialist Waad and the Shia Al-Wefaq have been disbanded and their leaders imprisoned or forced to live like prisoners in their homes. One of them is Ebrahim Sharif, of Waad. Human rights activists have also suffered the same fate. One of them, Nabeel Rajab, who is also known abroad, has been sentenced [earlier this year] to five years in prison because he had tweeted criticism of the monarchy and because he, according to the court, had defamed Bahrain by denouncing arbitrary detentions, torture and other serious abuses. You also get arrested if you criticize Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.”
My source himself was punished with jail time for the “crime” of having participated, at some point in the past, in a campaign to transform the absolute monarchy into a constitutional one and to establish a real parliament. Under the current system, the elected lower house has no power and is subject to an advisory board with members appointed by the king.
“In this country, a Sunni minority, to which the royal family belongs, has control of almost everything in politics and economy, while the Shiites, the majority of the population, are second-class citizens,” he said. At the same time, “there is no religious conflict in Bahrain, as the regime pretends. The Shiites have been fighting together with many Sunnis for equality and democracy since the ‘90s, and have always done so in a peaceful manner, before and after Pearl Roundabout.”
Pearl Roundabout, a downtown plaza that was once adorned with a pearl monument, was the setting for anti-government demonstrations during the Arab Spring in February 2011. Following the example of the Egyptians camped out in Tahrir Square, the Bahraini set up their own tent camp. The first reaction from the regime was violent, leading to four deaths and a number of injuries. For about a month afterward, the situation remained relatively calm, with a few confrontations and scuffles only in the most popular residential areas. Pearl Roundabout became a laboratory of ideas and the driving force for peaceful demonstrations featuring thousands of people.
Then King Hamad, after giving some timid sign of willingness to listen to the demonstrators, suddenly asked for the intervention of the “Gulf Shield,” the defensive alliance of the oil monarchies, and troops sent from Saudi Arabia and the UAE gave the Bahraini security forces the muscle they needed to bloodily snuff out what had been the greatest promise of a possible development of a diverse and democratic Bahrain. There were dozens of deaths, and hundreds were arrested, including wounded demonstrators in their hospital beds. The pearl monument was destroyed by order of King Hamad.
In the following years, there have been negotiations, some sincere and others less so, but the king has lately eliminated any room for dialogue and pushed his repression further, to the point of outlawing any form of opposition, including political parties, information outlets and simple association. Mere dissent is passed off as “an expression of Iran’s attempts to destabilize the kingdom.”
Our source says that “at least 800 regime opponents, all Shiites, have had their citizenship revoked and now live in extremely difficult conditions for them and their families, because they are deprived of all rights.” Meanwhile, the authorities have granted citizenship to thousands of foreigners—almost all Arabs and Pakistanis, including many mercenaries who joined the security forces—in order to increase the numbers of the Sunnis.
Dozens of regime opponents are in exile, including Zeinab al-Khawaja, the daughter of the director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. She has been imprisoned for years. One woman told us she was tortured: “They used physical and psychological torture against me. They humiliated me, mocked me, threatened me with rape. They would call me ‘bitch.’ But the men who are imprisoned have it even worse.”
One journalist described a climate of terror when it comes to information. “We are in constant panic. We can only talk about official news, news against Iran, sports and lifestyle. Everything else is forbidden, and someone who slips up in the slightest will lose their press accreditation and their job.”
The regime has also imprisoned religious leaders, including the spiritual leader of the Shiites, Sheikh Qassem Ali, arrested nearly two years ago at the end of a siege by the regime’s security forces in his village, Diraz, which cost the lives of five young protesters. “The legislative and municipal elections scheduled for Nov. 24 will be a sham,” the journalist adds, ”as the only candidates allowed are those who toe the line of the monarchy.”
Beside Saudi Arabia’s “protection,” King Hamad also has the Trump administration on his side—as Bahrain is host to the Fifth American Fleet at Juffair—which has guaranteed him full support for his policies “against Iran’s dangerous meddling.” Furthermore, the recent opening of a new British base on the island will also buy London’s silence.
The towns on the outskirts—inhabited by the Shia—look like ghost towns. Few people can be seen on the streets, and the tension is palpable. On the walls are written slogans against the monarchy, and those who write them risk severe punishment. In these areas, protests with stones thrown at police still take place from time to time.
The security forces have crushed peaceful resistance, likely opening the way to other forms of struggle. Young Bahraini are more and more skeptical of the traditional opposition, which has believed for many years, to no avail, that they could make an agreement with a king who does not want to concede anything.
On Monday night, the army and police conducted a large operation, with 169 arrests, against what was said to be an organization allegedly similar to the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah. The regime opponents still at large were in a state of panic for many hours. In this atmosphere of tension and fear, the presence of an Italian journalist without official accreditation increased the risks for the people who agreed to answer our questions. To ensure their safety, at their request, we left Bahrain immediately.
Originally published in Italian on September 28, 2018https://ilmanifesto.it/bahrain-sotto-la-maschera-la-repressione/
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Home > Threatened Trees > Magnolia sinica
Magnolia sinica
Other Names: Manglietia sinica, Manglietiastrum sinicum
Family: Magnoliaceae
Natural Range: Yunnan Province, China
Critically Endangered (CR)
Magnolia sinica is one of the most threatened magnolia species in the world. Thought at one time to be reduced to just 10 wild trees, searches conducted with the support of the Global Trees Campaign have estimated the wild population at around 50 trees, all in southern Yunnan Province.
The tree is popular as an ornamental plant due to its large, white or reddish fragrant flowers and glossy, deep-green leaves. It can reach up to 40 m high with a straight trunk, dense branches and a broad crown. In the wild, it is found in broad-leaved forests at altitudes of 1300-1500m.
As well as destruction of its habitat for agriculture, its straight trunk means that in the past it has been logged for timber. Over-collection of the seeds for horticulture is also believed to threaten the natural regeneration of the species. The survival of seedlings may be inhibited by invasive plants covering the forest floor.
The largest known population is protected within Xiaoqiaogou National Nature Reserve (NNR), but other individuals that are scattered in the countryside are still at risk.
The Global Trees Campaign has been involved in the conservation and restoration of Magnolia sinica since 2005, and it has become something of a cause celebre amongst plant conservationists in China. Although extremely rare in the wild, seedlings were available in nurseries, and the Global Trees Campaign has worked with local partners (including the Kunming Institute of Botany) to reinforce the wild population within Xiaoqiaogou NNR. 400 seedlings have been planted into the reserve and are being cared for by reserve staff.
Planting Magnolia sinica seedlings in the wild (credit: Li Xiaoya/FFI).
The Global Trees Campaign has also supported improved management of the wild trees at Xiaoqiaogou, for example, removing invasive plants from the forest floor to try to increase seedling survival. Awareness-raising activities have taken place in surrounding communities to increase local pride in this very special tree.
The Global Trees Campaign is providing on-going technical support for conservation of M. sinica through a project carrying out tree conservation training in southern China.
Nearly half of the world’s Magnolia species are threatened with extinction.
See the new publication here
Tree conservation training in southern China
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Home > Threatened Trees > Whitebark Pine
Pinus albicaulis
Other Names: Scrub pine, Pitch pine, White pine
Family: Pinaceae
Natural Range: Canada (Alberta, British Columbia), United States (California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming)
Endangered (EN)
The whitebark pine is native to northwestern United States and southwestern Canada, where it grows in subalpine high elevation mountains marking the tree line.
This species protects watersheds, regulates snowmelt runoff and its roots stabilise rocky and poorly developed soils, preventing soil erosion. For these reasons, whitebark pine is considered both a keystone species in these high mountain ecosystems.
This species belongs to the group of pines known as the ‘bird pines’, they have wingless seeds and therefore rely on animal dispersal rather than wind. One of its main distributors is the Clark’s nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana). Clark’s nutcrackers have strong bills that can extract the seeds from their cones, they consume or cache the seeds and those not retrieved from caches by the time the snow melts may germinate and become established as seedlings. The large nutlike seeds of this species are high in fat and protein and are an important food source for many other birds and mammals.
Whitebark pine populations have declined over the past 60 years due to two anthropogenic problems, the introduction of white pine blister rust fungus (Cronartium ribicola) and the changes in fire regimes, which are complicated further by increases in the native mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) populations.
White pine blister rust sporulating canker on whitebark Pine (Credit: Dr. Mary Mahalovich, USDA Forest Service)
White pine blister rust was introduced into Canada from Europe in the early 1900s, it has spread nearly rangewide in whitebark pine forests, causing dieback and mortality. There is currently no way to stop the spread and effects of this rust fungus, but a small number of trees in most populations show some resistance to the disease.
More recently, mortality of Whitebark pine can be attributed to the native insect pest, the mountain pine beetle. The impacts of warming temperatures and decreased precipitation due to climate change is likely to result in increased mountain pine beetle activity as well as declines in suitable habitat for Whitebark pine regeneration, an increase in the number, intensity and extent of wildlfires, and an increase in bluster rust fungus.
In addition to mortality due to wildfires, 60 years of fire suppression has led to Whitebark pine stands being replaced by more shade-tolerant, fire intolerant species such as Engelmann spruce, Mountain hemlock and Lodgepole pine.
Conservation measures are in place. Genetic programs have been set up to identify, harness and deploy rust resistant Whitebark Pine and over 1,500 hectares have been planted with rust resistant seedlings ex situ. Prescribed fire is being used for site preparation for artificial regeneration of rust resistant seedlings and to enhance natural regeneration. Verbenone, an anti-aggregate pheromone, is being used to protect trees against damage from the mountain pine beetle. More research is being initiated into the affects of white pine blister rust fungus and mountain pine beetle on the Clark’s nutcrackers in regard to seed dispersal. Initial research indicates that when the Whitebark pine trees decline in number, a point is reached where Clark’s nutcrackers will not visit a site thereby reducing the natural regeneration of Whitebark pine.
Whitebark Pine rust screening CDA Nursery
Cover photo credit: Richard Sniezko, USDA Forest Service
More than a third of all conifer species are threatened with global extinction
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HomePosts tagged 'Nonfiction'(Page 2)
Book Review: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
June 6, 2016 May 26, 2016 Alyssa Book Review 3.5 stars, Alyssa's Reviews, Book Review, David Sedaris, Essays, Humor, Little Brown, Memoir, Nonfiction
Title: Me Talk Pretty One Day
Publisher: LittleBrown and Company
Source: Chicago Public Library Overdrive
David Sedaris’ move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious pieces, including the title essay, about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that “every day spent with you is like having a caesarean section”.
His family is another inspiration. You Can’t Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother, who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails.
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5
This has been on my to-read list for way too long, and I’ve been trying to wait until the audiobook’s availability on OverDrive and my available free time to listen to an audiobook reached a happy meeting point, but it never did. So, I checked out a printed version of this collection, and I have to admit I regret it just a little bit.
There is nothing like hearing David Sedaris read his own essays — the intonation and life he gives to them is astounding, and I live for listening to his audiobooks. I think this is the first time I’ve actually ever read his essays in print, and to be fair, it wasn’t as disappointing as I thought it would be. Even without his voice to clue me in on his sarcasm, his essays were still pretty funny.
With that said, I think this collection is sadder than most. My favorite collection of his is still When You Are Engulfed in Flames. While this one has funny moments, I found a lot of it to be depressing, hence my rating. But, the ones I did enjoy, I really enjoyed. The speech therapy story is ridiculous and perfect and has everything about school that I hated. There are also a few stories about him trying to acclimate himself to France and learn the French language. His essays about living in France from When You Are Engulfed in Flames are among my favorite from that collection, and it’s no different from this collection. There’s just something wonderfully hysterical about how Sedaris looks at his own experiences of adapting to a new culture and new language.
Overall, I enjoyed myself. If you’re at all into humorous creative non-fiction essays, then I’d say you should give these a shot. I think I’m going to put a hold on the audiobook for Me Talk Pretty One Day to see if I enjoy it anymore. I particularly want to hear Sedaris read his speech therapy story.
Book Review: The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
May 16, 2016 May 9, 2016 Alyssa Book Review 5 stars, Alex Haley, Alyssa's Reviews, Autobiography, Ballantine, biography, Book Review, Malcolm X, Nonfiction, Politics
Title: The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Authors: Malcolm X, Alex Haley
Publisher: Ballantine
Source: Owned
From hustling, drug addiction and armed violence in America’s black ghettos Malcolm X turned, in a dramatic prison conversion, to the puritanical fervour of the Black Muslims. As their spokesman he became identified in the white press as a terrifying teacher of race hatred; but to his direct audience, the oppressed American blacks, he brought hope and self-respect. This autobiography (written with Alex Haley) reveals his quick-witted integrity, usually obscured by batteries of frenzied headlines, and the fierce idealism which led him to reject both liberal hypocrisies and black racialism.
Vilified by his critics as an anti-white demagogue, Malcolm X gave a voice to unheard African-Americans, bringing them pride, hope and fearlessness, and remains an inspirational and controversial figure.
Andrew’s second major in college was African-American studies, so there’s a lot of African-American literature he’s read that I have not, so when his turn came up to recommend a book for me to read, he recommended this one. Mostly because it’s an amazing book about a man who made history with his dedication to civil rights, but also because I refuse to watch movies based on books before reading the book, and he really wants to watch the Denzel Washington Malcolm X movie with me, so there we go.
This one took me a while. It was a little frustrating, because I felt like it held up the other books on my reading list. The print is small and it reads like a textbook — there’s just a whole lot to digest in all the words on the page. I took my time with it because I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it justice skimming and not giving it my full 100% attention. However, it’s so worth it. Reading this book and learning about this man who was raised from the slums to a prominent figure in the civil rights movement is something that I think everyone absolutely needs to do at some point in their life. I feel like just from reading this, I understand so much more about the civil rights movement and the context in which it was fought.
The best part is reading how Malcolm X grows as a person. It’s so interesting, because I found myself making judgments about him and his beliefs, but that reaction is only because he’s so honest about his feelings and thoughts. The most rewarding/interesting part of this book for me was seeing how Malcolm develops his viewpoints and changes his opinions based on each new experience. In that way, it’s an incredibly engaging read because of Malcolm’s ability to continuously learn more and inform himself about the world. I found myself growing and changing right along with him — it was an intense reading experience, to say the least.
I always find it hard to judge a non-fiction book. The most I can say is that I found it rewarding and informative — despite the fact that it’s told from Malcolm himself, this book gives an honest no-holds barred look at Malcolm and his life, and it is one of the best subjects you can inform yourself upon. I highly recommend it.
Book Review: Andre the Giant – Life and Legend
March 14, 2016 March 6, 2016 Alyssa Book Review 4 stars, Alyssa and Andrew Review, biography, Book Review, Box Brown, First Second, graphic novel, Nonfiction
Title: Andre the Giant: Life and Legend
Author: Box Brown
Publisher: First Second
Andre Roussimoff is known as both the lovable giant in The Princess Bride and a heroic pro-wrestling figure. He was a normal guy who’d been dealt an extraordinary hand in life. At his peak, he weighed 500 pounds and stood nearly seven and a half feet tall. But the huge stature that made his fame also signed his death warrant.
Box Brown brings his great talents as a cartoonist and biographer to this phenomenal new graphic novel. Drawing from historical records about Andre’s life as well as a wealth of anecdotes from his colleagues in the wrestling world, including Hulk Hogan, and his film co-stars (Billy Crystal, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, etc), Brown has created in Andre the Giant, the first substantive biography of one of the twentieth century’s most recognizable figures.
Alyssa:
I was interested in this book for two reasons. The first is that Andrew loves Andre the Giant, and I wanted to see if he’d like this book as well. The second is that I was intrigued about using a comic format for a biography, so I wanted to see how it would work.
Overall, I think that it’s a success. This isn’t an incredibly detailed account of Andre the Giant’s life, but it covers the main information and gives enough facts and tidbits to make it an interesting read. Also, with the comic format, the story moves very quickly — I think I finished this in a few hours. The illustration style lends itself well to how the author portrays Andre’s life — very simple and straightforward. I learned a few things I didn’t know about Andre and I truly enjoyed getting to know about his life as a wrestler, since the only thing I actually had any previous information on was his work on The Princess Bride.
I love Andre the Giant. My love for him started through my favorite movie, The Princess Bride. Because of that, I already knew many of the stories about him from that era. (If you’re interested in that, As You Wish by Cary Elwes is a wonderful source for that.) In the past, I’ve also had a passing interest in wrestling history, particularly in the era before I was born, when many people really didn’t know that the stories in wrestling were fake.
After hearing Alyssa’s recommendation, I was interested to see Andre’s story told in this format. I think it’s really fitting, since he’s seen as a superhero-esque character in the wrestling world. I really enjoyed the novel overall. The narrative could have been more cohesive, and I had heard a lot of the stories before, but I think that it lends itself quite well to the format and it was really cool to see the stories told this way.
“Waiting on Wednesday: Quiet Power – The Secret Strengths of Introverts by Susain Cain “
March 9, 2016 March 9, 2016 Alyssa Book Stuff Dial Books, Erica Moroz, Grant Snider, Gregory Mone, Nonfiction, Susan Cain, Waiting on Wednesday
“Waiting on Wednesday” is an event that spotlights unpublished books we’re waiting for. It’s hosted by Breaking the Spine
Title: Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts
Authors: Susan Cain, Gregory Mone, Erica Moroz
Illustrator: Grant Snider
Expected Publication Date: 3 May 2016
Susan Cain sparked a worldwide conversation when she published Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. With her inspiring book, she permanently changed the way we see introverts and the way introverts see themselves.
The original book focused on the workplace, and Susan realized that a version for and about kids was also badly needed. This book is all about kids’ world—school, extracurriculars, family life, and friendship. You’ll read about actual kids who have tackled the challenges of not being extroverted and who have made a mark in their own quiet way. You’ll hear Susan Cain’s own story, and you’ll be able to make use of the tips at the end of each chapter. There’s even a guide at the end of the book for parents and teachers.
This insightful, accessible, and empowering book, illustrated with amusing comic-style art, will be eye-opening to extroverts and introverts alike.
I have yet to read Susan Cain’s original book, but I love the idea of making this information and insight available at a more readable level for young people. I think that a lot of kids and teens can benefit from learning about the difference between being an introvert and extrovert and the strengths that each personality trait can give you. I’m excited to see how this book can be worked into a classroom or lesson, with Andrew’s classroom or with others. I think just having it available to students in general is a good idea.
Book Review: A Slip of the Keyboard – Collected Nonfiction by Terry Pratchett
December 2, 2015 November 30, 2015 Alyssa Book Review 4 stars, Alyssa's Reviews, Book Review, Doubleday, Essays, Humor, Memoir, Nonfiction, Terry Pratchett
Title: A Slip of the Keyboard – Collected Nonfiction
Publisher: Doubleday
Source: Chicago OverDrive Library
Terry Pratchett has earned a place in the hearts of readers the world over with his bestselling Discworld series — but in recent years he has become equally well-known and respected as an outspoken campaigner for causes including Alzheimer’s research and animal rights. A Slip of the Keyboard brings together for the first time the finest examples of Pratchett’s non fiction writing, both serious and surreal: from musings on mushrooms to what it means to be a writer (and why banana daiquiris are so important); from memories of Granny Pratchett to speculation about Gandalf’s love life, and passionate defences of the causes dear to him.
With all the humour and humanity that have made his novels so enduringly popular, this collection brings Pratchett out from behind the scenes of the Discworld to speak for himself — man and boy, bibliophile and computer geek, champion of hats, orangutans and Dignity in Dying.
I’ve unfortunately read too little of Terry Pratchett in the past years, and the only excuse for it is that I’ve been reading so much of everything else, which isn’t much of an excuse, I’ll admit. Luckily, my fiancé, Andrew, is a fan of his, so I’ve been delving a bit more into his work. (I’m currently reading Good Omens, which is turning out to be fantastic.)
I started this book for a few reasons:
I have a bad habit of reading at work during the dead time in between appointments, and it’s better if I’m reading a collection of short stories or essays, because once I finish a short story, I’ve gotten my fix and I’m back to being productive and doing what I’m getting paid to do.
It was available on OverDrive at my library.
Andrew loves non-fiction, so I thought I’d read this to see if I thought he’d be interested in adding this to his to-read list, though I know that being with me has probably added a few too many books to that list. (Even though they are really just so good.)
I think it’s interesting to know the person behind the writing, either before or after I’ve met that person through their stories. It’s a bit backwards from what traditionally happens in this case, but I think that I’ll be able to better appreciate his work now knowing some of his thoughts behind life, living, and stories.
I truly enjoyed this book. I agree with Pratchett on many things and reading the words of someone who loves words and stories so much is deeply gratifying. Some of these stories were sad, as he talks about his struggle with Alzheimer’s and his thoughts about assisted death, but I think he offers useful insights from his experiences. For those of us who have studied writing or write in some way, he puts a humorous viewpoint on how we get our work done and how we feel about it before, during, and afterwards, which I truly enjoy. I think that writing is at once a unique and universal thing — we all, after all, tell stories. Getting someone else’s viewpoint on the process is at once relieving and fascinating, as there are often so many similarities to my own experience with it.
Besides the similarities, though, I loved learning fun new facts about Pratchett and his life. Reading about his hat collection, adventures (or non-adventures) on book tours, and getting to know him a little bit better was a wonderful experience that I greatly appreciated.
The only complaint I had is that because of the way the book is set up, some of his thoughts and arguments become repetitive. In real life, nobody would have noticed, because he wrote these essays years, even decades apart, but having them collected together, sorted by theme, I felt like some of the essays were almost the same as the others. Not his fault, of course, and I didn’t enjoy the book any less, but if you’re going to read this, I do recommend taking your time through it so that you don’t feel frustrated with the repetition.
I recommend this to all writers, readers, and fans of Terry Pratchett. It’s a solid collection, and I can’t imagine there being anyone who wouldn’t enjoy at least two works from this book.
“Keep an eye on the trade press. When an editor moves on, immediately send your precious MS to his or her office, with a covering letter addressed to said departed editor. Say, in the tones of one engaged in a cooperative effort, something like this: ‘Dear X, I was very pleased to receive your encouraging letter indicating your interest in my book, and I have made all the changes you asked for.…’ Of course they won’t find the letter. Publishers can never find anything. But at least someone might panic enough to read the MS.”
“The first thing I do when I finish writing a book is start a new one. This was a course of action suggested, I believe, by the late Douglas Adams, although regrettably he famously failed to follow his own advice.
“People are magnificent research, almost the best there is. An old copper will tell you more about policing than a textbook ever will. An old lady is happy to talk about life as a midwife in the 1930s, a long way from any doctor, while your blood runs cold.”
Book Review: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
July 28, 2011 September 2, 2016 Alyssa Previous Blog 4 stars, Adventure, Alyssa's Reviews, Anchor, Book Review, Jon Krakauer, Memoir, Nonfiction
Title: Into Thin Air
Author: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Anchor Books
A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that “suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down.” He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more–including Krakauer’s–in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer’s epic account of the May 1996 disaster.
Again, I was surprised by how much I liked this book. Either I need to stop listening what my friends say about required reading, or I should raise my expectations of “classics.” (Or both.)
Into Thin Air is both thrilling and terrifying. Not that I was considering it, but I will now never take mountain climbing as a hobby — especially mountains where high-altitude sickness is a problem. Krakauer includes the history of Mount Everest along with the day-to-day events of his expedition, which added an interesting, enjoyable element to the novel. Not only was I reading a great story, I felt like I was learning a lot too.
Into Thin Air is a tragic story that is wonderfully told. The level of detail included in the descriptions is remarkable. I felt like I was climbing Everest with the author, going through the same psychological and physical torture. I also got to know those who climbed with him, sharing in their successes and failures. I want to note that there is a controversy as to whether the events happened like Krakauer said they happened; I am sure, with all that was going on at the time, that there are discrepancies with events, but I doubt that they are serious since he also interviewed multiple people who were there as well.
I would recommend this book for anyone who is at all interested in adventure or memoirs. If you’re squeamish, you should maybe stay away, since there are descriptions of some pretty awful sights and diseases (I got queasy more than a few times). However, I think that Into Thin Air is a novel most people will find a worthwhile read.
Audiobook Review: When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
July 17, 2011 May 23, 2016 Alyssa Book Review, Previous Blog 4.5 stars, Alyssa's Reviews, Audiobook review, David Sedaris, Essays, Hachette Audio, Humor, Nonfiction
Buy from the Book Depsitory!
Title: When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Length: ~ 9 hours
Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina. In essay after essay, Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life-having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane or armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds-to the most deeply resonant human truths. Culminating in a brilliant account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris’s sixth essay collection is a new masterpiece of comic writing from “a writer worth treasuring” (Seattle Times)
I have never laughed so hard in my life than when I listened to this. Seriously, whenever I’m having a bad day or I know something stressful is coming up, I listen to these essays. Sedaris takes weird stuff that happens in life and turns them into hilarious and insightful pieces that entertain and give a whole new look at the absurd situations life frequently contains.
It’s hard to give a long review of this, because they’re composed of non-fiction essays, so there isn’t really a long plot line to critique or character development to discuss. I will just say that this collection will have you laughing out loud and will make you look differently at weird situations that arise in your own life.
Note: The reason why I put the audiobook information down is because I highly recommend listening to his essays rather than just reading them. Hearing them in Sedaris’s own voice with his intonations really sets the tone and adds to the comedy.
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A Q&A with former Indian Ambassador to the United States during her Pacific Leadership Fellowship
High above the 15th floor, with the sunset illuminating the room, the Pacific Ocean offered the perfect backdrop for Nirupama Rao to deliver her public lecture on “India in the Indo-Pacific World.” She painted a picture for staff, faculty and community supporters at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) the current state of Indo-Pacific strategy in the 21st century.
“We hear ‘from the sea to the mountains’ - these seas are human seas, seas that were navigated and crisscrossed by human encounter,” said Rao. “Each wave of contact is refreshing and rejuvenating.”
With most of her life spent in the trenches dealing with difficult relationships with borders, Rao retired as Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, the senior most position in the Foreign Service. Rao was only the second woman to occupy the post. She was also the first woman spokesperson of the Indian foreign office and she served as India's first female ambassador to Sri Lanka and to the People's Republic of China.
“Ms. Rao is a person who has embodied transformation in her career, thinking thoughtfully about building the future of the region,” addressed Dean Peter Cowhey. “She is truly an example of how notions of the Pacific have, and will change, in our lifetime.”
Embracing our terrestrial world, Rao explained how her country has been equally defined by the oceans that surround India, particularly with regards to strategic partnerships and border relations. Exploring the patterns of India’s strategic, economic and people-centered outreach, her talk dove into the complex relationship with China, their largest neighbor, and what has been termed an indispensable partnership with the U.S.
“You have to talk to your neighbors…you cannot turn your back on them,” warned Rao. “Redrawing borders and changing maps is out of the question in democracies such as ours.”
Read below as Rao shares her impressions about her Pacific Leadership Fellowship (PLF) residency, including whether the U.S. has the long-term vision and resources to build on Indo-Pacific strategy.
Q: What led you to GPS as a PLF Fellow and what has been your overall impression so far?
NR: It was an invitation to be a fellow extended to me by Dean Peter Cowhey at a dinner meeting in Washington, D.C. last year that led me to GPS. I have been here now for close to a fortnight and it has been an intellectually enriching experience. My interactions with students and faculty here have been most interesting and fulfilling. It is a privilege to be here.
Q: During your residency, you will share your perspectives on Indian foreign policy. What do you hope to glean at GPS and across campus?
NR: The work being done at GPS and UC San Diego on the role of technology in determining the contours of global power and influence is fascinating, and I have greatly benefited from my meetings with faculty on the subject. I’ve also been able to engage with students about India’s neighborhood policy and our economic and commercial diplomacy interests.
Q: For your talk, you will discuss issues confronting the world’s largest democracy, India. As the former Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, what are some of the most salient policy issues to address?
NR: India encapsulates so much diversity, and its pluralistic society is what makes the country so unique. Our democracy is stable, it is enduring and resilient. Rapid, inclusive and accelerated economic development is the chief priority of the government. In foreign policy, the government is committed to promoting India’s access to technology, foreign investment and capital for the country’s integration with global markets.
With our neighbors, we wish to promote closer connectivity and integration so that the full potential and talents of the people of South Asia can be fulfilled. We live today in a world that has moved beyond unipolarity. Multi-alignments define the structure of global affairs today. India is in many ways a balancing power, and our relations with countries like the U.S. and China and indeed, in the Indo-Pacific reflect this stabilizing influence.
Q: When looking at 21st Century Asia, what do you believe has spawned India’s emergence as an Indo-Pacific Power?
NR: I believe this trend is marked by our strong democratic credentials, our conduct as a responsible and mature power, our contributions to international peace and stability and the re-emergence of India as a front runner among global economies.
Q: What’s been the most surprising visit or activity on the agenda so far during your stay?
I have been uniformly impressed by all the meetings I’ve had during my stay. In terms of the ideas articulated, the topics addressed and the stress on innovation and expanding knowledge frontiers has been a highlight. I particularly enjoyed my visits to meet Professor Ramesh Rao of the Qualcomm Institute and the World Trade Center’s Executive Director Nikia Clarke. It was also a treat to visit the San Diego Museum of Art and see some of the exquisite Indian miniature paintings from the world-renowned Binney collection.
Q: Serving as India's first female ambassador to Sri Lanka and to the People's Republic of China, what advice would you give to other females, as well as students in general, hoping to serve in foreign policy?
NR: A career in the foreign service is an excellent option for all those who are curious about and committed to understanding the world around us. The field is complex and increasingly specialized but the combination of public service, with the vast range of situations and environments you operate within, make this one of the most compelling and challenging careers you can have.
View a photo gallery of Rao’s visit.
Additional PLF stories:
Aruna Sundararajan forecasts the future of Digital India
Luciano Rezende inspires data driven smart cities in Brazil
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Bolton Hill
Pigtown
Roland Park
Notable People & Places
Baltimore Harbor
Cal Ripken
Ft. McHenry
Baltimore Mayor William Broening’s Home Destroyed by Bomb
Bizarre Baltimore
This is a headline that caught our attention. We were reading through old editions of The Washington Post and found this one printed on August 7th, 1927.
Baltimore, Md., Aug. 6 (A.P.).–Explosion of what the police believe was a dynamite bomb today partly wrecked the rear of the home of Mayor William F. Broening. The explosion splintered the porch, cracked the wall and set the house afire.
The mayor’s wife and two children, startled by the blast, escaped uninjured to the front lawn. The mayor was en route to St. Louis and Fort Worth, Tex.
An opinion was evinced by a fireman that the blast was probably caused by accumulated gases in the cellar ignited by a spark from an electric refrigerating plant.
George G. Henry, acting police commissioner, tonight declared he believed the wreckage was cause by a bomb. He declined to attribute the outrage to Sacco-Vanzetti sympathizers. Fire department officials assumed a similar theory.
Investigators claimed the large hole found at the home could not have been caused by a gas explosion. The debris was being searched for particles of a bomb. So far a twisted piece of aluminum and a bit of brass spring, thought to be from a bomb, were found.
Baltimore was placed on a war basis for protection soon after the explosion. The attics of the City Hall and the new War Memorial Building were searched for possible bombs and guards placed outside, questioning those who entered.
The blast occurred at 6 a. m. Police believed the bomb was placed at 2 a. m. and timed to explode. Running to the hall, the Broenings saw smoke pouring from the rear. They ran down to the lawn. Firemen extinguished the blaze quickly.
Sacco and Vanzetti were two Italian anarchists who were convicted of murdering a guard during an armed robbery in Massachusetts in 1920.
Here’s the only image we could find of the destroyed home. We dug it up on Ebay.
1927 explosion at Baltimore mayor’s home
Mayor D'Alesandro Protests Suburban Virginia Airport…
Little Italy Reacts to Home Country's Surrender to…
Towson Ranch Home for $19,800
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Maya Havusha
Eden Village Camp – Putnam Valley, NY
A California girl through and through, Maya made her East Coast debut in summer 2017 as Program Director of Eden Village. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Maya knew she needed a lifestyle change and found herself drawn to the Bay Area and UC Santa Cruz, where she received her B.A. in Environmental Studies and discovered a love for outdoor experiential education. Having spent nine summers growing and learning as a camper and staff member at a Jewish summer camp in Southern California, she feels there is nothing more rewarding than experiences shared at camp. Her curiosity, spontaneity and free-spirited nature have allowed this social butterfly to flutter through many fields, from farm and garden educator to coffee professional, and finally restaurant manager in San Francisco. Maya is giddy and excited by this new chapter in her life and still can’t get over the fact that fireflies are actually real.
Amanda Herring
OneTable – DC Metro Area – Washington, DC
Amanda and her partner, Greg, have been hosting Jewish meals together since middle school! Amanda honed her hospitality skills while working at Hillel at Virginia Tech as they opened their new building and at Birthright NEXT planning convenings for engagement professionals. Amanda is currently in a master’s degree program at GW for Jewish experiential education. Amanda is passionate about sustainable, humane, and nourishing food that elevates her OneTable Shabbat dinners, brings people together and repairs our broken food systems. Their dog, @BubbeTheChow, is Instagram famous, and the cutest grouchy old chowchow you’ve ever seen.
Elizabeth Heyman
Jews United for Justice – Washington, DC
Elizabeth Heyman is joining the JOFEE network as a community organizer with Jews United for Justice in Washington, DC. She’s thrilled to incorporate a stronger food justice lens into her work fighting for a more socially, racially, and economically just city.
Elizabeth is ready to see her passions grow while learning with her cohort and implementing JOFEE programming in the District. She has a strong background in designing curricula, especially in creating meaningful experiential education programs, and as a Jewish educator.
When she isn’t out protesting or lobbying for lasting change, you can find her enjoying some combination of music, used books, citrus, avocados, and sunshine.
Brenden Jackson
Amir with Shalom Farm Houston – Houston, TX
Brenden likes to think of himself as an urban agriculture enthusiast, but really he is just a big kid that likes to play in the dirt. Through the accident of birth, he was born in Virginia where he camped, explored, studied literature and eventually earned a graduate degree in education. Through a series of fortunate events he married his best friend, and spent the next five years moving and traveling around the country. During these travels he met a diverse range of food growers who planted the seeds of food justice.
In 2017 he joined forces with Amir and was shipped to Houston to inspire youth to embrace the joys of gardening and help create a more sustainable food culture. With roots firmly planted for the first time, Brenden is excited to explore how embracing tikkun olam and derech-eretz can connect people and cultures in Houston through food and sustainable urban agriculture.
Jared Kaminsky
Shoresh – Toronto, CA
Jared is an outdoor enthusiast, nutritionist, and idealist. He completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Dalhousie University. During his studies, Jared worked for a carsharing service, helping to reduce the number of vehicles on the road. He proceeded to take a managerial role for two more carsharing services in Canada, keeping environmental ethics as a core motivation. In 2015, he was inspired to become a Certified Nutritional Practitioner from the Institute of Holistic Nutrition. He is extremely passionate about the importance of eating healthy food from environmentally sustainable sources. For the past year, Jared worked as the interim Managing Director for Shoresh Jewish Environmental Programs and has transitioned into the Director of Programs role. In addition, Jared has volunteered for numerous causes including organic farming in Israel, rainforest protection in Ecuador, and food security locally in Toronto. Jared feels a deep connection to the environment guided by Jewish texts, values, and teachings.
Jacob Kose
Born Jacob Reuben Kose but known as Cosmo Kose in-utero, Jacob is the left-handed only child of two Jewish New York City psychotherapists who does his darndest not to psychoanalyze anything and everything he interacts with.
Jacob grew up steeped in both analytical and experiential Judaism (Heschel School, Ramah Berkshires, Kivunim, Israeli family, Holocaust-surviving family) then moved to the gorgeous town of Ithaca, NY to study how people engage with stories and storytelling. Seeing no reason to leave Ithaca, he showed up at the Farmers Market after graduation to plead for a chance at production farming. Jacob has been hooked ever since he thinned beets for 9 hours that first day, and over the past five years has worked and learned with all sorts of farms in Italy, India, and on both coasts of the U.S. Jacob has also taught farming with agricultural organizations (The Stone Barns Center and the Urban Farm at Randalls Island) and Jewish organizations (Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, Kivunim) and looks forward to his current growth with Eden Village.
Jacob cares deeply to help one another make nourishing decisions about how we co-exist—with our land and each other—and how we use and sustain the physical and metaphysical resources we have. Working with the land has shown him an opportunity to heal, listen, and get in touch with heritage in ways that continue to inspire awe. He looks forward to learning, listening, laughing, and sharing his work!
Frances Lasday
Hazon – Teva – Falls Village, CT
In her role as Teva Education Coordinator, Frances is thrilled to be spending her time nerding out over curriculum development and referring to the vast library of books in the Teva office. Frances came to Hazon to live and work on the Topsy Turvy Bus which she did for two summers before settling at Isabella Freedman to work for Teva in the Fall of 2016. Frances graduated from the University of Vermont in May 2016, with a major in Environmental Studies, a minor in Food Systems and a thesis on the possibility of local kosher meat in the state of Vermont. In her free time she enjoys reading, starting knitting projects, general silliness, and getting dirty.
Sofia Marbach
Wilderness Torah – Berkeley, CA
Raised in orchards and older landscapes of the Hood River Valley, Sofia is endlessly curious about how resilient communities relate to the land. Driven to make this relationship an equitable and nourishing one, she began studying sustainable agriculture after undergraduate field research on climate change & water scarcity in Peru’s Valle Sagrado. She holds a BA in International and Latin American Studies with a concentration in Environment & Development from the University of San Francisco.
Before joining the team at Wilderness Torah, Sofia worked as a language teacher, a Fellow and Farm Hand at Urban Adamah, indoors supporting nonprofits along the West Coast, and in patches of dirt, sun, and rain between San Francisco and Sweden. She is thrilled to be learning in community to piece apart and together woven intersections of spirituality, sustainability, and social justice.
Rebecca Remis
Eden Village West – Oakland, CA
Every summer growing up in Massachusetts, Rebecca’s parents grew tomatoes and herbs and she usually didn’t want anything to do with it. Instead, she spent her summers at Camp Ramah – first for two weeks and then for eight. Once camp was over Rebecca realized the surest way to spend time outdoors was to farm. Rebecca has farmed in production spaces and educational ones like Eden Village East in 2012. She’s farmed in Massachusetts, China, the Hudson Valley, and most recently Santa Cruz, California where she completed a Certificate in Ecological Horticulture from UC Santa Cruz’s CASFS program. Wherever she farms, Rebecca finds that people connect over being outdoors, working the land, and preparing the fruits of their labor. She is looking forward to the first summer at Eden Village West to create a radical connection with land, food, and new friends.
Anika Rice
Urban Adamah – Berkeley, CA
As an outdoor educator, hobby herbalist, and gardener, Anika is interested in agroecology as a land-based social movement. She became part of the urban farming scene in 2012 at the UC Berkeley Student Organic Garden, where she facilitated urban agriculture classes. Her desire to understand and nurture the plant world also comes from her long dreamy days on an herbal medicinal farm in southern Oregon.
In 2016, Anika became a National Geographic Young Explorer Grantee. She conducted research with Guatemalan and Nicaraguan women coffee farmers on crop disease, livelihoods and sustainable farming. She’s excited to be teaching ecology, food justice, spiritual values and mindfulness as the Youth and Family Programs Educator at Urban Adamah. When she’s not teaching and exploring on the farm, Anika can be found doing yoga, climbing, print making, backpacking and playing guitar.
Henry Schmidt
Shalom Institute – Malibu, CA
Henry Schmidt is a Program Director at the Shalom Institute in Malibu, CA. After graduating with from Lewis & Clark College in 2014 with a degree in Math and Physics, he decided to detour into the restaurant world and learn how to cook. He worked in kitchens in Portland, OR for three years, then made his way back to the camp world to explore farming and food education. He enjoys fermentation, knitting, and jazz music and is excited to expand the Shalom Institute farm curriculum and teach everyone how to bake sourdough bread.
Mollie Sharfman
GatherDC – Washington, DC
Mollie has created, led, and implemented vibrant Jewish experiences for all types of Jewish communities across the globe – including Winnipeg, Berlin, Salzburg, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, and Sarajevo! Mollie is the new Community Manager at GatherDC, organizing community around Jewish values and volunteering. Most recently, Mollie has lived and worked in Jerusalem at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s working on Rabbinic and Christian Leadership Programs and the iEngage – Pluralistic Israel Education Curriculum. Alongside this work she also serves as the Director of Jewish and Religious Affairs for the Global Muslim-Jewish Conference. She has conducted research for the iCenter on American Jewry, Jewish Identity Politics, and Jewish Peoplehood. Holds a masters in Jewish Experiential Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a B.A. in English Literature and Jewish Studies from Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University. When she is not thinking about big ideas, she is hanging out with her family, enjoying brunch with friends, and going to standing room only concerts!
Ilana Unger
Pearlstone Center – Reisterstown, MD
Ilana Unger grew up both in Vermont and Colorado so connecting to nature has always been something near and dear to her heart! She attended Dickinson College and majored in environmental studies and minored in studio art. Her journey in the JOFEE field started at Urban Adamah where she was a fellow. This is where her passion and interest in the intersectionality between mindfulness, food justice began to grow. She continued her passion at Hazon Detroit through creating transformative experiences for people to connect spiritually through ritual events, urban farming, and bringing communities together across difference. Outside of work she is an outdoor enthusiast. Ilana enjoys meditating, running, hiking, biking, skiing, cooking delicious food, and spending time with the beautiful people in her life.
Alex Voynow
Jewish Farm School – Philadelphia, PA
Alex grew up in the Pine Barrens, 45 minutes east of Philly, where his growing wonder of trees and forest soil mingled with a discomfort and distrust of mainstream suburban lifestyle, and set his eyes towards alternative and restorative ways of living. After graduating with a B.A. in Geography from Vassar College in 2015, he’s spent the past few years working in multiple nodes of the food system, including as a chocolate maker and a restaurant cook, and living on a variety of farms on the west coast and in Central America. He combines his love and understanding of food and agroecology with a commitment to social and ecological justice and community organizing, bolstered by his experience as a community organizer with the Stop Urban Shield Coalition and SURJ Bay Area. When not weaving together food justice, community organizing, and Jewish tradition, you can probably find Alex in his kitchen, in a dance or yoga studio, or wandering the blocks of his neighborhood looking at trees and talking to neighbors and admiring West Philly’s infinite variety of porches.
Eliezer Shalom Weinbach
Hazon – Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center – Falls Village, CT
Eliezer Weinbach is a Retreat Coordinator at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. Prior to joining Hazon, he worked as a Research Associate for Haskins Laboratories at Yale University. He attended Yeshiva University where he received his BA in Psychology. In his spare time Eli enjoys reading fantasy, listening to music, and adventuring. He is interested in expanding the scope of sustainability education to include Orthodox Jewish communities.
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Tag Archives: M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Canadian Researchers Link DICER1 Gene Mutation to Non-Epithelial Ovarian Cancers & Other Rare Tumor Types
Posted on December 21, 2011 by Paul Cacciatore
Canadian researchers affiliated with the Ovarian Cancer Research Program of British Columbia report that recurrent, lifetime-acquired mutations affecting the DICER1 gene occur in a range of nonepithelial ovarian tumors as well as other rare cancer tumor types, and appear common in Sertoli-Leydig ovarian tumors. The study findings were published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Gregg Morin, Head of Proteomics, Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, BC Cancer Agency; DICER 1 Mutation Ovarian Cancer Study Co-Leader
Dr. David Huntsman, Genetic Pathologist & Director of the Ovarian Cancer Research Program of British Columbia at the BC Cancer Agency & Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute; DICER 1 Mutation Ovarian Cancer Study Co-Leader
Scientists at the British Columbia (BC) Cancer Agency, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and the University of British Columbia (UBC) are excited over a discovery made while studying rare tumor types.
Dr. David Huntsman, genetic pathologist and director of the Ovarian Cancer Program of BC (OvCaRe) at the BC Cancer Agency and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and Dr. Gregg Morin, a lead scientist from the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre at the BC Cancer Agency, led a research team who discovered that mutations in rare, seemingly unrelated cancers were all linked to the same gene, known as “DICER1.” The study findings were published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine. [1]
Background: RNA Interference, MicroRNAs, and DICER.
Nucleic acids are molecules that carry genetic information and include DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid). The DNA segments that carry genetic information are called “genes.” Together these molecules form the building blocks of life. DNA contains the genetic code or “blueprint” used in the development and functioning of all living organisms, while “messenger RNAs” or mRNAs help to translate that genetic code into proteins by acting as a messenger between the DNA instructions located in the cell nucleus and the protein synthesis which takes place in the cell cytoplasm (i.e., outside the cell nucleus, but inside the outer cell membrane). Accordingly, DNA is first “transcribed” or copied into mRNA, which, in turn, gets “translated” or synthesized into protein.
“RNA interference” (RNAi) is a mechanism through which gene expression is inhibited at the translation stage, thereby disrupting the protein production within a cell. RNAi is considered one of the most important discoveries in the field of molecular biology. Andrew Fire, Ph.D., and Craig C. Mello, Ph.D. shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work that led to the discovery of the RNAi mechanism. While the mechanism itself is termed “RNA interference,” there are two major types of RNA molecules that play a key role in effectuating that interference. The first type of RNA molecules consists of “microRNAs” or miRNAs, while the second type consists of “small interfering RNAs” or siRNAs.
Current thinking suggests that RNAi evolved as a cellular defense mechanism against invaders such as RNA viruses. When they replicate, RNA viruses temporarily exist in a double-stranded form. This double-stranded intermediate would trigger RNAi and inactivate the virus’ genes, thereby preventing viral infection. RNAi may also have evolved to combat the spread of genetic elements called “transposons” within a cell’s DNA. Transposons can wreak havoc by jumping from spot to spot on a genome, sometimes causing mutations that can lead to cancer or other diseases. Like RNA viruses, transposons can take on a double-stranded RNA form that would trigger RNAi to clamp down on the potentially harmful “jumping gene” activity. Also, as noted above, RNAi is important for regulating gene expression. For example, the turning down of specific genes is critical to proper embryonic development.
Of relevance to the Canadian study findings within the context of RNAi are miRNAs. MiRNAs can bind to mRNAs and either increase or decrease their activity, for example, by preventing a mRNA from producing a protein. [2] In this context, “gene silencing” can occur through mRNA degradation or prevention of mRNA translation. MiRNAs play an integral role in numerous biological processes, including the immune response, cell-cycle control, metabolism, viral replication, stem cell differentiation and human development. MiRNA expression or function is significantly altered in many disease states, including cancer.
Because of its involvement in miRNA processing, the DICER1 gene plays an important role in maintaining health. It carries out a “factory style” function which involves chopping up miRNAs to activate them. [Ref. 2] These miRNAs, in turn, control hundreds of other genes as noted above. Based upon a study led by investigators from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the expression levels of DICER have global effects on the biogenesis of miRNA, and reduced gene expression correlates with a poor outcome in ovarian cancer. [3] In the M.D. Anderson study, two somatic (i.e., lifetime-acquired) missense DICER mutations were discovered in two epithelial ovarian cancer tumors. The M.D. Anderson investigators concluded that the DICER mutations were not associated with the alterations in DICER expression found in mRNAs. It is important to note that the type of somatic missense DICER mutations discovered in the M.D. Anderson study were not the same as those discovered in the Canadian study as discussed below.
Recurrent DICER Mutations Are Predominant In A Rare Form of Non-Epithelial Ovarian Cancer.
At the outset of the Canadian study, the OvCaRe team sequenced ovarian, uterine, and testicular tumors, expecting to find that their genomes would be distinct with specific, differing abnormalities. Much to their amazement, the researchers discovered that the same fundamental mutation in the DICER1 gene represented a common process underlying the different cancers which they examined.
Specifically, the Canadian investigators sequenced the whole transcriptomes or exomes of 14 nonepithelial ovarian tumors, which included two Sertoli–Leydig cell tumors, four juvenile (not adult) granulosa-cell tumors, and eight primitive germ-cell tumors of the yolk-sac type. The researchers identified closely clustered mutations in the region of DICER1 which encode the RNase IIIb domain in four samples. Based on these findings, the OvCaRe team sequenced the same region of DICER1 in additional ovarian tumors, and tested for the effect of the mutations on the enzymatic activity of DICER1.
Recurrent somatic (i.e., lifetime-acquired) DICER1 mutations in the RNase IIIb domain were identified in 30 of 102 nonepithelial ovarian tumors (29%), including 4 tumors which also possessed germline (i.e., inherited) DICER1 mutations. The highest frequency of somatic DICER1 mutations occurred in Sertoli–Leydig cell tumors (26 of 43, or 60%). Notably, the mutant DICER1 proteins identified in the samples possessed reduced RNase IIIb activity, but retained RNase IIIa activity.
The Canadian researchers also performed additional tumor testing and detected the DICER1 mutations in 1 of 14 nonseminomatous testicular germ-cell tumors, 2 of 5 embryonal rhabdomyosarcomas, and in 1 of 266 epithelial ovarian and endometrial carcinomas.
The groundbreaking nature of this discovery is reflected in the fact that the DICER1 “hotspot” mutations are not present in the 1000 Genomes Project data or the public data repository of The Cancer Genome Atlas consortium. To date, no recurrent DICER1 mutations have been reported in the mutation database of the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC), in which 4 of 938 reported cancers possess somatic mutations but none in the RNase IIIb domain hot spots or RNase IIIa equivalents. Moreover, the Canadian researchers note that the newly-discovered DICER1 mutations were not observed in any of the more than 1000 cancer sequencing libraries which were studied.
Based upon the foregoing , the researchers concluded that somatic missense mutations affecting the RNase IIIb domain of DICER1 occur in a range of nonepithelial ovarian tumors, and possibly other cancers. Furthermore, the DICER1 mutations appear to be common in Sertoli-Leydig ovarian tumors (which are a subtype of nonepithelial, sex cord-stromal ovarian tumors). The researchers believe that the recurrent DICER1 mutations identified implicate a novel defect in miRNA processing which does not entirely destroy DICER1 functionality, but alters it.
Accordingly, the Canadian researchers suggest that the newly-discovered DICER1 mutations may represent an oncogenic event within the specific context of nonepithelial ovarian tumors, rather than a permissive event in tumor onset (as may be expected for loss of function in a tumor suppressor gene). The researchers note that DICER1 expression in tumors possessing the hotspot DICER1 somatic mutations argues against a role for DICER1 as a classic tumor suppressor gene. They further explain that the localized and focal pattern of the identified DICER1 mutations is typical of dominantly acting oncogenes, like KRAS and BRAF.
In sum, the Canadian researchers believe that the recurrent and focal nature of the DICER1 mutations and their restriction to nonepithelial ovarian tumors suggest a common oncogenic mechanism associated with a specifically altered DICER1 function that is selected during tumor development in specific cell types.
The Canadian study was supported through funding by Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Terry Fox Foundation, BC Cancer Foundation, VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, and Genome BC.
“DICER is of great interest to cancer researchers” said Dr. Huntsman, who also holds the Dr. Chew Wei Memorial Professorship in the departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC. “There have been nearly 1,300 published studies about it in the last 10 years, but until now, it has not been known how the gene functions in relation to cancer.”
“This discovery shows researchers that these mutations change the function of DICER so that it participates directly in the initiation of cancer, but not in a typical ‘on-off’ fashion,” says Dr. Morin who is also assistant professor in the department of Medical Genetics at UBC. “DICER can be viewed as the conductor for an orchestra of functions critical for the development and behavior of normal cells. The mutations we discovered do not totally destroy the function of DICER rather they warp it—the orchestra is still there but the conductor is drunk.”
This finding is the third of a series of papers published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in which the OvCaRe team used new genomic technologies to unlock the molecular basis of poorly understood types of ovarian cancer. The first finding, published in the NEJM in 2009, identified mutations in the FOXL2 (forkhead box L2) gene as the molecular basis of adult granulosa cell ovarian cancer tumors. The second finding, published in the NEJM in 2010, determined that approximately one-half of clear-cell ovarian cancers and one-third of endometrioid ovarian cancers possess ARID1A (AT rich interactive domain 1A) gene mutations.
The DICER gene mutation breakthrough discovery is particularly pivotal because it could lead to solutions for treatment of more common cancers.
“Studying rare tumors not only is important for the patients and families who suffer from them but also provides unique opportunities to make discoveries critical to more common cancers – both in terms of personalized medicine, but also in applying what we learn from how we manage rare diseases to more common and prevalent cancers,” said Dr. Huntsman “The discovery of the DICER mutation in this varied group of rare tumors is the equivalent of finding not the needle in the haystack, but rather the same needle in many haystacks.”
Dr. Phillip A. Sharp, Professor, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Co-winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine
“This breakthrough will be of interest to both the clinical and the fundamental science communities,” says Dr. Phillip A. Sharp, Professor, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and co-winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that genes are not contiguous strings but contain introns, and that the splicing of mRNA to delete those introns can occur in different ways, thereby yielding different proteins from the same DNA sequence. “Huntsman, Morin and colleagues’ very exciting discovery of specific mutations in DICER, a factor essential for syntheses of small regulatory RNAs in ovarian and other human tumors, could lead to new approaches to treatment.”
The Canadian OvCaRe research team is now working to determine the frequency and role of DICER mutations in other types of cancers. The research team is also expanding its collaboration to discover whether mutant DICER and the pathways it controls can be modulated to treat the rare cancers in which the mutations were discovered and more common cancers.
The Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre (Michael Smith GSC), located at the BC Cancer agency, played a key role in this discovery. By way of background, Dr. Michael Smith was a co-winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of oligonucleotide-based site-directed mutagenesis, a technique which allows the DNA sequence of any gene to be altered in a designated manner. His technique created a groundbreaking method for studying complex protein functions, the basis underlying a protein’s three-dimensional structure, and a protein’s interaction with other molecules inside the cell.
A decision was made more than 10 years ago, championed by Drs. Michael Smith, Victor Ling, and others to create and locate the Michael Smith GSC within the BC Cancer Agency and in close proximity to Vancouver General Hospital (VGH). The chosen location for this critical facility provided the multidisciplinary cancer research teams in Vancouver with access to state-of-the-art technologies.
“We are one of less than five places in the world doing this type of work successfully. This discovery is one of a series of recent landmark findings from Vancouver that are reshaping our understanding of many cancers,” says Dr. Huntsman. “Since my arrival in Vancouver 20 years ago I have never before sensed such a strong feeling of communal pride and excitement within our research community. Our next task is to bring the discoveries into the clinic.”
About the Ovarian Cancer Research Program of British Columbia (OvCaRe)
OvCaRe is a multidisciplinary research program involving clinicians and research scientists in gynecology, pathology, and medical oncology at VGH and BC Cancer Agency. OvCaRe is a unique collaboration between the BC Cancer Agency, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and UBC. The OvCaRe team is considered a leader in ovarian cancer research which is breaking new ground in better identifying, understanding, and treating this disease. The OvCaRe seminal paper in PLoS (Public Library of Science), which addresses ovarian cancer as a group of distinct diseases, has been embraced by the global research community who has adopted the BC approach to ovarian cancer research. To learn more, visit www.ovcare.ca.
About the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre
Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre is an internationally recognized state-of-the-art facility applying genomics and bioinformatics tools and technologies to cancer research. Led by Dr. Marco Marra, the Michael Smith GSC is one of ten leading genomic research centres in the world and the only one of its kind in the world integrated into a cancer facility. With a primary focus on cancer genomics research, its scientists have been involved in many world-class groundbreaking discoveries over the past decade. To learn more, visit www.bcgsc.ca.
About the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute
Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute is the research body of Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, which includes BC’s largest academic and teaching health sciences centres: Vancouver General Hospital, UBC Hospital, and GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre. The institute is academically affiliated with the UBC Faculty of Medicine, and is one of Canada’s top-funded research centres, with $82.4 million in research funding for 2009/2010. To learn more, visit www.vchri.ca.
About the British Columbia Cancer Agency
The BC Cancer Agency, an agency of the Provincial Health Services Authority, is committed to reducing the incidence of cancer, reducing the mortality from cancer, and improving the quality of life of those living with cancer. It provides a comprehensive cancer control program for the people of British Columbia by working with community partners to deliver a range of oncology services, including prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment, research, education, supportive care, rehabilitation and palliative care. To learn more, visit www.bccancer.ca.
About the University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is one of North America’s largest public research and teaching institutions, and one of only two Canadian institutions consistently ranked among the world’s 40 best universities. Surrounded by the beauty of the Canadian West, it is a place that inspires bold, new ways of thinking that have helped make it a national leader in areas as diverse as community service learning, sustainability, and research commercialization. UBC offers more than 55,000 students a range of innovative programs and attracts $550 million per year in research funding from government, non-profit organizations, and industry through 7,000 grants. To learn more, visit www.ubc.ca.
1/Morin G, Hunstman, DG et al. Recurrent Somatic DICER1 Mutations in Nonepithelial Ovarian Cancers. NEJM, published online December 21, 2011 (10.1056/NEJMoa1102903).
2/The Canadian investigators describe the operation of the RNAi pathway with respect to miRNA biogenesis as follows:
“MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a functional class of noncoding RNA molecules that regulate translation and degradation of messenger RNA. MiRNA transcripts are processed from hairpin pre-miRNA precursors into short miRNA: miRNA* duplexes consisting of the miRNA targeting strand and the imperfectly complementary miRNA* strand (star strand, or inert carrier strand) by Dicer, an endoribonuclease with two RNase III–like domains. The RNase IIIb domain cuts the miRNA strand, whereas the RNase IIIa domain cleaves the miRNA* strand. The resultant RNA duplex is loaded into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) containing an Argonaute protein. The miRNA* strand is then removed, leaving the miRNA strand, which targets messenger RNAs (mRNAs) for degradation or interacts with the translation initiation complex to inhibit and destabilize translation of the targeted messenger RNAs.” [footnote citations omitted]
3/Merritt WM, et al. Dicer, Drosha, and outcomes in patients with ovarian cancer. N Engl J Med. 2008 Dec 18;359(25):2641-50. Erratum in: N Engl J Med. 2010 Nov 4;363(19):1877. PubMed PMID: 19092150; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2710981.
Gene links rare and unrelated cancers — An important breakthrough in cancer research, Joint Press Release, BC Cancer Agency, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and the University of British Columbia, December 21, 2011.
Posted in Discoveries, Genetics, Ovarian Cancer Studies, Preclinical Testing | Tagged Andrew Fire Ph.D., British Columbia Cancer Agency, Craig C. Mello Ph.D., David Huntsman M.D., DICER RNase IIIb domain, DICER1, germ cell ovarian cancer, germ cell yolk sac type tumor, granulosa cell tumor, Gregg Morin Ph.D., M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, messenger RNA, Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, microRNA, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, ovarian cancer, Phillip A. Sharp Ph.D., rhabdomyosarcomas, RNA interference, RNAi, Sertoli-Leydig ovarian cancer, sex cord-stromal ovarian cancer, small interfering RNA, somatic gene mutation, testicular cancer, transposons, Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, Vancouver General Hospital | Leave a comment
2011 ASCO: Additional Phase III Study Data Support the Potential Role of Avastin in Newly-Diagnosed & Recurrent Ovarian Cancer
Posted on June 9, 2011 by Paul Cacciatore
Positive results from two bevacizumab (Avastin®) phase III clinical studies were presented at the 2011 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting on June 4. The data reported add to the growing body of evidence in support of bevacizumab use to treat recurrent and newly-diagnosed ovarian cancer.
About Bevacizumab (Avastin®)
A diagram illustrating the role of the VEGF protein in the formation of new blood vessels that support tumor growth. Click on the picture above to view a video regarding the mechanism of action with respect to bevacizumab (Avastin®). (Photo: Genentech)
“Angiogenesis” refers to the process of new blood vessel formation. When tissues need more oxygen, they release molecules that encourage blood vessel growth. Angiogenesis is a normal and vital process in human growth and development, as well as in wound healing. Unfortunately, cancer tumors also utilize this same process to enhance their own blood supply in order to nourish their aberrant growth.
Ovarian cancer is associated with high concentrations of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a protein associated with tumor growth and spread. Studies have shown a correlation between a high concentration of VEGF and ascites (excess fluid in the body cavity) development, disease worsening, and a poorer prognosis in women with ovarian cancer.[1-2]
Bevacizumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody designed to specifically bind to the VEGF protein, which plays an important role throughout the lifecycle of the tumor to develop and maintain blood vessels through angiogenesis. The drug interferes with the tumor blood supply by directly binding to the VEGF protein to prevent interactions with receptors on blood vessel cells. The tumor blood supply is thought to be critical to a tumor’s ability to grow and spread in the body (metastasize).
Bevacizumab is the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved therapy designed to inhibit angiogenesis. Although FDA-approved for several forms of cancer, bevacizumab is not yet approved for the treatment of ovarian cancer. Patients treated with bevacizumab may experience side effects. In past clinical trials, some people treated with bevacizumab experienced serious and sometimes fatal side effects, related to gastrointestinal (GI) perforation, surgery and wound healing, and severe bleeding. For more information, review the Avastin BOXED WARNINGS and Additional Important Safety Information.
OCEANS Phase III Clinical Study: Women with Recurrent Platinum Sensitive Ovarian Cancer Experience 78% Response Rate & 52% Reduction In Disease Progression Risk
About the OCEANS Study
“OCEANS” is a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase III study in 484 women with platinum drug-sensitive recurrent ovarian, primary peritoneal or fallopian tube cancer.[3] Women in the OCEANS study received no more than one treatment regimen prior to study enrollment. The OCEANS study randomized enrolled women to one of two clinical study arms:
Arm A: Intravenous carboplatin (area under the curve (AUC) 4; Day 1) + gemcitabine (1,000 mg/m2; Day 1 & 8; brand name: Gemzar®) + placebo (Day 1) every 21 days x 6 cycles, followed by placebo maintenance every 21 days, until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity occurred.
Arm B: Carboplatin + gemcitabine + bevacizumab (15 mg/kg; Day 1) every 21 days x 6 cycles, followed by single agent bevacizumab maintenance every 21 days, until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity occurred.
The primary endpoint of the OCEANS study was progression free survival. The secondary endpoints of the study included overall survival, objective response, duration of response and safety profile.
OCEANS Study Data
Carol Aghajanian, M.D. speaks during the Oral Abstract Session: Gynecologic Cancer at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting on Saturday June 4, 2011. (Photo: ASCO/GMG/Silas Crews 2011)
Carol Aghajanian, M.D., chief of the gynecologic medical oncology service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, presented the data from the OCEANS study comparing efficacy and safety of chemotherapy and antiangiogenic therapy in platinum drug-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer.
Two hundred forty-two women were allocated to each study arm and the median follow-up period was 24 months. Patient characteristics were well-matched in the two treatment groups with regard to age (median age ~60), race (~91% white), performance status (~75%, PS = 0), histologic subtype (~80% serous), cytoreductive surgery (~11%), and platinum-free interval (defined as the time between finishing front-line platinum-based therapy and starting second-line chemotherapy) of more than 12 months (~60%). The study stratification variables were platinum-free interval (6 to 12 months vs. more than 12) and cytoreductive surgery for recurrent disease (yes vs. no).
The median number of chemotherapy cycles was six for each group, and a median of 11 cycles of bevacizumab or placebo was given. At least one-third of the patients received more than six cycles of carboplatin and gemcitabine, although slightly more of the placebo-treated group continued chemotherapy beyond six cycles.
Progression-free survival was significantly longer for women given bevacizumab (12.4 months vs. 8.4 months in the placebo-treated group (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.484; 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.388, 0.605]; p < 0.0001). These results were corroborated by the analyses of an independent review committee. Analyses according to platinum-free interval, cytoreductive surgery, age, and baseline performance status indicate a consistent benefit in all subgroups.
Objective response rate increased by 21.1% (p < 0.0001), from 57.4% in the placebo group to 78.5% in the bevacizumab treated group; duration of response increased from a median of 7.4 months to 10.4 months, respectively (HR: 0.534; 95% CI [0.408, 0.698]; p < 0.0001). Overall survival data are still premature, with median survival of 29.9 months in the placebo group and 35.5 months in the bevacizumab treatment group.
Sixty-five percent of the patients in the placebo group were withdrawn from the protocol due to disease progression, compared with only 41% of the treatment group, but 23% of the discontinuations in the bevacizumab group were due to adverse events, compared with only 5% in the placebo group. Much of this increase was due to grade 3 (or worse) adverse events; specifically hypertension and proteinuria associated with bevacizumab therapy. Overall, the safety profile of bevacizumab was consistent with past trials.
OCEANS Study Commentary
Dr. Aghajanian concluded that the OCEANS study results demonstrate a statistically significant and clinically relevant benefit when bevacizumab is added to carboplatin and gemcitabine. Aghajanian stated that this regimen should be considered a new option for the treatment of recurrent, platinum drug-sensitive ovarian cancer. As expected, the rate of adverse events was higher among patients who received bevacizumab, explained Dr. Aghajanian. “Hypertension and proteinuria were increased, but febrile neutropenia was the same in both arms.” “The safety data are reassuring and consistent with the known bevacizumab side-effect profile, and there were no new safety signals,” said Dr. Aghajanian.
“In advanced ovarian cancer, just as in advanced breast cancer, there is often an opportunity to intervene with different lines of chemotherapy,” said Andrew Seidman, M.D., attending physician for the breast cancer medicine service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and professor of medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. “There are many chapters in the story, so to speak,” said Dr. Seidman, who moderated a press briefing held in advance of the presentation. “We want to prolong each and every chapter in the disease, and make the story longer and ultimately improve survival. These trials results are certainly an important step in that direction.”
“Women with recurrent ovarian cancer need new treatment options, and it is therefore an important advance to halve the risk of disease progression in this incurable cancer,” said Hal Barron, M.D., chief medical officer and head of Roche Holdings Global Product Development. “These data add to the growing body of evidence supporting Avastin’s potential role in this disease, which includes two previously presented Phase III clinical trials [Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG)-218 [4] & ICON7] in women with newly diagnosed ovarian cancer.”
In his discussion of the study, Anil K. Sood, M.D., professor and director of the Blanton-Davis Ovarian Cancer Research Program in the Departments of Gynecologic Oncology and Cancer Biology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, suggested that further understanding of the timing and dosing of bevacizumab should be pursued in light of (i) its great financial cost, and (ii) reports that inhibition of angiogenesis in animal models reduces primary cancer tumor growth, but accelerates invasion and metastasis — unintended consequences that might be linked to the failure of bevacizumab to extend overall survival in most clinical trials.
ICON7 Phase III Clinical Study: Newly-Diagnosed Women with High-Risk Ovarian Cancer Experience 36% Reduction in Risk of Death
Gunnar Kristensen M.D., Ph.D. speaks during the Women's Cancers Press Briefing at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting on June 4, 2011. (Photo: ASCO/GMG/Scott Morgan 2011)
ICON7 was designed to investigate safety and efficacy of adding bevacizumab to standard chemotherapy in women with newly diagnosed ovarian cancer. [5] Gunnar Kristensen, M.D, Ph.D., senior consultant in the Department for Gynecologic Oncology of the Norwegian Radium Hospital located in Oslo, reported the Phase III clinical study results.
About the ICON7 Study
From December 2006 to February 2009, 1,528 women were randomized from 263 centers in 7 Gynecologic Cancer InterGroups. Eligible women with high-risk early FIGO (Federation of International Gynecology and Obstetrics) stage I or IIa (grade 3 or clear cell histology), capped ≤10%) or advanced (stage IIb-IV) epithelial ovarian, primary peritoneal or fallopian tube cancer were randomizsed (1:1) to one of two study arms:
Arm A: 6 cycles of 3 weekly chemotherapy (carboplatin AUC 5 or 6 and paclitaxel 175mg/m2) alone; or
Arm B: Same chemotherapy as in Arm A, given concurrently with bevacizumab (7.5mg/kg) for 5 or 6 cycles, followed by continued 3-weekly single-agent bevacizumab maintenance therapy for 12 additional cycles (up to 12 months) or until disease progression (whichever event occurs first).
The baseline patient characteristics were balanced between both study arms: median age (57 years); ECOG Performance Status 0-1 (47%); high-risk early-stage disease (9%); poor prognosis patients (30%); histology (69% serous, 8% endometrioid, 8% clear cell).
Updated ICON7 Progression Free Survival Data
Data from the ICON7 study were presented for the first time at the 2010 European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress. As reported at ESMO, chemotherapy-naïve ovarian cancer patients who received bevacizumab in combination with standard chemotherapy, and then continued with single agent bevacizumab maintenance therapy, experienced approximately 27% improvement (18.3 months versus 16 months) in the likelihood of living longer without the disease worsening (i.e., progression-free survival) compared to those women who received only chemotherapy (hazard ratio = 0.79, p=<0.0010), which corresponds to a 21% reduction in risk of cancer progression or death. The ICON7 data presented at ESMO was based upon mature progression-free survival results.
The updated ICON7 progression-free survival data presented at the ASCO annual meeting were consistent with the data reported last year at ESMO. In the updated analysis, women assigned to the bevacizumab arm experienced longer progression-free survival than those in the control group (19.8 months vs 17.4 months; HR, 0.87; p =.039). “There is a substantial prolongation of time to progression,” said Dr. Kristensen, adding that the gain was 2.4 months.
ICON7 Overall Survival Data Immature; But Clear Benefit To Women With “Poor Prognosis.”
At a median follow-up of 28 months, there were fewer deaths among women who received bevacizumab than among those who received standard chemotherapy (178 vs 200). Although this represents a 15% overall reduction in mortality risk, the difference did not reach statistical significance (hazard ratio [HR], 0.85; P = .11). The final analyses for overall survival will be performed when 715 patient deaths have occurred. The current analysis was conducted because an interim analysis with at least 365 deaths was requested by the FDA and the European Medicines Agency for licensing consideration.
Although the overall survival data is not mature, a subgroup analysis of women with a “poor prognosis” (defined as FIGO stage III patients debulked to >1.0cm of visible diease or FIGO stage IV with debulking) was performed. Within this subgroup, there were 79 deaths within the bevacizumab arm and 109 deaths in the control arm. Based on this data, there was a 36% reduction in the risk of death (HR=0.64, 95% CI=0.48 to 0.85, p=0.0022 with p=0.015 for test for interaction (treatment/risk group)) among the poor prognosis subgroup. This result was statistically significant. “We have previously shown that [the high-risk] group has a greater benefit from bevacizumab than the other patients,” said Dr. Kristensen. “For this group, there is a very clear gain for overall survival.”
ICON7 Study Commentary
“We conclude that the addition of concurrent and continued bevacizumab for 12 months does improve progression-free survival,” said Dr. Kristensen. Kristensen also noted that, on the basis of an interim analysis involving approximately 53% of the number of deaths needed for the final analysis, there is an overall trend for improvement in overall survival.
“In this study, we see the ability of antiangiogenic therapy to delay the progression of ovarian cancer, this time in the first-line setting,” said Andrew Seidman, M.D. He added that previous studies have demonstrated the efficacy of bevacizumab in ovarian cancer. “These lend support to a potential role for bevacizumab as the first biologic agent to be used in this disease,” said Seidman, who moderated a press briefing during which study highlights were presented.
There are many strengths in a study like this, in that it addresses questions about the role of anti-VEGF therapies in this setting, said Anil Sood, M.D., who served as a discussant for this paper. “The randomized design is obviously a major strength.”
However, there are potential issues to examine, explained Dr. Sood. “One is the role of bevacizumab in the combination setting, compared with the maintenance setting.”
“How useful is bevacizumab in the combination setting up front? Is the real role for bevacizumab in the maintenance setting following initial chemotherapy,” he asked.
The issue of bevacizumab dosing was also raised by Dr. Sood. “One of the questions is whether higher doses are needed,” he said. “There are data emerging from other studies showing that lower doses are as efficacious, if not more so.”
1/Rudlowski C, Pickart AK, Fuhljahn C, et. al. Prognostic significance of vascular endothelial growth factor expression in ovarian cancer patients: a long-term follow-up. Int J Gynecol Cancer. 2006 Jan-Feb;16 Suppl 1:183-9. PubMed PMID: 16515588.
2/Cooper BC, Ritchie JM, Broghammer CL, et. al. Preoperative serum vascular endothelial growth factor levels: significance in ovarian cancer. Clin Cancer Res. 2002 Oct;8(10):3193-7. PMID: 12374688
3/Aghajanian C, Finkler NJ, Rutherford T, et. al. OCEANS: A randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled phase III trial of chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab (BEV) in patients with platinum-sensitive recurrent epithelial ovarian (EOC), primary peritoneal (PPC), or fallopian tube cancer (FTC). J Clin Oncol 29: 2011 (suppl; abstr LBA5007)[2011 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting].
4/ Burger RA, Brady MF, Bookman MA, et. al. Phase III trial of bevacizumab in the primary treatment of advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), primary peritoneal cancer (PPC), or fallopian tube cancer (FTC): a Gynecologic Oncology Group study [GOG 218 Abstract]. J Clin Oncol 28:18s, 2010 (suppl; abstr LBA1).
5/Kristensen G, Perren T, Qian W., et. al. Result of interim analysis of overall survival in the GCIG ICON7 phase III randomized trial of bevacizumab in women with newly diagnosed ovarian cancer. J Clin Oncol 29: 2011 (suppl; abstr LBA5006) [2011 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting].
Additional Sources & Helpful Information:
Bevacizumab Benefits Patients With Recurrent Ovarian Cancer, by Roxanne Nelson; American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO®) 2011 Annual Meeting, Medscape Today Medical News, June 5, 2011.
Bevacizumab Plus Chemo Improves Survival in Ovarian Cancer, by Roxanne Nelson; American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO®) 2011 Annual Meeting, Medscape Today Medical News, June 5, 2011.
Bevacizumab Prolongs Progression-free Survival for Women with Platinum-sensitive Recurrent Ovarian Cancer, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO®) 2011 Annual Meeting, ASCO Daily News (Section 6A), June 6, 2011.
Incorporating Bevacizumab into Ovarian Cancer Treatment: Practical Considerations, by By Alexandra Leary, M.D., and Martin Gore, Ph.D., FRCP, Gynecologic Oncology Category, Educational Book, 2011 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, June 3-7, 2011. [Full Text Adobe Reader PDF document]
Bevacizumab (Avastin®) Clinical Trial Information
A list of open ovarian cancer clinical trials involving bevacizumab.
A list of open solid tumor clinical trials involving bevacizumab.
ICON7 – A Randomised, Two-Arm, Multi-Centre Gynaecologic Cancer InterGroup Trial of Adding Bevacizumab to Standard Chemotherapy (Carboplatin and Paclitaxel) in Patients With Epithelial Ovarian Cancer (NCT00483782), Clinical Trial Protocol Summary, ClinicalTrials.gov.
A Phase III, Multicenter, Randomized, Blinded, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Carboplatin and Gemcitabine Plus Bevacizumab in Patients With Platinum-Sensitive Recurrent Ovary, Primary Peritoneal, or Fallopian Tube Carcinoma (OCEANS) (NCT00434642), Clinical Trial Protocol Summary, ClinicalTrials.gov.
Related WORD of HOPE Ovarian Cancer Podcast™
10 Exciting Ovarian Cancer Research Topics from 2010 — Avastin Phase III Clinical Trials (Topic #1 of 10); Episode #1; WORD of HOPE Ovarian Cancer Podcast™, March 25, 2011.
2011 NCCN Conference: New Treatment Options Lead to Steady Progress Against Ovarian Cancer, March 15, 2011.
Ohio State University Reports That Ovarian Cancer Drug Bevacizumab Is Not Cost-Effective, March 8, 2011.
Genentech Announces Positive Results of Avastin Phase III Study in Women with Advanced Ovarian Cancer, February 25, 2010.
To view videos regarding bevacizumab (Avastin®), click here.
Posted in Anti-Vascular Drugs, Biological Therapies, Clinical Trial Results, Conferences, Meeting Highlights, Monoclonal Antibody, Novel Therapies, Pipeline Drugs | Tagged 2011 ASCO Annual Mtg., American Society of Clinical Oncology, Andrew Seidman M.D., Anil K. Sood M.D., Avastin, bevacizumab, Carol Aghajanian M.D., European Society of Medical Oncology, gemcitabine, Gemzar, GOG 0218, Gunnar Kristensen M.D. Ph.D., Gynecologic Cancer InterGroup, ICON7 phase III trial, Libby's H*O*P*E*, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Ctr., OCEANS phase III trial, ovarian cancer, platinum sensitive ovarian cancer, VEGF, Weill Medical College, WORD of HOPE Ovarian Cancer Podcast | 2 Comments
2010-2011 U.S. News & World Report “Best Hospitals” List
Posted on July 15, 2010 by Paul Cacciatore
This week, U.S. News & World Report issued its 2010-2011 rankings of the best U.S. hospitals for adults. The University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is rated #1 in cancer treatment, and Johns Hopkins is rated #1 in gynecology and #1 overall based upon all medical specialties.
If you would like more information regarding the 2010-2011 U.S. News & World Report best U.S. hospital rankings, click here. To better understand how U.S. News & World Report ranked the hospitals in each specialty, read Best Hospitals 2010-11: The Methodology, written by U.S. News & World Report’s Avery Comarow. If you would like to review the current U.S. News & World Report America’s Best Children’s Hospitals list, click here.
Top 10 U.S. Hospitals: Cancer
Top 10 U.S. Hospitals: Gynecology
Top 10 U.S. Hospitals (highest scores in at least six medical specialties)
1. Univ. of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland
2. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota
3. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota Brigham and Women’s Hospital,Boston, Massachusetts Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
4. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio
5. University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, Washington Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
6. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts Magee-Womens Hospital of Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania New York-Presbyterian Univ. Hospital of Columbia & Cornell, New York, New York
7. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina Univ. of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center
8. Univ. of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center Univ. of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University, St. Louis
9. Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio New York-Presbyterian Univ. Hospital of Columbia & Cornell, New York, New York Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
10. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina
Posted in Treatment Overview | Tagged 2010 Best U.S. Hospitals, Barnes-Jew Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Duke University Medical Ctr., Hospital of the Univ. of Penn., Johns Hopkins Hospital, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC, Massachusetts General Hospital, Mayo Clinic, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Ctr., NY Presbyterian Univ. Hospital, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Ctr., U.S. News & World Report, UCSF Medical Ctr., Univ. of Washington Medical Ctr. | Leave a comment
MAGP2 Gene Expression Signature: A Potential Ovarian Cancer Personalized Treatment Target
Posted on December 8, 2009 by Paul Cacciatore
A multi-institutional study has identified a potential personalized treatment target for the most common form of ovarian cancer. In the December 8 issue of Cancer Cell, the research team describes finding that a gene called MAGP2 – not previously associated with any type of cancer – was overexpressed in papillary serous ovarian tumors of patients who died more quickly. They also found evidence suggesting possible mechanisms by which MAGP2 may promote tumor growth.
A multi-institutional study has identified a potential personalized treatment target for the most common form of ovarian cancer. In the December 8 issue of Cancer Cell, the research team describes finding that a gene called MAGP2 (microfibril-associated glycoprotein 2) – not previously associated with any type of cancer – was overexpressed in papillary serous ovarian tumors of patients who died more quickly. They also found evidence suggesting possible mechanisms by which MAGP2 may promote tumor growth.
Michael Birrer, MD, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Director GYN/Medical Oncology, Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital
“Ovarian cancer is typically diagnosed at an advanced stage when it is incurable, and the same treatments have been used for virtually all patients,” says Michael Birrer, MD, PhD, director of medical gynecologic oncology in the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center, and the study’s corresponding author. “Previous research from my lab indicated that different types and grades of ovarian tumors should be treated differently, and this paper now shows that even papillary serous tumors have differences that impact patient prognosis.” Birrer was with the National Institutes of Health when this study began but later joined the MGH Cancer Center.
The fifth most common malignancy among U.S. women, ovarian cancer is expected to cause approximately 15,000 deaths during 2009. Accounting for 60 percent of ovarian cancers, papillary serous tumors are typically diagnosed after spreading beyond the ovaries. The tumors typically return after initial treatment with surgery and chemotherapy, but while some patients die a few months after diagnosis, others may survive five years or longer while receiving treatment.
To search for genes expressed at different levels in ovarian cancer patients with different survival histories, which could be targets for new treatments, the researchers conducted whole-genome profiling of tissue samples that had been microdissected – reducing the presence of non-tumor cells – from 53 advanced papillary serous ovarian cancer tumors. Of 16 genes that appeared to have tumor-associated expression levels, MAGP2 had the strongest correlation with reduced patient survival.
Further analysis confirmed that MAGP2 expression was elevated in another group of malignant ovarian cancer tumors but not in normal tissue. MAGP2 gene expression was also reduced in patients whose tumors responded to chemotherapy. Recombinant expression of MAGP2 in samples of the endothelial cells that line blood vessels caused the cells to migrate and invade normal tissue. In addition, MAGP2 gene overexpression increased microvessel density — a measurement used to determine the extent of tumor angiogenesis. The latter two observations suggest a potential role for MAGP2 gene overexpression in the growth of an ovarian cancer tumor’s blood supply.
“By confirming that different ovarian tumors have distinctive gene signatures that can predict patient prognosis, this study marks the beginning of individualized care for ovarian cancer,” says Birrer, a professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “MAGP2 and the biochemical pathways it contributes to are definitely targets for new types of therapies, and we plan to pursue several strategies to interfere with tumor-associated pathways. But first we need to validate these findings in samples from patients treated in clinical trials.”
Co-lead authors of the Cancer Cell paper are Samuel Mok, M.D., M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Tomas Bonome, National Cancer Institute (NCI). Additional co-authors are Kwong-Kowk Wong, M.D. Anderson; Vinod Vathipadiekal, Aaron Bell, Howard Donninger, Laurent Ozbun, Goli Samimi, John Brady, Mike Randonovich, Cindy Pise-Masison, and Carl Barrett, NCI; Michael Johnson, Dong-Choon Park, William Welch and Ross Berkowitz, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Ke Hao and Wing Wong, Harvard School of Public Health; and Daniel Yip, University of South Florida. The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund and the National Cancer Institute.
About Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital, established in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $600 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.
Possible ovarian cancer treatment target identified – Genetic signature associated with poor prognosis could lead to improved therapies, Press Release, Massachusetts General Hospital (via EurekAlert), December 8, 2009.
Mok SC, Bonome T, Vathipadiekal V, Bell A, Johnson ME, Wong KK, et. al. A gene signature predictive for outcome in advanced ovarian cancer identifies a survival factor: microfibril-associated glycoprotein 2. Cancer Cell. 2009 Dec 8;16(6):521-32. PubMed PMID: 19962670.
Farley J, Ozbun LL, Birrer MJ. Genomic analysis of epithelial ovarian cancer. Cell Res. 2008 May;18(5):538-48. Review. PubMed PMID: 18427574.
Posted in Discoveries, Genetics, Medical Study Results, Preclinical Testing | Tagged Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cancer Cell, gene expression, gene profiling, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, MAGP2, Massachusetts General Hospital, Michael Birrer M.D. Ph.D., microfibril-associated glycoprotein 2, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Healths, ovarian cancer, Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, Ross Berkowitz M.D., Samuel Mok M.D., serous ovarian cancer | Leave a comment
M.D. Anderson Study Predicts Dramatic Growth in Cancer Rates Among U.S. Elderly, Minorities
Posted on April 30, 2009 by Paul Cacciatore
” … Over the next 20 years, the number of new cancer cases diagnosed annually in the United States will increase by 45 percent, from 1.6 million in 2010 to 2.3 million in 2030, with a dramatic spike in incidence predicted in the elderly and minority populations, according to research from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. …Given these statistics, the role of screening and prevention strategies becomes all the more vital and should be strongly encouraged, said [Ben] Smith [M.D.]. … These findings also highlight two issues that must be addressed simultaneously: clinical trial participation and the increasing cost of cancer care. Historically, both older adults and minorities have been under-represented in such studies, and, therefore, vulnerable to sub-optimal cancer treatment. Simultaneously, over the past decade in particular, the cost of cancer care is growing at a rate that’s not sustainable. …”
“Research underscores impact on health care system, importance of screenings, prevention strategies, inclusive clinical trials
Cancer Newsline Podcast
M. D. Anderson audio player (click & play)
Dramatic Growth in Cancer Rates Among Elderly, Minorities
Over the next 20 years, the number of new cancer cases diagnosed annually in the United States will increase by 45 percent, from 1.6 million in 2010 to 2.3 million in 2030, with a dramatic spike in incidence predicted in the elderly and minority populations, according to research from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
The study, published online today in Journal of Clinical Oncology, is the first to determine such specific long-term cancer incidence projections. It predicts a 67 percent increase in the number of adults age-65-or-older diagnosed with cancer, from 1 million in 2010 to 1.6 million in 2030. In non-white individuals over the same 20-year span, the incidence is expected to increase by 100 percent, from 330,000 to 660,000.
Ben Smith, M.D., Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
According to Ben Smith, M.D., adjunct assistant professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Radiation Oncology, the study underscores cancer’s growing stress on the U.S. health care system.
‘In 2030, 70 percent of all cancers will be diagnosed in the elderly and 28 percent in minorities, and the number of older adults diagnosed with cancer will be the same as the total number of Americans diagnosed with cancer in 2010,’ said Smith, the study’s senior author. ‘Also alarming is that a number of the types of cancers that are expected to increase, such as liver, stomach and pancreas, still have tremendously high mortality rates.’
Unless specific prevention and/or treatment strategies are discovered, cancer death rates also will increase dramatically, said Smith, who is currently on active military duty and is stationed at Lackland Air Force Base.
To conduct their research, Smith and his team accessed the United States Census Bureau statistics, updated in 2008 to project population growth through 2050, and the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) registry, the premier population-based cancer registry representing 26 percent of the country’s population. Cancer incidence rates were calculated by multiplying the age, sex, race and origin-specific population projections by the age, sex, race and origin-specific cancer incidence rates.
The researchers found that from 2010 to 2030, the population is expected to grow by 19 percent (from 305 to 365 million). The total number of cancer cases will increase by 45 percent (from 1.6 to 2.3 million), with a 67 percent increase in cancer incidence in older Americans (1 to 1.6 million), compared to an 11 percent increase in those under the age of 65 (.63 to .67 million).
With respect to race, a 100 percent increase in cancer is expected for minorities (.33 to .66 million); in contrast, in white Americans, a 31 percent increase is anticipated (1.3 to 1.7 million). The rates of cancer in blacks, American Indian-Alaska Native, multi-racial, Asian-Pacific Islanders and Hispanics will increase by 64 percent, 76 percent, 101 percent, 132 percent and 142 percent, respectively.
Regarding disease-specific findings, Smith and his team found that the leading cancer sites are expected to remain constant – breast, prostate, colon and lung. However, cancer sites with the greatest increase in incidence expected are: stomach (67 percent); liver (59 percent); myeloma (57 percent); pancreas (55 percent); and bladder (54 percent).
Given these statistics, the role of screening and prevention strategies becomes all the more vital and should be strongly encouraged, said Smith. In the study, Smith and his team site [sic]: vaccinations for hepatitis B and HPV; the chemoprevention agents tamoxifen and raloxifene; interventions for tobacco and alcohol; and removal of pre-malignant lesions, such as colon polyps.
These findings also highlight two issues that must be addressed simultaneously: clinical trial participation and the increasing cost of cancer care. Historically, both older adults and minorities have been under-represented in such studies, and, therefore, vulnerable to sub-optimal cancer treatment. Simultaneously, over the past decade in particular, the cost of cancer care is growing at a rate that’s not sustainable.
‘The fact that these two groups have been under-represented in clinical research participation, yet their incidence of cancer is growing so rapidly, reflects the need for therapeutic trials to be more inclusive and address issues that are particularly relevant to both populations,’ said Smith. ‘In addition, as we design clinical trials, we need to seek not only the treatment that will prolong survival, but prolong survival at a reasonable cost to patients. These are two issues that oncologists need to be much more concerned about and attuned to.’
Another issue that needs to be addressed is the shortage of health care professionals predicted. For example, according to a workforce assessment by American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the shortage of medical oncologists will impact the health care system by 2020. Smith said ASCO and other professional medical organizations beyond oncology are aware of the problem, and are actively engaged in efforts to try and grow the number of physicians, as well as encourage the careers of nurse practitioners and physician assistants who are part of the continuum of care, to best accommodate the increase in demand forecasted.
‘There’s no doubt the increasing incidence of cancer is a very important societal issue. There will not be one solution to this problem, but many different issues that need to be addressed to prepare for these changes,’ said Smith. ‘I’m afraid if we don’t come to grips with this as a society, health care may be the next bubble to burst.’
In addition to Smith, other M. D. Anderson authors on the study include: Thomas Buchholz, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology and the study’s senior author; Gabriel Hortobagyi, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Breast Medical Oncology; and Grace Smith, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology. Arti Hurria, M.D., post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Medical Oncology, City of Hope Cancer Center, also is a contributing author on the study.”
M. D. Anderson Study Predicts Dramatic Growth in Cancer Rates Among U.S. Elderly, Minorities – Research underscores impact on health care system, importance of screenings, prevention strategies, inclusive clinical trials, News Release, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, April 29, 2009.
Smith BD, Smith GL, Hurria A, Hortobagyi GA, Buchholz TA. Future of Cancer Incidence in the United States: Burdens Upon an Aging, Changing Nation. J Clin Oncol 2009 0: JCO.2008.20.8983, published online ahead of print Apr 29 2009.
Posted in Clinical Trials, Early Detection, Healthcare, Medical Study Results, Prevention | Tagged Arti Hurria M.D., Ben Smith M.D., cancer growth rate, cancer prevention, chemoprevention, City of Hope Cancer Ctr., Clinical Trials, elderly, Gabriel Hortobagyi M.D., Grace Smith M.D. Ph.D., healthcare cost, hepatitis B, HPV, Lackland Air Force Base, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, minorities, NCI, ovarian cancer, screening, SEER data, Thomas Buchholz M.D. | Leave a comment
Genetic Variations In miRNA Processing Pathway & Binding Sites Help Predict Ovarian Cancer Risk
“Genetic variations in the micro-RNA (miRNA) processing pathway genes and miRNA binding sites predict a woman’s risk for developing ovarian cancer and her prospects for survival, researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported at the 100th annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research. … The unique study was the first to examine the association of genetic variants related to miRNA with ovarian cancer risk, overall survival for ovarian cancer patients, and platinum-based chemotherapy response. …”
“Genetic variations in miRNA processing pathway and binding sites help predict ovarian cancer risk – Several variations indicate likelihood of response to platinum-based chemotherapy
DENVER – Genetic variations in the micro-RNA (miRNA) processing pathway genes and miRNA binding sites predict a woman’s risk for developing ovarian cancer and her prospects for survival, researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported at the 100th annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Xifeng Wu, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Department of Epidemiology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
‘We found a gene dosage effect, the more unfavorable variations a woman has, the greater her ovarian cancer risk and the shorter her survival time,’ said senior author Xifeng Wu, M.D., Ph.D., professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Epidemiology. Median survival, for example, ranged from 151 months for women with fewest unfavorable variations to 24 months for those with the most.
Several variations also indicate likely response to platinum-based chemotherapy.
‘Our findings have the potential clinical application of indicating a patient’s prognosis and showing who will respond to different therapies by analyzing a single blood sample,’ Wu said. ‘We also will incorporate this genetic information with epidemiological information to build a comprehensive model to predict susceptibility to ovarian cancer.’
The team chose the miRNA processing pathway because it is crucial to production of miRNAs, the small molecules that regulate between one third and half of all genes. The researchers also chose the binding sites on host genes where miRNAs exert their effects on gene expression.
They analyzed 219 potential functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) – variations of a single DNA building block in a gene – in eight genes that process miRNA and at the miRNA binding sites of 129 cancer-relevant genes. The study examined genetic information from 417 cancer patients and 417 healthy controls. To minimize the possible confounding effects of ethnicity, 339 Caucasian cases and 349 controls were analyzed.
They discovered 12 SNPs to be significantly associated with ovarian cancer risk. Moreover, compared to women with five or fewer unfavorable genotypes, women with eight or more of these unfavorable genotypes were 4.5 times more likely to develop ovarian cancer and women with six to eight unfavorable SNPs were at twice the risk.
The team also found 21 SNPs significantly associated with overall survival. Median survival was 151 months for women with six or fewer unfavorable variations; 42 months for those with seven to nine unfavorable variations; and 24 months for those with 10 or more. One of the outcome risk SNPs also was strongly associated with platinum-based chemotherapy response, with those having the SNP 3.4 times less likely to respond to chemotherapy.
Wu collaborated with Dong Liang, Ph.D, in the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Texas Southern University, and Karen Lu, M.D., professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Gynecologic Oncology, on this study.
The unique study was the first to examine the association of genetic variants related to miRNA with ovarian cancer risk, overall survival for ovarian cancer patients, and platinum-based chemotherapy response. Such a wide-ranging inquiry was made possible by M. D. Anderson’s extensive clinical and genetic data sets, Wu said.
Co-authors with Wu, first author Liang, Ph.D., and Lu are; Jie Lin, Ph.D., Xia Pu, Yuanqing Ye, Ph.D., all in the Department of Epidemiology; and Larissa Meyer, M.D., in the Department of Gynecologic Oncology at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Pu is a graduate student at The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston, which is a joint effort of M. D. Anderson and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
This research was supported by an award by the Department of Defense Ovarian Cancer Research Program.”
About M. D. Anderson
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston ranks as one of the world’s most respected centers focused on cancer patient care, research, education and prevention. M. D. Anderson is one of only 40 comprehensive cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute. For four of the past six years, including 2008, M. D. Anderson has ranked No. 1 in cancer care in “America’s Best Hospitals,” a survey published annually in U.S. News & World Report.
Genetic Variations in miRNA Processing Pathway and Binding Sites Help Predict Ovarian Cancer Risk and Survival – Several variations indicate likelihood of response to platinum-based chemotherapy, News Releases, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, April 19, 2009.
Liang D, Meyer L, Lin J, Pu X, Ye Y, Wu L, Lu K, Wu X. Genetic variants in microRNA processing pathway genes and ovarian cancer risk. In: Proceedings of the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2009 Apr 18-22; Denver, CO. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; 2009. Abstract 1905.
Gene Variations Could Predict Ovarian Cancer Risk, Video News Story By Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, April 20, 2009.
Posted in Genetics, Medical Study Results, Meeting Highlights, Ovarian Cancer Risk | Tagged AACR Annual Mtg. 2009, Depart. of Defense Ovarian Cancer Research Program, DNA, Dong Liang Ph.D., Jie Lin Ph.D., Karen Lu M.D., Larissa Meyer M.D., M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, miRNA, ovarian cancer, single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs, Texas Southern Univ., Univ of Texas Grad. Sch. of Biomed. Sciences, Univ. of Texas Health Science Ctr, Xia Pu, Xifeng Wu M.D. Ph.D., Yuanqing Ye Ph.D. | Leave a comment
Tumor-Promoting Protein COX-2 Is The Target Of First Joint Symposium Between AACR & ASCO
“An inflammatory protein implicated in a variety of cancers is the target of the first joint symposium between the nation’s two premier cancer research organizations. The presidents of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) organized the session focused on the COX-2 enzyme and cancer treatment Monday afternoon — April 20, 2:30-4:30 p.m., in rooms 205-207 of the Colorado Convention Center — at the AACR’s 100th Annual Meeting 2009 in Denver. A similar symposium on new molecular targets will be conducted at ASCO’s annual meeting in May 29- June 2 in Orlando. COX-2 is best known as a target for preventing dangerous polyps that lead to colorectal cancer, but it is also advancing as a target for treatment of many solid tumors. …“
“Leading cancer organizations team up on tumor-promoting protein – AACR and ASCO begin joint symposia at annual meetings with focus on COX-2
An inflammatory protein implicated in a variety of cancers is the target of the first joint symposium between the nation’s two premier cancer research organizations.
Raymond DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., President, AACR; Provost and Executive Vice President, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
The presidents of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) organized the session focused on the COX-2 enzyme and cancer treatment Monday afternoon — April 20, 2:30-4:30 p.m., in rooms 205-207 of the Colorado Convention Center — at the AACR’s 100th Annual Meeting 2009 in Denver. A similar symposium on new molecular targets will be conducted at ASCO’s annual meeting in May 29- June 2 in Orlando.
COX-2 is best known as a target for preventing dangerous polyps that lead to colorectal cancer, but it is also advancing as a target for treatment of many solid tumors.
‘Our symposium is timely because we are starting to see data from Phase II and Phase III clinical trials about COX-2 inhibition following post-surgical chemotherapy in colon cancer patients,’ said Raymond DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., president of AACR and provost and executive vice president at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
‘There’s been a great deal of preclinical and translational research addressing COX-2 overexpression in tumors and its role in cancer growth and survival. In prevention, inhibiting this enzyme reduces the number of high-risk precancerous polyps by 66 percent,’ DuBois said. ‘The time is ripe to combine basic science and clinical expertise to advance the therapeutic potential of this approach.’
Joint efforts are critical to the development of new approaches against cancer, said ASCO President Richard L. Schilsky, M.D., professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
‘The development of targeted therapies for cancer prevention and treatment requires the close collaboration and combined resources of basic scientists and clinical investigators,’ Schilsky said. ‘The success of targeted therapy for cancer depends first and foremost on a comprehensive understanding of the biology of the drug target coupled with a robust assay to assess target inhibition and a drug that hits the target. With these ingredients in place, clinical trials can be designed to assess the impact of treatment in the population most likely to benefit.’
Richard L. Schilsky, M.D., President, ASCO; Associate Dean for Clinical Research, Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
‘The AACR/ASCO Symposium illustrates these core principles and demonstrates that continued progress against cancer requires the partnership of all investigators and practitioners represented by these two great organizations,’ Schilsky said.
The idea for joint symposia at each organization’s annual meeting has been discussed for years and was advanced by immediate past presidents William Hait, M.D., Ph.D., of AACR and Nancy Davidson, M.D., of ASCO.
DuBois and Schilsky co-chair the symposium. Scheduled presentations are:
COX-2 and Cancer Biology by DuBois, who discovered the enzyme’s overexpression in tumors.
Overview of COX-2 as a Target for Cancer Treatment, by Schilsky.
COX-2 in Lung Cancer: Rebirth as a Target, by Martin Edelman, M.D., of the University of Maryland.
COX-2 as a Target for Prevention and Treatment of Colorectal Cancer by Andrew Chan, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital.
Early Epigenetic and Genetic Events in Carcinogenesis by Thea D. Tlsty, Ph.D., of the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco.
A Mouse Model for COX-2 Driven Pancreatitis and Pancreatic Ductal Carcinoma by Susan Fischer, Ph.D. of M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Science Park – Research Division, Smithville, Texas.”
AACR is the world’s oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research. ASCO is the world’s leading professional organization representing physicians who care for people with cancer. Many scientists and physicians are members of both organizations.”
Source: Leading Cancer Organizations Team Up on Tumor-Promoting Protein – AACR and ASCO begin joint symposia at annual meetings with focus on COX-2, M.D. Anderson News Release, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, April 17, 2009.
Comment: The relationship between ovarian cancer and COX-2 remains unclear. Some in vitro and in vivo studies make a connection between ovarian cancer and COX-2, while others suggest that COX-1 is more relevant to current ovarian cancer research. It is an area that warrants further investigation.
Recent Studies Re Ovarian Cancer and COX-2:
Gu P, Su Y, Guo S, Teng L, Xu Y, Qi J, Gong H, Cai Y. Over-expression of COX-2 induces human ovarian cancer cells (CAOV-3) viability, migration and proliferation in association with PI3-k/Akt activation. Cancer Invest. 2008 Oct;26(8):822-9. PubMed PMID: 18798061.
Li W, Zhang HH, Xu RJ, Zhuo GC, Hu YQ, Li J. Effects of a selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor, nimesulide, on the growth of ovarian carcinoma in vivo. Med Oncol. 2008;25(2):172-7. Epub 2007 Oct 6. PubMed PMID: 18488158.
Athanassiadou P, Grapsa D, Athanassiades P, Gonidi M, Athanassiadou AM, Tsipis A, Patsouris E. The prognostic significance of COX-2 and survivin expression in ovarian cancer. Pathol Res Pract. 2008;204(4):241-9. Epub 2008 Jan 2. PubMed PMID: 18171606.
European Cancer Conference. Mutation Of The COX2 Gene Can Double Or Triple A Woman’s Risk Of Ovarian Cancer. ScienceDaily 27 September 2007. 19 April 2009 <http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2007/09/070925095320.htm>.
Xin B, Yokoyama Y, Shigeto T, Futagami M, Mizunuma H. Inhibitory effect of meloxicam, a selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor, and ciglitazone, a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma ligand, on the growth of human ovarian cancers. Cancer. 2007 Aug 15;110(4):791-800. PubMed PMID: 17582802.
Cao DY, Shen K, Yang JX, Guan J. [The expression of MRP, GST-pi, Topo IIalpha and COX-2 in epithelial ovarian cancer and its relationship to drug resistance and prognosis]. Zhonghua Yi Xue Za Zhi. 2007 Jul 3;87(25):1738-41. Chinese. PubMed PMID: 17919376.
Barnes AP, Miller BE, Kucera GL. Cyclooxygenase inhibition and hyperthermia for the potentiation of the cytotoxic response in ovarian cancer cells. Gynecol Oncol. 2007 Feb;104(2):443-50. Epub 2006 Sep 22. PubMed PMID: 16996114.
Xin B, Yokoyama Y, Shigeto T, Mizunuma H. Anti-tumor effect of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs on human ovarian cancers. Pathol Oncol Res. 2007;13(4):365-9. Epub 2007 Dec 25. PubMed PMID: 18158574.
Niesporek S, Weichert W, Sinn B, Röske A, Noske A, Buckendahl AC, Wirtz R, Sehouli J, Koensgen D, Dietel M, Denkert C. [NF-kappaB subunit p65/RelA expression in ovarian carcinoma: prognostic impact and link to COX-2 overexpression]. Verh Dtsch Ges Pathol. 2007;91:243-9. German. PubMed PMID: 18314621.
Wang HJ, Liu XJ, Yang KX, Luo FM, Lou JY, Peng ZL. [Effects of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug celecoxib on expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in ovarian carcinoma cell]. Sichuan Da Xue Xue Bao Yi Xue Ban. 2006 Sep;37(5):757-60. Chinese. PubMed PMID: 17037745.
Vital-Reyes V, Rodríguez-Burford C, Chhieng DC, Oelschlager DK, Reyes-Fuentes A, Barnes M, Grizzle WE. Celecoxib inhibits cellular growth, decreases Ki-67 expression and modifies apoptosis in ovarian cancer cell lines. Arch Med Res. 2006 Aug;37(6):689-95. PubMed PMID: 16824926.
Ferrandina G, Ranelletti FO, Martinelli E, Paglia A, Zannoni GF, Scambia G. Cyclo-oxygenase-2 (Cox-2) expression and resistance to platinum versus platinum/paclitaxel containing chemotherapy in advanced ovarian cancer. BMC Cancer. 2006 Jul 11;6:182. PubMed PMID: 16831230; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC1534059.
Daikoku T, Tranguch S, Trofimova IN, Dinulescu DM, Jacks T, Nikitin AY, Connolly DC, Dey SK. Cyclooxygenase-1 is overexpressed in multiple genetically engineered mouse models of epithelial ovarian cancer. Cancer Res. 2006 Mar 1;66(5):2527-31. PubMed PMID: 16510568.
Posted in Meeting Highlights, Novel Therapies | Tagged AACR, AACR Annual Mtg. 2009, ASCO, colorectal cancer, COX-2, Joint Symposia, M.D., M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Nancy Davidson M.D., ovarian cancer, Raymond DuBois M.D. Ph.D., Richard L. Schilsky, Univ. of Chicago Med. Ctr., William Hait M.D. Ph.D. | Leave a comment
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Asia Pacific Dashboard Digest | Commission receives nearly 1,000 reports of data breaches Related reading: Podcast: Does Washington's privacy bill represent meaningful privacy reform?
Commission receives nearly 1,000 reports of data breaches
In the year since the Notifiable Data Breach went into effect, 964 data breaches were reported to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, The Mandarin reports. That is a 712% increase in data breaches when compared to the previous reporting system used in 2017. Nearly 60% of breaches were due to malicious or criminal attacks, 35% were caused by human error, and the remaining reports were based on malfunctions. Most of the breaches occurred in the health care sector in which 55% of the reports were due to human error. According to NDB rules, the OAIC is not permitted to disclose which entities reported data breaches.
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HomePosts tagged 'E-Gov'
Constitutional reforms conducted in the dark: The failure of e-gov in Sri Lanka
September 9, 2010 September 9, 2010 Sanjana ICTs in general 18th Amendment, E-Gov, ICTA, Parliament, Sri Lanka
“Parliament makes a vital contribution to democracy at many levels simultaneously. Within the institutions of government, it is the representative body through which the will of the people finds expression, in which their diversity is manifested, and in which the differences between them are debated and negotiated. At its best, parliament embodies the distinctive democratic attributes of discussion and compromise, as the means through which a public interest is realized that is more than the sum of individual or sectional interests. Moreover, the effectiveness with which parliament carries out its central functions of legislation, budgetary control and oversight of the executive is essential to the quality of democratic life. In carrying out these tasks it works together with the associations of civil society, and has the distinctive responsibility of safeguarding the individual democratic rights of citizens. It can only do all this, finally, if it observes democratic norms, by showing itself open, accessible and accountable to the electorate in its own mode of operation” (Parliament and democracy in the twenty-first century: A guide to good practice, Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2006)
Emphasis mine.
I may be wrong in assuming that the raison d’être of any e-government initiative is to make government more accountable and transparent as well as governance more efficient and effective. Yet Sri Lanka operates on a different logic. There is of course the usual hype and hoopla paraded yearly by the Information and Communications Agency (ICTA) about how well it and Sri Lanka does in e-government rankings. However, the passage of the 18th amendment in law flags what’s significantly wrong with e-government in Sri Lanka.
There is no transparency. There is no accountability.
The image above (click here for larger version) is off Google, and plots the traffic on Twitter during the course of the day with the keyword Sri Lanka. On a day in which one of the most significant and essentially heinous amendments was being debated, there is nary any traffic for most of the day, up until the time of the vote in parliament at 7pm, after which there is a clear spike. The earlier spike is around lunchtime. A source present in the public gallery at parliament for most of the day said that no one, not even journalists, were allowed to take mobile phones in. Only MPs were, and this person said that most MPs were too busy texting on their phones to listen to, much less respond to, the submissions made by MPs on the floor of the house.
I’m about as plugged into Internet, web and terrestrial broadcast based information networks on Sri Lanka as can be. During the day, I also repeatedly checked live web streams of Rupavahini and ITN (State media) to ascertain whether there was any emphasis at all on the deliberations in parliament, however biased or bad. There was none. For most of the day, ITN ran with music request shows and Rupavahani ran with banal talk shows on entertainment, or comic Sinhala films.
At around 4pm, after being plugged in vain into RSS, Twitter, Facebook, websites, radio and live TV feeds in addition to being available via the phone and fax for any updates on what was going on in parliament, I tweeted my frustration on the Groundviews account,
It’s really bizarre. Outside of parliament, there is NO INFORMATION on current debate over 18 A. NOTHING.
Leaving aside the outrageous manner in which the 18th amendment was rushed through, the marked lack of any public debate was in part due to the almost complete media blackout about the contents of the proposed bill in state media, save for spin and propaganda very far from the truth. Private mainstream media was just slightly better, but on the crucial day of the debate in parliament, was also unable to give updates on what our MPs said, or did not. There is of course the hansard for history, but isn’t e-gov supposed to make the proceedings of the house more public, and in real time? The UK’s done it, and so has the Canadian parliament in a much more comprehensive manner. We have a website for parliament, but it is about as static and uninteresting as a site can be, with no real way for the public to engagement with their representatives or vice versa.
And so we have a situation in which debates in parliament, particularly on one of the most important amendments to the constitutions ever proposed, were essentially conducted in secret – with no real time public oversight or media scrutiny.
Though there is no longer any record of it I can find on the web (which is in itself revealing) a document titled The use of Information and Communication Technology in Parliament: Benefit Cost Analysis published by the Department of Information Systems and Management Parliament of Sri Lanka in 2008 makes for very interesting reading. Dealing with a complete overhaul of our parliament IT infrastructure and approach to ICTs in parliamentary proceedings, it is unclear to what degree the proposals and ideas in this document were actioned. Going by the 18th amendment fiasco, clearly nothing much has been done.
The quote I began this blog post with is in fact reflected in this document. And yet, two years on, parliamentary proceedings remain in the dark ages, and our representatives once elected operate independent of any meaningful public scrutiny. Post facto reporting is sketchy at best, and though all proceedings are recorded, these are unavailable to the general public, much less put online as archives or in real-time.
Food for thought the next time the boffins at ICTA parade e-gov in Sri Lanka as a success story.
Post-war ICT and media
May 26, 2009 Sanjana Uncategorized Community Radio, E-Gov, ICT, Media, Post-war
My last column in the Sunday Leader enumerated some ideas post-war government and the ICT Agency could champion to strengthen media freedom and e-governance respectively.
One blueprint worth emulating in post-war Sri Lanka for more open, accountable government comes from Vivek Kundra, the new federal chief information officer in the US under the Obama administration. Data.gov is a great example of how information placed in the public domain can stimulate creative thinking to shared challenges and development. The NY Times has a good write up about this.
Post-war government in Sri Lanka can also re-look at RTI legislation and meaningful community radio. As I noted in my column,
Post-war Sri Lanka cannot be what it was before the war, or during it. Tarun Tejpal, award winning Indian author and the brains behind one of India’s leading investigative journalism websites Tehelka.com, said that they were silent when India was at war with Pakistan, but openly critical of the defence establishment and government once the war was over. We have a different recent history – where independent media tried and failed to report the war in the public interest, with many journalists killed with impunity and forced into hiding or exile. There is no place for the vicious war against free media in post-war Sri Lanka. Likewise, if war militated against Right to Know legislation, renewed agitation by civil society must result in its rapid establishment. If Bangladesh with a military regime and India with a billion people could do it, so can we. While it may be too much and too early to ask Government to give up its vice grip of State media, decades of opposition to and censorship of real community radio must end. I was in Nissankamallapura two weeks ago, a small, relatively remote village in Polonnaruwa, to help 48 villages that have collectively lodged a request to set up Saru Praja Radio to broadcast on 96.1 FM news and information produced by villagers for their own community. It is a remarkable venture by peoples who are no strangers to the human cost of war. Post-war Sri Lankan must foster the development of such hyper-local media – media made by and for regions in the vernacular – that can fuel equitable, endogenous and sustainable development, precisely what the government desires. All of this supports the need for post-war governance to be transparent and accountable. A fraternal cabal that passes today for government and overrides parliament is incompatible with our democratic potential. Initiatives such as the new Open Government initiative under the Obama Administration in the US are instructive in this regard, with examples such as http://www.data.gov and http://www.regulations.gov useful for our own ICT Agency to champion, adapt and adopt along with of course initiatives to empower local and Provincial government. Everyone knows what needs to be done, but the war has always been an excuse for non-implementation.
Western Provincial Council candidates go online: So what?
March 13, 2009 March 14, 2009 Sanjana Interesting content on ICT4Peace E-Gov, Elections, Web
Duminda SIlva was the first that I know of to launch a website to support his campaign. The bloke looks like Queen Elizabeth on a bad hair day. He has an interesting track record and his (erstwhile) website claims his “foundation” has “donated 9,850 families”, which makes about as much sense as why anyone who would vote for such vile swine. As Indi notes,
Duminda is a repugnant human being who happens to have money. The way he treats women alone is disqualification for public service. And yet he wins. Why? Perhaps because we haven’t offered an alternative. I’m now trying to figure out if/where I’ve registered to vote. I think I’m part of the problem.
So what are the alternatives? Two other candidates from the UNP and JHU have created websites and even entered Facebook.
Some thoughts on mobile phones and the digital divide
August 3, 2008 August 5, 2008 Sanjana ICTs in general 3G, BOP, Bottom of Pyramid, digital divide, E-Gov, GPRS, ICT for Peacebuilding, ICT4D, IVR, M-Gov, mobile governance, mobile government, Mobile phones, Mobiles, SMS
Nokia 1100. The best selling phone in the world. Image courtesy Wikipedia.
Ken Banks has a super article up on PC World on using mobile phones to address the digital divide. In it Ken points to two aspects of mobile phones and their usage that not everyone even in developing countries quite understands.
“They can make and receive calls, they have an address book, they can send and receive SMS, and the built-in alarm is very popular.”
“with many of the low-end handsets found in the markets and shops in developing countries, has no browser of any kind and doesn’t support GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) or any other form of data transmission. Accessing the Internet? Dream on.”
I don’t know anything about sub-saharan Africa, but in Sri Lanka, wireless internet access footprints are expanding year after year. Today it is possible to get 3G coverage in many urban areas and WiMax coverage even further out afield. GPRS coverage almost blankets most of the areas in Sri Lanka. Areas that don’t have any of this will only get smaller. Even in 2003, when I was often on the A9 to Jaffna, I used to check my email via my old and trusted Nokia 3410 on the road. Today, I can tether my mobile to my laptop and access the net at speeds close to the “broadband” I get from my ADSL at home.
However, the question is whether those at the Bottom of the Pyramid access the internet through their mobiles or have any interest in doing so. I would think not. At least, not yet. While voice telephony and SMS usage is high, the potential of (new) mobile and devices that can produce, access and disseminate web based content will take years to take root even in the areas that are covered with high-speed internet mobile access.
But is this really a problem? I note in a recent paper on mobile phones and governance that,
From Zimbabwe and Kenya to China and Kuwait , from electoral processes and women’s suffrage to the voicing dissent against oppression, mobiles are already revolutionising our approach to and understanding of public participation in governance. Mobiles have already demonstrated in many countries around the world that in the hands of a vibrant civil society they are powerful tools that hold government and public institutions accountable, their interactions transparent and their transactions efficient. Conversations inspired, produced, stored and disseminated through mobiles are rapidly changing the manner in which we imagine the State, interact with government and participate in the mechanisms and institutions of democratic governance.
I endorse Ken’s suggestion for the development of a subsidized, fully Internet-ready handset for developing markets, but his own work with FrontlineSMS suggests that for the millions who use the phones we discarded years ago at the bottom of the pyramid, replacing handsets is not really a priority even if they are subsidised. Value has to be seen and realised in being able to access mobile content via mobiles, and that value today is simply not there for most consumers particularly at the bottom of the pyramid. I submit that it will also not automatically come with a new device / handset.
Part of this value has to be created by imagining governance that is responsive through mobiles. Citizens who feel that using the web on their mobiles to access information, participate in local government, produce information for the benefit of their local community and use it as a device in much the same way we approach social networking (such as Facebook on PCs and our high-end handsets) may create value and buy-in to use web enabled mobiles and bear the total cost of ownership over time, which will include data charges.
Telcos can play a role. Today, many data plans and much of the content that leverages high speed mobile internet are those linked to entertainment. There is ZERO emphasis on governance. The emphasis on the market and resulting applications help (agrarian) producers at the local level get a better deal, but doesn’t capture the interest of others at the grassroots. And without sufficient interest and subsequent benefit to self and community, there’s no motive to upgrade from the likes of the Nokia 1100.
Civil society can play a role. By leveraging some of the new technologies that seamlessly merge the web on the PC and the web on the mobile to create social networks, it’s possible to create virtual communities that produce and exchange information on shared interests, goals and challenges.
Telemedicine can also play a role as an incentive for mobile internet.
The issue of cost that Ken points to is important. The mobile web has to work differently to the web on the PC. The devices don’t lend themselves to laborious Google searches. There is limited screen space to display information. There are issues of language, with some scripts such as Sinhala requiring a larger font size (and therefore more screen space or less information on smaller screens) than English / Romanic fonts. There are issues of literacy to boot.
I have always though of mobiles empowering communities as an eco-system of complementary technologies. The lowest common denominator and the most useful to date is SMS. Add to this vernacular IVR services (which requires limited literacy) and wholly SMS driven information retrieval (such as that which many banks have on mobiles in Sri Lanka with details of credit card special deals and offers) and you have a range of technologies that aren’t impeded by the lack of internet accessibility on existing mobile handsets in the hands of the majority of consumers.
Ken’s full sentence in one of the excerpts above is as follows,
The problem is that the Nokia 1100, as with many of the low-end handsets found in the markets and shops in developing countries, has no browser of any kind and doesn’t support GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) or any other form of data transmission.
It’s a problem yes if you see it as providing everyone with web access.
However, the point I wish to make is that the internet isn’t just about the web or accessing it over a mobile web browser. SMS and IVR can hook into real time, live data sources on the internet (e.g. at its simplest, think of weather forecasting on-demand over voice or SMS for fisherfolk). Mobiles with just SMS can provide information to the web (think Twitter’esque services) that can in turn feed back into mobiles via SMS (think the erstwhile Rasasa). Think subsidised numbers that IDPs can call to access and listen to radio programmes with vital information. Think Government Information services that use IVR, are free calls, that enable all consumers to access information otherwise only available through the web. Think of cybercafes as stations to access printed documentation that is printed on demand through innovative SMS services.
Using Ken’s FrontlineSMS and a range of other tools and services, such as Sahana’s SMS modules, I will over the next three years work on some of these areas in Sri Lanka.
Democratic governance and mobile phones
June 11, 2008 June 13, 2008 Sanjana ICTs in general cellphone, Democracy, E-Gov, E-Government, governance, ICT, Mobile phones, Mobiles
“Don’t get grandma hear it” was what US soldier Stephen Philips was reported in the Newsweek as saying when his cell phone redialled home during a fire-fight in Afghanistan and broadcast the chaos into his parent’s answering machine . Though it would have been traumatic for the parents of Stephen Philips, yet this is an example of how mobile phones connect us all to far-flung yet vital realities. From Zimbabwe and Kenya to China and Kuwait , from electoral processes and women’s suffrage to the voicing dissent against oppression, mobiles are already revolutionising our approach to and understanding of public participation in governance. Mobiles have already demonstrated in many countries around the world that in the hands of a vibrant civil society they are powerful tools that hold government and public institutions accountable, their interactions transparent and their transactions efficient. Conversations inspired, produced, stored and disseminated through mobiles are rapidly changing the manner in which we imagine the State, interact with government and participate in the mechanisms and institutions of democratic governance.
Read my full paper here.
UPDATE – 13th June 2008
This essay is published in the i4D magazine June 2008 issue. Download and read the PDF as it appears in print and online here.
June 4, 2008 Sanjana ICTs in general Democracy, E-Gov, E-Petition, governance, ICT
There’s an interesting article in the politics.co.uk that debates the rise of e-petitions in England, as well as its pros and cons. As it notes,
The Hansard Society’s eDemocracy programme director, Andy Williamson, spoke passionately about their importance in Westminster last week. He talked of “closing the gap between citizens and parliament” and described e-petitions as “the start of the transformation of parliament into the digital age”. Tentative efforts from the Welsh Assembly and Scottish parliament, as with many devolution-related issues, are leading the way. According to its Audit of Political Engagement, people are more likely to sign a petition than engage in any other political act.
The e-petition site shows some interesting statistics. Till the end of October 2007:
Over 29,000 petitions have been submitted, of which over 8,500 are currently live and available for signing, over 6,000 have finished and 14,601 have been rejected outright.
There have been over 5.8 million signatures, originating from over 3.9 million different email addresses.
Read the politics.co.uk article in full here, which notes that despite these figures, there’s no real guarantee even in England that e-petitions will ultimately succeed in their essential goal of bringing government closer to citizens.
Sadly, as I noted in February 2007, “…I don’t believe that for all their hype and hoopla of e-government in Sri Lanka, ICTA is going to follow the Downing Street model anytime soon.”
E-Government vs. E-Governance in Sri Lanka – A place for Web 2.0 and mobiles?
April 13, 2008 April 14, 2008 Sanjana ICTs in general Citizen journalism, CJ, E-Gov, E-Government, G-Webs, Groundviews, ICT, ICTA, ICTs, M-Gov, M-Government, Mobiles, New media, PCs, Sri Lanka, Vikalpa, VOR Radio, Web 2.0
An article on the future of e-government from the US proclaims that Web 2.0 will “transform service delivery, make smarter policies, flatten silos and, most importantly, reinvigorate democracy” and facilitate a shift “from monolithic government agencies to pluralistic, networked governance Webs that fuse the knowledge, skills and resources of the masses.”
There are undoubtably great examples of e-government working meaningfully to empower citizens (and even non citizens). Two diverse examples are the British Government e-petition service and the US Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) blog, Evolution of Security. The British Government’s e-petition service statistics are interesting:
In Sri Lanka however, e-gov remains just a great idea.
The only e-gov website I’ve personally used is that of the Department of Immigration and Emigration to renew my passport. Of the others, the less said the better. The Government of Sri Lanka Official Web Portal is a rather sad affair. The standard of English across the site is atrocious – but I’ll let that pass (try reading their “Descliamer” (sic)). E-Gov in Sri Lanka should after all be tailored first to the needs of those who speak Sinhala and Tamil. But tellingly, the site is only available in Sinhala and English – so much for constitutionally guaranteed language rights!
Worse, the site is replete with bad links and erroneous information. Try for example clicking on Disasters and Emergencies. . The NGO link has a hilarious misspelling (or maybe it was deliberate). The Health and Nutrition section has a link to yet another portal (a portal linking to a portal – and I thought e-gov was about efficiency?) which does not work. And just check out the link to Traditional Medicines of Sri Lanka (even though there actually is a Department of Ayurveda that the portal is blissfully unaware of). The list goes on. Sadly, the most useful website of them all – that of the Government Information Centre – is hidden behind a button called GIC – 1919, which makes sense only after you know what 1919 and GIC stands for. You know there’s something seriously wrong with e-gov when the humanitarian section of official website of the President of Sri Lanka has only a single mention of a human (though one wonders whether the person mentioned also fell into the animal welfare directives of the Mahinda Chintana).
In sum, e-gov in Sri Lanka is a mirror image of government – it simply does not work as it should. The problem here is one that Anthony Williams points to as well. “Single-window services constitute one-way information flows to the citizen. In today’s social-media environment, these one-way conversations fail to build credibility and trust in government. More importantly, they fail to harness the knowledge, skills and resources that could be tapped by government by using a more collaborative approach to service delivery and policy-making.”
The question then arises as to whether governments are really interested in this kind of two-way conversation with its citizens or indeed have the capacity (human, technical and financial) to moderate and fuel such discussions all the official languages of a country. Sri Lanka’s regime certainly isn’t. There’s simply no political will to create, to sustain and act upon any information that embarrass the incumbent regime. Forget about “G-Webs” as Anthony calls them – in Sri Lanka e-gov will only ever be a one way, top down, static website driven monologue. It’s always about “delivery” but never about feedback, participatory decision making, transparency or accountability – never mind what ICTA and the World Bank would have us believe.
Why for example is it that the monumental corruption in government as brought out by the COPE Reports fail to register on the Official Website of the Government of Sri Lanka? Try searching for “Cope Reports” and the answer is revealing. (Confusingly, Official Website of the Government of Sri Lanka is not the same as the Government of Sri Lanka Official Web Portal – so much for non-duplication of services).
I guess over 2 billion rupees lost to corruption in Government is really outside the remit of e-gov, save for the website of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption (which also does not operate in Tamil). Mind you, this is the same government that then has the gall to accuse of NGOs of non-transparency and financial mismanagement.
From the non-functional and dysfunctional to the blatantly racist, Sri Lanka’s so called e-gov framework is a mess that does not in any way hold government more responsive, accountable and transparent to citizens.
As Anthony points out, “You can’t expect radical change too fast. Governments are large, complex beasts subject to a number of constraints. In fact, the institutions of democratic government were deliberately designed to induce stability and prevent radical change. Stability can be quite healthy, but implementing change is difficult and onerous when deep and resilient traditions combine to frustrate progress.”
While I agree, what’s missing here is an emphasis on governance and how ICTs can help strengthen it in contra-distinction to e-government. Citizens can now use a range of methods – from mobile phones to digital cameras – to document the litany of grievances with regards to illiberal governance. From capturing the many aspects of corruption to the lackadaisical attitudes of local government authorities that for example result in garbage that’s uncollected for days on end, ICTs allow civil society hold government and non-governmental bodies accountable even when they are themselves unable and unwilling to do so.
Key ideas in this regard could be:
Tie ups with mobile telecoms companies can leverage geo-location based cell broadcasting to deliver a range of timely information to citizens, from details of utility breakdowns to disaster early warning and security alerts. (Typically though, the Sri Lankan regime’s sheer ineptitude commanded the closure of mobile communications channels even when it had earlier promised to leverage them in the interests of public security).
Run competitions to get civil society animated about the potential to use mobile phones and mobile devices to secure their rights and also, in the rare instance, to commend public officials for their work. The problem in Sri Lanka is that you have more voters than citizens – those who are aware of and will fight for their rights are few.
Support citizen journalism (CJ) initiatives. Groundviews, Vikalpa, VOR Radio and Vikalpa Video demonstrate through technology and content a bit of what’s really possible by getting citizens to record what they experience. The current reach and readership of Groundviews (disclosure – I edit the site) is particularly revealing of the thirst for alternative news and information that critiques the status quo. Traditional media in Sri Lanka is picking up on the potential of citizen journalists. Key media rights organisations and trade unions in Sri Lanka have already recognised bloggers as journalists. These in effect are the G-Webs that Anthony refers to in his interview, but are far more likely to strengthen governance than any e-gov initiative in Sri Lanka.
Support mobile government (m-government). Sri Lankans already own and use more mobiles than PC. As Lirneasia’s pathbreaking research suggests, mobiles are used and owned by those who will never buy a PC. M-government will not replace e-government, but will complement it by providing services through SMS and voice telephony (free calls to government call centres like GIC and automated services). Countries like Dubai have already gone ahead and developed mobile governance portals, so why not, as this researcher from Lirneasia suggests, leverage mobile phones for governance in Sri Lanka?
Public private partnerships. The only way you are going to get citizens to use these services is to partner with the private sector and support local business development and entrepreneurship. Easyseva is a new and interesting model in this regard that puts the government’s utterly unsustainable and crumbling cyber-cafe plans to shame.
Leverage Web 2.0 technologies – All citizens don’t need to use PC or mobiles to benefit from stronger governance mechanisms, but the few who do can be serviced much better by leveraging Web 2.0 technologies. Anthony points to a few examples that work in the US and could possible be adapted for Sri Lanka provided they are accessible via mobile devices and in the vernacular. All of e-gov is not about direct interactions with citizens, but about making government itself more efficient. A plethora of Web 2.0 technologies that help coordination and collaboration can be leveraged, alongside mobile device based information generation and delivery, to support a more efficient government. On the other hand, some of these layers of information generated within government primarily for its own consumption can easily be exported to programmes like Google Earth for little or no cost, enabling citizens to access and annotate information.
The elephant in the room however is the political will necessary to support and act upon information generated by these mechanisms. Governments, not NGOs, are primarily responsible for the well-being of citizens. As Anthony notes, “It’s about political will and a willingness to be open and to incorporate feedback and put it into practice. At the same time, digital communications make geography less relevant and reinforce the need to open up the policy-making process to global participation. Governments that choose not to open up or those that fail to foster active participation in governance will eventually lose legitimacy and authority.”
Has e-gov in Sri Lanka made government or governance better? Is it not the case that most of the strategies employed by ICTA for e-gov are doomed to failure, even if no one in it, for obvious reasons can or will acknowledge it? Can e-gov mechanisms really succeed or stand any chance of success when you have thugs in government running amok, a culture of impunity, the breakdown in the rule of law and massive levels of corruption with absolutely nothing citizens can do through current e-gov mechanisms to address these issues?
More effective, meaningful and sustainable solutions to our growing democratic deficit lie in exploring ways through which ICTs, including mobile phones, can help empower citizen centric governance mechanisms. It’s possibly the case that government and governmental agencies will be deeply suspicious of or even actively hostile to such measures. But as Anthony succinctly notes, “Governments can either be active participants in this process or unwilling bystanders.”
Watch this space.
UPDATED – 14th April 2008
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) confirms that South Asia remains far below the world average and is the lowest ranking region in Asia when it comes to e-government. Sri Lanka in fact has slipped in the UN DESA e-gov rankings, from 94 in 2005 to 101 in 2008 amongst the countries surveyed.
Download the report here.
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One year later, Janus v. AFSCME has had a big impact, but there’s more work to be done
by Jacob Huebert
One year ago today, the Supreme Court restored the First Amendment rights of millions of public-sector workers, ruling in Janus v. AFSCME that governments can’t force their employees to pay fees to a union just to keep their jobs.
That decision has already had a big impact: a lot of money that otherwise would have gone toward unions’ political advocacy—perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in the past year alone—is instead going into the pockets of workers who are free to spend it as they see fit.
But Janus could have even greater effects in the years ahead, as litigators for liberty at the Goldwater Institute and like-minded organizations across the country work to build on the Supreme Court’s ruling and bring more First Amendment freedom to more people.
Challenging mandatory bar associations
The Goldwater Institute won one of the first major victories building on Janus when the Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that approved of laws that force lawyers to join and pay dues to a state bar association in Fleck v. Wetch.
In most states, lawyers are required to join and pay dues to a state bar association as a condition of practicing law. These mandatory bar associations are supposed to help the state regulate the practice of law, but they also often engage in political activities, such as lobbying for or against proposed legislation and publishing articles that take positions on controversial issues.
In North Dakota, for example, attorney Arnold Fleck gave his time and money to support a ballot initiative to reform child-custody law—and then discovered that the bar association he was forced to pay used $50,000 of mandatory member dues to oppose the measure. The Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit on his behalf in 2015, arguing that making him join a bar association and pay for its political speech violates his First Amendment rights.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled against Mr. Fleck in 2017, but in December 2018 the Supreme Court ordered the lower court to reconsider its decision in light of Janus. The Eighth Circuit reheard the case in June and will issue a new decision soon. That will set the stage for the Supreme Court to potentially take the case up again and declare that attorneys, like government workers and everyone else, have the right to choose what organizations they’ll join and what political speech they will and won’t support with their money.
Meanwhile, the Goldwater Institute has also brought cases on behalf of attorneys in Oklahoma and Oregon who have seen their bar dues used to pay for political speech they disagreed with and has filed an amicus brief supporting lawyers challenging Texas’s mandatory bar.
Challenging exclusive representation
Although Janus ended mandatory union fees, some 22 states still authorize unions to act as workers’ “exclusive representative” in collective bargaining. In other words, public-sector unions in these states still get to speak for all unionized government employees—even if some employees who aren’t union members would rather speak for themselves.
As Justice Alito’s opinion in Janus recognized, foisting an “exclusive representative” on government workers to speak on their behalf is “a significant impingement on associational freedoms that would not be tolerated in other contexts.” Therefore, since Janus, numerous lawsuits across the country have been asking federal courts to end unions’ power of exclusive representation for violating workers’ First Amendment right to freedom of association.
Two of those cases—Bierman v. Walzand Uradnik v. Inter Faculty Organization—recently arrived at the Supreme Court, supported by amicus briefs from the Goldwater Institute. The Goldwater Institute’s briefs explained how public-sector unions are like the “factions” the founders sought to constrain when they designed the Constitution—and how unions’ special legal privileges, including their power of exclusive representation, make them especially dangerous and undermine our republican system of government.
The Court declined to hear Bierman and Uradnik, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the justices aren’t interested in the issue; Justice Alito’s statements on the issue in Janus suggest they are. More cases on this issue are working their way through the courts, and as the workers who brought them seek Supreme Court review, the Goldwater Institute will continue to remind the justices and the public that ending exclusive representation is important, not only to protect workers’ First Amendment rights, but also to ensure that special privileges don’t give unions undue power and influence.
Jacob Huebert is a Senior Attorney at the Goldwater Institute. He previously served as Director of Litigation for the Liberty Justice Center in Chicago, where he successfully litigated the landmark Janus v. AFSCME case.
Posted in FeaturedTagged Janus
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Warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia with mimicking anti-c and -E specificities
H. Y. Hsieh, D. Moroney, D. Naumann, J. Hata, N. Vosnidou, R. Kessinger, N. Shahab, N. Hakami, Daniel Smith
An 18-month-old male was admitted to a hospital with a hemoglobin of 4.1 g/dL and a reticulocyte count of 53 percent. There was no history of prior transfusion. Serologic evaluation revealed the presence of both a positive direct antiglobulin test (DAT) and an indirect antiglobulin test (IAT). The patient's red blood cells (RBCs) typed as group A, C-D-E-c+e+ (cde/cde). Evaluation of the IAT revealed the presence of anti-c and anti-E. All other major antibodies were ruled out. Upon adsorption of the patient's serum with ficin-treated Cde/Cde RBCs, both antibody specificities were adsorbed; however, the antibodies were not adsorbed with native (untreated) Cde/Cde RBCs. Furthermore, the autoantibody was not adsorbed by Rhnull cells, thereby suggesting Rh specificity. The serum was incompatible with cde/cde RBCs and compatible with Cde/Cde RBCs. The patient was successfully transfused with Cde/Cde RBCs followed by resolution of his anemia, as evidenced by an increased and stable hemoglobin. It was concluded that the autoantibody had mimicking anti-c and -E specificities. This is a report of an unusual case of autoimmune hemolytic anemia because the Rh autoantibody appeared to have dual mimicking specificities, and the patient's RBCs were antigen negative for one of the antibody specificities, i.e., anti-E.
Immunohematology
Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia
Autoantibodies
Antibody Specificity
Ficain
Reticulocyte Count
Dilatation and Curettage
Rh mimicking antibodies
Hsieh, H. Y., Moroney, D., Naumann, D., Hata, J., Vosnidou, N., Kessinger, R., ... Smith, D. (2002). Warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia with mimicking anti-c and -E specificities. Immunohematology, 18(1), 19-22.
Warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia with mimicking anti-c and -E specificities. / Hsieh, H. Y.; Moroney, D.; Naumann, D.; Hata, J.; Vosnidou, N.; Kessinger, R.; Shahab, N.; Hakami, N.; Smith, Daniel.
In: Immunohematology, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2002, p. 19-22.
Hsieh, HY, Moroney, D, Naumann, D, Hata, J, Vosnidou, N, Kessinger, R, Shahab, N, Hakami, N & Smith, D 2002, 'Warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia with mimicking anti-c and -E specificities', Immunohematology, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 19-22.
Hsieh HY, Moroney D, Naumann D, Hata J, Vosnidou N, Kessinger R et al. Warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia with mimicking anti-c and -E specificities. Immunohematology. 2002;18(1):19-22.
Hsieh, H. Y. ; Moroney, D. ; Naumann, D. ; Hata, J. ; Vosnidou, N. ; Kessinger, R. ; Shahab, N. ; Hakami, N. ; Smith, Daniel. / Warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia with mimicking anti-c and -E specificities. In: Immunohematology. 2002 ; Vol. 18, No. 1. pp. 19-22.
@article{b70b7e5e02cb45c591e63cb6e9bd04c8,
title = "Warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia with mimicking anti-c and -E specificities",
abstract = "An 18-month-old male was admitted to a hospital with a hemoglobin of 4.1 g/dL and a reticulocyte count of 53 percent. There was no history of prior transfusion. Serologic evaluation revealed the presence of both a positive direct antiglobulin test (DAT) and an indirect antiglobulin test (IAT). The patient's red blood cells (RBCs) typed as group A, C-D-E-c+e+ (cde/cde). Evaluation of the IAT revealed the presence of anti-c and anti-E. All other major antibodies were ruled out. Upon adsorption of the patient's serum with ficin-treated Cde/Cde RBCs, both antibody specificities were adsorbed; however, the antibodies were not adsorbed with native (untreated) Cde/Cde RBCs. Furthermore, the autoantibody was not adsorbed by Rhnull cells, thereby suggesting Rh specificity. The serum was incompatible with cde/cde RBCs and compatible with Cde/Cde RBCs. The patient was successfully transfused with Cde/Cde RBCs followed by resolution of his anemia, as evidenced by an increased and stable hemoglobin. It was concluded that the autoantibody had mimicking anti-c and -E specificities. This is a report of an unusual case of autoimmune hemolytic anemia because the Rh autoantibody appeared to have dual mimicking specificities, and the patient's RBCs were antigen negative for one of the antibody specificities, i.e., anti-E.",
keywords = "Autoimmune hemolytic anemia, Rh mimicking antibodies",
author = "Hsieh, {H. Y.} and D. Moroney and D. Naumann and J. Hata and N. Vosnidou and R. Kessinger and N. Shahab and N. Hakami and Daniel Smith",
journal = "Immunohematology",
publisher = "American Red Cross",
T1 - Warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia with mimicking anti-c and -E specificities
AU - Hsieh, H. Y.
AU - Moroney, D.
AU - Naumann, D.
AU - Hata, J.
AU - Vosnidou, N.
AU - Kessinger, R.
AU - Shahab, N.
AU - Hakami, N.
AU - Smith, Daniel
N2 - An 18-month-old male was admitted to a hospital with a hemoglobin of 4.1 g/dL and a reticulocyte count of 53 percent. There was no history of prior transfusion. Serologic evaluation revealed the presence of both a positive direct antiglobulin test (DAT) and an indirect antiglobulin test (IAT). The patient's red blood cells (RBCs) typed as group A, C-D-E-c+e+ (cde/cde). Evaluation of the IAT revealed the presence of anti-c and anti-E. All other major antibodies were ruled out. Upon adsorption of the patient's serum with ficin-treated Cde/Cde RBCs, both antibody specificities were adsorbed; however, the antibodies were not adsorbed with native (untreated) Cde/Cde RBCs. Furthermore, the autoantibody was not adsorbed by Rhnull cells, thereby suggesting Rh specificity. The serum was incompatible with cde/cde RBCs and compatible with Cde/Cde RBCs. The patient was successfully transfused with Cde/Cde RBCs followed by resolution of his anemia, as evidenced by an increased and stable hemoglobin. It was concluded that the autoantibody had mimicking anti-c and -E specificities. This is a report of an unusual case of autoimmune hemolytic anemia because the Rh autoantibody appeared to have dual mimicking specificities, and the patient's RBCs were antigen negative for one of the antibody specificities, i.e., anti-E.
AB - An 18-month-old male was admitted to a hospital with a hemoglobin of 4.1 g/dL and a reticulocyte count of 53 percent. There was no history of prior transfusion. Serologic evaluation revealed the presence of both a positive direct antiglobulin test (DAT) and an indirect antiglobulin test (IAT). The patient's red blood cells (RBCs) typed as group A, C-D-E-c+e+ (cde/cde). Evaluation of the IAT revealed the presence of anti-c and anti-E. All other major antibodies were ruled out. Upon adsorption of the patient's serum with ficin-treated Cde/Cde RBCs, both antibody specificities were adsorbed; however, the antibodies were not adsorbed with native (untreated) Cde/Cde RBCs. Furthermore, the autoantibody was not adsorbed by Rhnull cells, thereby suggesting Rh specificity. The serum was incompatible with cde/cde RBCs and compatible with Cde/Cde RBCs. The patient was successfully transfused with Cde/Cde RBCs followed by resolution of his anemia, as evidenced by an increased and stable hemoglobin. It was concluded that the autoantibody had mimicking anti-c and -E specificities. This is a report of an unusual case of autoimmune hemolytic anemia because the Rh autoantibody appeared to have dual mimicking specificities, and the patient's RBCs were antigen negative for one of the antibody specificities, i.e., anti-E.
KW - Autoimmune hemolytic anemia
KW - Rh mimicking antibodies
JO - Immunohematology
JF - Immunohematology
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Can you name India’s biggest hotel chain?
This chain started in India, expanded to China and has now invested heavily in Indonesia. It is called OYO (On Your Own) and was started in 2011 by then 18-year old Ritesh Agarwal. It is like the “Uber” of hotels – acquiring and setting standards for previously struggling hotels.
The group now has more hotel rooms in India than Taj Hotels – of course, Taj is at the top end while OYO has been a big provider of budget rooms.
Within three months of its foray into Indonesia, the company has launched the first phase of expansion in 16 cities and witnessed a 5x growth. It aims to expand to 100 cities by the end of the year.
The company is adding on an average 70 hotels in Indonesia every month.
OYO created a uniquely Chinese identity for its local Chinese business and is localising in Indonesia.
OYO is in over 280 cities in China, with about 5,000 hotels, and over 260,000 rooms.
The company has already started operations in Malaysia and will enter Philippines soon.
It plans to have a pan-southeast Asian presence by the end of the year, before it starts making a move towards Europe.
Author Stephen ManallackPosted on January 31, 2019 January 29, 2019 Categories Asia, Diplomacy, Doing Business, Investing, Leadership, Tourism, Uncategorized, Why India?Leave a comment on Can you name India’s biggest hotel chain?
The Labor Market in India: Structure and Costs
Something different today – I am posting a complete piece from a reputable source (see bottom of article) on a specialist topic – the labor market. Hope you find it useful.
India possesses a large labor pool as almost half its population of 1.2 billion is of working age. Naturally, the structure of India’s labor market is diverse; foreign companies need to understand this structure to benefit from India’s demographic dividend.
A majority of the working population is engaged in the unorganized, or informal sector, working for small businesses or manufacturing units that employ less than ten individuals. Businesses that don’t need skilled labor can source employees with some ease.
The expansion of higher education has created a larger skilled talent pool, but it still only amounts to about ten percent of the country’s overall labor market. Companies seeking skilled labor need to be prepared to compete to recruit from this comparatively small pool.
Structure of labor in India
The government’s labor laws usually classify employees on the basis of skill and area of operation. In terms of skill, employees are categorized as unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled, and highly skilled. In terms of area of operation, employees are categorized as managerial personnel and workmen. This defines their job roles, wages, disbursal of benefits, and their rights and obligations.
Labor costs in India
Firms entering the Indian market often choose to make the decision after assessing the comparative costs of labor. India offers competitive advantages with its lower wage structure and access to a vast labor market. For instance, the average minimum wage for contract workers in India is US$148 per month (Rs 10,000) and US$234 in China.
Employers should note that the minimum wage in India is indicative; it is often utilized as a benchmark, especially in the employment of unskilled and semi- skilled labor in the manufacturing sector.
Labor costs also vary by region in India; wages in tier two and three cities are much lower than tier one due to lower costs of living and affordable real estate. The difference in salary pay scale can be up to 25 percent as the city compensatory allowance and employee conveyance allowance is a much smaller portion of paychecks in tier two and three cities when compared with tier one cities. This is why, for instance, the average salary of a software engineer in New Delhi is US$7,632.53 while in Mysore it is US$6,621.47.
Hiring costs in IT and auto manufacturing
Information technology (IT) and auto manufacturing are the two most prominent sectors in India’s organized economy – they receive the bulk of foreign investment and are the biggest employers. The IT sector in India accounts for 67 percent of the global outsourcing market. While the overall manufacturing sector constitutes about 17 percent of India’s economy, automotive manufacturingis the largest contributor at 22 percent of the manufacturing GDP and seven percent of India’s overall GDP.
Within the IT sector, new technology segments like artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics, and machine learning are changing the nature of jobs and professional service capabilities. Firms are ready to pay higher salaries to software developers and engineers with skills in these new technology areas, but the competition to recruit is intense as the majority of the labor market is educated in the use of legacy technologies. As such, the sector is witnessing some disruption due to lay-offs and reskilling drives, which in turn may benefit foreign firms looking to hire labor at competitive rates in legacy industries like business process outsourcing (BPOs).
In the manufacturing sector, the federal Make in India initiative anticipates expanding industrial investments and domestic operations, which will boost the creation of technical jobs and factory and assembly work.
Regional manufacturing hubs are centered on major tier two and three cities in the northern, western, and southern parts of the country, where a majority of India’s skilled labor resides. For instance, Pune (Maharashtra) in the west, Gurgaon (Haryana) in the east, and Chennai (Tamil Nadu) in the south.
Proximity to large urban cities allows companies to tap into skilled talent located nearby, while also reducing operational costs due to reliable logistics networks.
In the IT sector, lower tier cities such as Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Chandigarh (Punjab), and Mangalore (Karnataka) are emerging as prominent hubs besides the tier one cities of Mumbai (Maharashtra), Bangalore (Karnataka), and Gurgaon (Haryana). In the automotive sector, hubs have emerged in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.
Industry experts note that the average salary increment in the IT and manufacturing sector for 2017-18 was projected at seven and 10.1 percent, respectively. We highlight the average annual remuneration for skilled positions in the IT sector and the auto component manufacturing industry.
About the Source
India Briefing is produced by Dezan Shira & Associates. The firm assists foreign investors throughout Asia from offices across the world, including in Delhi and Mumbai. Readers may write india@dezshira.com for more support on doing business in India
Author Stephen ManallackPosted on January 29, 2019 January 24, 2019 Categories UncategorizedLeave a comment on The Labor Market in India: Structure and Costs
Happy Republic Day for all in India, land of the “freedom fighters”
Today is Republic Day in India, celebrating 26 January, 1950, when the Indian Constitution came into effect.
India’s other major national event is Independence Day, a celebration of 15 August, 1947, when India became independent of the United Kingdom.
The two days that created the “world’s largest democracy” really came about because of hundreds of years of “freedom fighters”. I am going to list some names – and apologies for all the great names I have not been able to include.
Most of us would think of Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 1869-1948) who became an inspiration to many around the world – including Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and The Dalai Lama.
But other greats include Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (India’s first Prime Minister), Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
Picture above – Rajkumar Amrit Kaur
Indian women played a strong and vital role for freedom, including Sarojini Naidu, Rajkumar Amrit Kaur and Kasturba Gandhi.
Above – Kasturba Gandhi
Inspirational for many of these was the example of courage and self sacrifice shown by the young Bhagat Singh who lost his life in the cause.
Above – Indian Prime Minister Modi hosts USA President Obama in 2018 at Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi
India – you have earned the right to celebrate! Have a great day.
Author Stephen ManallackPosted on January 26, 2019 January 25, 2019 Categories Asia, Cross-culture, Diplomacy, Uncategorized, Why India?Leave a comment on Happy Republic Day for all in India, land of the “freedom fighters”
India’s Bajaj Auto to jump into electric vehicles next year
Pune-based Bajaj Auto is planning to make a foray into electric vehicles (EV) next year and is hoping to build market share in India, its Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj said Monday. The new marketing slogan is “The World’s Favourite Indian”.
The company plans to launch electric version of its quadricycle Qute along with electric three-wheelers next year.
He also said the company would bring KTM-owned ‘Husqvarna’ motorcycle brand to the Indian market this year with “half a dozen” products in the pipeline.
Bajaj said the company has leadership positions in over 20 overseas markets such as 70 per cent share in Bangladesh and around 50 per cent in Nepal and Sri Lanka and it would like to replicate this in India.
“We would like to be a little more successful in the domestic market than we have been so far in the motorcycles market,” he said.
In India: “We have only 20-21 per cent share. We think now the time has also come that after having done a good job overseas, after having huge dominant position in India in three-wheelers, it is about time we make the same impact in the domestic motorcycle segment in India as we have done across the world.”
Other big motorcycle makers in India are Yamaha, TVS and Honda.
Bajaj also has a partnership with British niche bikemaker Triumph.
Author Stephen ManallackPosted on January 24, 2019 January 23, 2019 Categories Asia, Doing Business, Investing, Retail, Uncategorized, Why India?Leave a comment on India’s Bajaj Auto to jump into electric vehicles next year
Indian economy to pass the UK in 2019 to become 5th in the world – PwC
India is likely to pass the United Kingdom in the world’s largest economy rankings in 2019, becoming number 5, according to a report by global consultancy firm PwC.
The report said: “While the UK and France have regularly switched places owing to similar levels of development and roughly equal populations, India’s climb up the rankings is likely to be permanent.”
PwC’s report projects real GDP growth of 1.6 per cent for the UK, 1.7 per cent for France and 7.6 per cent for India in 2019.
PwC’s Global Economy Watch is a short publication that looks at the trends and issues affecting the global economy and details its latest projections for the world’s leading economies.
Really engaging with India becomes a smart step for anyone in business, politics or education – but start with the right strategy.
Author Stephen ManallackPosted on January 22, 2019 Categories Asia, Cross-culture, Diplomacy, Doing Business, Investing, Uncategorized, Why India?1 Comment on Indian economy to pass the UK in 2019 to become 5th in the world – PwC
Kerala – great tourism but also good for innovative business
India got its largest startup ecosystem Sunday when Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated a facility housing incubation set-ups across a string of segments in modern technology.
The Integrated Startup Complex under the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) includes the ultra modern facilities of Maker Village that promotes hardware startups, the BioNest that promotes medical technologies, BRINC which is the country’s first international accelerator for hardware startups; BRIC which aids developing solutions for cancer diagnosis and care, and a Centre of Excellence set up by industry majors such as UNITY.
After the completion of three more projects, Kerala will have startup and incubation space of 5 lakh sq ft, which will be the largest of this type in the world.
No less than 30 applications for patent has gone from startups with the 13.5-acre TIZ, the CM noted, lauding it as a sign of the high-quality work in the zone. Simultaneously, Kerala was sensing increasing optimism in boosting software export from the state.
M Sivasankar, secretary, IT (Kerala), pointed out that the entire space at the TIZ facility has been sold out.
“This has never happened in our country, where it usually takes a couple of years for an incubator to get the whole area occupied,” he said. “The first three floors of the new complex have been furnished, while the rest of the floors have already got allotted to various startups.”
“The campus has another incubator complex coming up and it will be opened early next year,” Sivasankar said.
Besides the Maker Villager with its 30-odd startups, the facility has nascent firms working in fields such as biotechnology, computer-aided design, augmented/virtual reality and advanced communication.
So – Kerala is “gods own country” for tourism but also a magnet for innovative business. Worth a visit.
Author Stephen ManallackPosted on January 16, 2019 January 15, 2019 Categories Asia, Doing Business, Investing, Leadership, Uncategorized, Why India?Leave a comment on Kerala – great tourism but also good for innovative business
Can Australia make Asia a top priority?
A new study shows that three of the world’s top five economies by 2033 will be Asian, with China number one, India third and Japan fifth. The US will be second and Germany fifth.
This suggests Australia’s trade and investment focus for the next 15 years needs to swing more sharply to Asia.
The study is the World Economic League Table, published annually by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, or CEBR, in London.
It would be timely for Australia to radically change its approach to diplomatic appointments – our “plum” diplomatic postings remain Washington and London, but should now shift to Beijing, New Delhi and Tokyo.
We need to boost our presence in other Asian economies too – South Korea is set to become the 10th-largest, Indonesia (12th), Thailand (21st), the Philippines (22nd), Bangladesh (24th) and Malaysia (25th), all making the top 25.
On top of this, one of the world’s greatest transformational projects is on our doorstep – China’s Belt and Road Initiative might be controversial but is a growth driver. Infrastructure spending is set to increase from US$11.5 billion, or 13.5 percent of global GDP last year, to US$27.4 billion, or 15.5 percent, by 2032, largely due to this initiative.
While China is high profile, quietly building a supersized economy is India which in 2018 remained ahead of China to retain the world’s fastest growing large economy status.
Yet Australia has largely put India on the backburner, unable to complete the kind of trade agreements that we have with China and other Asian countries. This low focus on India needs to shift over the next 15 years of growth there.
David Morris, and Australian who chairs the United Nations Asia Pacific Business Forum, agrees that Asia is now vitally important to the global economy. His consistent message is: “We are in the midst of the biggest global economic shift in memory, with East Asia now driving growth in the world economy”.
The Australian specialist India advisory firm India Avenue Investment Management points out that Indian equity markets performed quite well relative to their emerging market and developed market peers – yet our focus has been on three regions which fared particularly poorly in 2018 – China, Australia and Emerging Markets (which China dominates).
Granted, Australia has shifted focus to Asia, as shown by the 2016 opening of our largest and most expensive embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia at a cost of A$415 million and hosting 500 staff.
Despite this, one of Australia’s major research houses, the Lowy Institute, has long claimed that our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is “under-resourced over a period of several decades”.
The symbolism at the very top suggests we are struggling against the shift to Asia – former Ministers and Prime Ministers almost salivate at the chance to take the top post in London or Washington.
It is time to shift this focus to New Delhi, Beijing and other parts of Asia – while these are the epicentres of our future, it is unlikely ex politicians will pursue them as vigorously as they chase the old world.
Perhaps appointing Julie Bishop as our Ambassador in a major Asian country would send better signals?
Symbolism is important, especially for investment and trade, so sending top ranking former politicians into Asian posts could have a powerful effect – so long as we give them the resources to do the job.
Knowledge of Australia remains dangerously low across the whole of Asia, including Commonwealth partners such as India and Malaysia. We are variously seen as a “kangaroo nation” or a giant mine and even a “white enclave” (admittedly said more in private these days), showing ignorance of our major multicultural achievements. This ignorance is dangerous for diplomatic and defence relationships and is restricting our trade.
Education and tourism are the two sectors that can really turn this around, giving Asians a first-hand experience of what a great country Australia is. We are boosting efforts in both, but do we really grasp the vast potential size of the market?
Only by shifting our diplomatic resources more and more to Asia will we gain a true understanding of these markets and how we can build a positive future together.
Author Stephen ManallackPosted on January 14, 2019 January 11, 2019 Categories Asia, Cross-culture, Diplomacy, Uncategorized1 Comment on Can Australia make Asia a top priority?
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The Atlanta Super Bowl 2019: A Connectivity-at-Scale Success Story
The 2019 Super Bowl LIII, played between the Los Angeles Rams and the New England Patriots at Atlanta’s recently-renovated Mercedes-Benz Stadium, was one of the world’s most connected sporting events to date. Apart from the sheer quantity of data used by attendees during the game itself (over 24 terabytes!), the event deployed a host of behind-the-scenes IoT technology to optimize everything from parking and security to stand concessions and bathroom cleanliness, not to mention the players themselves, who benefited from multiple IoT safety systems.
The stadium opened for business in August of 2017, using IBM’s cloud as the backbone of a converged IT network employing more than 4,000 miles of fiber cabling to support multiple IoT-connected systems throughout the whole arena. The stadium has over 2,000 WiFi access points, and during the Super Bowl more than 30,000 fans accessed the WiFi network during halftime. The distribution network was substantial enough to theoretically download all 61 Game of Thrones Episodes, in 4K ultra-high-definition quality, in just 46 seconds.
Fans interacted with IoT from the very moment they entered the stadium, with perimeter and access managed with IoT systems. Event-goers could enter the stadium by tapping ticket-holder RFID cards that are worn on lanyards, or alternatively by scanning bar code electronic tickets from their mobile phones, reducing the incidence of fraudulent tickets. Other security measures included crowd video monitoring and sensor tracking, which fed data directly into the centralized stadium-security team, ensuring a holistic overview of the security situation at any given moment.
Additional behind-the-scenes systems offered a variety of benefits for fans. A mobile app allowed attendees to locate points of interest within the stadium and even see reviews of those services from other fans. The app also included IoT-enabled transport information, such as real-time public transit updates integrated directly into the app. Attendees were kept comfortable with cooling and power systems optimized through sensors and IoT. Even the audio systems in the stadium were IoT-enabled, with a converged network of connected speakers that could be specifically targeted to certain areas in the stadium.
Of course, we can’t forget the players. IoT sensors were in both the footballs themselves and the players’ helmets and shoulder pads. The sensors measured player speed and movement, but also sent warnings to team coaches and medical teams if a helmet impact seemed like it may have been strong enough to result in a concussion or other health issue. In addition to the internal team group, media were also given access to some of the data, to quickly report on player performance on the field.
In sum, the stadium is at the vanguard of “increasing connectivity and removing barriers between digital and physical worlds.” While the principal intention of the IoT-enabled stadium is to improve the fan experience, the data captured through the different sensor systems deployed throughout the stadium provides a wealth of data that can later be analyzed to further improve the fan experience, player and team optimization, building performance, security, environmental impact and many other areas that IoT impacts.
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Let The Right One In – notes
Posted by Maura McHugh ⋅ April 16, 2014 ⋅ Leave a comment
Filed Under adaptations, horror, Jack Thorne, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In, Theatre, vampires
NB: these are my notes, not a review – so you might not want to read them if you’ve not seen it yet.
The Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist’s 2004 novel Låt den Rätte Komma In, published in English as Let the Right One In, has unusually manifested in multiple adaptations, each of which takes a slightly different approach to the material. Tomas Alfredson’s 2008 Swedish-language film, scripted by Lindqvist, is a faithful, if streamlined adaptation of the novel, which is mostly set in a grim Stockholm suburb in the early 1980s. The international success of Alfredson’s movie inspired Hammer Films to mount a remake, Let Me In (2010), which relocates the action to Los Alamos, New Mexico, but keeps the Reagan era backdrop and goes back to the book for some structural tricks. Lindqvist also adapted his book for the stage in 2010, but the production currently running at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, was scripted in 2013 by Jack Thorne (The Fades) and directed by Jack Tiffany. This show premiered in Dundee in 2013 and is getting a West End run after a successful London try-out at the Royal Court Theatre.
It’s unusual for a contemporary horror novel to get a stage adaptation – the last one I can think of is Stephen King’s Misery, which has a two-character/confined setting format that transferred well – and Thorne has to trim the material even more radically than the two movie adaptations, losing major supporting characters and sub-plots (notably, the investigations into the vampire murders and the activities of the local grown-up drunks) and curtailing almost all of the elaborate backstory the book gives its vampire (though this is the first adaptation to give her full name, Elias Jansen). It also makes its ageless character more ageless because this is a story that would be very difficult to stage with twelve-year-old performers, so the putupon Oskar (Martin Quinn), the vampire waif Eli (Rebecca Benson) and the playground bullies Jonny (Graeme Dalling) and Micke (Christian Ortega) are represented as indeterminate teenagers. This is actually quite a disturbing effect, since the characters alternate between acting like little kids – digging in sandpits, playing with Star Wars toys, shoplifting in a sweet-shop – and savage near-adults, brandishing knives and intensely abusing one another.
It’s been true of all versions of this story, but somehow the scenes of kids being beastly are always more upsetting than the various gruesome supernatural or serial murdering effects. Though names (and a newspaper) establish that this is still set in Sweden, playing the script with strong Scots accents highlights the cruelties and the wistfulness – insults and swear-words snarled with a Glasgow edge bite home more nastily, while Benson’s strange, dissociated speeches and confessions evoke R.L. Stevenson’s bogey tales. Thorne stresses Oskar’s odd, fractured relationships with his parents, which are more sexualised with older actors – his mother (Susan Vidler) snuggles up to him in bed in a way that foreshadows his sexless-yet-intimate connection with Eli and his father (Gary MacKay) breaks off a game to get drunk with his own bad influence best friend.
The stage is set with a wintery forest of tall straight trees with branches that stick out to signal that someone will eventually be scurrying up and down them, and a single structure that starts out as a climbing frame but converts into a tank-like swimming pool for the climax – which involves a very real-seeming ordeal. There’s one great theatrical scare moment – which, oddly, made me jump more the second time I saw the show – that manages to work by indicating what will happen before it does rather than by springing a complete surprise. Blood seeps and spurts from victims and vampire alike, and there’s a proper Theatre du Grand-Guignol effect, accomplished with smoke and lighting, as Renfield-like vampire’s minion Hakan (Clive Mendus) disfigures himself with acid when cornered. The fairy tale setting allows for strange, near-dance interludes spun from prosaic incidents like Oskar’s defiant tree-stabbing but the dialogue and playing insist on grounded, painful reality.
Benson has to be more physical than other actors who’ve taken the role, climbing trees and leaking blood with only stage effects to back her up … she also manages to bring out Eli’s childishness in a way that the movies didn’t, bonding with Oskar over their teasing of an inoffensive grown-up and bragging that her Fabergé Easter Egg is worth more than a nuclear power station.
In presenting oft-told tales in new media, there’s a tendency to dwell on minutiae – Thorne clarifies a few plot points, notably a moment in the climax that underlines the rules about inviting vampires into buildings even in moments of extreme need. One of the strengths of this story is that all the versions take varying, legitimate tacks with the material (even Let Me In deserves respect) and address the same themes in complementary manner. If you want to know Eli’s origins, you have to read the book – like the Swedish film, this seems to reveal that she wasn’t born a girl, though she now insists she isn’t anything; indeed, stuttering at the v-word, she even claims she’s trying not to be a vampire.
About Maura McHugh
I'm a weird writer who lives in Galway, Ireland.
View all posts by Maura McHugh »
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The Story's Story
Links: Bike sharing, moral panics, social isolation, academic writing, Saturnalia, and more!
December 29, 2017 By Jake Seliger in Links Tags: Links Leave a comment
* Let’s start with the good news: “How bike-sharing conquered the world”
* “The Current Sex Panic Harks Back to the Era of Coddling Women.”
* “How social isolation is killing us.” But, also, “Debunking Myths About Estrangement.”
* “People Aren’t Having Babies Because The Rent Is Too Damn High.”
* “Ph.D.s Are Still Writing Poorly.” This is news? And: “‘The Great Shame of Our Profession:’ How the humanities survive on exploitation.” This is news? Still, universities treat adjuncts like they do because they can.
* “Lab-Grown Meat Is on the Way.” I tried Beyond Meat burgers and they were pretty good.
* “Drug and Alcohol Deaths at U.S. Workplaces Soar.” But the real issues get little airing amid culture-war grievances.
* “Bonfire of the academies: Two professors on how leftist intolerance is killing higher education.”
* “More Thoughts on Falling Fertility.” Contrary to what you read, overpopulation is not a problem in developed countries. If anything the opposite is likely to be a problem.
* Research quality in economics tends to decline after tenure. The theoretical case for tenure seems ever weaker. Also: “Academic success is either a crapshoot or a scam.” Article is much more intelligent than the title may immediately suggest.
* Why Christmas is really just a Roman holiday: Saturnalia.
* “What to do about cheerleaders,” originally from 2005 but an evergreen. I read it as comedy.
* Hinkley Point is still an important new nuclear power plant. This distressing sentence ought to be at the forefront of many minds: “If anyone can do it, it is the Chinese, who have established themselves as world leaders in the complex engineering challenges involved in building nuclear power plants. (There were 20 reactors under construction in China at the end of March 2017.)”
* “GeekDesk “Max” sit-stand desk review: Two years with a motorized desk.”
Kingdom of the Wicked: Book One: Rules — Helen Dale
December 28, 2017 By Jake Seliger in Books, Fiction, Reviews Tags: Fiction, helen dale, kingdom of the wicked 3 Comments
Kingdom of the Wicked is one of the best, weirdest, and most fascinating novels I’ve read in recent memory; I’m amazed that it hasn’t garnered more reviews, both from Amazon and the press. It takes a seemingly simple premise—what happens if the Industrial Revolution occurred in ancient Rome?—and combines it with an insurgent campaign against an occupying power in the Middle East and the appearance of Jesus. Is the occupying power good, evil, neither, or both? Kingdom refuses to yield simple answers, which is part of what makes it addicting.
Many sections resonate with very current events: “These men really do believe a ragtag army of insurgents can defeat the greatest military power the world has ever seen. The result will be a bloodbath, you know that better than me” could easily be taken from a news story about contemporary Afghanistan. Yet in the context of the novel, it defamiliarizes the tropes that appear so readily in the news.* We also know from the last 50 years of real history that ragtag armies of insurgents can defeat the greatest military power the world has ever seen, at least by some measures of “defeat.” But in Kingdom, that power isn’t the United States; it’s the Roman Empire in the period Jesus lived.
I’m reminded of Umberto Eco’s prediction that The Name of the Rose would be read in at least three different ways; Kingdom can perhaps be read similarly:
The first category of readers will be taken by the plot and the coups de scène, and will accept even the long bookish discussions and the philosophical dialogues, because it will sense that the signs, the traces and revelatory symptoms are nesting precisely in those inattentive pages. The second category will be impassioned by the debate of ideas, and will attempt to establish connections (which the author refuses to authorize) with the present. The third will realize that this text is a textile of other texts, a ‘whodunit’ of quotations, a book built of books.
Kingdom is not a whodunit, and if it is a “textile of other texts,” I do not know those other texts well enough to detect their presence. But I do think Kingdom is a kind of textile of history, though I don’t enough Roman or Biblical history to perceive those patterns, either. David Lodge suggests regarding Eco’s categories that “there is an implied hierarchy in the listing of these kinds of reading, the most approved being the last. A fully appreciative reading must, however, combine all three.” So while I can speak to the plot and coups de scène, as well as the many resonances between imaginary past and actual present, I cannot grasp what may be the deepest level.
That being said, the first two levels offer much material. I will caution, though, that the book may feel slow and strange to start: many odd (to my American background) names appear in rapid succession and are hard to keep straight. Some, like Pontius Pilate, are familiar even to me from history. Many others are not familiar or not from history, and it is not always easy to keep Camilla, Claudia, Caiaphas, Cornelius (whose last name is Getorex, and he is referred to by the one or the other depending on context) and many others straight.
Yet I kept reading, and about halfway through I could not or would not stop. I wasn’t wholly attentive at the beginning, either, maybe due to reading on a bus—or because I couldn’t make up my mind about the book’s quality immediately. Then I finished and immediately began again, to see all that I’d missed or not understood. And there was much to find in a second reading. This reaction might be idiosyncratic, but I forced the book on a friend who had the same reaction: caught halfway through, she finished and turned back to page one.
She also observed that there are a lot of “really hot sex scenes.” That’s true, and they intersect with the political and military contexts beautifully. To say more would be to give away too much of the novel.
Beyond the plot and the correspondences between imagined world and present, many individual sentences are beautiful: “[Caiaphas’s] mind ran like a rodent on a wheel as he tried to think how he was to explain himself to Pilate.” “Like a rodent on a wheel:” that is sometimes how one feels when preparing to explain the inexplicable. This novel combines a turbulent plot with beautiful sentences, as too few novels do. The word “combines” features prominently in this review, for good reason. This book is a combination of many ideas in an unusual way. Unlike most novels, it feels very novel.
In this world, Christianity hasn’t happened yet, so there are no Christians. Islam comes many centuries later, so there are no Muslims; this allows Kingdom to deftly sidestep many current controversies. There are Jews and we’re in a land that corresponds geographically to the modern Middle East, here called Judaea, where the Roman soldiers are unhappy to be living amid cultural aliens. Most of the novel’s narrative perspective happens within Romans, but sometimes we get Jews, who see the Romans a little like modern Palestinians might see Israelis, or as Afghans might see Americans. One senses, perhaps wrongly, that the author sides with the Romans, just as one senses that Umberto Eco sides with William of Baskerville, but everyone gets a hearing. Courtrooms and lawyers frequently appear in Kingdom, so the notion of a “hearing” is not purely metaphorical.
Early in Kingdom, a Jewish cabbie is driving a Roman lawyer and notices the environment:
Whenever he saw Roman soldiers in dress uniform, he always had the same struggle to prevent himself from admiring them. When they were in the streets wearing their desert battle dress and coalscuttle helmets and heavy boots, one could despite them—the body armour even made them look non-human—but not when they wee preening like peacocks and charming the women who wished to reward the Empire’s warriors for their protective efforts.
“Body armour” can make modern soldiers “look non-human.” Many have argued that in the United States, “We Are The Empire” of the Star Wars films: culturally and militarily hegemonic, builder of massive war machines, masters of the physical world. In Kingdom we are Rome—yet we’re also the product of monotheistic religions. Yet even those monotheistic religions haven’t been sufficient to keep a libertine culture from growing; in Kingdom, the libertine culture is the majority culture and thrives in the mainstream; people want what they want and do what they do. In American culture, we often deny wanting what we want, and the next morning we deny what we did. We’re schizophrenic: simultaneously partaking and rebelling, affirming and denying, at war with ourselves, with self-denying, right-wing religious culture circling back around and sometimes combining with self-denying, fear-based left-wing feminist culture. It’s an odd world, if you really think about.
Fortunately or unfortunately, most of us don’t. Not actively. You don’t have to think too hard about the correspondences between our world and Kingdom if you don’t want to: the story itself keeps one’s interest. Speculative fiction readers may have an advantage here, because the world is extremely disorienting at first. Historical figures like Saul of Tarsus and Pontius Pilate appear, but people who don’t know the New Testament won’t necessarily see how strangely these figures are changed. And lots of people don’t know it: I was recently teaching Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and asked students about the famous historical-mythic figure who died at age 33. No one knew.
The novel switches perspectives often at first, but the narrative voice remains similar. It took me till about halfway through to get the characters straight and begin to piece together who everyone was and the main things that most characters might want. But the disorientation is the pleasant sense of being in a foreign place, much like Peter Watt’s novel Blindsight.
I mentioned the novel’s sex scenes. They’re tied to the Roman celebration of sensuality. Many characters notice each other in a way that real people do and fictional characters often don’t. Mary Magdalena, for example, is “a newsreader on JTN” and she is “bar none, the most beautiful woman” one character has ever seen. She is like Ben Yusuf in that she has something of the supernatural about her, so much so that “He could imagine her telling him to do something ridiculous and complying without hesitation.” In the Roman world, sexuality is highlighted rather than sublimated, and when Linnaeus is too intent on her, he says, “Please accept my apologies for staring at you like that.” She replies, “That is the best of Rome . . . You do not pretend.” A world where, if not everybody, then many people have such an attitude is a cultural change.
In the real world, the second-best-known pornographic movie is probably Debbie Does Dallas, which even has its own Wikipedia page (the first is of course Deep Throat, which is immortalized by its role in Watergate, Woodward and Bernstein, and the taking down of Nixon). In Kingdom, a movie called Deborah Does Damascus plays a similar role.
The sly winking to Deborah Does Damascus also reminds one of the novel’s frequent humor. Though that humor is hard to take from its context, I laughed out loud reading it and so did a friend. When the disorientation from entering Kingdom’s world subsides, be ready to laugh.
In the novel; there is a lot of argument about how “women are not free in their country;” maybe the novel is also an experiment asking what freedom, or some definitions of freedom, actually look like. “Freedom” means a lot of things, and it does seem like few people are actually free, or want to be. Even people who want freedom for themselves would often deny it to others; politically salient examples of this seem too obvious and numerous to cite.
If there is a single lesson from the novel it may be that governing is hard, culture is hard, and there is no way to make those problems not-hard.
* Here is Dale’s essay, “What if the Industrial Revolution happened in Rome?” and she is also on Twitter. Here is Mark Koyama, “Could Rome Have Had an Industrial Revolution?” I’ve seen very few American reviews of Kingdom, which is odd considering how good the book is. The next book is supposed to be out soon in “Early 2018,” but from what I can tell it isn’t yet available for pre-order.
I know almost nothing about Roman history but am now reading Mike Duncan’s The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic, which is readable, fascinating, and thus far recommended (although I can’t speak to its accuracy because I lack sufficient knowledge to do so).
“University presidents: We’ve been blindsided.” Er, no.
December 24, 2017 By Jake Seliger in Academia, Culture, Links Tags: Academia, Culture, Links 2 Comments
“University presidents: We’ve been blindsided” is an amazing article—if the narrative it presents is true. It’s amazing because people have been complaining about political correctness and nothing-means-anything postmodernism since at least the early ’90s, yet the problems with reality and identity politics seem to have intensified in the Internet age. University presidents haven’t been blindsided, and some of the problems in universities aren’t directly their fault—but perhaps their biggest failure, with some notable exceptions (like the University of Chicago), is not standing up for free speech.
I don’t see how it’s impossible to see this coming; the right’s attack on academia has its roots in the kind of scorn and disdain I write about in “The right really was coming after college next.” As I say there, I’ve been hearing enormous, overly broad slams against the right for as long as I’ve been involved in higher education. That sort of thing has gone basically unchecked for I-don’t-know how long. It’s surprising not to expect a backlash, eventually, and institutions that don’t police themselves eventually get policed or at least attacked from the outside.
(Since such observations tend to generate calls of “partisanship,” I’ll again note that I’m not on the right and am worried about intellectual honesty.)
There is this:
“It’s not enough anymore to just say, ‘trust us,'” Yale President Peter Salovey said. “There is an attempt to build a narrative of colleges and universities as out of touch and not politically diverse, and I think … we have a responsibility to counter that — both in actions and in how we present ourselves.”
That’s because universities are not politically diverse. At all. Heterodox Academy has been writing about this since it was founded. Political monocultures may in turn encourage freedom of speech restrictions, especially against the other guy, who isn’t even around to make a case. For example, some of you may have been following the Wilifred Laurier University brouhaha (if not, “Why Wilfrid Laurier University’s president apologized to Lindsay Shepherd” is an okay place to start, though the school is in Canada, not the United States). Shepherd’s department wrote a reply, “An open letter from members of the Communication Studies Department, Wilfrid Laurier University” that says, “Public debates about freedom of expression, while valuable, can have a silencing effect on the free speech of other members of the public.” In other words, academics who are supposed to support free speech and disinterested inquiry don’t. And they get to decide what counts as free speech.
If academics don’t support free speech, they’re just another interest group, subject to the same social and political forces that all interest groups are subject to. I don’t think the department that somehow thought this letter to be a good idea realizes as much.
The idea that “trust us” is good enough doesn’t seem to be good enough anymore. In the U.S., the last decade of anti-free-speech and left-wing activism on campus has brought us a Congress that is in some ways more retrograde than any since… I’m not sure when. Maybe the ’90s. Maybe earlier. Yet the response on campus has been to shrug and worry about pronouns.
Rather than “touting their positive impacts on their communities to local civic groups, lawmakers and alumni,” universities need to re-commit to free speech, open and disinterested inquiry, and not prima facie opposing an entire, large political group. Sure, “Some presidents said they blame themselves for failing to communicate the good they do for society — educating young people, finding cures for diseases and often acting as major job creators.” But, again, universities exist to learn what’s true, as best one can, and then explain why it’s true.
Then there’s this:
But there was also an element of defensiveness. Many argue the backlash they’ve faced is part of a larger societal rethinking of major institutions, and that they’re victims of a political cynicism that isn’t necessarily related to their actions. University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce, for one, compared public attitudes toward universities with distrust of Congress, the legal system, the voting system and the presidency.
While universities do a lot right, they (or some of their members) also engaging in dangerous epistemic nihilism that’s contrary to their missions. And people are catching onto that. Every time one sees a fracas like the one at Evergreen College, universities as a whole lose a little of their prestige. And the response of many administrators hasn’t been good.
Meanwhile, the incredible Title IX stories don’t help (or see Laura Kipnis’s story). One can argue that these are isolated cases. But are they? With each story, and the inept institutional response to it, universities look worse and so do their presidents. University presidents aren’t reaffirming the principles of free speech and disinterested research, and they’re letting bureaucrats create preposterous and absurd tribunals. Then they’re saying they’ve been blindsided! A better question might be, “How can you not see a reckoning in advance?”
Links: The fate of private schools, the sterile society, freedom of inquiry, and more!
December 19, 2017 By Jake Seliger in Links Tags: Links 2 Comments
* Oberlin misses admissions targets, faces budget cuts; as Megan McArdle put it, “The boom times are over for colleges, not because of liberal bias, but because the long baby boom echo is waning. A lot of colleges are going to wake up with a massive hangover.” Also: “Why private schools are dying out.”
* “The Sterile Society,” by Ross Douthat, underrated.
* “Haemophilia A trial results ‘mind-blowing.’”
* “E Pur Si Muove:” “It seems easier to accidentally speak heresies in San Francisco every year. Debating a controversial idea, even if you 95% agree with the consensus side, seems ill-advised.”
* “Sam Altman wants to shift the U.S. economy to universal basic income. There’s one problem. Giving away free money is more complicated than anyone thought.” Altman wrote the piece immediately above, too.
* “Help Us Build a Third Culture,” from Quillette.
* Related to the link immediately above, “Richard Shweder on the End of the Modern Academy.”
* “Bruce Brown, 80, Dies; His Endless Summer Documented Surfing.” It’s still a weird, hypnotic movie.
Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy — Mark Regnerus
December 18, 2017 By Jake Seliger in Books, Nonfiction, Reviews, sex Tags: cheap sex, mark regnerus, Nonfiction, regnerus, Reviews 1 Comment
Cheap Sex is more useful, interesting, and informative than many books on the same or adjacent topics, and it pairs nicely with Date-onomics. The books can be read as differing reactions to similar social phenomenon on the ground, with the latter having a more left-wing tilt that nonetheless describes how people should pragmatically react to current conditions, while the former has a more right-wing tilt that nonetheless describes how these conditions came to be. We live in an age in which everyone is outraged or offended by something; when you find something that outrages or offends you, leave a note in the comments. You may find that cathartic.
Although neither book makes this point, I think they’re part of the continuing social reaction to the Industrial Revolution. “What,” you might be thinking, “does the Industrial Revolution have to do with contemporary books on love, marriage, and dating?” Prior to the Industrial Revolution, most societies were (relatively) stable most of the time, at least for the duration of a human life; the technological and social conditions one’s parents faced were likely the same an individual would face and the same that individual’s children would face. Cultural and technological change was of course real for much of human history, but it was also relatively slow, allowing people to acclimate to it over generations instead of years or decades.
Since the Industrial Revolution, though, we’ve seen technologies that radically and repeatedly reshape the technological and social worlds. This leads to periodic moral panics, especially but not exclusively around sexuality and religion, in part because we never get a chance to get used to new technologies.
(It’s hard to think of a single book that summarizes the Industrial Revolution; Joel Mokyr has some, Deidre McCloskey has others).
Today, we’re still grappling with the reshaping of society due to pretty reliable contraception. In some ways we’ve had pretty reliable contraception for a very long time (since the ’60s), but in the view of human history, or even human history since the 1750s, we’ve had it a very short time. We’ve spent pretty much the entirety of human evolution without pretty reliable contraception, and that’s shaped our minds, our bodies, our societies, and our practices. And it’s still reshaping all of those things, without most of us stopping to think about what it all means to look at these things in the course of a very wide and long history.
That’s part of what Regnerus is doing. The present moment is the product of a whole lot of past, most of which most of us don’t think about most of the time. But a lot of our current conflicts come from past conflicts that we don’t fully understand. And he’s pointing to that history, when he writes in subheaders about “The transformation of intimacy.” Or when he writes about the “obsession of romance among many, and yet stability seems increasingly elusive.” At the same time, “the ramifications of cheaper sex are just beginning to unfold on a panoramic scale.”
No wonder people are confused. For most of human history, cultural notions around sexuality have been pretty stable. Now they’re incredibly unstable and we’re all making things up as we go along and responding to technologies that have unpredictable consequences.
Regnerus may not be right about many of his conclusions, but he is thinking differently and also not stupidly, which is valuable in and of itself.
I’m also not sure how much you can trust the book’s conclusions, as many are drawn from “nationally representative survey data” as well as “in-person interviews,” the problem being that people notoriously lie in surveys, especially about sensitive subjects, and the same biases occur in in-person interviews. Those weaknesses are part of the reason why books like A Billion Wicked Thoughts, Dataclysm, and Everybody Lies are so interesting: rather than relying on the surveys in which everybody lies, they look at revealed preferences in the form of data from the Internet (and online dating itself).
Cheap Sex itself is written competently but not beautifully. You will not stop to admire individual sentences, and that’s why I’ve not quoted much from it so far. Read it for the knowledge, not the prose. Like many academic books (this one is published by Oxford) it has its share of “You don’t say?” statements, like, “When it comes to relational happiness, then, sexual frequency is neither necessary nor sufficient, but it is certainly a net positive for most.” “A net positive:” really? I’m shocked! I would never have guessed.
But it also has its moments of humor, as when an interviewee discusses at length his own romantic dilemmas and then Regnerus writes, “After we turned off the microphone at the end of the interview, Brent asked if we though the and Betsy should break up. (We declined to respond).”
There are also moments I’m still mulling and don’t yet understand:
Meant to be a “haven in a heartless world,” as the late social critic Christopher Lasch described it, marriage is fast becoming a contest, another tenuous social arena in competition with the economic marketplace (for our limited time and energy) and the remarriage market (for second chances and variety).
A “haven in a heartless world:” Regnerus implies here and elsewhere in the book that maybe there isn’t such a place. I’m not arguing that he’s right. But I don’t see a compelling reason he isn’t.
Links: Solidia and low-carbon concrete, political analysis, college’s perils, diamonds, and more!
* “Solidia has a way to make cement that absorbs greenhouse gases instead of emitting them.” Very cool if true.
* “The G.O.P. Is Rotting.” Seems obvious to anyone paying attention; note the source.
* Could the human mind limit our comprehension of reality? The answer seems almost too obviously to be “yes.” This is my favorite essay of the group.
* “The World Might Be Better Off Without College for Everyone” from Bryan Caplan’s book The Case Against Education, which you need to preorder if you haven’t already.
* Why we need art: evolutionary biology and the impulse to create.
* Borrowing From Solar and Chip Tech to Make Diamonds Faster and Cheaper.
* “Dr. Strangelove Was a Documentary: Daniel Ellsberg’s new memoir would be an urgent warning about the monumental danger of nuclear weapons—even if Trump weren’t president.” Nuclear war is an underrated fear, and I worry about the analogy of our era being like 1910, with grave, unexpected catastrophe ahead despite many decades of relative peace behind. To be sure, I think the likely outcome is a continuation of peace and trade, but unlikely outcomes are still possible.
* “The Importance of Dumb Mistakes in College.”
* “The Warlock Hunt: The #MeToo moment has now morphed into a moral panic that poses as much danger to women as it does to men.”
* I previously posted “The right really was coming after college next;” see now “My Rejection of Academia Over the Lindsay Shepherd and Jordan Peterson Affair” for more in that vein. Note that I didn’t argue that the right is right (in many ways it isn’t), but academia ought to be thinking about what it means to actively alienate half the electorate. The Lindsay Shepherd affair is in Canada, but similar dynamics seem to apply.
* College Presidents Making $1M Rise with Tuition and Student Debt.
* Alaska is warming so fast, quality-control algorithms are rejecting the data.
“The right really was coming after college next”
December 10, 2017 By Jake Seliger in Academia, Culture Tags: Academia, Culture, Essays, haidt 3 Comments
Excuse the awkward headline and focus on the content in “The right really was coming after college next.” Relatively few people point out that college has been coming after the right for a very long time; sometimes college correctly comes after the right (e.g. Iraq War II), but the coming after is usually indiscriminate. I’ve spent my entire adult life hearing professors say that Republicans are stupid or people who vote for Romney or whoever are stupid. Perhaps we ought not to be surprised when the right eventually hits back?
A few have noticed that “Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them.” A few have also noticed that we ought to be working towards greater civility and respect, especially regarding ideological disagreement; that’s one purpose of Jonathan Haidt’s Heterodox Academy. Still, on the ground and on a day-to-day level, the academic vituperation towards the right in the humanities and most social sciences (excluding economics) has been so obvious and so clear that I’m surprised it’s taken this long for a backlash.
Because I’m already imagining the assumptions in the comments and on Twitter, let me note that I’m not arguing this from the right—I find that I’m on the side of neither the right nor the left, in part because neither the right nor the left is on my side—but I am arguing this as someone who cares about freedom of speech and freedom of thought, which have never been free and have often been unpopular. It’s important to work towards understanding before judgment or condemnation, even though that principle too has likely never been popular or widely adopted.
It seems to me that homogeneous, lockstep thought is dangerous wherever it occurs, and increasingly it appears to be occurring in large parts of colleges. One hopes that the colleges notice this and try to self-correct. Self-correction will likely be more pleasant than whatever political solution might be devised in statehouses.
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In Anything You Want, Derek Sivers says: "The coolest people I meet are the ones who find me through something I've written." Reach me at seligerj@gmail.com.
Briefly noted: The Devil’s Candy, Maigret and the Old People, Fantastic Fungi
Links: Flickr’s fall, focus as competitive advantage, state capacity, reshaping Britain, and more!
“Education” is not the same as “learning” or “quality”
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Server Posts Epic Facebook Response After Customer Harasses Her
Every server who's seen the abuse heaped on themselves and their co-workers has wanted to see a horrible customer get their just comeuppance through a public shaming. Today, our prayers have been answered, because someone did just that.
Laura Ramadei, a server and bartender in New York City, was at the end of her rope after five years' experience in the industry and more than her share of terrible customers. So when a New York finance bro named Brian Lederman allegedly sexually harassed her, it was the last straw:
You came into the restaurant where I work and ordered a Stoli on the rocks. When I asked you and your companion if you'd be eating, or needing anything else from me, you put your hand - ever so gently - ON MY ASS and asked if you could take me "to go". When I immediately stepped away and said "Sorry, what?" you probably gathered that I was and am not receptive of such advances from customers. We were in a family-friendly restaurant, around 6:30pm, and I was wearing a loose-fitting, long sleeve shirt, jeans, and no makeup...so I'm not sure where the confusion arose as to what kind of service you were being provided.
Fortunately for the human race and unfortunately for Lederman, a quick google search of his name (which was on his credit card) turned up where he works (Swiss Performance Management and Truehand AG, in Investment Management — SHOCKER that Lederman is a finance bro), and Laura, a graduate from NYU with honors, unleashed a brutal yet somehow polite and reasoned response to Brian Lederman and everyone like him along with a photo of his receipt:
I deal with incredible amounts of entitlement, condescension, and drunk nonsense. And at a bar, it is impossible to ignore the fact that misogyny is alive and well. I can't tell you how many times people have treated me horribly and I've memorized or photographed the names from their credit cards, fantasizing about internet revenge. But every time I've been tempted in the past (even after verbal attacks, physical affronts, or sexual harassment) I've stopped myself and let it go.
So congratulations, Brian! You've done it! You broke this tired ass camel's back. And though this is obviously a public shaming, I truly don't mean this as an attack. Maybe - just maybe - via the intimately connected internet world, my post will reach you, and you'll learn something about how hurtful and upsetting a small comment or gesture might be. Or at the very least, maybe a Facebook passerby will read this and more deeply consider how they treat women, how they treat servers, and/or how they treat other people in general.
I sympathize more than slightly with Laura more than a little bit here, as I've come perilously close to doing this in the past (the only thing that stopped me was fear of losing my job). What's more, when I talked to her about the whole incident, Laura told me that as far as she could tell, Lederman wasn't drunk; this just appears to be what he's like when sober. Fun times.
Laura is also adamant that the post was not about attacking Lederman or his family. Instead, she simply hoped to create awareness that this is the sort of thing servers have to deal with every day. And it is depressingly common — I get more email responses when I post a Behind Closed Ovens about sexual harassment than about any other topic. Anecdotally, I don't know any woman with more than a month's experience within the industry that doesn't have a story to tell on that subject.
But why is this so prevalent? What gives so many customers that feeling of ownership over servers, and in particular over the bodies of women servers? In Laura's words, "We're growing out of a time when women didn't have ownership of their own bodies, and things like objectification and subjugation weren't even talked about. With specific reference to service, it may also have to do with class discrimination. Meaning, when I go to a restaurant, I consider my server just another individual who happens to be a liaison between me and the kitchen or bar. But some people look down on food service workers and treat them like they're beneath them, or a lesser member of society. I hope that's an outdated pattern that is slowly finding its way out."
Part of the problem is also the system itself. As a bartender, Laura is liable if she "overserves" a customer, and if they're too drunk, she legally has to be responsible for cutting them off. While that law, a common one in America, sounds reasonable, in practice it leads to situations where a smaller woman like Laura, working at a bar with no bouncer, has to deny service to large, irate, already-intoxicated men.
For those concerned about Laura losing her job as a result of this post or her own, don't worry: Laura has already put in her two weeks notice. What's more, her restaurant has been unusually* (and hearteningly) supportive in the face of this incident, with the manager has already declared that Lederman will not be welcome back. This is part of a longer pattern for them, as well; according to Laura, management and her co-workers have always been encouraged to be supportive of each other when dealing with difficult customers.** In fact, her leaving has nothing to do with the restaurant itself: "I love that place. Best service job I ever had. Which is why I'm leaving. Even the best job can't protect you from the worst of the industry."
If you need further evidence of the toxicity of American customer service culture, look no further than the fact that good servers at great jobs finally feel the need to leave because they can't deal with the day-to-day abuse any more.
Update: According to the New York Post, Lederman remembers making the comment, but denies he grabbed Laura's ass. On the other hand, he bizarrely defended his actions by saying, "I grab a lot of asses," and also referred to Laura as a "fucking cunt." Oh, and he claimed he "knew everybody," and that he'd prevent her from ever working in New York again.
Boy, he sure sounds like a charming fellow. Still, it's good to know he's as repulsive as the story makes him out to be, because that sort of response entitles him to no sympathy whatsoever for any consequences he faces as a result of this.
* For most restaurants, but not for Laura's.
** Actually, they're more than supportive on just this subject. Laura also told me that when foreign tourists tip horribly, management will actually go talk to them, ask if the service was alright, and if they say it was, calmly explain American tipping customs to them. Don't worry if you still wanted to lose faith in humanity, though: "More often than you'd think, people shrug and walk away, or get upset, or cite their nationality as an excuse and leave." So yeah. People are horrible.
Image via KPG Payless2/Shutterstock.
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Kotaku Game Diary
Far Cry 5's Ending Answers The Game's Biggest Questions
Filed to:far cry 5
Kotaku Game Diary Kotaku Game DiaryDaily thoughts from a Kotaku staffer about a game we're playing.
While on vacation last week, I finally finished Far Cry 5. Though I’d already spoiled myself on the ending (occupational hazard), I was surprised by how moving I found it when I finally got there. The end wraps up the game’s biggest questions in a satisfying way.
The characters in Far Cry 5 are deeply concerned with endings. Central to Hope County’s cult, The Project at Eden’s Gate, is what they see as the imminent end of the world, which they call The Great Collapse. To protect people from this impending apocalypse, cult leader Joseph Seed and his followers recruit as many people as they can, whether those people are willing to join or not. It’s the player’s job to stop the cult, mostly through killing its members.
Far Cry 5 has several possible endings, but the only one that actually ends the game involves the sudden detonation of a nuclear bomb. It felt like a curveball to many players, a bit of a deus ex machina, or like it made your actions in the rest of the game moot. The bomb is foreshadowed a little throughout the game, but it’s still a shocking moment. Then, after the explosion, the game sets its sights on a more grounded theme: family.
Daily thoughts from a Kotaku staffer about a game we’re playing.
You flee Joseph’s compound and make a chaotic drive to resistance member Dutch’s bunker. Your comrades are dead, and your vision fades to black. When you wake up, you find yourself alone in the bunker with Joseph. He talks about God and politics. He gloats briefly that the explosion “means I was right,” but then the topic changes. He sits down across from you and says:
“I prepared my family for this moment, and you took them from me. I should kill you for what you’ve done, but you’re all I have left now. You’re my family...I am your father, and you are my child.”
Joseph has a strange relationship to family. He was in foster care when he was younger, according to Ubisoft’s live-action film. In a cutscene after the second time you’re captured by Jacob, he tells you he had a wife who was pregnant, which scared him. She died in an accident, but the baby survived, which led Joseph, believing he was being tested by God, to suffocate the child. While Jacob and John appear to be Joseph’s biological siblings, his sister Faith is adopted, in a loose sense. He conscripts different women into the role, seeming to want a sister so badly that he tries to create one. Joseph mourns his siblings passionately when you defeat them. He mourns his lost followers, whom he calls his family. However ambivalent he might have felt about family in the past, he clearly doesn’t feel that way during the events of the game.
There’s something Biblical about this conflict. In Luke 14:26, Jesus says his followers must “hate” their parents, and in Matthew 10:37 he says believers should love him more than their parents or children. At the same time, the Bible advocates for having a family and children, such as in Psalm 127:5, the foundation of the family-obsessed Quiverfull movement. In Mark, Jesus rejects his biological family in favor of a family of believers. There are threads of all of this in Joseph Seed, from separation from his parents to rejecting his child to his desperation to create a new family related by faith rather than blood.
If we believe Joseph’s story about the loss of his wife and child, the Joseph we meet in the game is a changed man. He is frantic for a family, desperate to bring everyone to him and keep them there. He will make himself a family even if it means kidnapping, drugging, or torturing people. It’s easy to see the cult as a response to his own damaged family life, or as a way for him to feel loved and powerful. But I also saw family as an antidote to the loss that’s plagued Joseph both personally and in the form of his apocalyptic visions. He seems to believe family will keep people safe from tragedy, from loneliness, from endings.
He’s not wrong. At the end of Far Cry 5, you and Joseph outlive everyone. Neither of you loses or fails. You get what you wanted: The cult has lost its stranglehold on Hope County. And Joseph not only gets his family—you—but he keeps that family safe from The Great Collapse. Because of you, he doesn’t have to face the end. In the bunker, he tells you, “When this world is ready to be born anew, we will step into the light. I am your father, and you are my child. Together, we will march to Eden’s Gate.”
This is meant to be threatening, maybe—you’re stuck in a bunker with a seeming madman who plans to repopulate the Earth with you—but I found it creepily touching. Far Cry 5’s ending delivers what everyone in its world has longed for through the game’s music and theology, through its political rhetoric and doomsday preppers, through the player’s quest to reunite their friends. Togetherness. Safety. Persistence in the face of tragedy. Joseph’s confidence in his mission wasn’t unfounded. The Project at Eden’s Gate makes good on its promises.
It’s grim and disturbing, sure. The inevitability of it feels nihilistic. But the particulars of Far Cry 5’s ending are what the game has been arcing to all along. Joseph gets his family, and the world doesn’t really end. The ending might be jarring, but the pieces of it were there all along.
A Spoiler-Filled Chat About Far Cry 5’s Ending
Far Cry 5's Religious Radio Station Reveals A Different Side Of The Game
Far Cry 5's Faith Seed Embodies An Evangelical Double Standard
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Kristin Ann King
Tag Archives: meta
Kill the moon?
–Spoilers for Doctor Who: “Kill the Moon”–
A man puts on a red spacesuit and walks onto a planet, to find a team of people grappling with an alien threat. It’s a very special moment, a time when big things are about to be decided. In response to the threat, there’s a nuclear bomb that might have to be set off.
The leader of the team says to him, “Who the hell do you think you are?” Well, he’s a Time Lord, a superintelligent alien being, with the power to step into special moments like these and shape the future. He can help . . . but maybe he shouldn’t.
This is the premise of the Doctor Who episode “Kill the Moon.” Curiously, it’s also the premise of a previous episode, “The Waters of Mars.” Although “Kill the Moon” works perfectly well as its own story, it also works as a duet with “The Waters of Mars.” And when the two are put together, they ask some philosophical questions I’d be hard-pressed to answer.
In brief, here are the two plots. In “The Waters of Mars,” which takes place in 2059, the Doctor as played by David Tennant finds himself on Mars, at what he calls a “fixed point in time and space.” There are some moments he is not allowed to change, based on laws of time that only he understands. The inhabitants there are forced to blow up the colony with a nuclear weapon, sacrificing themselves to save the Earth from malicious aliens. But when it comes right down to it, he can’t sit back and let that happen. He’s grown so attached to the people on the base that he tries to save them at any cost. This is the wrong choice, and it makes him cross the line from good to evil. “Who the hell do you think you are?” asks one of the women he saves, Captain Adelaide Brooke.
In “Kill the Moon,” which takes place in 2049, the Doctor as played by Peter Capaldi finds himself and two companions on a space shuttle on the Moon, where some mighty strange things are going on. He meets up with a team of astronauts, and the first thing the captain says is “Who the hell do you think you are?” The Earth is at risk because the Moon has become “gravity flexible,” and a team of astronauts have come up with a hundred nuclear bombs to destroy the alien threat. Only it turns out that the alien is innocent, and killing it might or might not save humanity. In a moment of apparent cruelty, the Doctor washes his hands of the whole affair and walks off, stranding three human women in a room where the terrible decision awaits.
“Kill the Moon” has a number of deliberate allusions to “The Waters of Mars” — the year, the color of the Doctor’s space suit, the nuclear bomb dilemma, the concept of a pivotal moment in time, the Doctor’s acknowledgment that he shouldn’t be there, and the Doctor’s conflicting view of humans as “little people” or greatly important.
Along with allusions, the two episodes have some important contrasts, beginning with their personalities. Tennant is fairly warm and fuzzy and considerate. He wrings his hands over difficult decisions and pays explicit attention to others’ well-being. So when he makes his initial decision to leave the Mars colony to his fate, he is near tears. His downfall comes from caring too much.
In contrast, Capaldi is often dismissive of others’ feelings — at least outwardly. When he decides to leave the three women on the Moon, he is positively rude about it. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Well, actually, no, I’m not sorry! It’s time to take the stabilizers off your bike. It’s your moon, womankind!” That’s patronizing and quite cruel.
Another important contrast is the choice itself. Tennant makes the wrong one. Through some combination of caring too much about the colonists and growing too attracted to power, he risks humanity’s future and ultimately dooms himself and is forced to regenerate (which is as close to death as the Doctor can get).
Capaldi’s choice is the opposite. On the surface, he doesn’t care about the three women, and he leaves them to live or die, depending on their actions. Had they detonated the nuclear bombs, they presumably would have been killed right along with the alien creature.
Another contrast lies in how the Doctor treats a human woman’s right to choose. Tennant’s wrong choice overrules a human woman’s choice. Captain Adelaide Brooke makes up her mind to die to sacrifice herself, and he saves her instead. Luckily for the Doctor and the future of humanity, Brooke shoots herself, undoing Tennant’s mistake.
In contrast, Capaldi forces three women to make a choice on their own, despite repeated pleas for help. “It’s your moon, womankind,” he says. “It’s your choice.” He even goes so far as to drag a fifteen-year-old girl out of the TARDIS to participate in the impossible decision.
Here’s what I’m wondering: did Capaldi do the right thing? Faced with a similar situation, he made the opposite choice. Was it the right one, or did he veer too far in the other direction? It’s hard to tell. Unlike the two previous Doctors, Capaldi rarely explains himself, and when he does, we don’t know whether or not he’s telling the truth.
On the other hand, he deserves credit for refusing to sugarcoat the hard truths he lives by. He could have easily made the same choice but won over Clara’s heart, and the viewers’ hearts, if he had wrung his hands or shed a tear before he left. Instead, he overtly patronized and manipulated people so that at the end of the episode when Clara gave him a spectacular telling off, a lot of viewers were right there with her. Who the hell does he think he is?
I’d like to think Capaldi made the right choice — that he’s brusque and arrogant but underneath it all has a more mature understanding of morality than either of the two previous Doctors.
But maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the point of “Kill the Moon,” in combination with “Waters of Mars,” is not the Doctor, but the viewers. We’re asked to look critically at our hero’s actions, to question his motives, and to ponder what we might do in the same situation. We’re right there with him, seeing the universe in all its cruelty and splendor, and hoping, as he hopes, that humanity can be saved.
Posted in doctor who
Tagged doctor who, meta, moral dilemma
Goodness had nothing to do with it
(Caution – spoilers for Doctor Who, “Flatline”!)
This last week’s episode of Doctor Who, “Flatline,” has pleased me to no end. It was great to see a woman playing the Doctor, for one thing. That deserves a squee post all on its own. (While I’m at it, I really ought to post about Barbara Benedetti, who played the Doctor in a series of fan-made films produced by Ryan K. Johnson.) But even more exciting, to me, was its exploration of morality.
I started watching Doctor Who with Patrick Troughton and went straight through to the end of Classic Who, with Sylvester McCoy. The Doctor was a fine, though ridiculous, hero. Most of the time, the show never questioned the Doctor’s innate goodness. He was just this guy who saved us from the monsters. I have to admit, I liked it that way. I wanted, and I still do want, the Doctor to be “the good guy.”
But I also have to admit that I was fascinated when the Doctor took a wrong step in “The Waters of Mars.” What happens when a superhero goes too far? I was so intrigued that I wrote an article about it for Strange Horizons: “Fall of A Superhero in Doctor Who and the Waters of Mars.” I said:
It is asking the grown-up questions that need to be asked. Can we really count on our superheroes? We need them to be powerful enough to fight our villains and win, but what do we do if our heroes become villains themselves?
This is not a new question. Lately, many movies and graphic novels have been exploring the theme of good and evil with superheroes. But I felt that “The Waters of Mars” and the two following episodes explored that question exceptionally well. My opinion is that superheroes can be “good” only if there is a counterbalance to their power. And when the Doctor stepped over the line, a woman did step up to stop him.
I hoped that when the Doctor regenerated, he could go back to being “the good guy.”
Did he? Is he a good man?
This season of Doctor Who has taken this question as one of its main mysteries. The Twelfth Doctor was terrified when we first saw him — probably of himself. He asked Clara if he was a good man, and she replied, “I don’t know.” Like Clara, we’re not sure. The Eleventh Doctor always explained himself, but the Twelfth Doctor is both cagey and brutally honest about his reasons for doing what he does.
But there’s another question behind that one. What does it even mean for a superhero to be “good?” Which actions should s/he take in the face of difficulty? And what if there are no good choices?
That’s the question that “Flatline” tackled. To summarize the episode, the Doctor gets trapped in his TARDIS and hands Clara his tokens of power (sonic screwdriver and psychic paper), his name, and his leadership tips and tricks. Clara flawlessly executes the usual monster-fighting strategy, managing to save the world plus at least a couple survivors.
And that’s why the Doctor compliments her halfway through, saying, “You were good, and you made a mighty fine Doctor!”
But at the end of the adventure, after everything has been said and done, he changes his story. “You were an exceptional Doctor, Clara,” he said. But then he adds, “Goodness had nothing to do with it.” He walks off into his TARDIS, leaving Clara puzzled.
What was it? What went wrong? Clara did a brilliant job. If she hadn’t done it, our entire world would have been taken over by malicious monsters from a two-dimensional world, and the Doctor and his TARDIS would have been utterly destroyed. Some people died along the way, but it was through no fault of hers. Why wouldn’t that count as “good?”
Well, there are hints throughout the episode that something is amiss.
Early on, the Doctor catches Clara lying to him about her boyfriend. He congratulates her, saying that lying is a survival skill . . . and a terrible habit. Later, while Clara is leading a group of people to safety, knowing they might or might not live, she realizes that part of the Doctor’s strategy is to lie to people. She consults the Doctor to see if she’s right.
“Lie to them. Lie to them,” she says. “Give them hope. Tell them they’re all going to be fine. Isn’t that what you would do?”
Taken aback, he stammers, “In a manner of speaking, I-i-it’s true that people who have hope tend to run faster. . .”
Clara also guesses his “Rule 1.” Each incarnation of the Doctor has had its own series of rules. For example, for many of the Doctors, “Rule 1” was for the companions not to wander off. (Of course, they always did, because otherwise, how would they have adventures?) For the 11th Doctor, Rule 1 was “The Doctor lies.” But for this 12th Doctor, the rule appears to be, “Use your enemies’ power against them.” What’s happened to Rule 1? It’s gone from a joke to an admission of Machiavellian techniques and from there to a military strategy.
Could this be why the Doctor tells Clara “Goodness had nothing to do with it?” Has he seen his morality mirrored in her actions and decided it’s flawed?
Yes, maybe. But there could be another explanation. Perhaps the moral issue is not with Clara’s actions — which were as “good” as possible under the circumstances — but with Clara’s later processing of the situation.
The Doctor asks her a question at the end. “You okay?” He looks more considerate in that one moment than he has this entire season. He knows she’s been responsible for a group of people and seen some of them die.
“I’m alive,” she replies. She’s wearing a poker face, as she usually does. If she’s in pain, she tends to hide it.
“A lot of people died,” he says, still sympathetic.
And here they are interrupted by Fenton, a morally degenerate survivor. The survivor compares what has just happened to a forest fire. You save the big trees, but you let the brush go. He refers to the dead, who had been doing mandatory community service, as “scum.”
The Doctor is not pleased by this analysis. He says, “It wasn’t a fire, those weren’t trees, those were people.”
Clara, however, does not appear to have quite followed this interchange. She is listening from a distance, a slight smile on her face. She wants the Doctor’s approval, so she says, “Yeah, but we saved the world, right?”
The Doctor smiles. “We did! You did.”
“Okay, so on balance . . .”
I think this is where Clara goes wrong. She has taken all the right actions, but she’s failed to consider the impact of those actions on her own sense of right and wrong. She’s nothing like Fenton, but just as he is comparing people to expendable trees, Clara is weighing one group of lives against another.
Perhaps this is why the Doctor later says that goodness had nothing to do with it. Perhaps he’s trying to tell Clara to step back and consider the moral implications of her actions.
Or maybe something else is going on.
“Balance!” says the Doctor, disgusted.
“Yeah! That’s how you think, isn’t it?” She’s still looking for his approval.
“Largely so other people don’t have to.”
Well, it looks like the Doctor has his own issues there. He doesn’t want other people to weigh one life against another, but he does it himself. It’s the classic “Do as I say, not as I do.”
So perhaps when the Doctor says, “Goodness had nothing to do with it,” he actually means, “Goodness had nothing to do with being the Doctor.”
If that’s what he means, he’s challenging the morality of the entire series, all the way back to the 1960s. This was a pretty run-of-the-mill episode, with clear-cut choices and answers. The same plotline would have easily worked with Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, or Tom Baker, or any other “Classic Who” Doctor — and without that enigmatic statement from the Doctor, we would never have batted an eye.
Maybe we should have.
Anyway, whatever the Doctor means, I’m hooked. Can’t wait to hear what next week’s episode has to say!
Tagged doctor who, meta, morality, superheroes
This Chick Digs “Chicks Unravel Time”
I dig it. Chicks Unravel Time, ed. Deborah Stanish and L.M. Myles, brings in a mad collection of feminists – fans, authors, artists – to take a look at every season of Doctor Who. And what a look! They give close examinations to everything from the use of stock music in Season 5 in Classic Who to David Tennant’s bum in Series 2 of New Who. (We women like every aspect of the Doctor, apparently.)
Here are a few shout-outs to essays that ringed a bell for me.
In “Guten Tag, Hitler,” Rachel Swirsky asks some pointed questions about the Doctor. As a child, Swirsky asked her mom if her family was safe from such persecution because they did not practice the Jewish religion. No, said her mother. So this episode takes on highly personal significance for Swirsky. She asks the very reasonable question of why the Doctor didn’t try to save the Jews from Hitler. “The Doctor,” she writes, “doesn’t save people from the all-too-real horrors of trenches and machetes. He rescues them from malfunctioning robots.”
In “Identity Crisis,” L.M. Myles writes, “[Patrick] Troughton’s not merely good as the Doctor, he’s the best.” Thank you, L.M. Myles. I’ve never heard anybody say that before, but I absolutely agree. She writes: “His performance combines humor, compassion, intelligence and mystery in a way that’s still unmatched by any other actor to take on the role” and “[his] whimsy and apparent uncertainty in his own abilities makes him a very different sort of hero.” Yes, and yes. Troughton is panicky as often as he is triumphant and out of control as often as he is successful. I love it. Who wants a hero who has everything handled?
In “The Women We Don’t See,” K. Tempest Bradford looks at Season Thirteen, companion Sarah Jane Smith, and all the other women . . . who weren’t there. “For most of this season, the Doctor travels alone with Sarah Jane – and in half the stories, she’s the only women we see, with the exception of extras and background people. This erasure is as glaring as the stereotypes we get when women do eventually show up.” I remember watching this season for the first time. And the second. And the third. And not noticing that omission.
In “No Competition,” Una McCormack argues that Season 26, with Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor, is the best season ever. She writes, “Season Twenty-Six contains a magic combination of complex storytelling and satisfactory realization that, to my mind, is never quite matched before or since.” I agree it’s pretty darn awesome. Sylvester McCoy and his companion Ace are some of my favorite characters. McCormack writes: “Ace grows up, and Doctor Who grows up with her. Again and again, the season imagines women as heroes of their own narratives, as authors of their own stories.” Yeah. What she said.
In “Ace Through the Looking-Glass,” Elisabeth Bolton-Gabrielsen covers that story arc that Ace should have had, if the show hadn’t been cancelled. I didn’t know this, but Ace was supposed to train to become a Time Lord.
I’ve saved my favorite for last. In “Maids and Masters: The Distribution of Power in Doctor Who Series Three,” Courtney Stoker takes on the power dynamics between the Doctor and his companions. She writes: “Power impacts every relationship the Doctor has, but it’s not something Who fans talk about often. We like to pretend, I think, that the Doctor’s extraordinary power isn’t important. We like to think that it doesn’t affect him or his relationships with others. We like to think that if companions are ‘strong’ enough, sassy enough, smart enough, they are his equals. But no matter how many times a companion saves the Doctor, or how many times a companion stands up to him, they don’t have his power.” The rest of the essay is a frank assessment of power dynamics in Series Three. (Can I just add, on a related note, how disturbing and gratuitous I found the maid/Master dynamic in the tenure of Martha Jones?) I loved this essay because I am always analyzing power dynamics in Doctor Who relationships. I relish every last little bit of power the companions wrest from the Doctor or that the Doctor yields to the companions. And I love all the moments when the power dynamics between the Doctor and his companions shift one way or another. Stoker asks: “Are we fans as attracted to the Doctor’s power as his companions are?” Um, yes.
I’ve picked out these essays in particular, but the others are just as stunning. Go get it! It’s available as part of a box set on the Mad Norwegian Press website.
Posted in books, movies, tv, music, doctor who
Tagged books, doctor who, feminism, meta, reviews
Fall of a Superhero in Doctor Who: “The Waters of Mars”
In March, an article of mine was published at the online science fiction magazine Strange Horizons. I’m reprinting it here.
In the last scene of the Doctor Who episode “The Waters of Mars,” the Doctor’s TARDIS lands in a picturesque neighborhood, with a lamp post shining through the gently falling snow. The Doctor emerges from the TARDIS with Captain Adelaide and her assistants Mia and Yuri, having just saved them from an explosive and fiery death.
“Isn’t anyone going to thank me?” he asks.
It’s just like every other happy ending, except they are all staring at him with shock and horror. Mia cries, “Who the hell are you?” and then turns and flees.
They’re looking at a superhero who has just tossed aside humanity in order to pursue ultimate power, making the choice of evil over good. This is a first for the Doctor. In all his years on television, while the Doctor has been occasionally possessed, sometimes mistaken, sometimes too greedy or too eager to sacrifice somebody else for the greater good, he has never been evil.
Can the Doctor be saved?
The Myth of the Hero
This question goes beyond Doctor Who, because the story of the Doctor is an expression of the universal hero myth. This myth, explored by Carl Jung and his colleagues and students such as Joseph L. Henderson and Joseph Campbell, is based on an “archetype”—a pattern hard-coded into the unconscious parts of our minds. The archetype is the same for everyone, identical across time and space, but it gives rise to dreams and myths that are specific to every culture.
The superhero story is a myth for our time, for a world threatened by war, nuclear devastation, climate change, and species extinction. We need the superhero to give us hope, to bring out the best in ourselves, and to change the world for the better.
And the Doctor is an extremely compelling superhero. Doctor Who has been capturing the imagination of millions of viewers since its beginnings in 1963 as a children’s show. Kids watched the show from behind the couch, clinging to their beloved Doctor to save them from the monsters. When they grew up, they found the real monsters to be more terrifying than the make-believe ones, and they needed the archetype of the hero even more.
In 1989, when the BBC canceled the show, the Doctor Who mythos changed and grew. Fans took matters into their own hands and kept the Doctor Who universe going in fanzines, novels, and audio plays, and then in 2005, they brought the show back and became its writers, producers, and directors. The Doctor had entered their dreams, and they brought their dreams back to the show, along with six years’ worth of stories. Now it is watched by more than ten million people in forty-two countries, it has secured a number of Hugo nominations and awards, and it has been named by the Guinness Book of World Records as “the most successful science fiction series.”
Another generation of children will grow up with the Doctor. The show has remained faithful to its younger viewers, being careful not to terrify them too much. But at the same time, the show has begun to explore the demonic side of the hero myth, in which the hero succumbs to hubris and becomes a danger to the whole universe (Henderson 101-107). It is asking the grown-up questions that need to be asked. Can we really count on our superheroes? We need them to be powerful enough to fight our villains and win, but what do we do if our heroes become villains themselves?
ere is an inherent contradiction in superhero fiction. The stronger the villains are, the more powerful the superhero must become. And the worse the situation, the more serious the consequences of the superhero’s actions. Unless stopped, the superhero crosses a line and becomes not our protector but our villain.
The original Doctor Who show, which ran from 1963 to 1989, largely dodged the superhero contradiction, focusing on the bright side of hero mythos. The new show, however, has been exploring it since the very first episode, “Rose.” In this episode, we learn that he is the last of the Time Lords, a race of people with the ability to manipulate time. His heritage leaves him with abilities far greater than those of his human traveling companions, and he uses these abilities for the greater good. When the last member of an alien species threatens all life on earth, the Doctor must kill it, thus completing the extinction of a species.
In the eye of the viewer, he keeps his “good guy” status because he had no choice; he is a savior of Earth and not a destroyer. We all want our heroes to be good, and we are willing to cut them some slack if the enemy threat is great enough. So the danger to the universe has to be upped. In “Forest of the Dead,” his companion-to-be River Song sings his praises:
“Everybody knows that everybody dies, and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever for one minute accepts it.”
If he’s the only one who can save the universe, he must be good, right?
We also cut him some slack when there are casualties. Often in Doctor Who, the only way to stop the bad guy is through a sacrifice. And it isn’t often the Doctor who makes it. He is always ready to lay down his life to save the universe, but luckily someone always jumps in his way and dies instead. But is it luck? As the Doctor grows more powerful, we begin to wonder whether he has set up this “sacrifice” in some way.
In “Journey’s End” his archenemy Davros brings the question out in the open.
“How many more? Just think—how many have died in your name?” he asks.
Davros is the creator of a race of genetically modified, emotionless lumps of flesh who travel inside robotic killing machines. They’re called the Daleks, and they have been scaring Doctor Who fans since 1963. The Daleks are treated as the ultimate evil, and Davros as one of the Doctor’s worst villains. But it takes one to know one. As a villain, Davros understands the side of the Doctor that has abused his power.
Even worse, the Doctor often lets other people do his dirty work. In “Journey’s End,” the Daleks have built an empire, moved the planet Earth halfway across the galaxy, and used it to fashion a “reality bomb,” which will annihilate this universe and every other. They have seemingly destroyed the Doctor’s TARDIS and have trapped him and his companion within their vault. All hope seems to be lost. But wait! His past companions, who have been molded by their time with the Doctor, turn up with various tools of mass destruction to stop the Daleks, including a detonator switch for a set of nuclear explosives buried under the Earth’s crust.
Davros points out that the Doctor has made this happen. He says:
“The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun, but this is the truth, Doctor: you take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your children of time, transformed into murderers.”
At this, the Doctor bows his head in shame. Because it’s true.
This accusation is a turning point for the Doctor. He now knows that he is capable of using people as tools, if a villain pushes him to the edge. Superheroes must have human connectedness in order to stay grounded, and to stay involved with the people they are saving. Unfortunately, if a superhero is more powerful than anyone or anything, it is impossible to have a relationship of equals, and this means the superhero must be fundamentally alone and perpetually lonely.
The Doctor has always traveled with companions, but he’s lost them all, usually as a consequence of his adventures. Donna Noble is the latest of his companions, and her loss is one of the saddest. After showing the Doctor his “children of time, transformed into murderers,” Davros begins to detonate the reality bomb. But even trapped, the Doctor is more powerful than ever. His unseen hand has been hard at work—literally, a disembodied extra hand, kept in a vat in his TARDIS. The hand gives Time Lord powers to Donna, which she uses to stop the Daleks. And it creates a human Doctor, who ends up killing the Daleks. This proves Davros right: the hand of the Doctor did indeed fashion people into weapons.
As a result, Donna suffers a tragedy. The Doctor’s superpowers are too much for her human body. In order to prevent her death, the Doctor must erase all memories of their time together.
As they have many times before, his superhero powers hurt his friends and cost him their companionship. He’s in a double bind: he needs people to keep him sane, but he can’t have a lasting relationship with any of them.
So, two episodes later, in “Planet of the Dead,” he decides never to have another companion. Lady Christina, who has just helped him save the earth from a swarm of metallic locusts, says, “Right then. Off we go. Come on, Doctor, show me the stars!”
But he refuses. “People have traveled with me and I’ve lost them. Lost them all. Never again.”
But this, as we learn in “The Waters of Mars,” is not a possibility. The Doctor is too dangerous to be left alone.
A Hero’s Fall from Grace
The fall of the Doctor in “The Waters of Mars” comes from a combination of his being all-powerful and having no connection to people. Having lost all his companions, he goes to Mars and meets up with the first colonists, a group of people he has always revered. But he knows their future: they must die in order to ensure the survival of the human race. Captain Adelaide’s granddaughter, inspired by her brave sacrifice, is meant to lead humanity to the stars. So the Doctor leaves the colonists to their deaths, walking out of their dome as explosions and fire destroy the colony. A blast knocks him down to the ground. It’s the last straw. The grief over the loss of his people, the Time Lords, finally breaks him.
He marches back into the dome to save the day, but it’s all wrong. The more desperately he tries to save the colonists, the more berserk he becomes. Adelaide asks him why he’s saving them right after he said he couldn’t.
In a fit of hysteria and rage, he explains:
“There are laws of time. And once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws, but they died, they all died. Do you know who that leaves? Me! It’s taken me all these years to realize the laws of time are mine. And they will obey me!”
That’s it. He’s lost his grounding in his connections to others, and he realizes he no longer has to follow the Time Lords’ rules; they’re all dead. All he has left is power. And, being the one and only Time Lord, he knows that he has no one to contend with for power over time. He sees himself in a battle against time itself, and he thinks he can win. But what happens if he does? The more he tries to rewrite history, the more the timelines will break, until, like a little boy knocking down a tower of blocks in a fit of frustration, he will annihilate the universe.
So he has (or thinks he has) ultimate power, but it turns out to be a double edged sword. Those whom he saves perish; those whom he loves break from him; and no one remains to save him from his own chthonic urges. What good is it, then?
This question has great implications for our world. Over the last century, those in power in our world have started wars, built nuclear weapons, and resisted attempts to slow global warming. Is that strength, or is it weakness?
Once the Doctor decides that he alone owns the laws of time, he cannot stop himself from using his power and becoming his own worst villain.
Who Can Stop the Superhero?
He’s got to be stopped. But if he’s the most powerful man in the universe, who can do it?
Adelaide. Where he has power, she has strength. When he crosses the line and intentionally endangers the human race, she destroys his legitimacy as a superhero, withdraws her consent for him to act on her behalf, and backs up her lack of consent with direct action.
Adelaide is puzzled by his change of heart. After the Doctor brings the colonists back to Earth and Mia runs off, Adelaide questions him until she understands his motivations. Why did he save her, knowing it might endanger the human race?
He brushes her off. “Different details, but the story’s the same.”
“You can’t know that! And if my family changes, the whole of history could change! The future of the human race! No one should have that much power!”
Where before the Doctor acted in a panic, now he is cool and collected. This is more frightening than his previous hysteria. He gazes at her with utter confidence and says, “Tough.”
Adelaide backs away, thus exposing to the viewing audience his loss of superhero status. Although he doesn’t know it yet, she has just taken away some of his power. Adelaide, the true hero of this episode, refuses to recognize the Doctor’s actions as good.
“You should have left us there,” she says.
“Adelaide, I’ve done this sort of thing before. In small ways, saved some little people. But never someone as important as you. Oh, I’m good!”
This is another turning point for the Doctor. He’s fallen to the sin of pride, which, according to Carl Jung’s associate Joseph L. Henderson, dooms the hero to death. Henderson found a universal pattern in the myths he studied: the hero’s “triumphant struggle with the forces of evil, his fallibility to the sin of pride (hybris), and his fall through betrayal or a ‘heroic’ sacrifice that ends in his death” (Henderson 101). The Doctor is going to pay, not for saving Adelaide, but for calling people unimportant.
In outrage, Adelaide roars, “Little people! What, like Mia and Yuri? Who decides they’re so unimportant—you?” It is Adelaide’s connection to the other colonists that gives her the emotional strength and the strength of conscience that the Doctor is lacking.
As she continues to question him, she becomes more and more convinced that she must stop him at all costs.
“Is there nothing you can’t do?” she asks.
He stares her down. “Not any more.”
She responds to his dominating gaze by turning her head away, and then she walks into the house, where she shoots herself.
In one way, her death is a loss of power. Too often in movies and books, women kill themselves because they have run out of other options. But here, this sacrifice is highly powerful. Acting on the strength of her convictions and especially her connections to her daughter and granddaughter and the members of her team, she defeats the most powerful man in the universe by reminding him of his own mortal fallibility. She has become a hero in her own right. This sacrifice completes her heroic cycle, which began when she first dared to reach for the stars and ended when she gave her life so her granddaughter could do the same.
And in so doing, she also saves the Doctor from himself. When he realizes that she has foiled his attempts to meddle with the timeline, her accusations echo in his head. “I’ve gone too far,” he says in horror, and then drops to his knees.
“Is this it—my death? Is it time?”
Can We Save the Superhero?
The superhero outreached, became a villain, and was defeated. Does he have to die now?
That’s one end to the hero cycle, and it’s the one Adelaide took. But there’s another according to Campbell: transformation. In the Doctor Who universe, the Doctor never dies for good. When the actor leaves, the Doctor goes through a kind of rebirth, called regeneration. He is still the Doctor, and he still travels in his TARDIS, but he is played by a new actor, with an entirely different personality, and often different companions as well. That’s why the Doctor has stayed fresh and relevant for forty-six years.
But this time, the transformation isn’t easy. Now that the Doctor has shown the worst side of himself, he must battle his personal demons, suffer the consequences of his actions, and redeem himself. In the two-part special “The End of Time,” he comes face to face with his worst enemies: the Master and the Time Lords. They exist on the physical plane, threatening the universe with annihilation, but also represent his personal demons. The Master is the Doctor’s shadow, while the Time Lords personify the Doctor at the height of his hubris.
We all know the motif of the hero battling personal demons and performing a heroic sacrifice to stop them, so we expect the Doctor to die gloriously while fighting the Master and the Time Lords. But that isn’t quite what happens. The Doctor does have a spectacular battle with his foes. But in the middle of the dramatic action, the Doctor’s companion Wilfred quietly performs a small heroic act. He sees a man trapped in a chamber that will later fill with deadly radiation, screaming for help. Wilfred knows he can release the man by entering an adjacent chamber and locking himself in, and he does it without a second thought.
When the Doctor’s battle is over and his foes defeated, it’s almost as if he has vanquished his personal demons. But he hasn’t. He’s still suffering from hubris, and he still has to pay the price for calling Mia and Yuri “little people.”
So he sees Wilfred trapped in the chamber. He immediately understands the price for saving Wilfred: entering an adjacent chamber and taking the radiation into his own body. He was prepared to sacrifice himself in glorious battle, but this is different.
“Look at you,” he rages, still in thrall to pride and ambition, “not remotely important. But me—I could do so much more!”
But then he collects himself and understands what he has lost over the course of his recent adventures: his respect for humanity. “Lived too long,” the Doctor whispers. Choosing to save Wilfred’s life rather than his own, he steps into the chamber to be flooded with radiation.
With this sacrifice, the Doctor redeems himself. But it wouldn’t have been possible without Wilfred’s help. Just as Adelaide saves the Doctor from power, Wilfred saves the Doctor from his own hubris.
This regeneration is more final than any other. Previous regenerations have often been mere changes of body, but earlier in “The End of Time,” the Doctor describes it as death. “Even if I change, it feels like dying. Everything I am dies, some new man goes sauntering away, and I’m dead.” In this regeneration, the Doctor makes a clean break with his past self and bids farewell to all the companions he’s known. Even the TARDIS begins to break apart and crash. He dies and is reborn as a whole new Doctor.
The Hero Cycle Begins Anew
When the Doctor returns in the spring of 2010, the hero myth will begin anew. Doctor Who will have a brand new showrunner, Hugo award-winning Stephen Moffat, who brings his own vision of the hero myth to Doctor Who. And the Doctor will be played by Matt Smith, who is the youngest Doctor in the show’s history.
Because he’s regenerated, he no longer has to be consumed by a desire for power or wracked with grief over his lost companions and Time Lords.
How will the new writers handle the superhero contradiction? Stephen Moffat hints at his vision for the Doctor in an interview for the science fiction blog io9. The Doctor, he says, doesn’t really have godlike powers. “Underneath it all, he’s a bloke. He ‘s a man. He’s just a man with a time machine who is brilliant at convincing people of things. . . . He’s the man who never gives up, and that’s his super-power.”
Moffat’s vision of the Doctor suggests that he won’t push the superhero contradiction to its limit by giving the Doctor absolute power. Even so, the contradiction won’t go away—the fall to hubris is always part of the heroic cycle—and how the Doctor escapes its fatal conclusion will be a continuing source of suspense. Yet the writers and producers will need to be careful to maintain the balance between power and powerlessness, strength and weakness. How can they do this?
First, they’ll need to resist the temptation to expand the Doctor’s superpowers to defeat ever more terrible monsters. It’s just as thrilling to see him win in his moments of powerlessness. When he’s running for his life, begging for mercy, putting his life in the hands of his friends, and even breaking down in tears, that’s when he becomes, paradoxically, the strongest.
Second, they’ll have to prove that the Doctor is not, as Davros claims, responsible for all the deaths and sacrifices around him. That’s only possible when there is a more powerful entity capable of influencing events. There’s plenty of precedent for that—the original series had the Chronovores, the Eternals, and the Guardians, and the new series has the Reapers. More importantly, time itself has often been a force to be reckoned with, surprising even the Doctor.
And third, they can give the Doctor a relationship of greater equality with his companions, so that he won’t be capable of manipulating them and so that the job of saving the universe will never fall on his shoulders alone. There’s precedent for this as well. Doctor Who has had a long history of strong companions, both male and female, who provide a counterbalance to his power and who reveal the Doctor’s emotional vulnerability. They have their own hero cycles and their own heroic acts. They are almost always active participants in the action, and sometimes, like Adelaide, they steal the show, taking the mantle of the hero and wearing it when he can’t.
So yes, the superhero can be saved. But only when we are able to stop him (or her). Only when we are in a relationship of equals with our superhero.
This won’t take as much effort as we may think. It is not a change in the material conditions of our lives, so much as a change in how we view our heroes. As we discovered, in the moment of the Doctor’s greatest power, he was at the same time the very weakest. His companion was stronger than him then, just as we can be stronger than the heroes we revere—so long as we remember that the hero myth isn’t about someone “out there” who’s going to save us, but about ourselves. It’s about relying on our own connections to our friends and families instead of “going it alone” or depending on someone else’s power and influence. And it’s about listening to members of our own community for a voice of conscience in order to forestall our own descent into hubris.
Which makes us the superheroes. It’s not about the Doctor, not really. It’s not about the Doctor saving us. It’s about us becoming the heroes, us saving the Doctor, us saving the world.
Once we understand the nature of power, we’ll have our superheroes. For keeps.
List of Works Cited
Anders, Charlie Jane. “Exclusive Interview With Doctor Who’s Steven Moffat.” io9. 24 Jul 2008. Retrieved 6 Jan 2010.
Campbell, Joseph and Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday. 1988. 123-163.
“The End of Time.” Doctor Who. Two-part special. Broadcast 25 Dec 2009 and 1 Jan 2010.
Henderson, Joseph L. “Ancient Myths and Modern Man.” Man and His Symbols. Ed. Carl G. Jung. Aldus Books, Limited. 1964.
“Journey’s End.” Doctor Who. Broadcast 5 Jul 2008.
Jung, Carl G. “Approaching the Unconscious.” Man and His Symbols. Ed. Carl G. Jung. Aldus Books, Limited. 1964.
“Rose.” Doctor Who. Broadcast 26 Mar 2005.
Copyright © 2010 Kristin King
Posted in doctor who, my writing
Tagged doctor who, everyday heroes, meta, superheroes
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05-1-15 Meet a BGS member who turned his teenage desire for a cookie into a million-dollar company.
Baking up a Business
Meet a BGS member who turned his teenage desire for a cookie into a million-dollar company.
By Amanda Keefe
After school one afternoon, Joseph Semprevivo thumbed through an issue of the Deming Headlight, the small-town paper in the New Mexico native’s hometown. Inside, he spotted an ad for a bike-a-thon that benefited diabetes. Immediately interested (“What kid at nine doesn’t want to ride a bike?”), he studied the announcement more closely. In the corner, symptoms for diabetes were listed.
Eyes wide, the nine-year-old ran to his parents, newspaper in hand. “I have most of these symptoms,” he cried. “Am I diabetic?”
A single trip to the hospital confirmed their concerns: Joseph was positively diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. “My parents were told I wouldn’t live past the age of 17,” he said, recalling the two crying in the emergency room. That was 1980.
But age 17 came and went, and today the healthy 43-year-old is now President and CEO of his own company that caters directly to others in the same shoes.
Joseph’s Lite Cookies – the largest privately owned, U.S.-based sugar-free dessert company – was launched at the hands of Semprevivo and his parents, restaurateurs Josephine and Larry, in 1986.
And although the dessert company now cranks out more than 12 million all-natural cookies daily, it wasn’t always that way. No, the story of Joseph’s Lite Cookies goes back to the Semprevivo’s kitchen on a Saturday morning in the mid-80s.
“I haven’t had a cookie in a really long time,” the teen told his parents. “I’d love to have one. What if we made sugar-free cookies?”
“You might be on to something,” his father replied. “We’ll see what we can do.”
And while Semprevivo spent the day at a friend’s house, his parents whipped up a surprise in their kitchen. Curious how the process was coming along, he phoned home. The sugar-free cookies were a success. Eager, Semprevivo immediately returned home.
“To a normal teenage boy, it may seem strange to be so excited about a cookie, but to a kid with diabetes, eating a cookie was like walking on the moon,” he said. “This was huge for me.”
Thirty years later, that excitement still remains. Now a proud Beta Gamma Sigma member (inducted at Florida International University in 2014 while pursuing his second Master’s degree), the cookie connoisseur expects even greater things in the future.
After all, the sugar-free family dynasty is ahead of its competition in several capacities, from market tenure to ingredients to price. Semprevivo believes other similar products on the market are not only more expensive, but have less natural ingredients.
“Being a diabetic for 34 years, I’ve noticed that most companies overcharge their customers merely because the products are sugar-free,” he said. “My philosophy has always been, why not provide the best-quality cookie at the lowest price?”
Joseph achieved this goal, he said, by becoming debt free, increasing production quantity per day and continuously fighting for lower costs without sacrificing quality.
Today, a 6 ounce bag of Joseph’s Sugar Free Cookies sells for $1, retail, at Dollar Tree, Big Lots, Super Value and several other chains. He said other cookies in the market are selling for 300 percent more than his.
“And our cookies are award-winning, kosher, egg-free, dairy-free, all natural, have five to seven ingredients and amazing taste,” he added.
And it’s not just cookies. The company’s product portfolio also includes sugar-free cookies, sugar-free pancake syrup, dessert-flavored coffee and salt-free peanut butters. Of course he eats his own products, and so do his children. His oldest son “Little” Joseph is also diabetic, diagnosed at 10 months old.
“We cuddle up on the couch and eat our cookies while watching ‘Shark Tank,’” the older Joseph offered fondly.
Most recently, the CEO penned an award-winning book with his father, titled “Madness, Miracles, Millions.” Together, father and son tell their family’s story, highlighting the sacrifice and hard work necessary to achieve their dreams. The book took home an Illumination Award and a best-seller award for No. 1 in consumer industries, memoirs and business via Barnes and Noble booksellers.
“This book is a story of not only a million-dollar company and its humble beginnings, but of the family who built the company and the many obstacles, both personal and professional, they overcame to accomplish their ultimate success,” Semprevivo said. “This is certainly not a tale of silver spoons and enlightenment.”
And now a proud BGS member, he said the honor society reminds Joseph that everything done in life should be executed with excellence, honesty, honor and integrity.
“I loved Beta Gamma Sigma before I [joined] because the ideas taught by BGS are what I was taught as a young boy from my parents,” he added.
Further, Semprevivo believes “BGS delivers strongly in the networking arena and gives current and future members the ability to network.”
The cookie mogul anticipates pursuing another Master’s Degree soon, and said Beta Gamma Sigma will make it easier to take the GMAT, and possibly even land him tuition savings for simply being the “Best in Business.”
And, his advice for other budding entrepreneurs?
“If you stay focused on providing the best quality for the best price, you will succeed in almost any industry.”
For more on Joseph’s Lite Cookies, visit www.josephslitecookies.com. To learn about the Semprevivo’s book, “Madness, Miracles, Millions,” visit www.madnessmiraclesmillions.com, or purchase it on Amazon.
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Tag Archives: midnight youth
For My Fellow Counting Crows Fans, A Lovely Cover
Posted on May 28, 2012 by Krissie
There is a small pantheon of songwriters in my world order that is absolutely sacred… I sorta feel like sometimes, you just shouldn’t mess with greatness. At the very top of that list is Adam Duritz from Counting Crows. There is no other songwriter whose lyrics I identify with more… That said, it’s hard for someone else’s version of a Counting Crows song to grab me immediately. In fact, I can’t really think of one…
But, there’s a first time for everything.
Seven or eight months back, I got switched on to a band from New Zealand called Midnight Youth (see previous blogs here and here ). Their 2011 album World Comes Calling rocked my world so hard that it made #2 album on the Best of 2011 list. I started following their lead singer, Jeremy Redmore, on Twitter. He’s fairly interactive there and writes a lot on his own personal blog…which is where I was visiting this evening, listening to a demo he posted from the road. That’s when I noticed another link on his SoundCloud page that said “Goodnight Elisabeth.” Clicked and yup, it is indeed a Counting Crows cover.
And it’s really, really freaking good. Heart wrenching and beautiful – an exceptional take on the original. I love when an artist can take a song, cover it and maintain the integrity of the original while at the same time making it their own. Jeremy’s definitely done that on his cover.
Bonus (and this is why I love Twitter!)… Asked him about it on Twitter, and he just made it downloadable for fans! Ya’ll need to go listen and snatch it up now. Just hit the little down arrow to the right in the player below (you may need to sign in or set up a SoundCloud account).
While you’re at it, check out his band, Midnight Youth. Guarantee you will love ’em.
Midnight Youth: Web | Facebook | Twitter
Posted in Indies, Up n' comers & Unknowns, Music | Tagged counting crows, counting crows cover, cover songs, goodnight elisabeth, goodnight elizabeth, jeremy redmore, midnight youth | Leave a reply
JrzyGyrl’s Best of 2011 – A Non-Hipster’s Guide to Ear-Swooning Music You May Have Never Heard
Posted on January 16, 2012 by Krissie
Top 10 Albums | Top 10 EPs | Top 10 Songs | Top 10 Live Shows | Top 10 Artists to Watch in 2012
I’m a little late, I know…but better late than never, I suppose.
Each year, I go about compiling my “best of” lists … and there’s no formula to it. My lists are just the music that I’ve liked most in the past year, plain and simple. I don’t listen to the radio much, so you’re not likely to see Adele on my list (while I like it, just not my fave!), and I tend to buck the “indie” and “hipster” trends, so you won’t find Dawes, M83 or Bon Iver here, either. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that most cool people will poo-poo my lists … and I’m okay with that! 🙂
This year, I vow to be less wordy, but I still need to talk about the things that made my musical self quake with joy. I have added a few new categories. With so many bands releasing EPs, it’s hard for me to pick only 10 albums, so I split up full length albums and EPs. An EP by my standards was any release with 7 songs or release. I also added a “looking forward” category – artists to watch in the coming year.
(I’ll try to add links to buy these albums over the next few days, but I’ve been writing for a couple of hours and I don’t have anything left!)
So, without further adieu.
10. Brendan James – Brendan James (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
Like so many of my favorites, gotta thank Christy for introducing me to Brendan. This gentle album is so sweet that it’s impossible not to love it. It indulges my hopeless romantic side to no end! Brendan has a knack for writing great little love songs (“Anything for You” is my favorite), amplified by his adeptness on the keys. It’s simple, endearing and just plain likeable.
9. Sequoyah – Spells (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
My favorite fellas from Chuck Town put out a sweaty, sticky homage to growing up in the South, making an emphatic departure from sugar-tinged pop. Don’t get me wrong, I adored their old stuff, but I love this mature sound a lot more. It’s so fun to watch them grow into their sound!
8. Ben Howard – Every Kingdom (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
Weirdly, the only album by a British artist to make this year’s Top 10, but what a freaking entry it is. The songwriting on this record is simply phenomenal. It stirs my emotions to their very core, and that for me is probably the most important thing a piece of music can do. One of the tracks, “The Fear,” contains probably my favorite lyric of all year… “I’ve been worrying that I’m losing the ones I hold dear; I’ve been worrying that we all live our lives in the confines of fear.” With all that’s happened in my life in the past two years, it really strikes home with me. Listen to this album and you will be transported by it, too.
7. Needtobreathe – The Reckoning (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
It would be pretty hard for this South Carolina band to top 2009’s The Outsiders, but with their fourth studio album, The Reckoning, Needtobreathe is giving it a pretty good run for the money. The Reckoning is packed full of hooky, charming, Southern rock. It is a great little morsel of album, worthy of applause.
6. Amos Lee – Mission Bell (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon $5.00 currently)
The Philly songster has done it again. Amos Lee albums are always a soulful journey, probing love, inequality, and raw human emotion. My favorite track is “Out of the Cold,” but “Windows Are Rolled Down” seems to be the track that won most folks over…no surprise, as it is a modern day “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,” practically begging you to rent a convertible and drive around on that perfect summer day. It’s a masterful record from an artists that continues to climb toward his peak.
5. Golden State – Division (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
Golden State’s much-anticipated “debut” release got knocked around a little bit by critics for being too “anthemic” and “overeager,” but I think their “go big” attitude is what makes this a killer rock record. The soaring “All Roads Lead Home” gets the emotional win, but tracks “The Outsiders” and “Destroyer” show off what this band does so well – sweeping, guitar monster songs that are fun to listen to.
4. Augustana – Augustana (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon $5.00 currently)
I can’t help it, I just love Augustana. Dan Layus is such a great songwriter and his penchant for Dylan-esque vocals just makes me love his sound more. This record, while definitely written to be radio-friendly, still retains that core Augustana sound. From start to finish, it is stick-in-your-head music, and it kept me going back to it as one of my favorite records of the year.
3. Matthew Mayfield – Now You’re Free (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
If you’ve never heard Matthew Mayfield before, you’ll be shocked to know that the grizzled, raspy voice belongs to a guy of under 30. Matthew’s first full-length solo release, Now You’re Free, showcases Matthew’s tortured soul writing, set against a tapestry of wailing guitars. It’s promising stuff from a young performer who proclaims that all he wants to be is a rock n’ roll artist. He’s done it.
2. Midnight Youth – World Comes Calling (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon $6.99 currently!)
This New Zealand band was a complete chance find for me this fall. This, their second studio album, is just plain sexy rock n’ roll, people – wide-open vocals, killer drumming, ultra-singable anthem-of-your-life songs. There is not a song on this record I am not in love with. “Listen,” which has some Stereophonic-esque qualities to it, is my favorite track, followed closely by the smoky, sexy “French Girl” and the title track. I hope that Midnight Youth takes an adventure from the land of Kiwi to hit the States … I have a feeling their live show would be one of those “feel it in every sinew of your body” kind of shows.
1. Will Hoge – Number Seven (Purchase at iTunes | Amazon | Will Hoge site)
Does this record being at number one surprise anyone who knows me? I wrote a review of it here, and it pretty much sums up my feelings. Simply, it’s a character study of people. But it’s much more … and if you don’t come away from it understanding that, I can’t explain it to you. It’s a study of the American dream, the tragedy of reaching for that dream and failing, and our unbreakable spirit to never give up. It’s a record that this country needs in a time when lots of people are struggling. It’s freaking brilliant.
TOP 10 EPs
10. Lovedrug – EP Part III (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
I am so bummed that I just discovered this band in 2011…they’ve been around for over a decade, and it pains me to know that I’ve missed being a fan for that long. The last in a series of EPs this Ohio-based band put out leading up to their 2012 release, Wild Blood – and it would have made it simply for the brilliance of “The Wheel”… and then there’s “Our War,” which is a simple, gorgeous plea to not letting life pass you by. And Michael Shepherd’s voice is just intoxicating. Looking forward to seeing them live for the first time in March!
9. The Wealthy West – The Wealthy West (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
A side project of Brandon Kinder from The Rocket Boys, this little acousticy-Americana-esque piece is laced with organ, harmonica, and is positively delightful. Kinder’s soothing vocals on tracks like, “Home” make this the perfect Sunday morning record, and put it firmly into my Top 10.
8. Mighty Oaks – Mighty Oaks EP (Currently not available for purchase)
Probably my favorite BalconyTV find this year, and that little web channel has turned me on to a TON of new music this year. Definitely out of my normal box, this heavy-on-the-strings folk band is the brain child of American Ian Hooper and Italian Claudio Donzelli … and they’re based in Germany. I love the light, airy beauty of these songs, particularly “Rainier,” a song obviously inspired by Hooper’s Pacific Northwest roots.
7. The Ruse – Rebellion EP (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
My favorite LA rock band was busy writing new material this year and managed to squeak their new killer EP in late November. The EP is really their first effort that shows their true versatility, with all out rockers like “In Defense of the Rebellion” “Bumps in the Night,” and quieter, bordering on acoustic numbers like “Simple Grace” and “Ten Thousand Years.” John Dauer continues to find his voice, and it’s getting stronger and stronger with every effort. And the outstanding drumming of Jason Young always wins big with me. You really should own this EP.
6. Air Dubai – Day Escape (Purchase on Bandcamp | iTunes | Amazon)
A trippy, fun little EP by one of the hottest up and coming bands around…and most of you probably haven’t even heard of them yet. I don’t even know how to describe this band’s music – hip-hop soul-funk jazz? Listening to this EP makes me long to hit the road with my friends for a serious beach road trip. “Summer Solstice” is just brilliant, and the horns on “Lights Down” are reminiscent of old school Kool and the Gang fabulousness. With this EP, this Denver seven-piece manages to embody everything we loved about 70s R&B, and bring it up a notch with modern day flair.
5. The Well Reds – Violet (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
Gotta give props to one of my favorite friends that music has brought to my life, Dru, for switching me on to this Atlanta band early this year. I described them in a previous blog post as “Queen meets Crash Kings,” and I still think that’s an accurate description. “Rebel Lovers” is just a freakin’ rock show beyond all belief, with a pounding keys wind-up into a swirling sea of guitars and drums, all topped with Jeremy Ezell’s incredible vocals … And the whole EP follows that pattern. Watch these kids, you’re going to see more from them!
4. Imagine Dragons – It’s Time (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
Just like their hometown of Las Vegas, this hot little new wave, synth-rock band glitters on this March 2011 release. I fell in love with the witty, dancey happiness after just one listen. Whether you’re clapping along to “It’s Time” or getting down to “Tokyo,” it’s impossible not to love this record.
3. Saints of Valory – Neon Eyes EP (Purchase on Bandcamp | iTunes | Amazon)
By far my favorite new discovery of the year, Saints of Valory rocketed into my world when I took the advice of some other Austin bands and checked out their album, The Bright Lights. That was all it took for me to fall in love. A few months later, they put out this EP, reprising a few songs from The Bright Lights, but introducing two new numbers worthy of huge praise – “Neon Eyes” (see Top Songs, below) and “Cover Girl.” The latter may have spawned an anthem for one of my closest groups of friends with the line, “When life gets crazy, shake it baby.” There’s so much awesome in this band that I can’t really put it into words. Go get this EP. Now.
2. Alpha Rev – City Farm: Roots (Purchase on iTunes | Amazon)
It was pretty much impossible that this EP wouldn’t be at the top of my list. First of all – recorded with the entire band playing live. None of this recording parts and then throwing them all together in a mixing room somewhere. This is how music should be made. But really, more than that, the quality of these songs is tremendous. From the plaintive “Black Sky” to the western-themed, “(How to Die A) Lonely Man,” the Alpha Rev boys took a little bit of a dark turn with this EP. It is haunting and bleak and brooding … and SO good.
1. Quiet Hounds – Quiet Hounds (Free Download)
Have to give credit to Allison at RadioPotato for introducing me to Quiet Hounds this year. This mysterious band’s EP rocked my ears so hard, there was no question they’d be my #1 EP of the year. I tried to do the music some justice in this review, but really, you just have to hear it. The lyrics are divine, the music rich… I cannot wait to finally see them live in 2012.
TOP 10 BEST SONGS
10. “Little Black Dress” – Honor By August
When it comes to making happy, singalong pop-rock, NO ONE does it better than my friends Honor By August. After a little bit of a quiet spell, the boys debuted this perfect little nugget of ear candy during a live show at the Iota Club on their home turf in Arlington, VA. I survived nearly being taken out by a chick brawl that took place right next to us in the crowd to hear it! And lucky you, you can get it for free at Noisetrade right now.
9. “Pink Champagne” – Lovedrug
The boys from Ohio had a busy year this year … EP III, cover album, and a duo of singles that included “Pink Champagne.” With it’s opening tickle on the snare, you think you might be hearing a revisit of Springsteen’s “Candy’s Room,” but it quickly drops in striking guitar riffs and builds to the chorus, and suddenly you find yourself playing air guitar and drums while you’re driving down the road, singing along at the top of your lungs. It’s just great rock n’ roll.
8. “Pumped Up Kicks” – Foster the People
This song had to be on the list. Was there anyone that didn’t love it?
7. “Decade of Deceit” – The Influence
My favorite bunch of fellas from Virginia Beach recorded a handful of new songs this year, and this one quickly rose to the top of all the music I listened to this year. It is cut straight through with the hard questioning of our society that I’ve come to expect from these boys. Matt never lets humanity off easy, and his spooky vocals ring through in this song. Combine it with Colin’s smashing and enthusiastic drumming, Will’s insane ability to create the most unique guitar solos, Tully’s steady driving bass lines, and Kendrick bringing in guitars and keys to complement everyone. They are such badasses.
6. “Written in Stone” – Son of a Bad Man
Technically, I got this song in 2010, but it was officially released in 2011, so it gets to earn its place here. When I first heard SOABM play this song, I remember saying to Shawn after the show, “That song is going to be a hit.” It is such an ear worm! When I first got it, I played it like 75 times in the first week I had it! A universal theme about uncontrollably, head-spinningly in love, the song culminates in this uber-infectious chorus, complete with big time drumming and a wicked guitar solo. Love.
5. “Goddam California” – Will Hoge
My favorite track on my #1 album of the year, it really is just classic Will. It’s him calling out people for being fake, it’s him paying homage to the South, and in particular, his home state of Tennessee. It’s just Will.
4. “I Will Come” – Alpha Rev
Probably the “darkest” song on the list, I instantly fell in love with it upon first listen. The unique, off-kilter clapping beat, the quiet guitar, the menacing feel of it all… It would be the perfect preamble in some noir stalker thriller. And I have all the more respect for this song because I know that Alex and Tabber clapped this out for the entirety of the song. Killer cool.
3. “Anybody” – The Soldier Thread (featuring Zeale)
In an interview with BalconyTV Austin, Patricia Lynn called this a “self-empowering” song, and I think that’s what I love about it so much. Toss in Zeale’s rap break contribution to the number, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a strong song (pun intended).
2. “Obey Your Guns” – Matrimony
Charlotte’s Matrimony released this little ditty mid-way through the year in 2011, and if a week has gone by without me playing it half a dozen times, I’d be shocked. It is an incredible earworm, and the message resonates with me so strongly…Pick it up for $1 on their Bandcamp page now.
1. “Neon Eyes” – Saints of Valory
If you think my confessed obsession with this band won them the #1 song easily, you’d be wrong. Consider that two of my top five favorite artists put out new music this year – Will Hoge & Alpha Rev – and it should speak volumes about the quality of this band’s music. The title track of their EP released this year, this song is a catchy, clappy bit of sonic happiness. I adore it.
TOP 10 LIVE SHOWS
10. The Constellations – July 22 – Tremont Music Hall, Charlotte, NC
If you have yet to see this southern-funk-rock band, you really must make time in 2012 to do it. Their show is just plain FUN and an awesome workout. It was the hottest week of the whole summer in Charlotte, and a group of six or seven of us went to see them in Charlotte’s favorite hole-of-a-venue, complete with no air conditioning. We were happy, sweaty fools rocking out with this uniquest of groups out of Atlanta.
9. Tim Brantley – March 25 – The White Mule, Columbia, SC
One of my favorite songwriters, Tim is the quirkiest, most endearing guy on stage. If you aren’t completely won over by his outrageous stories and awkward jokes, you have a heart of stone (yes, pun intended). This show, in a sub-street basement venue, was an intimate little gathering, full of rambling, heartwarming Tim stories. It was a “band” show for Tim, meaning he had his drummer and insanely talented cello player Bryan Gibson along for the ride, which just makes his songs all the more rich.
8. Grace Potter & The Nocturnals – August 26 – The Fillmore, Charlotte, NC
Probably my least favorite Grace performance I’ve ever been to…because of the size of the venue and the people who were lacking concert etiquette. But Grace being Grace, she even made that seem trivial. Sultry, smoky, sexpot Grace…I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I’ve never ever wanted to be someone else in my life, but I would trade places with Grace just for a day. She and the Nocturnals make rock n’ roll look easy…they worked that stage for close to two hours, and it was transcendental, as it always is.
7. Matthew Mayfield – April 7 – The Double Door Inn, Charlotte, NC
One of the best young songwriters out there today, Matthew’s gravelly, raw voice sounds more like that of grizzled older man, with years of exposure to the harshness of the world rather than that of a young guy still in his 20s. But that unpolished, exposed, powerful voice is what makes his live show so incredible – you feel every note that he sings. This show was the first of three Matthew did at The Double Door, and the only one I was able to attend. But man, he made it worth it. Seeing “Fire Escape” live blew my mind.
6. Will Hoge – Labor Day Weekend Double Header – The Windjammer, Isle of Palms
Every Will Hoge show is an experience to remember … I can probably call out moments from each of the 65 that I’ve been to. But there are certain venues that seem to inspire Will’s best performances, and The Windjammer is one of them. The crowd in Charleston/IOP loves him, and he loves them right back. Plus, there’s the added magic of being at the beach with your friends that just amplifies the music. These shows, Will was doing a test run for the upcoming Number Seven tour, playing lots of the new songs, but still pulling out the old favorites for the crowd. For this, two shows count as one, because the whole weekend is the experience.
5. The Influence & The Enemy Lovers – February 25 – The Channel, Greenville, SC
Two of my favorite bands playing the same show? Awesome. It was just a great show for me; loved every second of it. No explanations – just two strong performances by two promising young bands. Both of these bands put so much enthusiasm into their performances that you can’t help but be on their side.
4. Alpha Rev & Carbon Leaf – October 25 – Vinyl, Atlanta, GA
I’ve been a Carbon Leaf fan for the better part of a decade, since my little sister introduced them to me back when she was still in college. I am always impressed by the fact that 3/5 of the band has been playing together for almost 20 years and they still pour everything into every performance. So when Alpha Rev, one of my favorite bands of all time, announced they would be touring with Carbon Leaf, I nearly lost my stuff. I took a day off of work and did a three-show run following the tour. Atlanta was the last of the three nights, and both bands just blew it out. Alpha Rev was just settling into their groove, and it made me wish I was independently wealthy so I could follow the whole tour. They are such a special band… One of the best mini-tours ever.
3. Will Hoge – May 19 – Tin Roof, Columbia, SC
Perhaps it was that it had been nearly nine months since I’d seen a Will headlining show, or maybe it was just the energy in the room. Historically, Columbia has not been a great city for Will, but I think that the Tin Roof broke that curse. The crowd was pumped, Will and the band were primed, and they rewarded the audience with over two hours of kick ass rock n’ roll … one of those shows when Will just seemed like he wanted to keep playing all night. I didn’t want it to end.
2. Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses – June 7 – Amos’ Southend, Charlotte, NC
This was the second time I’ve seen Ryan live; the first time was before he won the Oscar for “The Weary Kind” in Crazy Heart, and the show was mind-bogglingly good. But it has been elevated so far past that now… I was absolutely mesmerized by Ryan on stage. He has such a presence on stage…It’s hard to take your eyes off him to watch the rest of the band. When he sang his original song, “Hallelujah,” I actually got goosebumps. Just WOW.
1. Saints of Valory – July 25 – Crown Station Pub, Charlotte, NC
A relatively spur-of-the-moment show, thrown onto their bill just two weeks before hand, and held in arguably Charlotte’s smallest venue…you might think it would have been a dialed in performance. Instead, this multi-national quartet from Austin put on one of the most stellar shows I have ever seen (and I swear, it was NOT at all affected by the Duck Rabbit that I was mainlining). The guys put so much heart into a performance for a crowd of maybe 20 people, most of them who’d never seen or heard of them before. Every single person in that room was a fan at the end of the night. It was something truly magical to watch. And it is what makes them my most favorite find of 2011.
TOP 10 ARTISTS TO WATCH IN 2012
10. Christopher Jak (Bandcamp | Soundcloud)
One of my all time favorite songwriters and an uber talented producer in his own right, Mr. Jak will probably have a giggle about him being on my “artists to watch” list. I am the eternal optimist and I have a sneaking suspicion that we’re going to get new C.Jak music this year. And, call it a gut feeling, I think this is his year. 🙂 Yup, this IS a challenge, Jak. In the meantime, check out some of the awesome stuff he’s producing.
9. Air Dubai (Website | Facebook | Twitter)
Trust me, this symphonic experience is fresher and hotter than Krispy Kreme doughnuts straight out of the oven. Oozing with a gooey combination of funk, soul, jazz, and hip-hop, Denver’s Air Dubai is part Jamiroquai, part Bruno Mars, part Winton Marsalis, this seven piece has smartly-written, unusually arranged pieces that will make you sit up and take notice. They call themselves a “pure, melodic cacophony” – but their music is definitely sugar to my ears.
8. The Fort Frances (Website | Facebook | Twitter)
I’ve watched David McMillin’s career closely for several years, and have been lucky enough to get to know him and call him a friend. From the very first moment I heard him sing a note, I knew this kid had a promising career. He’s probably the most prolific writer I know…and, I can say from a quick coffee get together we had in Chicago this year, an excellent cab hailer. In 2011, he teamed up with his long-time musical companion, drummer Aaron Kiser, and bass player Jeffrey Piper to form The Fort Frances, a dreamy Americana project. The boys kicked off 2012 with an appearance on Daytrotter, a sure sign of great things to come for them.
7. Needtobreathe (Website | Facebook | Twitter)
Those of us in the Southeast have been watching this South Carolina band’s stock rising for years, but fresh on the heels of an opening gig for Taylor Swift, it’s just a matter of time before this band is the main subject of many a young lasses’ Pinterest pages. Their positive, spirited rock will win your heart.
6. Imagine Dragons (Website | Facebook | Twitter)
This Vegas prog-synth rock band’s future is glittering as brightly as the famed Strip in their hometown. Recently signed to Interscope, the quintet’s music has also appeared in several trend-setting MTV shows (I hate to say that certain MTV shows are trend-setting, but let’s face it, to today’s reality-crazed youth, they are). With beyond-catchy, danceable tunes, hey’re definitely doing something different than a lot of other bands out there right now. Watch out for them in 2012!
5. Flagship/Margolnick (Bandcamp | Facebook | Twitter)
Recently given the nod by 2011’s breakout artists The Civil Wars in a tweet, Drake Margolnick and the reconfigured version of his band, Flagship (now containing members of Charlotte-area artist Campbell the Band), are going to garner fans based solely on the uniqueness of their work. Plus, Drake’s voice is addictive. Go pick up his solo EP from late 2010, Taylorsville, and start getting to know this insanely talented act.
4. Quiet Hounds (Website | Facebook | Twitter)
This Atlanta quartet is all over this list, so does it surprise you that you’d find them cracking into my “Artists to Watch” category? It shouldn’t. The magical mystery tour begins in February … so watch for there to be some critical acclaim for these talented fellas.
3. The Soldier Thread (Website | Facebook | Twitter)
One of the hottest acts in their hometown of Austin, TX, The Soldier Thread is poised for a breakout year in 2012. Their new EP will be out in this month…And by their own account, they’re feeling like it’s a “new beginning” for them. In 2011, they opened on an acoustic tour for Blue October. My prediction is that by the end of 2012, they’ll be a household name.
2. Saints of Valory (Website | Facebook | Twitter | Bandcamp)
There is not a doubt in my mind that this international quad are going to have a HUGE 2012. One conversation with them and you get that these guys love making music together…and everyone who sees them live falls in love. Just check out their latest song, “Winter Lights” for a little sliver of what’s to come. They were my absolute favorite find in 2011, and I cannot wait to see what they put out in 2012.
1. Matrimony (Website | Facebook | Twitter)
There is a growing buzz around Matrimony that you can’t deny. This Charlotte hubs and wife fronted, folk-pop collaboration just signed to Columbia Records, thanks in part to their gorgeous harmonies and a band with some serious energy. Download their first album, The Storm & The Eye, now and be the cool kid on the block talking about them.
Posted in Indies, Up n' comers & Unknowns, Music | Tagged "the ruse", "written in stone", air dubai, Alpha Rev, amos lee, anybody, augustana, ben howard, best music of 2011, best of 2011, best unsigned music of 2011, brendan james, carbon leaf, Christopher Jak, city farm: roots, day escape, decade of deceit, Division, ep part iii, every kingdom, flagship, foster the people, goddam california, Golden State, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, honor by august, i will come, Imagine Dragons, it's time, little black dress, Lovedrug, margolnick, matrimony, matthew mayfield, midnight youth, mighty oaks, mission bell, needtobreathe, neon eyes, now you're free, Number Seven, obey your guns, pink champagne, pumped up kicks, quiet hounds, rebellion, ryan bingham, Saints of valory, sequoyah, Son of a Bad Man, spells, The Constellations, The Enemy Lovers, the fort frances, the influence, the reckoning, The Soldier Thread, The Wealthy West, The Well Reds, tim brantley, violet, Will Hoge, world comes calling | 4 Replies
The Thanksgiving Rock Block: The Midnight Youth, Golden State & The Ruse
Posted on November 22, 2011 by Krissie
I am a sucker for rock n’ roll of all kinds…but one of my biggest weaknesses is Brit rock, or faux Brit rock, as some may call it. I blame Lee Garrett, really, for introducing me to The Stereophonics a decade ago and making me fall in love… and ever since then, it’s just been an obsession.
I’ve been craving screaming guitar, thrumming bass and pounding drums like a pregnant woman wants pickles lately. Luckily, I’ve got the cure. Three cures, actually. And not a one of ’em British.
To help rock you through your long Thanksgiving weekend, let me introduce you to: The Midnight Youth, hailing from New Zealand; and two long-time go-tos for blistering rock, both out of California, The Golden State & The Ruse.
You’re welcome. Happy Turkey Rock.
THE MIDNIGHT YOUTH | Web | Facebook | Twitter
Recently, a New Zealand band I follow on Twitter mentioned The Midnight Youth and how they were releasing a new album soon; said they couldn’t wait for it. Can’t explain what it was about that tweet that made me click on the link, but I did. And I tripped into the rock n’ roll wonderland of The Midnight Youth. After watching their French Girl video, I knew I had to have more. A week later, their World Comes Calling album was released, and it has literally been on repeat ever since. I am hypnotized by lead singer Jeremy Redmore’s clean, soaring vocals that are reminiscent of the best 70s rock bands. If that didn’t win me over, the incredible, beatastic smashing drums and cymbals of Aidan Bartlett would have. This is 2011’s answer to arena rock. The whole album is tremendous, but I am especially in love with “Listen” and the title track – nicely captured in the video below. Seriously, you need to own this record, people. It is baffling to me that we are not promoting music like this in the U.S.
GOLDEN STATE | Web | Facebook | Twitter
Oh, Golden State. A stumbled upon this brit-esque band a few years back when I was looking for a track to round out one of my mix CDs. I’ve been following them ever since. Lead singer James Grundler started in a band called Paloalto that broke up in 2004, and Golden State got together soon after. They’ve released two full lengths, including their latest album Division, and a number of EPs (some that you can’t get any more), been featured music on “Deadliest Catch” in several seasons (particularly poignant was the use of their song “All Roads Lead Home” during the scenes during and following Captain Phil’s death). Again, win me over with vocals, woo me with guitar shredding and heartpounding rhythms… These boys have it. Today, they released their video for “World on Fire” and it just makes me love ’em more. Graceful, beautiful rock n’ roll.
THE RUSE | Web | Facebook | Twitter
The Ruse's Rebellion dropped today...and it's fab!
Years ago, The Ruse came and played at The Evening Muse in Charlotte. I was instantly sold on them; the influence from Brit and Euro bands like U2 is fairly obvious, but their writing was what won me over. Absolutely gorgeous lyrics, and we all know I’m a lyrics girl. Then came their 2008 release Midnight in the City, which made #1 on my Top Ten list… And, might I add, spawned an iTunes free single of the week with “Beautiful Is Gone.” Last year’s Love, Sex, Confusion just added to my minor obsession, especially after the creative video for “I Can’t Stop” came out. They’re simply one of the best unknown rock bands in the U.S. So I was pretty excited to download their new EP, Rebellion, today… And I’m pleased as punch with it! This little five song EP is scaled back a bit from their previous records…less “wall of sound,” quieter guitars, softer edges, lots of melodic “whoas” and “ohs”…but it really showcases the songwriting and the individual band members contributions to the music. My favorite track right now is the hardest rocker on the album, “In Defense of the Rebellion” (quite appropriate given the political climate/Occupy movement going on right now), but I’m also quickly falling in love with “Ten Thousand Years.” Epic love story, really, and I’m one of those sappy romantic types. At under $5, you can definitely afford to drop $5 of your Black Friday spending money on this as a gift to yourself!
Posted in Indies, Up n' comers & Unknowns, Music | Tagged "the ruse", Division, Golden State, James Grundler, midnight youth, rebellion ep, world comes calling, world on fire | 1 Reply
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Jrzy All Up In Your Inbox
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Rave controversy spills into Los Angeles City Council race
February 9, 2011 | 6:53 pm
The controversy over raves at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the consulting work of a top Coliseum official who oversaw events at the venue quickly spilled into the reelection campaign of Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard C. Parks, who serves on the Coliseum Commission and has said the events should be permitted because of the economic benefit to the community.
The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that an administrator who helped oversee the 2010 Electric Daisy Carnival was a paid consultant to the company that produced the event. Parks has joined a majority of commissioners in the past in defending the raves at the Coliseum since the Electric Daisy Carnival there last June, which resulted in 118 arrests. A 15-year-old girl who attended the event died of a drug overdose several days later.
Todd DeStefano’s arrangement with the promoter, Insomniac Inc., was cleared by Commission General Manager Patrick Lynch, who said he had run it past the attorney for the commission. DeStefano, who recently resigned his post to pursue a career as an events promoter, told the Times there was “no conflict of interest.” Both the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and the state Fair Political Practices Commission announced Wednesday that they planned to investigate the dual employment of DeStefano, who helped supervise security and emergency services at the rave.
Forescee Hogan-Rowles, who is challenging Parks in his bid for a third term on the City Council, has criticized Parks for defending rave events at the coliseum and has said the noise and trash have created a nuisance for residents of the 8th Council District. Her spokesman said she believes any future raves should be canceled until promoters can ensure illegal drugs will be banned and mitigate the events’ effect on neighbors.
On Wednesday, Hogan-Rowles called on Parks to return a $500 contribution from DeStefano, who has also contributed to other council members, and a $250 contribution from Pasquale Rotella, the chief executive of Insomniac Events Inc. Her spokesman, Steve Barkan, alleged that Parks “puts the interests of his campaign donors ahead of the safety of teenagers, and ahead of the concerns of coliseum neighbors.”
Parks rejected that charge and said he had no intention of returning the contribution: “We are going to run our campaign; we already have an advisor, so we don’t need the opponent as an advisor.” The councilman also received $1,500 in contributions from DeStefano when he ran for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 2008.
Parks also did not back away from his support for the events, which he said are “legitimate concerts,” and said he feels comfortable with new safety precautions that have been put into place since last year.
“The only perfect plan that I’ve seen in my life,” said Parks, the city’s former police chief, “is when the event is canceled and you don’t have to put the plan in place.”
He noted that one of the headliners at the 2010 Electric Daisy Carnival was wil.i.am, who performed this past weekend with the Black Eyed Peas during the half-time at the Super Bowl: “Why is [will.i.am] appropriate for 111 million people to watch a National Football League Super Bowl, but is inappropriate to come to the Coliseum?” Parks asked.
“Legitimate business has a right to thrive in the city of L.A.,” he continued. “A business that brought 4,000 jobs in this community, most of which came out of this community—and, an analysis shows, $33 million for a two-day event—are the kind of things that we should be encouraging in our city, just as we encourage events that we may not all agree with at our convention center.”
The economic analysis was cited by Insomniac Inc. during a recent presentation to the Coliseum Commission on why the Electric Daisy Carnival should return to L.A. next summer.
About 185,000 people attended the Electric Daisy Carnival, which sold tickets for $75 to $85 last year. The event drew attendees from around the country and the world, Parks said, adding that there appears to be a "generational" gap: “Just because it’s not your music—doesn’t mean it’s not other people’s music.”
“It’s clear it’s an international event, so I don’t know why we would stick our head in the sand and say ‘This is an international event’ and because I wouldn’t buy a ticket and go, we shouldn’t let other people buy a ticket and go,” he said.
Parks dismissed Commissioner Rick Caruso’s call for Lynch’s resignation—a call that Hogan-Rowles echoed—stating it was a “personnel matter that we shouldn’t be talking about in the newspaper.”
“If you harm his ability to stay employed or get re-employed—all you are doing is creating a liability and a lawsuit for the Coliseum Commission,” Parks said. “This kind of showboating of demanding that somebody loses their career or their employment is not appropriate in a setting of government employment.”
Asked about the pending investigation by the district attorney, Parks said the D.A. clearly had countywide jurisdiction, but noted that DeStefano’s employment arrangements were examined by attorneys to the commission.
“I’d have to assume that those things were done in the open air, and I would assume that advice was followed,” he said. “It’s my understanding that it’s being thoroughly investigated and that’s what we should allow to occur.”
Voter guide: March 8 Los Angeles Election
Los Angeles Coliseum official was paid by rave firm
Prosecutors to review L.A. Coliseum official's employment with rave company
-- Maeve Reston
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Full metal alchemist episodes wiki
Complete Test Preparation TEam
Posted on 30.12.2018 by Imawsufull
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Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Opening 1-Again creditless
Fullmetal Alchemist Filler List
This article is for the anime series. For the series, see Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. For other uses, see Fullmetal Alchemist. Comprising 51 episodes, it was co-produced by the animation studio Bones, Mainichi Broadcasting System, and Aniplex and directed by Seiji Mizushima. A second television series titled in English as Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was later broadcast in
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is the — anime series that follows the manga created by Hiromu Arakawa more closely than the series. The series was licensed by Funimation Entertainment. Edward : Eyes on the road! The car goes wild You remembered!? C'mon, how much did I borrow, Cenz? Edward : At this rate, you'll never make it big.
Fullmetal Alchemist is an anime series adapted from the manga of the same title by Hiromu Arakawa. The majority of these OVAs are side stories and do not expand on the plot. The first series has been released in a series of thirteen DVDs from December 17, , to January 26, , in Japan. It includes the first anime of 51 episodes, the film, the CD soundtracks, and guidebooks from the series. Eight pieces of theme music are used for the episodes—four opening themes and four ending themes. Each of the theme songs were performed by artists under Sony Music Entertainment Japan 's label, whose anime distribution unit, Aniplex , handled the production and music production for the series. The music score was composed and arranged by Michiru Oshima.
Unlike the first anime, which added original elements to the story, the second series follows the manga. Funimation suspended streaming of the series for a few weeks in May following the accidental leak of an episode of One Piece from its servers before it had aired in Japan.
grammar in context 3a 6th edition
Fullmetal Alchemist was an anime series that ran from to In total 51 episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist were aired. Set in a fictional universe in which alchemy is one of the most advanced scientific techniques, the story follows the brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric, who are searching for a Philosopher's Stone to restore their bodies after a disastrous failed attempt to bring their mother back to life through alchemy. Special thanks to the contributors that make this page possible. Register to help make the animefillerlist. Skip to main content. Shows Login Sign up Contact.
Sign in. TV Schedule. Find showtimes, watch trailers, browse photos, track your Watchlist and rate your favorite movies and TV shows on your phone or tablet! IMDb More. Fullmetal Alchemist — Season: 1.
In May , Warner Bros. Pictures Japan announced a live-action film based on the hit shounen battle manga series Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa. The film o Feb 19, PM by arsonal Discuss 9 comments. The list is based on the audi May 3, AM by tsubasalover Discuss comments.
Tres grande bibliotheque rem koolhaas
San francisco in the 30s
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1 thoughts on “Pass the HESI A2 - Complete Study Guide and Practice Test Questions by Complete Test Preparation TEam”
Keith M. on 02.01.2019 at 18:16 said:
Sherlock holmes and the speckled band summary a brush with death a penny brannigan mystery
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Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations
Version of section 3 from 2011-03-25 to 2017-09-20:
Previous Versionof section Next Versionof section
3 (1) The following definitions apply in this section and in section 4.
identification number means a number, preceded by the letters DIN, that is assigned for a drug in accordance with subsection C.01.014.2(1) of the Food and Drug Regulations . (identification numérique)
new drug submission
new drug submission means a new drug submission or an extraordinary use new drug submission as those terms are used in Division 8 of Part C of the Food and Drug Regulations , but excludes such a submission that is based solely on the change of name of the manufacturer. (présentation de drogue nouvelle)
supplement to a new drug submission
supplement to a new drug submission means a supplement to a new drug submission or a supplement to an extraordinary use new drug submission as those terms are used in Division 8 of Part C of the Food and Drug Regulations , but excludes such a supplement that is based solely on one or more of the matters mentioned in any of paragraphs C.08.003(2)(b) and (d) to (g) and subparagraphs C.08.003(2)(h)(iv) and (v) of those Regulations. (supplément à une présentation de drogue nouvelle)
(2) The Minister shall maintain a register of patents and other information submitted under section 4. To maintain the register, the Minister may refuse to add or may delete any patent or other information that does not meet the requirements of that section.
(3) If a patent is listed on the register in respect of a new drug submission or supplement to a new drug submission for a drug for which the identification number has been cancelled under paragraph C.01.014.6(1)(a) of the Food and Drug Regulations , the Minister shall delete the patent from the register 90 days after the date of cancellation.
(4) Subsection (3) does not apply if the identification number is cancelled under paragraph C.01.014.6(1)(a) of the Food and Drug Regulations because of a change in manufacturer.
(5) If, after an identification number is cancelled under paragraph C.01.014.6(1)(a) of the Food and Drug Regulations , an identification number is assigned for the same drug, the Minister shall add to the register the patent that was deleted under subsection (3) when the Minister receives the document required by section C.01.014.3 of the Food and Drug Regulations in respect of the drug.
(6) The register shall be open to public inspection during business hours.
(7) No patent on a patent list or other information submitted under section 4 shall be added to the register until after the Minister has issued a notice of compliance in respect of the new drug submission or the supplement to a new drug submission, as the case may be, to which the patent or information relates.
(8) For the purpose of deciding whether a patent, patent list or other information will be added to or deleted from the register, the Minister may consult with officers or employees of the Patent Office.
SOR/98-166, s. 2
SOR/2011-89, s. 2
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Walker-Smith wins appeal
Prof. John Walker-Smith was one of Andrew Wakefield’s colleagues at the Royal Free and participated in the research there. Prof. Walker-Smith was struck off the medical register along with Andrew Wakefield by the General Medical Council. Prof. Walker-Smith appealed and the GMC’s decision has been quashed.
Here is the conclusion of the appeal decision:
For the reasons given above, both on general issues and the Lancet paper and in relation to individual children, the panel’s overall conclusion that Professor Walker-Smith was guilty of serious professional misconduct was flawed, in two respects: inadequate and superficial reasoning and, in a number of instances, a wrong conclusion. Miss Glynn submits that the materials which I have been invited to consider would support many of the panel’s critical findings; and that I can safely infer that, without saying so, it preferred the evidence of the GMC’s experts, principally Professor Booth, to that given by Professor Walker-Smith and Dr. Murch and by Dr. Miller and Dr. Thomas. Even if it were permissible to perform such an exercise, which I doubt, it would not permit me to rescue the panel’s findings. As I have explained, the medical records provide an equivocal answer to most of the questions which the panel had to decide. The panel had no alternative but to decide whether Professor Walker-Smith had told the truth to it and to his colleagues, contemporaneously. The GMC’s approach to the fundamental issues in the case led it to believe that that was not necessary – an error from which many of the subsequent weaknesses in the panel’s determination flowed. It had to decide what Professor Walker-Smith thought he was doing: if he believed he was undertaking research in the guise of clinical investigation and treatment, he deserved the finding that he had been guilty of serious professional misconduct and the sanction of erasure; if not, he did not, unless, perhaps, his actions fell outside the spectrum of that which would have been considered reasonable medical practice by an academic clinician. Its failure to address and decide that question is an error which goes to the root of its determination.
The panel’s determination cannot stand. I therefore quash it. Miss Glynn, on the basis of sensible instructions, does not invite me to remit it to a fresh Fitness to Practice panel for redetermination. The end result is that the finding of serious professional misconduct and the sanction of erasure are both quashed.
From The Telegraph’s MMR doctor wins battle against being struck off:
A doctor found guilty of serious professional misconduct over the MMR controversy has won his High Court appeal against being struck off.
Chief executive Niall Dickson added: “Today’s ruling does not however reopen the debate about the MMR vaccine and autism.
“As Mr Justice Mitting observed in his judgement, ‘There is now no respectable body of opinion which supports (Dr Wakefield’s) hypothesis, that MMR vaccine and autism/enterocolitis are causally linked’.
Comments 118 Comments
Categories Autism, MMR, Wakefield
← Autism recurrence in half siblings: strong support for genetic mechanisms of transmission in ASD
Conflicts of interest in vaccine safety research →
118 Responses to “Walker-Smith wins appeal”
Chris March 12, 2012 at 04:36 #
Well, Autismum, the American fund is specifically for vaccine injuries.
Liz Ditz March 12, 2012 at 21:16 #
As I often do, I have made a roundup of posts about both the UK high court’s ruling on Professor Walker-Smith and Brian Deer’s anti-SLAPP suit. I’ve included this post in the list, both at Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (where the list will be static) “What the UK High Court’s Ruling on John Walker-Smith Means and Doesn’t Mean”,
http://thinkingautismguide.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-uk-high-courts-ruling-on-john.html
and at my own blog, UK High Court Quashed Rulings Against John Walker-Smith; Means NOTHING about Andrew Wakefield I Speak of Dreams.
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2012/03/walker-smith-ruling-means-nothing-about-wakefield.html
I’ll continue to update the latter post daily.
Autismum March 12, 2012 at 21:19 #
I know and its history is really fascinating (and deliberately misunderstood in some quarters). I think that, especially as the NHS is state run there needs to be a separate system (or a less onerous route through the existing one, at least) for those seeking redress and the vaccine court model is one that could be adapted. Off topic I know but I keep company with a lot of parents of disabled children (mums and dads from my boy’s special school), some are so because of medical error/neglect. These changes proposed scare me on their behalf and of those who may follow.
Prof. Walker Smith’s memories perhaps not so enduring « Left Brain Right Brain - November 12, 2012
[…] medical license by the General Medical Council (GMC), but that ruling was quashed on appeal. In the appeal decision the judge […]
Refuting one of the tropes that Andrew Wakefield was wronged - December 29, 2014
[…] problem is that that’s incorrect. While others have examined the issue, it might be worth examining the decision closely yet again, since the trope continues to come back […]
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The Law Student Roundtable: Examining Stress–Offering Hope
Rachel Gentry, Kennedy LeJeune, and KyMara Guidry join host Ashley Baker for a roundtable discussion of law student mental health issues.
ABA Law Student Podcast
Rachel Gentry
Rachel Gentry is a 3rd year student at Southern University Law Center. Rachel is from Houston, TX and served...
Kennedy LeJeune
Kennedy LeJeune is a 3L at Southern University Law Center. He is the current ABA representative and head Barbri...
KyMara Guidry
KyMara Guidry is a 3L at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Throughout law school, she has worked...
Ashley Baker
Ashley N. Baker is a 3L at Southern University Law Center where she holds memberships with the Journal of...
Why do law students experience such high levels of stress compared to students in other areas of graduate study? Following on from a recent episode where host Ashley Baker and new Law Student Division chair Johnnie Nguyen discussed the division’s upcoming mental health initiatives, Ashley now convenes a roundtable discussion to highlight the factors driving student mental health issues. This diverse group of guests offers perspectives geared toward helping fellow students manage stress and finding assistance when needed.
Rachel Gentry is a 3L at Southern University Law Center.
Kennedy LeJeune is a 3L at Southern University Law Center.
KyMara Guidry is a 3L at the University of Mississippi School of Law.
Intro: Welcome to the official ABA Law Student Podcast, where we talk about issues that affect law students and recent grads. From finals and graduation to the Bar exam and finding a job, this show is your trusted resource for the next big step.
You are listening to the Legal Talk Network.
Ashley Baker: Hello and welcome to another episode of the ABA Law Student Podcast. My name is Ashley Baker. I am a 3L at Southern University Law Center, where I am the Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Public Defender’ newspaper, and a Senior Editor of the ‘Journal of Race, Gender, and Poverty’. I am also a former Delegate of Communications for the Law Student Division.
I am so excited for today’s show. In our last episode I spoke to Law Student Division Chair, Johnnie Nguyen, about the Division’s mental health initiatives. Today I’ve convened a law student roundtable to explore the mental health issues that law students face.
First, we have Rachel Gentry, a third-year student at Southern University Law Center. Rachel is from Houston, Texas and served in the Army National Guard. She has worked in the Louisiana State Capitol in different capacities. She was honored as a Competitiveness Scholar as a part of the White House Initiative on HBCUs, and is currently working for the Louisiana Board of Regents doing policy & legislative affairs research for Higher Education within the State.
We also have with us KyMara Guidry, who is a 3L at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Ms. Guidry, who also goes by KG, is also from Houston Texas. Throughout law school, she has worked on education rights issues for students with disabilities and students who identify as LGBTQ. After law school, she plans to continue to work on behalf of the most marginalized students within the school system.
In the little free time that she does have, she blogs about her experience with mental illness on her YouTube channel, named Black Girl Crazed.
Lastly, but certainly not least, we have Kennedy LeJeune. Kennedy LeJeune is a 3L at Southern University Law Center where he is the current ABA representative and Head Barbri Representative. He is also a member of moot court and serves as an editorial board member of the ‘Public Defender’ newspaper.
Kennedy has interned with the East Baton Rouge Public Defender’s Office and worked as a Committee Clerk for the Louisiana House of Representatives. He is married and has a 10-year-old daughter.
KG, Kennedy, and Rachel, welcome to the Law Student Podcast.
Rachel Gentry: Thanks for having us.
KyMara Guidry: Thanks for having me.
Kennedy LeJeune: Thanks, how’s it going?
Ashley Baker: All right, let’s jump right into it. Studies show that 96% of law students experience stress compared to 70% of medical students and 43% of graduate students. Law students experience mental health issues at a much higher rate than other graduate students. So let’s start with you KG; why do you think this is, what makes the law student experience so unique?
KyMara Guidry: I think a big part of it is the structure in which law school — how the program is structured, a big part of it is at the end of the semester your greatest desire is I want it and like as a former teacher, I think it’s really important for students to get constant feedback, and I think it helps them to know like am I on the right path, am I doing things right?
But I think in law school a lot of that you do you’re in the dark and you don’t know if you’re doing the right. You don’t really get an answer until the end of the semester and by then it’s like, okay, this is my grade.
I think another part of it is for me this was my personal experience. I already came in with mental health issues. I came in with an anxiety disorder, came in with bipolar II disorder, and often it was triggered by the law school environment. So I call in, I know that that’s a part of law school, but at the end of the day it triggered my anxiety every time because I know it will be 00:04:41, I didn’t know how to say the right things, but I think a big part of it is just how it’s structured and this like inability to imagine multiple look in a different way, I think there’s just this acceptance that while being in law school 00:04:56.
And so there — I hadn’t been a part of a lot of discussions about how can we make it better, more so how do you cope with the stress. So I think it’s just this environment that like freeze this competition, perfectionism. I know when I got my first set of grades that I cried because I’m like, oh my God, I’m a B student, I didn’t expect to be a B student, I just pushed for being at the top of the class and the reality that everyone cannot be at the top of the class and I just pushed to get these grades and this idea that if you don’t you won’t get a job, which is not true, I don’t have good grades and I’ve had amazing internships, and job opportunities that come to me.
So I think that’s like the structure of how the classes are structured as well as just the competition and this buying into perfectionism, for me at least.
Ashley Baker: Rachel, what do you think? What makes the law student experience different from other graduate school experiences?
Rachel Gentry: I’ll have to agree with KG. Basically our first year we have top typically take contract law, tort law, basic civil procedure and family law, which all of these classes have nothing to do with the other.
So, trying to balance four or five classes, don’t tie in with the other, knowing how to properly write for these classes. Sometimes getting hazed by professors in classes and making sure that you stand out amongst your peers is very stressful within itself as well as for professors who don’t provide a 00:06:37 to see where you are or don’t use certain assignments as you get through each subject or each subject matter within a course, you’re kind of like KG said, you are left in the dark until your final exam grades and for all you know you might not be writing properly, you might not be retaining the right nuances when it comes to certain classes, you might not be stating the law correctly, it could be a lot of different things that tie into that.
We are trying to master each course in the respective laws, in the respective nuances and properly writing for these essays it’s just stressful within themselves along we’re trying to make sure that once you’re done with your first year in law school you could get that position for the summer with the biggest law firm within like the city or the state that you are in. You really want to make sure that you’re doing your best but at the same time you don’t know where you rank amongst people as well as your — some of your peers are friendly, some of your peers may not be friendly.
Some people I know, I’ve had study groups all throughout law school, have some students who their classmates were so competitive that they didn’t even want to study together.
So I believe that the competition, the dark tunnel that sometimes students are left in as well as dealing with family stress, outside stress of law school, because if you’re in a relationship with parents, boyfriend-girlfriend, whatever you are in, everybody doesn’t understand that 00:08:10 as we have been told a few times.
You have to give all your attention and all your — everything that you have has to go into law school and a lot of people understand this. So that stress within yourself when your mom is calling you asking, “Baby, are you okay? I haven’t heard from you in a while.” You’re like, “Mom, I am studying” or you’re sitting there trying to tell your friends from home. I’m literally studying 24/7 365 to make sure that I make you pass the first semester, especially as a 1L, and a lot of people don’t understand that, and I believe dealing with school stress, family stress and personal life stress is what makes the law school experience quite unique.
Ashley Baker: I definitely agree with that. Real life does not stop just because you’ve enrolled into law school.
Kennedy, I want to give you a chance to chime in, what are your thoughts on that?
Kennedy LeJeune: So, I definitely agree with both KG and Rachel with what they said. KG, I also came into law school with, some mental health issues my own that I have been dealing with, high anxiety, the occasional bout of depression. So it was pretty challenging for me and I had the same experiences with what Rachel was saying, where just like this dark tunnel where you don’t know what you’re doing until the last minute and you either passed or you didn’t.
But I think there are like three main things that set law school apart from other graduate programs and medical school and that the first one being that the course content, it’s like learning a whole new language. So like medical school or graduate school, you’re kind of encountering concepts that you’ve heard before. You are familiar with science, you’re familiar with English, but law school it’s totally different language.
Kennedy LeJeune: But law school because it’s totally different language, a majority of people haven’t heard a lot of these terms and you’re having to look it up in Black’s Law Dictionary and so I think that’s a big thing, not only learning the concepts, but learning how to understand the wording of the cases you’re reading and of the content you’re learning.
The second thing I would have to say that’s different is the length of the program. So graduate school typically two to three years, medical school is four years, and then you have a couple of years after where you have a residency program, the law school is strictly three years, it is packed, you’re full time and you’re having to learn all these concepts like Rachel said your first year none of them seem to connect until you kind of get into your to 2L and 3L year and you are thinking, oh, this is how it relates to basic civil procedure when you’re at in federal jurisdiction, we don’t know that 1L year, and it’s completely new, and you’re competing against your peers like KG was saying, you have to accept you’re not going to be top of the class most of the time.
And then the third thing I would have to say that’s different is the uncertainty of job prospect. With medical school you have a residency at the end of your four-year program, you’re more than likely to get a job at the hospital, you have a residency at, whereas law school if you’re not on top of the class, if you’re not top 15% your job prospects may be a little lower or there may be this illusion that you might not have as many opportunities, but like KG referred to her internship, she’s had an amazing internship and so if I and I’m not in the top five 15%. So I think there’s just a lot of uncertainty and illusions when it comes to the law school experience.
Ashley Baker: Well, let’s talk about some of those illusions and presumptions that people have, many students into law school with a lot of presumptions, they think law school is going to be one thing and it turns out to be another, they may anticipate excessive amounts of reading or cold calling but one thing that most law students probably don’t anticipate is stress or developing depression or dealing with anxiety issues if they didn’t enter law school with those issues. So what advice would you give to pre-law students or even the incoming 1L students on dealing with the pressures of law school? And let’s start with you, Rachel.
Rachel Gentry: My advice to pre-law students and the 1Ls would be to pretty much perfect your time management skills so that you can take a break sometimes and do think that relax you so you won’t be as stressed out. It could be something as simple as taking a walk by the lake, going to work out with your friends, going to eat with your friends or just sitting down and listening to some soothing music.
I know for me when I’m pretty stressful I like to listen to a certain playlist and so sometimes I would take a break out of 30 and for at least 45 minutes to an hour and just relax because sometimes if you’re sitting there looking at your books all day and studying or if you’re in class all day or for non-traditional students like myself going to work studying and trying to go to play, I need some type of break so I can have some for myself. And I believe I’d like you to stray away from their normal activities when they get into law school and so they kind of lose themselves and that’s what kind of drives them into anxiety and depression on a deeper level because I know for myself during the summer time I like to go swimming or I like to go running and just get outside and get a breath of fresh air. A lot of people don’t do that.
Being at law school everybody feels like there’s not enough time in day to study, do your own personal things, go shopping or get food for your house. People forget to do the simple things that make them, them. So I believe their time management is really a big thing so you can have time to do things that keep you being yourself. That will be my best advice, and also talking to upperclassmen like if you are a 1L talk to the 2Ls and the 3Ls who were in your position and see what did they do dealing with the same professors that you may have and what were their corners because the best advice you can get is from somebody who is in your shoes a year prior to, and that’s all I can think of on that time management and don’t reinvent the wheel, have somebody who has been in your shoes to try to give you some good pointers.
Ashley Baker: Okay, that’s great advice. KG, what do you think?
KyMara Guidry: I have to agree with Rachel with the time management. I feel like I was a non-traditional student as well because I came from teaching into the law school. So I definitely treated law school like a job my first year like seven to five and then I finally had my admission at the school, but the things that I guess I would add to that — I mean — I think if I found a little fluffy, but it’s made a difference for me. I think understanding that you’re in a learning environment, it makes a huge difference. So it is totally fine that you don’t know everything and it’s really unfair to have that expectation of yourself like I think that when I first went in it was like I got to answer every cold call and the cold calls that ain’t even mine too, just in case they ask me or just in case they move to me for the answer, and I think that when I have that expectation and I realize that it’s impossible for me to know everything about this language like Kennedy said, it’s a totally different language in this world that I was just being introduced to.
When I learned that, okay, that’s not possible, it was devastating. So I think like extending grace to yourself from the beginning and like really understanding that I’m here to learn. I don’t have to come in as an expert and I probably won’t even graduate as an expert. I’ve worked with attorneys that are still searching for answers, so leaving that space for yourself to grow within the process.
And I think like also like what Rachel said like maintaining a life outside of law schools for me I kept Sundays or Saturdays, one of these was a day that I didn’t do anything related to law school and I know that some people will say absolutely not that’s probably why you’re not at the top of the class, but it works for me, it killed me same because if I’m depressed I cannot go to class and I’ve been depressed, I’ve been in the presence of pros while in school, it sort of comes where my professors were like where is she?
So maintaining that strong sense of soul and I think it’s sometime where ours is like my law school BFF has been my anchor throughout this whole process. So like maintaining friendships outside of law school as well because I think that when we are around each other, we just start talking about law school, and it’s just because there’s never-ending conversation about how different now we are and it is good to have people that understand this very unique experience list.
I think it’s also good to just get in the space with like, okay, girl, what podcast are you listening to, like what TV show that you watching? So I think that my friendships with people that weren’t in law school have been somehow by years have been that kept me going on because I don’t always want to talk about the law. So that would be my advice and all that other stuff about mentors and asking people questions, yeah, take care of yourself in the best way.
Ashley Baker: That’s also a great advice. How about you, Kennedy, what advice would you give to incoming law students about dealing with law school stress?
Kennedy LeJeune: I think Rachel and KG made some great points. I know personally I also struggle with depression. I’ve struggled with depression in the semester, I’ve had some episodes and I haven’t gone to class a few times and as a 3L it’s not something I can’t be doing, but I think what KG was saying we’re giving yourself just like let yourself understand that you may not be at the top of your class but you’re doing the best you can and that’s what’s most important I think to remember and what Rachel was saying finding those things to do to help you relax is important, but I think another thing to remember when you’re finding things to relax is even if you’re like folding your clothes or you download some games on your phone to play for like an hour, you can’t be thinking about law school while you’re doing those things.
That was an issue I had 1L year. I downloaded games on my phone but I was stressed out the whole time I was playing the games on my phone because I was thinking about all the other stuff I had to do, so just like letting yourself relax. Some other ways I’ve coped while in law school have been, I mean, I enjoy talking to other students who were experiencing the same thing. It kind of gives me solace to know that other law students feel the same way that I do.
I’ve talked to a therapist and in some cases I’ve been prescribed anti-anxiety medication that’s helped because one of my biggest problems is when I get very stressed out or very anxious or depressed I procrastinate, and being able to talk to somebody else about what I’m going through and having medication that helps me de-stress really gets me out of those episodes of procrastination. So those are the two pieces of advice I would definitely give in coming 1L.
Ashley Baker: Okay.
KyMara Guidry: Ashley, can I add one more thing if that’s okay?
Ashley Baker: Sure.
KyMara Guidry: I know at the University Law Center sometimes we have been told if you are going through a lot of stress take a mental health day from class, if you can do so. If you do not have too many absences at least take one mental health day because that might just be your day where you really need to just sit down and have time for yourself.
You might be bogged down with class, studying, work or whatever you’re doing and class might not be for you for that day because I sadly I’ve seen some of my classmates be in class and they’re so stressed out that they break down in class. So I would rather somebody not come to class and get time for themselves and just take a mental health day and watch movies all day they need to just like KG said, she takes Saturday or Sunday out of her weekend and just does not look at anything law school-related.
Sometimes you might have to do that during the week as well when it comes to close, especially if you’ve been having a not-so-great day, you might just have to take that one mental health day out of the semester for a certain class or maybe two classes, it just depends. If you already feel that you’re stressed out, don’t put any extra stress on yourself for that day, try to find a classmate who can take some adequate notes for you and you can bounce back the next day, that would be another good thing that I would advise on pre-law students and 1Ls, just give yourself a mental health day.
Ashley Baker: Okay. Thank you for all the great advice. I know that pre-law students and 1Ls will definitely benefit from everything that you all said.
I want to turn the conversation to a bit of a different issue. Statistics show that LGBTQ individuals are more likely to experience mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety than non-LGBTQ individuals. So, Kennedy, how it’s being a part of this community shaped your law school experience in regard to mental health?
Kennedy LeJeune: So 1L year was the hardest for me, I think. I was pre-transitioned and I wasn’t out to any of my classmates. I felt really alone and my stress and anxiety were through the roof because I was going through the hardest year of law school on top of everything else. But eventually I realized I had to transition for mental health if I was going to be able to dedicate more time into law school and since beginning my transition in the middle of 2L year I think my mental health has on average improved. Of course like I was saying I still had days where I questioned what am I doing in law school? But for the most part I am able to manage my stress and anxiety and my depression much better than 1L year.
But I think being a part of this community has a unique experience in all aspects of life, not just law school but I think it has helped me honestly for the better because I was kind of forced to deal with all of my issues 1L year. I knew that if I was going to make it through law school, I had to break down and say, okay, I have to be authentically me, so I don’t have to worry about that anymore.
Ashley Baker: Rachel, how do you feel about this?
Rachel Gentry: I would say I have to agree with Kennedy. My first year of law school I started off in the evening program so not too many people within the daytime program saw me and I’ve always had to deal with people, oh, yes, she’s a girl but she doesn’t really typically dress like a girl. So I’ve always had to deal with am I a dressing professional enough, am I still being myself with how I like to dress and what I like to wear, and am I going to miss out on this interview or am I going to miss out on this job opportunity because I don’t look how certain people would want me to look in the professional world I guess for law firms or at the Capitol or in different places, but I really just had to sit down and say to myself, you know what, all you can be is the best version of yourself.
So I would just how I want to dress but they are professional eyes. Now I might have a certain male-looking blazer on with nice pants and stuff like that but I wouldn’t wear a tie because I just didn’t want to wear a tie, I didn’t go to that extent but I’ve actually had people look at me like, hey, so she’s going to wear that, might as well put a tie on or do this do that, but I would tell them in the most polite way, I wear this because this is what I want to wear, it is how I want to wear it, and nothing looks wrong about it and I don’t know how you perceived most lesbian women who don’t typically dress gender conforming-wise but this is how I dress, this is what I like to wear and I think I look great.
And also I’ve always wanted, okay, so I wish to obtain a job, will I be possibly lit off if somebody was to really just speak about my sexuality. I’ve never been afraid to say, oh yeah, I am a woman who loves women but there’s Supreme Court cases, I think going to be heard pretty soon about employment discrimination against people who are part of the LGBT community, and the big question is, does the 1964 Civil Rights Act protect people who are part of the LGBT community, the word “fix” include sexual orientation, include people who may be transgendered and the other leg effect all within the LGBTQ umbrella.
So it’s things that are being heard now are what scare me but I’ve seen it my work ethic and Who I am within myself has changed certain people’s mindset of how people should look as they want to say or how people should act because like I said I can only be the best version of myself and people enjoyed it and people like that about me. So my originality is what has made people drawn more towards me. So my first year I used to be scared about certain things about myself because I didn’t think other people will see it as professional but now people love me. I’m who I am. And it’s my not concern, so yeah.
Ashley Baker: Yeah. KG, as an advocate for students that identify as LGBTQ what has your experience been as an advocate specifically dealing with mental health issues?
KyMara Guidry: So I think, like first I have to say that I show up as an advocate but I also identified with I’m a black queer woman. So the work that I do whether it is on internship advocating for LGBTQ students or whether it was when I was a teacher advocating for LGBTQ students, but it’s very personal for me, personal is political, and so it has had a tremendous impact on my mental health.
Especially at our law school, so the University of Mississippi School of Law tends to be more conservative, I think that the legal field as a whole is conservative and I think that our law school on this law can soon be even more conservative and I’ve served as the Vice President and now the President of our LGBTQ organization, and I remember last year my 2L year being the heart is for me because the more vocal hours of how LGBTQ issues and wanting every space to be inclusive in every space to be safe for us, it seemed like the more pushback I get, and that’s ultimately like currently I’m a visiting student in Atlanta because I literally could not deal with it.
My therapist was like it’s not okay for you to constantly be in this battle that is triggering your anxiety or triggering your depression. So I had to make the decision that I’m going to advocate from before as far as 00:28:47 law and advocating for youth, I think that just comes easy for me. For whatever reason it’s easy for me to stand open to you, it’s a no-brainer. I am like this shouldn’t even be a polarizing issue. When we started talking about bathroom laws and whether or not kids should be just called by the name that they identify with, like that is a no-brainer to me, like these are not polarizing issues. And so it shouldn’t be polarizing issues, it is polarizing.
We see with the oral arguments today for the Title VII cases but I think it’s easy for me to stand up for kids because I’m just like, okay, we’re not going to be kids, bad, so when it’s something that deals closer to myself especially at the law school in the law school context, it’s been very difficult. I deal with days where I would just sit with my therapist and cry because I’m like I don’t understand I thought I was going to school to be like someone it made a difference and not realizing that other people will come into law school and they want to make a difference too but they are on the other side of the issue.
And so there has been times where I’ve been triggered in class or I’ve been triggered while trying to push for certain programming at the law school. It’s very difficult. I think the best thing has been like moving and putting myself in a more inclusive environment, taking care of myself, knowing that we can’t change the world and I even I would love too and really doing those things that pour into my spirit. So taking 00:30:25, reading books, that kind of stuff, taking the day to just watch TV shows, that’s been a big help for me; but yes, it has had a tremendous impact on my mental health.
Ashley Baker: So what do you think that law schools could do better to change the trend of mental health issues among law students? As you know with each incoming class the rate of developing mental health issues progresses as each class matriculates through school and once you reach 3L year it’s highly likely that you will have developed some form of psychological dysfunction by the time it’s time for you to graduate. So what can law schools do better to change this trend? And KG, let’s start off with you.
KyMara Guidry: Okay. I think a big part of it, I guess, I will go back to what I said initially, there is — it seems to be this acceptance that it is going to be a difficult experience, it’s going to be a hellish experience if I can’t say that, and so I think that a lot of what was offered at our law school is more reactive approaches to mental health issues, so we have yoga and stuff like that or it’s why can’t there be a conversation on what is causing this in the first place, like not just offering coping skills, but maybe we need a midterm in every class.
I think we have a midterm in our contracts class and that was it, maybe we need more feedback throughout the semester. We have a counselor in our law school doing a better job of like really moralizing going to see a counselor, because it makes no sense to have a counselor, few people are utilizing their resource.
But I think like just shifting and I think this is probably a — I don’t know if this is possible, but just shifting what law school can be, like being a little more imaginative about it. I don’t think it has to be this environment in which we are all suffering. If you look around the person making breaking down and people are like, oh, we find some people don’t have little breakdowns and it’s just like why does it have to be there?
So if it’s keeping us in the dark, so maybe adding more checkpoints along the way or maybe I know homework could finally sound awful, because I’m in my 3L year and I’m like doing classwork and I’m like this is awful, maybe like normalizes some assignments along the way. So they were not relying upon this one grade. I think that would possibly make a difference.
Ashley Baker: Kennedy, what do you think?
Kennedy LeJeune: So I have to agree with KG that law school definitely needs to evolve. I’ve spoken to a few attorneys before I decided to come to law school and a majority of them said, if I do it over again I wouldn’t go to law school, and before law school I had no idea what they meant.
Now that I’m in law school I imagine myself doing it over again, and I don’t think I can, knowing what I went through mentally, it was just a lot. I think now in the present day law schools are — they’re getting on the right track when it comes to improving mental health, but I think the biggest hurdle like what KG kind of referred to is breaking down the stigma associated with mental health.
I think it prevents students from seeking help before it’s too late. I think one of the ways we can combat this is having an open dialogue about these issues, trying to change students’ perceptions about these issues. I also think having professors or staff members who are willing to point students in the right direction is really important because I know personally for me it’s hard for me to reach out for help, but I know if a professor makes it known that they’re genuinely interested in how I’m doing mentally then I’m more inclined to be open about what’s going on in my life, and I think what KG referred to for the previous question, for LGBTQ students, where sometimes they don’t feel safe to go to certain people to confide in them. I definitely think it would be in law schools’ best interest to have some sort of like training for professors or staff members specifically for dealing with the LGBTQ population, because sometimes comments are made or things happen and the LGBTQ population may or may not feel like they can approach a particular person based on things that they’ve said.
So I definitely think that just having professors and staff members that are open and willing to point students in the right direction no matter how they identify are a good way to go.
Ashley Baker: Okay. Rachel, what do you think?
Rachel Gentry: I’d have to agree with both Kennedy and KG. First, law schools normalizing and accepting that everybody’s going to be stressed out or depression and anxiety is just another common thing that happens in law school.
Now if people come to law school with depression and anxiety, law schools should not make it worse than what it already is. They should not add onto it. So doing things like, I know at Southern University Law Center we have JLAP, they come in, pretty often they have meditation and doing massages and stuff like that.
I think they should do that more often as well as not just from outside people of the Law Center coming in or any law school coming in, but there should be more open discussions between administrators, faculty and staff at the law schools. And the students — so students can express their grievances and kind of put faculty, staff and professors don’t notice that certain things that you may or may not do intensifies my depression and anxiety and how can we work to make sure that this doesn’t happen to another student or that you don’t continue to do this, that makes me feel scared or less comfortable to speak to you, because students should not feel afraid to speak to professors. They shouldn’t be afraid to ask professors for help with the thought in the back of their mind, okay, I might receive backlash or they might choose me a certain way because what I identify as or they might play with my nervousness of approaching them.
And I feel that if we put professors and teachers and faculty and staff more on notice that certain things that they have probably done over the past 10, 15 years depending on their tenure at that particular institution, if we put them on notice about it, it might stop. Because sometimes humans, we are creatures of habit, and if we’ve been doing things for five years plus, we’ve been comfortable with doing it so we keep it up, but unless somebody tells us about it, then we’re giving an opportunity to change their habit.
So just making people feel more comfortable, stop normalizing our law schools, distressful, so it will deal with the type of mentality. How can we make law school a better experience for everybody? So we don’t have people like the attorneys that Kennedy has spoken to saying if I was to go back in time, I wouldn’t go through law school again. That should not be the response.
We should not try to deter our future lawyer leaders from going to law school. We should encourage them to go to law school, and stress should not — being stressed or depression, anxiety that law school gives us should not be the main reason why if that makes sense.
Ashley Baker: Yeah, yeah.
KyMara Guidry: Can I add something, Ashley?
KyMara Guidry: I really just wanted to say like what Kennedy and Rachel said about professors being able to be open with professors, I have to say like in my experience I’ve been very vocal with my professors about the fact that I have bipolar II disorder and I have anxiety disorder and I’ve just been lucky to have professors that were really open and willing to offer help in whatever way that they could. So knowing that your professors are a safe space for that, and I do think that that comes from the training that Kennedy mentioned whether that is trying to dealing with marginalize identities, but also how can we support students that have disability.
So like I went to professors and they’re like, okay, like I appreciate you are being honest to me, what ways can I support you, and I remember being caught off-guard by that question because I didn’t expect it — I didn’t expect them to offer their support, but I do think it makes a difference if the professors are open and willing to be support to students.
And like Rachel said, I don’t think they always realize that what they’re doing. They have been doing it for 10-15 years, some of them much longer than that, I don’t — I had a professor that we can’t leave out of his class and part of my anxiety is triggered by being trapped. I think he had any idea that he was triggering someone with an anxiety disorder, but he’s been able to say like, hey, telling us, we can’t leave out the class is a trigger, I think that makes a huge difference.
So I think a lot of times they don’t know that there is other phase that this could be done. So then being open to hearing our things and what our experiences are would help.
Ashley Baker: So how can our listeners reach you? KG, let’s start with you.
KyMara Guidry: I can be reached through my email, like I said, I have a blog blackgirlcrazed on YouTube, so like you can reach me at [email protected], I know that sounds odd in a law school context but that’s the way you can real me as well as Instagram, blackgirlcrazed, and that is craze with an E-D at the end.
Ashley Baker: Rachel, how about you?
Rachel Gentry: You can either reach me on LinkedIn, Rachel Gentry. You can also reach me on my email [email protected].
Ashley Baker: Kennedy, how about you?
Kennedy LeJeune: You can also find me on LinkedIn or Instagram Kennedy LeJeune, Kennedy LeJeune, and you also reach me by email [email protected].
Ashley Baker: All right, thank you KG, Kennedy, Rachel for taking the time to be guests on the Law Student Podcast.
Kennedy LeJeune: Thanks for having us.
Rachel Gentry: Yeah, thanks for doing this, Ashley.
KyMara Guidry: Thanks for putting us together, Ashley.
Ashley Baker: Thank you. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of the Law Student Podcast. I would like to invite you to subscribe to the ABA Law Student Podcast on iTunes.
You can reach us on Facebook @abaforlawstudents or @abalsd on Twitter. You can also find all of our student leaders at #abaforlawstudents on Facebook and Twitter.
Signing off, I’m Ashley Baker. Thank you for listening and I’ll leave you with this quote by Cesar Chavez.
“You are never strong enough that you don’t need help.”
If you’re experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety or of something that was said today really hit home for you, please consider reaching out to your doctor or a licensed professional counselor for help.
Outro: If you’d like more information about what you’ve heard today, please visit legaltalknetwork.com. Subscribe via iTunes and RSS, find us on Twitter and Facebook or download our free Legal Talk Network app in Google Play and iTunes. Remember, US law students at ABA-accredited schools can join the ABA for free. Join now at americanbar.org/lawstudent.
The views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of nor are they endorsed by Legal Talk Network, its officers, directors, employees, agents, representatives, shareholders, and subsidiaries. None of the content should be considered legal advice. As always, consult a lawyer.
Podcast: ABA Law Student Podcast
Category: Law School , Legal Support
Presented by the American Bar Association's Law Student Division, the ABA Law Student Podcast covers issues that affect law students and recent grads.
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Loving Funeral Home was founded on November 27, 1913. Today, it is Covington's oldest continually-owned and operated family business.
Covington's funeral home was purchased from George W. Hardy by H. Maston Loving and Robert Marshall (Tim) Loving and was renamed H.M. Loving and Brother Funeral Home. Shortly thereafter, Tim purchased his brother's interest and the name was changed to R.M. Loving Funeral Home. Tim operated the funeral home until his retirement in 1962.
The funeral home was originally located on the south side of Main Street in downtown Covington, but soon relocated across the street.
The third location of the funeral home was in the Old Nettleton Home (originally the Sively House),which was behind what is now Covington High School and which was later used by the school as a classroom for the Home Economics Department.
The funeral home was moved to its present location, 350 N. Maple Ave., Covington, in 1942. The historic building was built in the early 1890s as First Presbyterian Church. In 1917, First Presbyterian Church relocated to its present location and the building was used by Trinity Baptist Church until its building was completed at its present location in 1933.
In 1963, James P. Loving Sr. purchased the business from his father and incorporated the business. Jimmy, or J.P., as he was often referred to, operated the business until his retirement in December of 1986, at which time his son, James P. (Pat) Loving purchased the business and continues to operate it as his father and grandfather have.
Three generations of our family have had the distinct privilege of serving the people of the Alleghany Highlands in their time of need and sorrow.
Our dedication to our families is our primary goal and we take it seriously. Our total dedication calls for long hours, day and night, serving families in their time of need by offering the finest and most affordable services to the citizens of our fine community.
At Loving Funeral Home, the most important thing we can do is listen. Helping people during a difficult time is the most rewarding part of our job.
But our services do not end with the funeral service. Our staff can provide you with excellent reading materials which will help you realize that the feelings you have are normal.
If you need to talk with someone, our staff is always available.
Robert Marshall (Tim) Loving
James P. (J.P. ) Loving, Sr.
James P. (Pat) Loving, Jr.
Owner/Director
Robert G. Hoke
Manager/Director
Main Street Location
Sively House
Current Building (When Used As A Church)
Loving Funeral Home Today
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Pick a currency USD CAD GBP AUD EUR JPY
Free shipping for all orders in USA and Canada
Fall in luz by 944 magazine
Love. Passion. Desire. Boundaries. Four cornerstones of a romantic relationship, and the inspiration for LUZ - the latest jewelry line from award-winning designer Houman. A sneak peek at the first two items in the collection, which were impressive in their beauty and complexity
LUZ (the Spanish word for "light" and pronounced "lose,") is, according to Houman, "what you feel. My LUZ, how I feel, or experiences I have with LUZ are different from your LUZ, and the experiences you have in your life, and who would be LUZ for you or what would be LUZ for you." Confused? You should be, according to Houman, because love, he says, is characterized by "complexity and confusion."
It is that complexity that inspired Houman to create LUZ. "There are a lot of hidden things. It's kind of like sculpture - where you have to stare at it from all the different angles ... Each side [of the ring] represents something. One side is love, the other side is passion, the other side is desire, and then the top part where it comes to a point, that's boundaries," he says. Add to that eight red ruby accents to represent the color of love and passion, and you have the collection's first signature piece.
As with any labor of love, creating LUZ was no easy task. It took Houman two-and-a-half months of brainstorming, sketching and soul-searching to come up with LUZ, and another month-and-a-half after that to produce his first prototype. "There's a lot of passion in the line," he says.
Houman, who grew up in France, is no stranger to passion himself. He has been zealous about jewelry since he was a child, spending time in his parents' jewelry store. That inspired him to enter a five-year jewelry arts program in Toronto. After earning his degree, Houman began manufacturing jewelry in Nantucket, Mass., during which time he earned a Platinum Guild Award. In 2000, longing for warmer weather, Houman moved to San Diego, where,
three years later, he opened Houman Jewelry Design in Coronado. Recognition came again in 2005, when he won the People's Choice Award as Coronado's best jewelry designer.
Walking into the store, it's easy to understand why. Gone are the rows of sterile glass cases associated with many large chain jewelry stores. In their place are warm wood display cabinets, as artfully arranged as the jewelry itself. Hardwood floors and pulsating music add to Houman's boutique atmosphere, and an interior window offers a view of the jewelry-making process.
All of Houman's pieces are hand-crafted at the store, which adds to their allure. "Each piece is going to get individual attention," Houman says. "It's not something that we're going to mass produce and just throw out there.
Houman says LUZ is not for everyone. "It's very bold; it's very big and gutsy."
© Houman Design LLC. All rights reserved.
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Song Lyrics From Around The World
Home | 0-9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | Soundtracks | Christmas |
What song will you find on Lyrics Playground today?
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I recommend reading Parts 1 through 10 before reading this essay
Crime prevention is the key to peaceful societies. The quantity of resources which must be devoted to the pursuit, capture, prosecution, and incarceration of criminals is directly related to our ability, or inability, to prevent crimes from occurring in the first place. In Part 8, we reviewed the superior performance of private security firms as compared to public police departments in the area of crime prevention. The private sector always operates under a different incentive structure than the public sector. Different incentives produce different results.
As to the capture and conviction of criminals, the dismal performance of the public sector (Part 8) is particularly disturbing. Here is a sphere of activity over which the government claims, and coercively enforces, a monopoly for itself. As it fails miserably to deliver the promised services, it continues to extract higher taxes from the citizenry, while forbidding competitors from offering a superior service at a lower price. Given the different incentives, and if allowed to compete, we should expect the private sector to outperform its public counterpart by a significant margin – just as we have seen in the area of crime prevention. If the reader wishes to explore some of the possibilities of how the private sector might approach the task of “capture and conviction”, Benson’s essay (2014)[1] is very informative.
Most people employed in the public and private sectors are decent people. However, when you want something done right, it is not enough to hire good people. You must hire people who are sufficiently incentivized to perform their assigned task. If you have read the previous ten essays, you are familiar with this principle. It is common sense. Thus, the issues of restitution and rehabilitation are best left to the private sector – the competitive marketplace. Freedom of competition creates the incentives to achieve the best possible results. How would private firms approach this task? It is impossible to provide a detailed answer to this question, because nothing in the marketplace can be predicted with precision. However, we can predict the market will respond if the government’s monopoly is repealed, and we can imagine various solutions which might materialize.
As a thought experiment, I will provide an outline of one possible approach as a means of illustrating the creativity of the market. Creative solutions can arise, and will arise, in an environment of open competition. Private firms will fiercely compete to satisfy the demands of consumers, and we can be assured of a latent demand for restitution, rehabilitation, and retribution.
SELECTING AN ARBITRATOR
We begin at the point where an individual is in custody, has been accused of an offence, and a victim is identified. An individual who is accused of theft, robbery, or assault must, if found guilty, make restitution to the victim. In the case of murder, the victim is obviously dead; therefore the victim to whom restitution is due is considered to be a surviving spouse, child, parent, or sibling etc. There are other scenarios, but this covers the vast majority of crimes against person and property.
No amount of money can restore a life, replace a lost leg, or eliminate the psychological trauma of aggravated assault. However, in an imperfect world, true justice can be achieved only by enforcing accountability to the fullest possible extent. The first step is to determine guilt, then an appropriate level of restitution. The ‘accused’ and victim will agree on a choice of professional arbitrator. The accused is motivated to come to this agreement because to unreasonably drag out the process of selecting an arbitrator would result in a longer period of incarceration, and the risk that the choice of arbitrator, after a stipulated period of time, will be left solely to the victim. The choice of arbitrator includes an agreement to accept the arbitrator’s decision (alternatively, a panel of three arbitrators may be chosen – one each by the accused and victim, with the third being agreed upon by the first two arbitrators chosen).
This is not a novel idea. Arbitration was commonly used in the middle ages. It is also widely used among business people today, and has been for centuries. Who would qualify to arbitrate these specific issues? That is a decision to be made by the accused and victim, but there will be many candidates – some of those currently involved in corporate arbitration may well have the expertise to fill this role; judges and lawyers (including those who have retired) formerly employed in the public sector who have a reputation for integrity and insightfulness will be prime candidates. The accused and the victim cannot be expected to agree on an arbitrator who does not have these qualities – impartiality is also important. Therefore, that is what the market will produce. Market competition ensures that arbitrators who fail to live up to these standards will find it difficult to attract customers.
ARBITRATION PROCEEDINGS
A professional arbitrator has been selected, and has determined the accused party to be guilty. The next step is to determine the degree of restitution and retribution. During this stage, depending on the circumstances, the arbitrator may go slightly easier on the offender if he admitted his guilt at the outset. In any event, the offender and victim will present their arguments to the arbitrator. As they make their respective cases, each side will likely give their opinion about a fair level of compensation and punishment, though this would not necessarily be a formal requirement. However, the arbitrator is not obligated to render a decision which matches the recommendation of either party. The victim would explain the extent of harm incurred. The criminal might assert the existence of extenuating circumstances. The arbitrator will consider the evidence and render a decision. Let’s look at some possible examples, without addressing the cost of incarceration, which will be discussed later:
Crime – A stole $10,000 from B
Restitution – A must pay $800 to various parties to cover the costs of investigation, apprehension, arbitration, and term of confinement (if applicable) to date
Restitution – A must reimburse B $10,000 plus $500 interest
Retribution – A must pay B $1,500 as penalty for a wrongful act; A will be released immediately if he can afford to pay the total sum of $12,800. Otherwise, A will be incarcerated until the entire sum is paid in full.
Note – under authoritarian law, for the crime of “theft and mischief over $1,000”, the punishment might be 17 hours of confinement and zero restitution from the criminal[2]
Crime – A rapes B
Restitution – A must pay $25,000 to various parties to cover the costs of investigation, apprehension, arbitration, and term of confinement to date
Restitution – A must pay B $300,000
Retribution – Term of incarceration is (a) until the total sum of $325,000 is paid, and (b) until the age of fifty, and (c) a minimum of fifteen years
Note – under authoritarian law, for the crime of “serious sexual assault”, the punishment might be 9 months of incarceration and zero restitution from the criminal[3]
Crime – A rapes B, and the arbitrator determines the rapist to be a psychopath
Restitution – same as above, a total of $325,000
Retribution – Permanent incarceration
Note – under authoritarian law, after a period of incarceration, the state frequently releases psychopaths to create more victims (see Part 10), always with zero restitution from the criminal
Crime – A murders B, premeditated
Restitution – A must pay the spouse of B $900,000
In the above examples, do not focus on the dollar figures for restitution. It is the concept of restitution which is important. Criminals must compensate their victims! The dollar figures are invented. They are either too low or too high. The first example is easiest to understand, and the dollar figure would appear logical to most people. But how do you put a price on rape or murder? Can the damage caused by rape and murder be fixed with money, as in the case of theft? Yes and no. Often the damage cannot be completely repaired with money, but money will help (a) if extensive counselling is required, and (b) to offset a financial difficulty if the victim’s ability to earn a living is impaired, and (c) to replace the lost income of a murder victim which created a hardship for the surviving spouse. However, the absence of these three scenarios does not change the fact that the criminal has harmed the victim, and must therefore compensate the victim.
Capital punishment might be an option, perhaps utilized only in situations where both arbitrator and victim agreed, because the victim would be sacrificing restitution payments which she would otherwise receive. Capital punishment might also depend on whether it is consistent with societal norms i.e. is it widely accepted by the people?
Restitution is compensation for harm done. Retribution is punishment. We can be sure that all rape victims, rich or poor, wish for their attackers to be held accountable. The figure of $300,000 for rape is fictitious. Maybe it would be higher. Maybe it would be lower. Rape is a serious crime, and even $50,000 is more than the victim receives from the criminal today. Under authoritarian law, the criminal knows it is extremely unlikely he will be caught, let alone incarcerated (see Part 8). However, in the event a rich criminal today was in fact caught and prosecuted, he could afford to pay $50,000, or more, to his rape victim, if the victim agreed to drop the charges, in turn allowing the criminal to immediately become a free man, free to create new victims.
Even if this monetary payoff is similar to what an arbitrator would have awarded, this was a serious crime and justice demands an extensive period of incarceration, in addition to restitution. Under a system of competitive arbitration, the highest possible level of justice can be achieved, and rich people will be unable to buy off their victims. Both rich and poor criminals alike will compensate their victims and face lengthy incarceration for such offences. That’s justice! Here is more justice – rape today is a vastly underreported crime because victims do not believe their attackers will be held accountable, and in most cases, they are correct. The prospect of restitution will encourage more victims to come forward, putting more bad guys behind bars,[4] thus reducing the number of rape victims which would otherwise be created (and are created today).
The arbitrator’s decision is final. This does not mean restitution will be paid in full, but it does mean criminals will never be released from prison without having paid their debts in full, to the victim, and to the other parties. The term of incarceration must also be completed in full, in all respects. Once again, the arbitrator’s decision is final.[5] There are no early releases for good behaviour and no parole boards, a concept sure to be embraced by many of today’s frustrated judges, whose sentences are constantly reduced by the bureaucracy.
ARBITRATORS WILL CONSIDER A CRIMINAL’S AGE AND OTHER CHARACTERISTICS
In the examples above, we see that an arbitrator might stipulate that a criminal shall not be released prior to reaching a certain age. This recognizes the high rate of recidivism[6], as well as the fact that incidents of violent crime are not evenly distributed between the sexes, nor evenly distributed amongst the various age brackets. Males are far more violent than females, and 55 percent of federal felons are between twenty and thirty-four years old. Crime declines rapidly with age.[7] The current high rate of recidivism reflects a bureaucracy which facilitates an environment of drugs and violence in prisons, but it also reflects a commonality among criminals. William Gairdner’s research reveals that:
The typical criminal is . . . of somewhat below-average intelligence, generally has a muscular body, is inarticulate (verbal ability is highly correlated with intelligence), and most telling of all, is extremely impulsive and given to heavy “time-discounting.” In other words, criminals have a very short time horizon. Also, most criminals show signs of trouble very early in life and most have never formed strong emotional attachments . . . Because they are very “present-oriented,” they generally refuse to postpone personal gratification. This trait may be thought of as: “I see it, I want it, I get it” – whether it is a woman, a car, or an item in a store. We should note, however, that this is a calculated impulsiveness, for a criminal who knows he is being watched by the police can easily control his criminal desires (indeed, he sees such strategic control as arch cleverness). What we typically see is an extreme reluctance to plan for the future, and a buck-passing, it-wasn’t-my-fault mentality (reinforced by our therapy orientation). Criminals show a lack of anxiety over the things that generally create anxiety in others, and a complete lack of dependability. Of course, crime suits such individuals very well because it provides a means to short-circuit the normal reward pathways of society that require effort, time, and postponement of gratification. Punishment always seems remote to criminals – because it is. It is the homogeneity of the criminal-personality profile that is so striking, not the variation. Indeed, many criminals have been wholly seduced by crime.[8]
ARBITRATION TRANSPARENCY
There would be an open record of all arbitration rulings, including the offender’s name, details of the offence (except private victim information), restitution, and retribution. This transparency is in the interest of arbitrators operating in a competitive market, as it allows the public to track their performance and assess their integrity. Those with a reputation for firmness and fairness will have little difficulty attracting business. In contrast, arbitrators who issue too many rulings which are deemed to be unfair from the perspective of either criminal or victim, will soon have no customers, and be forced out of business – thus they are held accountable for their decisions. Conversely, today’s bureaucrats are not held accountable for their decisions – they continue to collect their salaries despite their propensity for insufficient sentences and early release of dangerous criminals.
Market participants can own and operate prisons far more effectively than the government, and do so at a profit. A few private prisons exist in the U.S. and the concept has been tried in Canada, but this is not the answer to the problem because these prisons are not a product of the market. These companies are the beneficiaries of privatization, which is the outsourcing, or contracting out, of prison services by the government, which means taxpayers are still paying the bill, and cronyism guarantees an inflated bill; and victim compensation is not part of the contract.
A State prison monopoly produces benefits for the bureaucracy by outlawing the benefits of low-price-high-quality market services. The State must sell its prison properties, and if cronyism determines the buyers, at least that will be the end of it; the end of taxpayer support, meaning that private security companies would sink or swim in the market based on their creativity, ingenuity and expertise. The prospect of failure spurs innovation. Some security companies will fare better than others. That’s what happens in the market. Those who struggle from mismanagement or lack of imagination, and are unable to turn things around, will be forced to sell their property to more efficient operators.
Whether a company is well managed or not, it will at all times be highly motivated to safeguard its most important asset, the prisoners. In the absence of the previous monopoly, security would be much tighter than today. An escaped prisoner harms the company’s reputation with the public, thereby reducing the market value of the company, as well as reducing its ability to attract business from arbitrators who will generally assign criminals to well managed security companies.
Prisoners are the most important assets of the private security company because they are its only source of revenue. Prisoners must work for wages to pay off the debts they have incurred. Under our current State-controlled system, some prisoners receive wages for work, but this arrangement is not even remotely market-based, average wages being less than one dollar per hour.
A formula, which need not be the same for each prisoner, will be established, indicating how the wages of each prisoner will be allocated. For example, just to illustrate the concept:
(a) 25% allocated to the security company
(b) 40% allocated to reimbursement of costs for investigation, apprehension, arbitration, and the initial term of confinement prior to arbitration
(c) 25% allocated to victim restitution
(d) 10% allocated to the prisoner.
Ten percent for the prisoner is to incentivize him to work, to produce, to pay his debts. It may not seem like much of an incentive, but there are other incentives, to be discussed shortly.
Using the above formula, when the recipients in the (b) group have been fully paid, the allocation for (c) rises to 65%. One more relevant point – when the arbitrator issues his/her ruling, all assets of the criminal will be seized (not to exceed the total amount owed) and liquidated, with the proceeds used to pay off the debts according to a predetermined formula. Any outstanding debts would be paid in accordance with the above formula.
THE PRISON ENVIRONMENT
All well and good you might say, but what sort of work will prisoners do, and how do we expect to motivate them to work when we have already acknowledged the unsavoury character of most criminals, which appears to exclude them from the pursuit of honest labour? Most criminals can turn their life around, but this does not mean they will. However, given the proper incentives, many will do just that. Even those permanently incarcerated can be incentivized to be productive workers. First let’s consider some of the features of the current prison environment, to which we give full credit to the State:
By and large, all prisoners are treated the same; the same food, clothes, amenities etc.
It would seem that the drug problem is to a large degree the result of drugs brought “in the front door” by visitors who are difficult to search properly due to restrictions contained within the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms[9]
Violence and rape are endemic
These three problems must be eliminated in order to create an atmosphere conducive to productive work. These issues will be quickly resolved by the market. The market means no government involvement, interference, influence, rules, guidelines, or regulations. Prisoners will be denied many freedoms as a consequence of their offences.
Drugs prescribed for the treatment of genuine health conditions will be allowed, but closely monitored. All other drugs will be banned. This will be detailed in the rulings of arbitrators and strictly enforced by private security companies who have a vested interest in ensuring compliance. What is their vested interest? It is likely that most drug addicted inmates would earn substandard wages, which lowers the revenue, and profits, for the security company. That’s right folks, it’s all about money, as it should be, in a market setting, because that’s what delivers results! If you look closely, you can see the mutual benefit. The security company’s quest for profit is the cause which produces the effect of improving the health of prisoners, by removing from their lives the harmful effects of drugs, thus allowing them to become more productive workers.
Upon release, some of the former inmates will surely revert back to their old ways, but many will have kicked the habit permanently. Keeping drugs out of prison is not difficult for a private company unhampered by the State: (a) security personnel will be subjected to rigorous background checks, and if caught dealing in drugs, will be dismissed on the spot (b) a visitor can be easily accommodated, but physically separated from the prisoner (c) visitors wishing physical contact must submit to an invasive body search, and pay for the privilege (d) if necessary, as a final option, specific visitors, or all visitors, may be banned. Prisoners complaining of unfair treatment will be reminded of the unfair treatment to which they subjected their victims.
Likewise, a private security company will implement policies and procedures to prevent rape and violence, and rest assured the personnel enforcing these rules will be up to the task. It remains to be seen whether prison guards formerly employed by the state would qualify for the job. A few of them might be successful applicants; through no fault of their own, they have been trapped in a system designed to fail.
Prisoners will quickly learn that equal treatment is a thing of the past. The behaviour of a particular prisoner will determine how that prisoner is treated. Treatment will be individualized, as it should be. Those who produce will eat well. Those refusing to work (while able) will be isolated from other prisoners and fed a subpar diet. There will be no risk of starvation, but constant hunger and isolation are powerful motivators. They must earn their keep and pay their debts. Bleeding hearts may put their complaints in writing and will be instructed where to file them.
Having created a healthy, peaceful prison environment, the private security company will have no problem finding work for prisoners, though in this regard its role might best be described as a quasi employment agency. Although this labour pool, on balance, may not represent the cream of the crop, each prisoner will be employable in some capacity. Furthermore, they are now incentivized to be far more productive than they were prior to incarceration.
Many private companies will eagerly seize the opportunity to set up shop within prisons to take advantage of a new source of labour. Practical considerations and limitations will determine which companies are able to do so profitably, but if unhampered by State regulation, prison labour will most certainly be utilized by the market. The wages of prisoners will tend to be in line with the wages of similarly qualified people in free society (non-prisoners). Within a true free market, this will surely be the case. Any company foolishly attempting to offer below-market-wages to prisoners will be outbid by other companies freely competing in the marketplace.
In fact, it is conceivable that a prisoner might earn slightly higher wages than his equally qualified, but free counterpart. There are at least two possible reasons for this: (a) the prisoner might actually be more productive because he is not subjected to the time and stress of commuting to and from work, as is his free counterpart, and (b) a prisoner whose release is conditional only on fully-paid-restitution will certainly have the motivation to produce more in order to earn more, in order to be released earlier, a powerful incentive unfamiliar to his free counterpart.
Unskilled prisoners can be trained to do something. They are all employable, and those wishing to improve their skills through education (for many, the three r’s) and training in order to increase their wages, will have the opportunity to do so. This will be facilitated either through the employer or the security company, because it will increase profits.
Prison life can be bearable, and even somewhat pleasant, but this will be determined by the efforts of each individual prisoner. Income retained by inmates – ten percent – will increase as their gross earnings increase. They are free to spend their money to purchase goods (except drugs, guns etc.), which increases their personal standard of living. The more money they earn, the more goods they can enjoy. If restitution is fully paid, but a prisoner remains incarcerated, his retained earnings rise from ten percent to seventy-five percent. Thus, even those facing lengthy or permanent incarceration will have an incentive to increase their earnings.
MULTIPLE SOLUTIONS
As mentioned earlier, the above presentation outlines only one possible method of addressing issues of restitution, retribution, and rehabilitation. If the government were to relinquish control, perhaps this method or some version of it will arise in the marketplace. It is a virtual certainty that the market would provide several solutions, operating simultaneously. The market is not like the government – it will not adopt a one-size-fits-all approach.
Consumer preferences, meaning victim preferences, will be reflected in market-based-solutions. For example, offenders who are not dangerous and do not represent a flight risk, are unlikely to require incarceration. Instead, they may work off their debts in the community, under close supervision if necessary. This reduces the cost of incarceration, which in turn reduces the time required to pay restitution.
The method outlined above was simply intended to illustrate the point that where incarceration is desirable, it can be easily accommodated in the marketplace, with inmates paying the full cost of their own incarceration.
Consider this question: When incarceration is necessary, which prison system is likely to produce a higher percentage of reformed criminals,
(a) a system of rape, violence, and drugs which releases many dangerous offenders back into society, or
(b) a drug-free system of discipline, accountability, restitution, skill development, competitive wages, and peaceful working conditions
Given the opportunity, there is every reason to believe market-based-restitution will be highly successful. This is not a new concept. It was normal practice under medieval customary law (see Parts 2, 3, and 4), but in today’s world of authoritarian law, with the notable exception of Japan (see Part 5), restitution is virtually non-existent. In Canada, courts occasionally order criminals to pay restitution to their victims, but this only happens in about three percent of ‘guilty’ cases[10]. As low as this figure is, we must also remember that ‘guilty’ verdicts are not obtained for most offences involving victims i.e. most crimes are not solved (see Part 8). Thus, restitution is ordered for less than one percent of such offences. Furthermore, enforcement of restitution orders is weak.
Bureaucracies occasionally loosen their grip over the administration of authoritarian law in favour of an approach which bears some of the characteristics of customary law. I am referring to mediation programs, which typically require an authoritarian law bureaucracy to refer a case to the program, and subsequently grant their approval to its outcome. Martin E. Price, J.D., a social worker turned lawyer, turned mediator and peacemaker, is a nationally and internationally recognized pioneer and leader in Restorative Justice and Conflict Resolution. Price tells us:[11]
Of the cases mediated, over 90% result in a restitution agreement and contract. . . . Of the cases in which a restitution contract is signed, over 95% of the contracts are satisfactorily completed within one year of the mediation . . . Studies of court-ordered restitution show 20-30% compliance as typical. The reason for this huge difference in compliance is probably that offenders who make an agreement for restitution feel like it is their agreement. Restitution orders handed down by a court are commonly perceived as more of a punishment than a moral obligation.
Unlike binding arbitration, mediators do not impose decisions. Their role is to facilitate discussions between the two parties. Mediators provide substantial input during these discussions, but final agreements and contracts do not occur without the mutual consent of the two parties. Mediation is a very personal process, in contrast to the impersonal, adversarial process of authoritarian court proceedings. The personal nature of mediation produces positive restitution contracts, but it also appears to produce positive effects on recidivism and rehabilitation. As Price notes:
Newly emerging evidence, still tentative in its scope, suggests that offenders who mediate with their victims are dramatically less likely to return to crime than comparable offenders who have been dealt with in the usual ways. VORPs [Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs] throughout the U.S. report recidivism rates of under 10% for offenders who have been through their programs, as compared to the typical recidivism rates of from 50-85%.
According to Professor John O. Haley of the University of Washington School of Law, various studies now show that wrongdoers, in general, experience distress after committing an offense and respond either by attempting to restore relationships through remorse and restitution, or by seeking to justify their misconduct. These are alternative responses. But the desire to demonstrate remorse, make restitution, and receive forgiveness is commonly the initial reaction that, if not satisfied, leads to justification for the offense. Thus, unless given a chance to express guilt and remorse and receive forgiveness, many offenders will excuse their crime by blaming the victim, the society or someone else. For many offenders, therefore, mediated settlement in criminal cases serves as a correctional process, unlike the prisons we euphemistically call “correctional.”
. . . Repeat crime can be deterred by engendering “victim empathy” in offenders as they are put into contact with the real human consequences of their actions, and by making them accountable to their victims. Nothing else in the criminal justice process has as much potential for diverting beginners from a criminal career.
. . . There is a popular belief that the public wants more punishment for offenders. Of course, it goes without saying that public outcries for more punishment come because, as a society, we don’t know what else to do about our crime problem. VORP research has shown that members of the public want more punishment when they are asked about this issue in the abstract, without names and faces attached. But after crimes have been personalized, names and faces are put on the offenders, and stereotypes about “the monsters who would do things like this” are broken down in a face-to-face encounter with the offender, victims consistently state a preference for less punishment and more meaningful accountability. The key, of course, is that the victim’s fears are fueled by the unknown, and allayed by knowledge about the offender. This reduction in victims’ often disabling fear after being victimized is regularly cited by victims to be one of the most valuable benefits of meeting their offender.
Absent the State’s monopoly of police, courts, and prisons, insurance companies might be major participants in this field of activity, which seems tailor-made for them. As Murray Rothbard wrote, “It seems likely . . . that supplies of police and judicial service would be provided by insurance companies, because it would be to their direct advantage to reduce the amount of crime as much as possible.”[12] Also, From Benson’s essay (2014):
One area of product innovation that others have predicted would result from a shift from publicly provided criminal justice to privately provided victim justice is a dramatic expansion in the role and functions of insurance. . . .
. . . If insurance organizations were able to collect restitution payments from offenders after they pay victims’ claims (i.e., payment means the right to restitution has been transferred to the insurer, who then invests in pursuit and prosecution . . . ), this added source of revenue should allow them to offer more types of insurance against intentionally inflicted harms and property losses at lower rates. As a result, insured victims would be compensated to a degree (determined by the policies chosen) whether offenders are caught or not.
There is likely to be a wide array of policies and insurance/protection/investigative arrangements if the market is allowed to work. . . .
. . . Insurance pools and providers have incentives to reduce offenses, so they might offer protection services either through contracting with specialists or through proprietary security employment, or they might charge lower prices to customers who invest in protection, or both. Pursuit and prosecution of offenders also can serve as a deterrent. Therefore, insurers would have incentives to pursue offenders beyond the desire to collect restitution. A reputation for doing so should deter attacks on their customers. . . . Providers might employ their own investigators, contract with specialized investigators, and/or offer rewards. This means that the fact that a particular offender will not be able or willing to pay restitution does not eliminate incentives for pursuit. . . .[13]
What is the real cost of authoritarian law? There are costs imposed on victims which authoritarian bureaucracies do not resolve. There are costs imposed on taxpayers for funding police, court, and prison bureaucracies which usually fail to achieve their stated objectives. There are costs imposed on offenders through incarceration in violent, drug-infested prisons. Such costs are easily understood by most people who take the time to think about the issues.
However, all of these costs, substantial as they are, represent only a small percentage of the total cost of authoritarian law. There are literally thousands of peaceful activities which authoritarian law considers ‘criminal.’ Many of these laws are created to satisfy special interest groups (Part 9). Compliance costs and opportunity costs are generated by these arbitrary laws. These costs are staggering, and they are absorbed by every member of society. We will examine these costs in Part 12.
[1] Bruce L. Benson Let’s Focus on Victim Justice, Not Criminal Justice (The Independent Review, vol. 19, no. 2, Fall 2014, pp 209 – 238) pp 218-25
[2] William D. Gairdner The Trouble With Canada . . Still! (Key Porter Books Limited, Toronto, 2010) p 360
[4] We should also expect a higher number of false rape accusations because of the prospect of compensation. The onus remains with the alleged victim to provide proof.
[5] The obvious exception is the discovery of new evidence proving the initial “guilty” verdict to be incorrect.
[6] We have seen that psychopaths have a higher rate of recidivism. Nevertheless, we must remember that the rate of recidivism among non-psychopaths is also a concern. On this, see William D. Gairdner The Trouble With Canada . . . Still! (Key Porter Books Limited, Toronto, 2010) pp 344-45
[7] See William D. Gairdner The Trouble With Canada . . . Still! (Key Porter Books Limited, Toronto, 2010) p 342
[8] William D. Gairdner The Trouble With Canada . . . Still! (Key Porter Books Limited, Toronto, 2010) p 342
[10] Susan McDonald Understanding Restitution (Department of Justice, Victims of Crime Research Digest, Issue No. 2, 2009)
[11] Price, Marty Mediated Civil Compromise – A Tool for Restorative Justice (Oregon Defense Attorney Journal)
[12] Murray N. Rothbard Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market (Scholar’s Edition, second edition, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama, 2009) p 1,052
[13] Bruce L. Benson Let’s Focus on Victim Justice, Not Criminal Justice (The Independent Review, vol. 19, no. 2, Fall 2014, pp 209 – 238) pp 230-32
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Bring Me the Horizon Played Their Deathcore Songs Last Night and Have Never Sounded Heavier
Getty Images: Jo Hale
Bring Me the Horizon performed in Amsterdam last night (Nov. 20), and it was frontman Oli Sykes' birthday. In celebration, the band performed a handful of songs that haven't seen the stage in years.
The throwback medley included "Re: They Have No Reflections," "(I Used To Make Out With) Medusa," "Diamonds Aren’t Forever" and "The Comedown." The former two are taken from their deathcore days, while the latter marked the beginning of their transition into a metalcore group. According to Kerrang!, the two deathcore tracks haven't been performed in over 10 years.
Bring Me will release their new studio album, Amo, on Jan. 11, 2019. (Pre-orders are on sale now.) In case you missed them, listen to the two lead singles, "Mantra" and "Wonderful Life," which features Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth. The band will embark on a North American headlining tour in January as well. Check out a full list of dates and locations below.
Bring Me the Horizon 2019 North American Tour Dates:
01/23 - Nashville, Tenn. @ Nashville Municipal Auditorium
01/25 - Orlando, Fla. @ CFE Arena
01/26 - Atlanta, Ga. @ Coca-Cola Roxy
01/28 - Fairfax, Va. @ EagleBank Arena
01/29 - Manhattan, N.Y. @ Hammerstein Ballroom
02/01 - Boston, Mass. @ Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell
02/02 - Montreal, Quebec @ Place Bell
02/04 - Detroit, Mich. @ Fillmore Detroit
02/05 - Chicago, Ill. @ Aragon Ballroom
02/06 - Minneapolis, Minn. @ Armory
02/08 - Dallas, Texas @ South Side Ballroom
02/09 - Houston, Texas @ Revention Music Center
02/11 - Denver, Colo. @ The Fillmore Auditorium
02/13 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ The Forum
02/15 - Phoenix, Ariz. @ Comerica Theatre
02/16 - Las Vegas, Nev. @ The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
2019’s Most Anticipated Hard Rock + Metal Albums
Filed Under: Bring Me the Horizon
Categories: Metal, News, Videos
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Hong Kong group concludes the purchase of 80.1% of Banco de Negócios Internacional (Europa)
| Angola | China | Portugal
Hong Kong’s King Wai (KWG) group has acquired an 80.1% stake in Portuguese bank Banco Internacional de Negócios (Europa), a digital banking platform, the South China Morning Post reported recently.
The newspaper wrote that the deal had a dual purpose, which was to follow mainland China’s interest in deepening the economic and trade relationship with Portuguese-speaking countries and to help Hong Kong residents wishing to move to Europe due to ongoing security concerns in the city.
The group, which did not disclose the cost of this purchase, last October received authorisation from the European Central Bank to acquire an 80% stake in BNI (Europe), which has assets of €500 million and operates in 13 European countries, including Germany and the United Kingdom.
Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso reported last May that BNI (Europe), of the Angolan group Banco de Negócios Internacional, had recorded “historical” losses, thus requiring more capital, which would be guaranteed by the Hong Kong group.
“The authorisation process for the acquisition of a qualified shareholding of Banco BNI Europa’s capital stock is in the final stages of consideration by the Bank of Portugal and the European Central Bank, and is expected to be completed by the end of June 2019,” said the 2018 report and accounts of BNI Europa, in which the Angolan BNI has a share of 92.988%.
The process of disposal of most of the Angolan bank’s stake in the Portuguese bank (80.1% was for sale, according to BNI’s report and accounts) began in 2017. (Macauhub)
Brazil may have over 100 million active mobile phone this year
Angolan government to build cotton ginning and spinning mill in Malanje province
Portuguese exports to Mozambique almost double from January through March
Portugal’s Prime Minister to visit Mozambique on 15 and 16 March
Investments in Cape Verde water supply exceed 9 million euros over 5 years
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“People Can’t Keep Their Hate To Themselves” Aoki Lee Simmons Says White Classmate Won’t Stop Saying The N Word
By Veronica Wells
Source: Scott Dudelson / Getty
I think far too many Americans are under the false assumption that racism exists on the fringes of society. And there are those who feel like even if racism is thriving in open spaces, those spaces aren’t on the coasts, in places like California and New York City.
There are those who believe that a certain amount of money and access will shield you from the realities and harshness of racism. And while it might make the situation better, it doesnt erase it altogether.
Recently, via Instagram Live, Aoki Lee Simmons, daughter of Russell and Kimora Lee Simmons shared the story of her classmate repeatedly using and calling her the n word.
“I’m so over people at my school being racist and no one doing anything about it. Like, I go to school to work. I don’t even talk to these people because I’m busy. I’m trying to go to Yale, I’m trying to go to Harvard, I don’t have time for you.
And this particular kid, I swear all day long—he’s White and he cannot stop saying the n word. It’s like his favorite thing to say. I don’t even use it like that but he just loves to use it. And see how far he can push it and see how many people he can offend and all of his friends don’t care. They all think they’re nice, woke, good people but they don’t stop him.
The only class I’m in that is not advanced placement—I don’t want to take too many Advanced classes because or I’d be really stressed. We were put in a group together, forced. He is a goof off, so I’m doing all the work because I’m just like, ‘I’ll do the work, leave me alone. Just be on your phone. I’ll finish the project. Leave me alone’ because I can’t even work with this kid. So I’m doing the thing where I’m talking to myself as you write. I guess he found that weird, so he looks up from his phone, “Mr. Do No Work” and says, ‘Nigga are you on crack or something?’
I was like, what? What are you talking about? Like what? Leave me alone. Like, I’m not even talking to you.
If we don’t get along so well—because he could say ‘Oh, it was in a friendly way.’ But we don’t even get along. We aren’t friends so that should not be your weapon of choice. This kid is so stubborn, I’ve given up on making him stop saying it period but I will really not be called that. The fact that I did not even provoke you, it’s just ridiculous.
You can live your life, go to school, be doing the right thing. Being a normal kid, getting ready for college and not provoke anybody and still have this kind of thing happen to you. Same way you can live your life, just be Black and not provoke anybody still have this happen to you. You can be gay and live your life and not provoke anybody and still have stuff happen to you.
People cannot keep their hate to themselves. They cannot help to be hateful even if you didn’t speak to them.”
Aoki said she’s asked this boy to stop calling him the n word over the course of the three years the two have been in the school together.
Lee Simmons said the boy tells her that because he’s a rapper, he’s Blacker than her.
You can watch Aoiki’s full stream in the video below.
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Locavortex
Free the Seed
Story by Leilani Clark // Filed under Grow Local Jul/Aug 2017
Farmers and seed growers return locally grown, open-pollinated and open-source seeds to the head of the table.
At first glance, the three women hunched over tomato starts in a garden behind St. Stephen’s Church in Sebastopol don’t look like revolutionaries. They’re not bearded and stoic like Che Guevara. They’re not bespectacled with a dramatic flair for oration like Malcolm X. And they’re not rousing a crowd of thousands at the People’s Climate March like Bill McKibben or Naomi Klein. But, take a closer look and you’ll see that these women are engaged in a quiet, often unrecognized, form of revolution: the act of propagating and preserving locally grown and adapted seeds with an eye towards food security for the surrounding community and future generations.
“Seed sovereignty must become very central to food sovereignty.” VANDANA SHIVA
Photos by Michelle Feileacan
“We’re like the grandmothers, protecting the seed,” says Sara McCamant, who in her early 50s is the youngest of the three. McCamant is one of 10 core volunteers at the Community Seed Exchange, an all-volunteer organization dedicated to growing and giving away locally grown, open-pollinated seeds. Seeds, these grassroots activists say, are an overlooked link to building a resilient local food system. For the last eight years, the seed exchange has steadily grown both as a repository of seed and a seed-saving network. They do this through work parties, workshops, and a library that offers—for free—about 200 varieties of 100 percent locally grown, open-pollinated seeds.
On a recent visit, the shelves of the seed library are filled with jars of flower, vegetable, legume, and grain seeds, from bachelor’s buttons to barley. “These are all free?” one visitor asks, eyes flush with excitement as they portion palmfuls of Mayan lettuce and fennel seeds into small envelopes. It’s so against the norm in America—where anything that can be sold usually is—as to seem unreal.
“All free. This is the real sharing economy,” says McCamant.
The only requirement is that you take only what you need and leave behind plenty for the next person. It doesn’t surprise McCamant—or, for that matter, any other seed savers who’ve been at this for a long time—that free seeds astonish amateur backyard gardeners who’ve become accustomed to buying pretty seed packets from the store. “We believe that seed is part of the commons,” says McCamant, taking down a jar of quinoa. “This quinoa is not something that I grew and is mine. This quinoa goes back 7,000 years and was developed by people in Peru and Bolivia. It’s not something I have any right to own.”
Everything grown in the seed garden is open-pollinated: Cascadia Sugar Snap Peas, Red Venture Celery, Detroit Red Beets, Cascade Corn, Ruby Valentine lettuce, Sonora White Wheat. The plants are selected for a host of reasons. The celery is a good producer and comes from Frank Morton, a famous Pacific Northwest plant breeder and staunch advocate for open-pollinated seeds and open-source seeds; the wheat is the oldest in California and grown for its historical significance; the lettuce is a heirloom sold by one small seed company and it stands a good chance of being lost if not cultivated. Eventually, these seeds will be harvested, sorted, cleaned, and added to the library’s inventory.
The one thing you won’t find in the Community Seed Garden are hybrid seeds. These are the seeds favored by Monsanto and other big agri-businesses in which one plant is crossed with another to create a whole new organism. Hybrids may guarantee higher yields and hardy plants for one season, but good luck saving the seed and planting them again next year. The seed will revert back to the traits of its parents, meaning you have no idea what you’re going to get or how it’s going to taste. In this way, the big seed companies have become more like landlords of seeds, renting to farmers and other growers year after year, and making billions in profit.
“If we really care about our local food system, then we really need to look at where our seed is coming from,” says McCamant. “If it’s being controlled by large corporations that are growing seed all over the world, then it’s like the food link to the food system is really missing. The question becomes: How do we localize it?”
That question is finding some answers with Steve Peters, a research and outreach associate for the Organic Seed Alliance (OSA), a Port Townsend, Washingtonbased nonprofit that is working to develop and improve seed production and marketing opportunities for seed growers. In the past, Peters has consulted with Bohemian Seeds, a small open-source seed business out of Occidental (you can find their seeds at the Sebastopol Farmers’ Market) and Eric George, a young farmer in Petaluma. OSA recently launched a pilot project in California to build local seed hubs—for cleaning, processing, and storing seeds, and where growers can connect with commercial farmers. U.S. backyard gardeners, with their varied choices, are going to be okay, according to Peters. The true challenge lies in finding good quality, open source seeds that are worthy of the physical traits and germination needs desired by commercial growers.
“The goal is bring seed back to the forefront in agriculture because it’s been, in many ways, forgotten about,” says Peters. “A hundred years ago most farmers saved their seed and now very few do because it’s become a very specialized part of agriculture. That’s fine when you have a lot of choices and accessibility to material, but in the last 10 to 15 years, the industry has really consolidated. Very few people are actually growing seed. There are a lot of seed savers, but the commercial market is almost completely dominated by a few major players.”
With consolidation comes less choice. Plus, since the business model is to own the material you sell, severe patent restrictions have been placed on the products, meaning farmers can’t legally save seed and they definitely can’t use patented varieties to develop their own locally adapted versions. Still, modern hybrid varieties draw farmers in with their high, reliable yields. The problem arrives when they aren’t adapted to changing conditions and those record yields turn to nothing. “You’re really in trouble then,” says Peters.
And yet, locally adapted and resilient plant material are integral to handling a changing climate and the resulting floods, droughts, salinization, and viruses that are already happening or soon to arrive. “Many times, it’s the older varieties that have been held by communities for millennia,” says Peters. “Open-pollinated breeding allows the whole population to intermix so that you can choose the best, most resilient individuals out of the progeny. It really focuses on the future, on each subsequent generation, and continues to improve.”
In Petaluma, seedsman and farmer Eric George has been growing produce for projects that support the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI), a national organization dedicated to the cause of “freeing the seeds.” Originally developed for computer software, the open source model makes intellectual property— whether computer code or seeds—freely available for use and provides a way for that material to stay freely available in perpetuity. Seed breeders that sign the OSSI pledge vow to keep their seeds free of patents, licenses, and other restrictions on freedom of use. OSSI stores a database of crop varieties that have been pledged as what they call “freed seed” and provides links on its website to where those seeds can be purchased, whether from seed companies or individual breeders and seed growers. They also build awareness of the importance of keeping seeds unencumbered from legal restrictions and free to be used, shared, saved, bred, and sold.
In 2015, George was invited to join OSSI’s partnership committee. At the age of 28, he’s the committee’s youngest member. Recently, George launched a new seed company, Coast Range Seeds. He first started thinking seriously about the power of seeds after reading First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology by Jack Kloppenburg. Inspired by the UC Berkeley agroecology program and from campesino field days in 2011 and 2012 with seedsmen in Nicaragua, he moved north to train in western Oregon, a modern epicenter for organic and open-source seed. He enrolled in the Rogue Farm Corps, apprenticed with seed producers, and in 2013 helped form the Southern Oregon Seed Growers Association.
Two years ago, George returned to the North Bay and dove into the consumer end of the supply chain, selling vegetables as a floor worker at Good Earth Natural Foods in Marin. He says it was a chance to observe the workings of the organic vegetable trade, tune in to what resonates with customers, and soak up the experience of a veteran produce team. He also began to notice opportunities to bring OSSI seeds and produce sales together. Now, as a seedsman, he’s working to bridge the two. Last year, he and Bolinas farmer Caymin Ackerman of Big Mesa Farm grew and delivered OSSI varieties “Candystick Dessert Delicata” and “Magma” mustard, to Good Earth, which, in turn, represented these crops to their customers.
George adds that doing a good job selling OSSI produce doesn’t just mean using the food as a vehicle for seeds awareness and education. Going full circle with “seed-to-shelf” produce asks how—without reinventing our normal food economy and shopping patterns—more food dollars might strengthen the economic viability of seed growing and breeding. “Done right, these breeders can continue to invest themselves in their work, and hopefully our region can create the kind of opportunities that attract and sustain the next generation, too.” Back at the Community Seed Exchange, the biggest goal is to get home gardeners to think about where their seeds come from. On the last Saturday of the month, the volunteers open up the seed library to the public. They also host a work party in the seed garden, which offers an opportunity to get your hands dirty, and they offer free classes monthly on topics like seedsaving basics, wet and dry seed processing, and how to grow milkweed and nectar plants to lure monarchs to your garden. They’re always looking for more volunteers to spread the word about locally pollinated seeds versus their globe-trotting industrially farmed hybrid cousins.
“We tend to go in and look at a rack of packets in the store and say, ‘Oh, that looks cool!,’ without thinking of the footprint of the seed,” says Sara McCamant. “If it’s not organic, then it’s been grown with tons of chemicals—seeds don’t have the same rules as food crops. Most likely they’ve been in the ground longer and double-dosed with chemicals. And you really don’t know where they’re coming from. If conventional, then probably the international market. Sometimes from Monsanto, which owns one of the biggest vegetable seed companies in the world. People don’t realize seed has its own footprint.”
Article resources:
communityseedexchange.org
osseeds.org
seedalliance.org
Locavox
Story by Leilani Clark
Read this Story
Handmade by the nerds at Sonoma County GO LOCAL
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© ebm-papst
Spectacular Delivery
Helicopter transports NOVA air conditioners for the new buildings at the ebm-papst location in Hagenmoos/St. Georgen
Some situations require new ways of thinking – and setting up the air conditioners on the roof of the ebm-papst location in Hagenmoos/St. Georgen was one of them! The factory hall is simply too large for conventional setup with a crane. They would have had to build an access road especially for the crane. Instead, they decided to transport the five air conditioners to the roof via helicopter. However, it has a load limit of 1.2 tons. This is why on December 9, 2016, the helicopter had to fly a total of 20 times: each air conditioner consists of four parts that were re-assembled on the roof.
ebm-papst is a fan supplier and customer at the same time
Technical planners and plant engineers were commissioned with the technical planning of the air conditioning in the second construction phase. According to Andreas Gleichauf, Head of House & Building Management at ebm-papst in St. Georgen: “Our specifications said that we could only use the most up-to-date, efficient products. For air conditioning, that means the EC fans from ebm-papst in Mulfingen. And we wanted to use our own fans.” Laughing, he added: “After all, we’re all part of ebm-papst.”
The decision to use air conditioner manufacturer NOVA Apparate from Donaueschingen was easy to make. The rooftop air conditioners satisfied all the requirements in the invitation to tender and the headquarters of the medium-sized company with 130 employees is only 30 kilometers away from St. Georgen. “To us, it was also important to work with a manufacturer from the region,” said Gleichauf. NOVA Apparate GmbH is one of the most innovative equipment manufacturers in Germany, contributing over 50 years of experience to projects.
Delivery via helicopter (Photo: ebm-papst)
Efficient EC technology from Mulfingen for St. Georgen
The air conditioners work with energy-saving EC centrifugal fans from ebm-papst Mulfingen’s new RadiPac series. They are specially designed for use in air conditioners and room ventilation devices. The aluminum hollow profile blades of the backward-curved centrifugal fans are more efficient and the profile shape of the blades reduces the impeller’s weight. The air conditioners are also equipped with thermal wheels and plate heat exchangers to recover heat, saving energy and money in the process. The humidity efficiency limit is 90%, which means the devices can be operated to the benefit of the environment at minimal operating costs.
Additional investment volume of €15 million
The opening ceremony for the first construction phase with an area of 3,800 m2 for a new electronics production line was held in March 2016. At the same time, the cornerstone for the second phase – with an additional investment volume of €15 million – was laid. With this investment, ebm-papst St. Georgen will be adding another 10,000 m2 to the area in Hagenmoos. The building will increase production capacity for the automotive and drive engineering divisions while adding more space for logistics and administration. The space vacated at headquarters will be converted and expanded for the Research & Development department.
The centrifugal fans in the RadiPac product range from ebm-papst Mulfingen will air condition the ebm-papst buildings in St. Georgen. (Photo | ebm-papst)
“Icebox” is the highlight of the energy concept
The new building’s highlight is a modern energy concept that seamlessly follows the environmental and sustainability goals that have guided ebm-papst for years. Two so-called “iceboxes” with a total volumetric capacity of 1,000 m³ are the central heat and cold source.
The plant takes advantage of the physical principle of the latent heat of freezing: when water goes from the liquid to the solid state, energy is released. A heat exchanger removes the energy from the water, which is used to create warm water. To close the circuit, a regenerator thaws the water again with heat extracted from the outlet air.
RadiPac centrifugal fans
RadiPac EC centrifugal fans for air handling units (AHU)
Perfect climate from the ice tank
The new building at the St. Georgen location doesn’t just shine on the surface. Its cold heart beats under the parking lot.»
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Today in History 11/13/16
November 13, 2016 by GµårÐïåñ
(1956) US Supreme Court rules racial segregation on buses illegal
In Browder v. Gayle, the Supreme Court strikes down Alabama laws requiring racial segregation on public buses. The high court rules these laws violate the 14h Amendment, which provides for equal protection under the law. The Montgomery Bus Boycott will end soon after the decision..
Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707, was a case heard before a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on Montgomery and Alabama state bus segregation laws. The panel consisted of Middle District of Alabama Judge Frank Minis Johnson, Northern District of Alabama Judge Seybourn Harris Lynne, and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Rives. The District Court ruled 2-1, with Lynne dissenting, on June 5, 1956 that bus segregation was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment protections for equal treatment.
— Source: wiki/Browder_v._Gayle
(1974) Union activist Karen Silkwood dies in suspicious car crash
Karen Silkwood, a technician at a Kerr-McGee nuclear facility in Crescent, Oklahoma, dies in a one-car crash on her way to meet a journalist to reportedly show him documents that reveal safety issues at the plant. The documents, however, will not be in the car when her body is found..
Karen Gay Silkwood was an American chemical technician and labor union activist known for raising concerns about corporate practices related to health and safety of workers in a nuclear facility. Following her mysterious death, which received extensive coverage, her estate filed a lawsuit against chemical company Kerr-McGee, which was eventually settled for $1.38 million. Silkwood was portrayed by Meryl Streep in Mike Nichols’ 1983 Academy Award-nominated film Silkwood.
Lived: Feb 19, 1946 – Nov 13, 1974 (age 28)
Spouse: William Meadows (m. 1965 – 1972)
Related movies: Silkwood
Children: Michael Meadows (Son) · Dawn Meadows (Daughter) · Kristi Riddles (Daughter)
Parents: William Silkwood (Father) · Merle Silkwood (Mother)
Education: Lamar University
1965: In 1965, she married William Meadows, an oil pipeline worker, with whom she had three children.
1972: Following the couple’s bankruptcy due to William’s overspending, and in the face of his refusal to give up his girlfriend Kathy, Silkwood left Meadows in 1972 and moved to Oklahoma City, where she briefly worked as a hospital clerk.
1972: After being hired at Kerr-McGee in 1972, Silkwood joined the local Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union and took part in a strike at the plant.
1974: On November 5, 1974, Silkwood performed a routine self-check and found that her body contained almost 400 times the legal limit for plutonium contamination.
1974: On November 13, 1974, Silkwood left a union meeting at the Hub Cafe in Crescent.
1974: Karen Silkwood died on November 13, 1974 in Crescent, United States.
— Source: wiki/Karen_Silkwood
(1982) Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, DC
Thousands of Vietnam War veterans march to the site and contemplate a wall of black granite sunk into the ground and etched with names of the more than 58,000 of their comrades killed in the war. Maya Lin’s stark design will prove controversial, but ‘The Wall’ will have a lasting impact..
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a 2-acre national memorial in Washington, DC. It honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for during the War.
Address: 5 Henry Bacon Dr NW, Washington, DC 20242
Website: www.nps.gov/vive/index.htm
Established: Nov 13, 1982
Area: 86,111 sq feet (8,000 m²)
Annual visitors: 3.80 million (2006)
— Source: wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial
(1998) President Bill Clinton settles sexual harassment lawsuit
President Clinton agrees to pay Paula Jones, an ex-Arkansas state worker, $850,000 to drop her lawsuit claiming that he exposed himself to her in a hotel room in 1991. The settlement follows a series of appeals and denials that included an argument before the US Supreme Court. .
Paula Corbin Jones is a former Arkansas state employee who sued U.S. President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment. The Paula Jones case precipitated Clinton’s impeachment in the House of Representatives and the subsequent acquittal by the Senate on February 12, 1999. Charges of perjury and obstruction of justice were brought against Clinton. Eventually, the court dismissed the Paula Jones harassment lawsuit, before trial, on the grounds that Jones failed to demonstrate any damages. However, while the dismissal was on appeal, Clinton entered into an out-of-court settlement by agreeing to pay Jones $850,000.
Born: Sep 17, 1966 (age 50) · Lonoke, AR
Spouse: Steven Mark McFadden (m. 2001) · Stephen Jones (m. 1991 – 1999)
Children: Preston Jones (Son) · Stephen Jones (Son)
Movies: The Hunting of the President · The Clinton Chronicles
Siblings: Charlotte Corbin Brown (Sister) · Lydia Corbin Cathey (Sister)
1991: Paula Jones married Stephen Jones on December 01, 1991; their marriage lasted 8 years till June 01, 1999.
1994: Jones filed a sexual harassment suit against Clinton on May 6, 1994, two days before the three-year statute of limitations, and sought $750,000 in damages.
1997: In December 1997, Jones reduced the damages sought in her suit against Clinton to $525,000 and agreed to remove Clinton’s co-defendant and former bodyguard, Danny Ferguson, from the suit.
1998: On April 2, 1998, before the case could reach trial, Judge Wright granted President Clinton’s motion for dismissal, ruling that Jones could not show that she had suffered any damages.
1999: The Paula Jones case precipitated Clinton’s impeachment in the House of Representatives and the subsequent acquittal by the Senate on February 12, 1999.
1999: In April 1999, Judge Wright found Clinton in civil contempt of court for misleading testimony in the Jones case.
2016: In October 2016, Jones joined Donald Trump for a press conference before the second 2016 Presidential Debate to air grievances against Hillary and Bill Clinton.
— Source: wiki/Paula_Jones
DIH v2.9.o16
Posted in: History Tagged: 1956, 1974, 1982, 1998, history
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A Shroud of Thoughts
Dedicated to Pop Culture in all its forms
About Vanessa Marquez
TV Show Anniversaries
Television: Rare & Well Done
My book available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.
45 Years Ago Today Yellow Submarine Had Its New Yo...
What the Media Isn't Telling You About Google+ and...
Sheldon Leonard: What a Character!
45 Years Ago Today Yellow Submarine Had Its New York City Premiere
It was 45 years ago today, on 13 November 1968, that the animated feature film Yellow Submarine, had its American premiere in New York City. While The Beatles' involvement in the film was minimal (they didn't even provide the voices for their characters in the film), it has come to be counted by many as one of their films. At the time it was a historic film. Not only was it the first animated feature film to utilise a rock soundtrack, but it was also one of the earliest to make use of pop art and psychedelia. Since it's premiere in London on 17 July 1968 it has since become regarded as a classic. In fact, Time magazine included it in their list of "The 25 All-Time Best Animated Films". The film boasts an impressive a 96% percent rating on the web site Rotten Tomatoes.
In honour of the anniversary of the Stateside premiere of Yellow Submarine, I have two treats for you. The first is the film's original trailer. The second is a mini-documentary on the film.
Yellow Submarine - The Trailer from Motherlode Media on Vimeo.
The Beatles Mini Documentaries - Yellow Submarine from Ryan Wells on Vimeo.
Scribbled by Terence Towles Canote at 6:19 PM No comments:
What the Media Isn't Telling You About Google+ and YouTube
Last week Google overhauled YouTube's comments. Much of this involved giving YouTube channel owners new tools for moderation. If they choose, channel owners can now look over comments before they are posted and delete them and even block the commenter if necessary. Unfortunately, Google also integrated YouTube's comments with Google+. As a result if one wants to comment on YouTube videos he or she now must have a Google+ account. Several media outlets have reported the outrage of YouTube users at having to get Google+ accounts. Some individuals in the media have even used the controversy as an opportunity to launch, in my humble opinion, unwarranted attacks on Google+ (a perfect example of this a story from the Huffington Post, "YouTube Founder Says What We're All Thinking About Google+"--never mind the majority of people I know don't think the same thing about Google+ that YouTube's co-founder does). While the media has covered the outrage of YouTube users over this situation, they have entirely ignored something else. Quite simply, we Google+ users are angry over the whole situation as well.
Of course, I think most of us can agree that something had to be done about YouTube's comments. The site had long ago become a haven for trolls, a place where one could find racist, sexist, homophobic, and other hateful comments even on innocent cat videos. The situation has always been so bad that most people I know (myself included) simply disable comments on their videos. I can perfectly understand why Google wanted to change YouTube's comments to rein in the many trolls.
Unfortunately, from the standpoint of many Google+ users, in integrating comments for YouTube with Google+, Google has only made the situation worse. Quite simply, the change in YouTube comments has done very little to stop the trolls there and, worse yet, some of the trolls have simply migrated to Google+. While I have been fortunate in not having YouTube trolls comment on any of my posts, I have heard reports from others on Google+ users of having to deal with them. Some have been lucky in only having one or two trolls comment on their posts. Others have had to deal with several. If Google thought that integrating YouTube's comments with Google+ was going to stop the trolls, it would seem they were wrong. Now they are simply plaguing two sites!
The other reason that Google+ users are angry is that now any comments we make to a YouTube video that has been posted publicly on G+ will automatically be shared to YouTube as well. While comments on publicly posted videos on Google+ are public anyway (literally anyone can read them), there are still some Google+ users who feel that in those comments automatically being posted to YouTube their privacy is being invaded. For many (perhaps most) of those who are angry, however, the issue is not about privacy. It is more about the fact that Google+ and YouTube are entirely different platforms where comments play completely different roles. Googe+ is a community or, perhaps more accurately, several different communities. Comments on videos often lead to discussions between various Google+ users. And often those conversations are less about the video than they are about ourselves or other things. While I do not comment on YouTube, if I did my comment would solely be about the video and would be directed solely to the person who posted the video. I would not expect it to lead to any sort of meaningful conversation. I then rather suspect that the comments we make on videos on G+ and the conversations that ensue probably will not make sense to anyone who reads them on YouTube. They will be entirely out of context.
While Google+ users are angry over YouTube trolls migrating to Google+ and over our comments on Google+ being posted to YouTube, many of us are also not happy about people being required to get Google+ accounts just to comment on YouTube. While I love Google+ and I want people to join Google+, I want them to join it because they want to, not as a condition for making comments on a completely different site. Beyond that, I have to say that I think requiring people to get a Google+ account just to comment on videos on YouTube is simply not fair. It reminds me of those various sites that require one to have a Facebook account to log in or to make comments. I have never liked that either (particularly as I trust Facebook very little). To me one should not have to have an account with any social media site, whether it is Google+, Twitter, Facebook, or what have you, simply to comment on posts on another site entirely.
Sadly, Google's integration of YouTube's comments with Google+ has also led to widespread accusations that it was simply a ploy to get more people to join Google+. I honestly do not believe this. Quite simply, Google does not have to force people to join Google+. It is currently the second largest social media site and as a Google+ user I can attest that it is very active. On any given day my Google+ stream is generally busier than my Facebook news feed and it is almost as busy as my Twitter feed. While it is possible that this was part of a strategy on the part of Google to get more people to join Google+, I very seriously doubt it, as they really do not have to force people to get Google+ accounts. I suspect is more likely the case that Google knew it had to develop some means to deal with YouTube trolls and chose to use Google+ as the means to do so rather than developing better tools on YouTube itself for doing so.
Regardless of Google's motive for integrating YouTube's comments with Google+, it has had an impact on both sites. Many of us on Google+ have ceased sharing YouTube videos on there. When I want to share a particular song on Google+, I now use Vimeo, DailyMotion, or one of the other video sharing sites. Many of us no longer comment on YouTube videos that are shared publicly on Google+ because we don't want our comments posted to YouTube. In integrating YouTube's comments with Google+, then, they have hurt the amount of discussion that goes on at the site. I seriously doubt this is what Google intended.
It is my hope that Google will reverse their decision to integrate YouTube's comments with Google+. It is quite possible that they will. The media has reported the anger of many YouTube users over Google's decision and I know that on Google+ many G+ users are angry as well. And we G+ users have made our displeasure known to Google. In fact, I dare say that it is the most controversial thing that Google has done in years. I would then say that it would probably be very beneficial for them to undo the integration and develop another, better means for dealing with YouTube trolls.
When most people think of Sheldon Leonard as an actor, it is his role as Nick the bartender in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) that probably comes to mind. If his role as Nick doesn't immediately spring to mind, then they will most likely think of one of the many heavies he played in movies over the years. And while Mr. Leonard did play an inordinately large number of heavies over the years, it was not the sum total of his career. While most people know that he was one of the greatest producers of television shows in the history of the medium, not many know that he actually played a wider array of roles in film, on radio, and on television than the heavies for which he was so well known. Indeed, Mr. Leonard even provided the voices for characters in Warner Brothers cartoons!
Sheldon Leonard was born Sheldon Leonard Bershad on 22 February 1907 in New York City. He attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City. He went to Syracuse University on an athletic scholarship. Mr. Leonard was not only a good athlete, but a good scholar as well. He was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honour society. According to Turner Classic Movies he made his film debut in The Overland Stage in 1927, which would have been even before he graduated from Syracuse University in 1929. Following his graduation from Syracuse University he went to work on Wall Street. Unfortunately, he started working on Wall Street in late October of 1929, the very time that the Stock Market crashed. As might be expected, his career on Wall Street was a short one. It was then that Mr. Leonard decided to become a professional actor.
The year 1934 would prove to be a significant one in Sheldon Leonard's career. It was that year that he made his debut on Broadway in the comedy Hotel Alimony. It was that same year that he would also have his first significant role in a film. In the comedy short "My Mummy's Arms" (starring Shemp Howard before he became one of The Three Stooges) Sheldon Leonard played Abdullah, an Egyptian guide who curiously has a Brooklyn accent! He appeared in another ethnic role in another comedy short, "Gem of the Ocean" that same year, as well as a bit part as the "Third Department of Justice Representative" in the gangster movie The People's Enemy. Sheldon Leonard would spend much of the rest of the Thirties on Broadway, where he appeared in such productions as The Night Remembers, Fly Away Home, Having Wonderful Time, Siege, and Kiss the Boys Good-bye.
It was in 1939 that Sheldon Leonard returned to film, and it would be in a role that would largely determine the course of the rest of his career. In Another Thin Man Mr. Leonard played Phil Church, an ex-convict and an all around dodgy character. It was a role Sheldon Leonard played very well, so it should perhaps not be surprising that he played a similar in his very next film--gangster Pretty Willie Williams in Tall, Dark, & Handsome (1941). Over the years Sheldon Leonard would play many similar gangsters in such films as Lucky Jordan (1942), The Gangster (1947), and, perhaps most famously, Guys and Dolls (1955). Mr. Leonard was so identified with gangsters and similar roles that he often parodied them in comedies, including the horror comedy Zombies on Broadway (1945), the Bowery Boys film Jinx Money (1948), and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951).
While he may be well known for playing gangsters, Sheldon Leonard played many other heavies besides gangsters. In fact, one of his better known roles is from To Have and Have Not, in which he played Captain Renard's assistant Lt. Coyo. He even appeared in Westerns, including Blackie in Frontier Gal (1945) and Chief Ogane in The Iroquois Trail from 1950 (despite the fact that he had no Native American blood whatsoever). In Violence (1947) he played part of a neo-Fascist organisation. He even appeared as a heavy in a pirate movie, playing one of Captain Kidd's crew in Captain Kidd (1945).
Of course, Sheldon Leonard played many roles beyond heavies. Indeed, his most famous film role of all time was not a heavy. In the primary timeline (the one in which George Bailey was born) of It's a Wonderful Life Nick is good hearted, caring, and loyal to both Mr. Martini and George. He also played police officers on more than one occasion. His best known role as a police officer may be in the cult film Decoy (1946), in which he played Sgt. Joe Portugal. He also played Detective Joe Marruci in Street of Chance (1942), Detective Sgt. Mike Frontelli in Open Secret (1948) and Detective Pacciano in Take One False Step (1949).
While Sheldon Leonard is well known for playing heavies in feature films, it is not as well known that he provided voices for characters in Warner Brothers' animated shorts. He provided the voice for Dodsworth in the shorts "Kiddin' the Kitten" and "A Peck of Trouble". Dodsworth is unlike any role Mr. Leonard played in feature films. He is an overweight, tuxedo cat who is always trying to get others to do his work for him. His voice could best be described as Sheldon Leonard doing a W. C. Fields impersonation, or vice versa. He also provided the voice of Kid Banty, the boxing rooster, in the Foghorn Leghorn short "Sock-a-Doodle-Do". His work on Warner Brothers theatrical shorts would not be the last time that Sheldon Leonard did voice work for cartoons. He was also the voice of King Linus on the Sixties, Saturday morning television cartoon Linus the Linus Hearted.
Sheldon Leonard also did a good deal of work on radio. He may be best known as the Tout on The Jack Benny Programme, who was always giving Jack Benny dubious advice about betting at the racetrack. Mr. Leonard also played various roles on The Adventures of Maisie, starring Ann Southern (most frequently that of Maisie's boyfriend). He was also a regular on such varied radio shows as The Lineup (a CBS police drama), The Martin and Lewis Show, Johnny Fletcher (an NBC police comedy on which Mr. Leonard played Johnny's partner Sam), The Judy Canova Show (on which he played Judy's boyfriend Joe Crunchmiller), and The Damon Runyan Theatre (where he most often played, you guessed it, gangsters). He also appeared on such radio shows as The Adventures of the Saint, Burns and Allen, Old Gold Comedy Theatre, Richard Diamond Private Detective, and Screen Director's Playhouse.
As a successful character actor on both film and in radio, Sheldon Leonard naturally moved into television. He made his television debut on Your Jeweller's Showcase before going onto a memorable guest shot on I Love Lucy as Harry Martin, the fast talking, door to door salesman for the Handy-Dandy” vacuum cleaner. As one might expect, he reprised his role as the Racetrack Trout on several episodes of The Jack Benny Programme. He also had a recurring role as agent Phil Brokaw on Make Room for Daddy (more on his connection to that show in a little bit). He was a regular on the show The Duke. As an actor on television Sheldon Leonard's output would slow with the Sixties, although he found time to guest star on such shows as I Spy, Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C., My World and Welcone to It, and Sanford and Son. He was the lead on the short lived sitcom Big Eddie in the Seventies. In the Eighties he guest starred on The Cosby Show, Matlock, Murder She Wrote, and Cheers. His last appearance on a television show was in an episode of Dream On in 1992.
Of course, when it came to television Sheldon Leonard's best known role may have been as a producer rather than an actor. Indeed, he could justifiably be considered one of the greatest television producers of all time. Not only was he fairly prolific, but he also produced some of the most successful, best loved shows of all time. Sheldon Leonard became a television producer by way of Make Room for Daddy, also known as The Danny Thomas Show. Mr. Leonard had broken into television directing with episodes of G.E. Theatre and Your Jeweller's Showcase. With the first season of Make Room for Daddy he was one of the show's regular directors. By the third season he was promoted to the role of producer for the show. It was the beginning of a successful new career for Mr. Leonard.
Indeed, Sheldon Leonard would produce some of the most legendary shows in the history of television. He served as executive producer on The Andy Griffith Show and even played a pivotal role in its creation. When Carl Reiner's pilot Head of the Family failed, Carl Reiner’s agent, Harry Kalcheim took it to Sheldon Leonard, who took on the project and recast it. Ultimately Head of the Family became The Dick Van Dyke Show. Over the years Sheldon Leonard would produce such shows as The Bill Dana Show, Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C., I Spy, Accidental Family, Good Morning World, My World and Welcome to It, and Shirley's World.
Here it must be pointed out that Sheldon Leonard was not simply a successful television producer, but he was also one who was willing to take chances. It was Sheldon Leonard who cast Bill Cosby as Alexander Scott on I Spy, making him the first African American lead on an American drama series. While NBC supported Sheldon Leonard in the casting of Bill Cosby, some of the network's affiliates baulked at airing a show featuring a black man in the lead. Mr. Leonard stuck to his guns and I Spy not only went on to be a hit, but it established Bill Cosby as a star. Sheldon Leonard would also take a risk with the short lived, now largely forgotten sitcom Accidental Family. One of the two leads was Lois Nettleton as divorceé Sue Kramer. It was the first American sitcom to feature a divorced woman as one of the central characters, and hence the first American sitcoms to deal with the issue of divorce.
The last show Sheldon Leonard produced was The Don Rickles Show in 1972. He made his last appearance as an actor in a guest appearance on Dream On in 1992. He also served as executive producer on the I Spy reunion film I Spy Returns in 1994. He died at age 89 on 22 February 1907.
Sheldon Leonard was much more than Nick in It's a Wonderful Life. He was also much more than a heavy in several feature films. He was even much more than one of the most successful television producers of all time. Sheldon Leonard was one of those rare individuals with talent in multiple fields: acting, directing, and producing. As an actor his career spanned several different media, including stage, film, television, radio, and even animated cartoons. And while he is best known for the heavies he played, Mr. Leonard could play much more. He could be a kindly bartender. He could be a dodgy racetrack tout. He could be a slick vacuum cleaner salesman. He could even be an incredibly lazy cat. In fact, the only thing I would possibly change about Sheldon Leonard's career is that I wished he had appeared in more comedy films. He had a real flair for the genre, whether it was playing the parodies of the heavies he played so often in Jinx Money and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man or the race track tout on The Jack Benny Programme or Phil Brokaw on Make Room for Daddy. Among many other things, Sheldon Leonard could be a very funny man.
Of course, Sheldon Leonard is also remembered as a legendary television producer. There can be no doubt that he produced some of the best loved, most successful shows of all time. More than fifty years after they have debuted, The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show are still aired around the world. What is more, Mr. Leonard not only had an eye for what could be successful, he also had an eye for quality. Both The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show received sterling reviews when they debuted and now they are counted as two of the greatest shows of all time. And, as pointed out above, he was also a producer who was willing to take chances. He cast an African American actor in a lead role on I Spy at a time when the casts of some shows were entirely white. He produced the first sitcom to feature a divorced women as one of the leads and as a result the first sitcom to deal with divorce. It should be little wonder, then, that Sheldon Leonard should be one of the most successful television producers of all time.
In the end, it is perhaps fitting that Sheldon Leonard's best known role is that of Nick in It's a Wonderful Life. A talented actor in multiple media who would become a successful producer of television shows, it can truly be said he had a wonderful life.
Scribbled by Terence Towles Canote at 5:47 PM 7 comments:
Terence Towles Canote
In memory of Vanessa Marquez, 1968-2018
Except where otherwise specified, all text © 2004-2020 Terence Towles Canote. All Rights Reserved.
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Medical Marijuana Businesses Are Suing New York State
New York wants to double the number of marijuana providers, but these companies want to recoup their investment.
by Chris Moore | news | May 3, 2017
Five medical marijuana companies are suing New York State after the state Health Department announced plans to double the total number of MMJ manufacturers allowed in the state. The Health Department commissioner believes that the Compassionate Care Act gives the department the ability to add marijuana providers as it deems necessary. The New York Medical Cannabis Industry Association (NYMCIA), which represents the five companies currently licensed to produce medical marijuana in the state, is arguing that the law strictly limits the number of providers to five.
“From Day 1, we made clear our commitment to the continued growth of this program so that the New Yorkers who qualify for this therapy have access to it,” the NY Health Department said in a statement. “The Court's decision Friday not to block this expansion while the lawsuit is pending certainly helps those residents. We will continue to fight any attempts to block patients from the relief they deserve."
In the lawsuit, the NYMCIA argues that the five currently-licensed companies “are still operating at a loss, are utilizing a fraction of their manufacturing capacities, and they have not yet come close to recouping the substantial investments they made into becoming pioneers in the Program." In a statement, the association noted that the companies have collectively “invested more than $50 million dollars over the last few years to make New York's program the best in the country.”
“We are here for the right reasons, and we've shown that commitment to regulators, patients and physicians since day one,” the NYMCIA added. “It's time that commitment to making New York's program the best in the country was matched by our partners in government."
newsBusinessmedicinepoliticsLegislationHealthnew york
Chris Moore is a New York-based writer who has written for Mass Appeal while also mixing records and producing electronic music.
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‘Jumanji: The Next Level’ Wins The Weekend with Higher Than Expected $60M
Jumanji: The Next Level Wins The Weekend with Higher Than Expected $60M
— December 15, 2019
in Box Office
Jumanji: The Next Level was able to melt Disney's Frozen 2 at the box office this weekend. The highly anticipated sequel was able to earn $60.1 million in its first weekend in theaters. The studio estimated the Dwayne Johnson-starring sequel would only bring in around $35 million, while outside predictions had it in the $40 million to $50 million range. However, fans have been waiting two years to see how the gang gets sucked back into the world of Jumanji, and it turns out they all wanted to see the movie opening weekend. The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters next week, so the number one victory will be short-lived. On the other side of the fence, Clint Eastwood's Richard Jewell failed to meet expectations.
Disney's Frozen 2 took the second spot this weekend after a three-week reign at number one with $19.1 million. The animated family musical has been getting praise from critics and fans and also just crossed the $1 billion mark at the global box office, which took about a month to do. Rian Johnson's Knives Out moved to number three this weekend after earning $9.2 million. The modern whodunit boasts a huge all-star cast and has also been receiving rave reviews. To date, the movie has earned $166.2 million globally.
Clint Eastwood's Richard Jewell took the fourth position this weekend after earning $5 million. The movie was expected to make at least twice as much, based on positive reviews and an "A" grade from CinemaScore. This marks the second-worst nationwide opening ever for a movie directed by Eastwood. Blumhouse's Black Christmas debuted in theaters at number five after taking in $4.4 million. The holiday horror movie has been criticized for not really having anything to do with the original, amongst other things.
RELATED: Jumanji: The Next Level Review: Avatar Hijinks Abound in Hilarious Sequel
Ford v Ferrari was able to secure the sixth spot at the weekend box office with $4.1 million. The Academy Award contender has made $184.6 million globally since debuting in theaters five weeks ago. Queen & Slim came in seventh this weekend. The drama has been receiving praise from critics and took in $3.6 million, bringing its domestic total to just over $33 million.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was able to bring in $3.3 million, which was enough to earn the eighth spot at the box office this weekend. Tom Hanks turned into the iconic Mister Rogers for the movie, which has also been receiving whispers of Academy Award nominations. Elsewhere, Deep Waters took the ninth spot after bringing in $2 million, while 21 Bridges finished off the top ten with $1.1 million. You can check out the rest of this weekend's numbers over at Box Office Mojo.
5 Black Christmas
6 Ford V Ferrari
7 Queen & Slim
8 A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
9 Dark Waters
10 21 Bridges
Topics: Jumanji 3, Jumanji
The Rock Shames Friend for Seeing Cats Twice Before Jumanji
How That Jumanji: The Next Level Post-Credit Scene Sets Up Jumanji 4
Jumanji 3 Is Ready to Swipe Box Office Crown from Frozen 2 This Weekend
Jack Black Wants to Retire Soon, Will Jumanji 3 Be His Final Movie?
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ISS 2012: Seating & Mobility Professionals Unite
VANCOUVER, B.C. - While the annual International Seating Symposium (ISS) is seating & mobility's premier educational event for clinicians and complex rehab technology providers, there's no denying that catching up with old friends and making new ones is a rewarding and valuable part of the overall experience. Connecting and reconnecting with colleagues over drinks or dinner can be every bit as important as time spent in educational courses, in business meetings or in the exhibit hall.
Several presenters at this year's ISS - which took place once again at the waterfront Westin Bayshore in March - focused on how important eating and drinking are to human beings, not just for necessary nutrients and hydration, but also for their social well being and inclusion.
While that may not sound like a topic directly linked to seating & mobility, the speakers quickly proved that it is - and like so many of the event's other speakers, they had the audience thinking about how seating & mobility touches so many other aspects of consumers' daily lives.
A Common Challenge, A Devastating Impact
Though pre-symposium workshops began Tuesday, March 6, the ISS kicked off officially the morning of March 7, with keynote speaker John Patrick, M.D., professor, history of science, medicine & faith, Augustin College in Ottawa, Ontario.
Patrick spoke on "Ethics: Caring for Individuals with Disability: The Tyranny of the Measurable & What Individuals with Disability Teach Us About Meaning." He discussed the high prevalence of malnourishment in children with spastic quadriplegia, and commonly seen results: low body weight, frequently feeling cold, depression.
Patrick also mentioned the high physical and emotional toll on parents and caregivers who spend hours each day feeding their children, only to see them remain malnourished due to problems with eating and swallowing. Enteral nutrition, Patrick added, is not necessarily an easy solution. Introducing the idea as an alternative to feeding by mouth can make caregivers feel that they've failed to care adequately for their children, despite often heroic efforts. Janice Duivestein, MRSc, OT/PT, feeding team leader and neuromotor program manager at Vancouver's Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children, delivered the next morning's first plenary session: "Sit, Eat, Thrive: Making the Connection Between Posture & Mealtimes."
Duivestein led off with some startling statistics: that dysphagia - difficulty swallowing - is experienced by 11-23 percent of adults. The risk for dysphagia increases for people over the age of 50 and for people with neurological illness or injury.
Among clients seen by seating & mobility professionals, the rates for dysphagia are even higher, Duivestein said. Some 40-50 percent of people who've had a stroke, approximately 70 percent of traumatic brain injury patients, and up to 80 percent of children with cerebral palsy also experience dysphagia.
In addition to obvious physical consequences, such as malnutrition, low energy, vitamin deficiencies, dehydration and muscle weakness, Duivestein pointed out that difficulties in eating and drinking can lead to social isolation and reduced participation in social activities, anxiety, stress for caregivers and depression.
Seating & mobility professionals are in a good position to intervene, however. Duivestein pointed out that using tilt, improving the stability and balance of the head and trunk, and changing head positioning can help improve many clients' abilities to eat and drink by mouth, thereby improving not only their physical health, but their social interaction, as well.
There were plenty of other educational sessions that seemed to complement each other, like pieces of a puzzle coming together. The paper presentation given by Laura C. Titus, BScOT, University of Western Ontario, was called "Power Tilt Use for Pressure Management from the User's Perspective." Titus's research explored barriers that keep wheelchair users from using tilt or from tilting back far enough. Among the responses gleaned from clients, Titus said, was that they equate full tilt to lying down.
"Would you lie down in a restaurant?" one client asked, in explaining why he doesn't fully tilt.
Another observation: That tilting back past 30-35 degrees required use of a headrest, which many clients disliked. Asked what a headrest on a wheelchair would suggest, one client said, "I guess maybe that you are weaker or more vulnerable."
The next paper presentation was by Stephanie Tanguay, OT, clinical education specialist, Motion Concepts, and Lois Brown, MPT, ATP, clinical education specialist, Invacare Corp. They spoke on "Power Positioning System Use: Results of a Consumer Survey."
Brown and Tanguay worked with clinical colleagues to gather responses to a consumer survey that asked, for instance, "Did your therapist ask you to demonstrate a weight shift?" Yes, said 80 percent of clients - though they also said that most pressure sore prevention information was relayed verbally rather than in writing, and about 73.6 percent reported tilting or reclining as far back as their systems allowed.
Asked if they'd ever had a pressure sore despite using power tilt/recline, 61 percent of clients surveyed said yes.
An Industry, Intersecting
The coming together of professionals and ideas, as always, was a huge part of this year's ISS. On the opening morning of the event, O'Donnell reported nearly 700 attendees pre-registered, with more than 200 exhibitors participating. People from 27 countries besides Canada and the United States made the trip to Vancouver, and attendees included PTs, OTs, physicians, rehabilitation engineers, nurses and speech pathologists.
Keynote speaker Patrick had opened the event by saying, "Disability is a troubling word." For a week in Vancouver, seating & mobility professionals examined their own understanding of that word and what impact their work could have on it.
The industry takes up that question again in Nashville in March 2013. That's when the 29th ISS takes place with the theme "Building the Future." In fact, the call for papers is currently on (iss.pitt.edu).
Midline Matters
New Broda Grant Supports Seating Research
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zzzs
Sadhana Gaddam
Senior Bioinformatician, Dermatology
Jasmine Garcia
Research Assistant, Dermatology
Heidi Goodarzi
Postdoctoral Medical Fellow, Dermatology
Justin Stanley Gordon, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor, Dermatology
Bio Dr. Justin Gordon is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Dermatology. Dr. Gordon earned his undergraduate degree from Emory University in Atlanta Georgia, where he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He received his medical degree from the same institution, graduating from medical school Magna Cum Laude, and earning induction into the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. Following medical school, Dr. Gordon completed an internal medicine internship at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, followed by his dermatology residency at Stanford University. He served as Chief Resident in his final year. Dr. Gordon is board certified in dermatology by the American Board of Dermatology. Dr. Gordon?s professional focus is general medical dermatology, with a focus on acne and skin cancer prevention and detection. He previous founded and directed the Acne Specialty Clinic at Stanford, and co-founded SUNSPORT (Stanford University Network for Sun Protection, Outreach, Research and Teamwork) - an outreach and research program focused on increasing appropriate sun-protection behaviors and reducing the incidence of skin cancer among outdoor athletes.
Dr. Gordon's academic interests include acne, skin cancer detection and prevention, teledermatology, entrepreneurship, medical education and LGBTQ healthcare.
Emily Sarah Gorell
Bio Emily Gorell, DO, MS is a Post-Doctoral Clinical Research Fellow in Dermatology, working with Dr. Jean Tang. Dr. Gorell's research focuses on epidermolysis bullosa (EB), with an emphasis on molecular correction methods and clinical trials. Dr. Gorell first became interested in epidermolysis bullosa after volunteering at Camp Wonder, a summer camp for children with skin diseases in the early 2000s. Prior to medical school, Dr. Gorell was a Senior Clinical Research Coordinator in Dermatology for 7 years, focused on pediatric dermatology clinical research. Dr. Gorell's primary project as a research coordinator was the initiation of a Phase 1 clinical trial of gene therapy for recessive dystrophic EB, with results published in JAMA in 2016.
Dr. Gorell completed her undergraduate work at U.C. Berkeley. She obtained a Master's Degree in Physiology and Biophysics from Georgetown University. She completed medical school at A.T. Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona, and performed her clinical rotations at the Seattle, WA clinical site. Dr. Gorell completed a Transitional Year program at Spokane Teaching Health Center in Spokane, WA. Dr. Gorell will be starting dermatology residency at the University of Cincinnati in July 2020.
William M. Gould
Emeritus Adjunct Clinical Professor, Dermatology
Tatiana M. Grzeszkiewicz
Adjunct Clinical Instructor, Dermatology
Rajnish Gupta
Irina Gurevich
Basic Life Research Scientist, Dermatology
SHC Clinical Laboratory
Residents & Clinical Fellows
Postsophomore Fellows
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