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Story #5 – The New West and Wexit
By 2036, Canada’s four Westernmost provinces are projected to be home to more than a third of the country. Over the next 20 years, growth in the West is expected to outpace every other region in the nation.
But as the West grows, so too does the chorus of voices expressing frustration over the economic influence and political clout these provinces believe they should have, relative to what they do have.
Against the backdrop of oil and gas production in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Northern BC, pressure to find markets for these products, and a fierce debate over whether Canada’s resource economy should be promoted or suppressed, public opinion data reveals antipathy towards Ottawa and national regulators that hasn’t been seen in nearly two generations.
With these issues dominating conversations and galvanizing populations across the country, the Angus Reid Institute carried out an exhaustive study of Western Canada – through the eyes of both its own residents and those who live elsewhere in the country.
Explore our New West series here:
http://angusreid.org/the-new-west/
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AFLW February 14, 2016 DEPARTMENTS, Humor, ISSUES, Letter to L.A., Non-Fiction, REAL
A Love Letter to Los Angeles by Sara Benincasa
Dear Los Angeles:
You are my Valentine.
Allow me to explain why.
I’m sitting here at my kitchen table, listening to the howls of my neighborhood coyote, Mark. It’s that time of the year for Mark — mating season. So Mark’s on the prowl, and he’s got a lot to say lately. I stay out of Mark’s way, because he’s a powerful creature who could easily bite me, but as yet, Mark has shown no interest in doing so. In fact, Mark walks by me sometimes at night and completely ignores me. Oh, he knows I’m there, but he doesn’t care. Mark’s got his eye on bigger things, like keeping his genetic line alive.
Honestly, with his deep sense of purpose and profound lack of interest in anyone who doesn’t directly affect his day-to-day life, Mark’s more like a New Yorker than a Los Angeleno — at least those of the human variety.
Now here I must be honest with you and tell you that I love New York and I always will, in the way that I will always love my first real high school boyfriend — at a distance, respectfully, fondly, with a slightly romantic nostalgia and gratitude that things didn’t work out for us because that’s not what was meant to happen. I like to visit. I like to catch up. We’re both better off now. This is truly how it was meant to be.
Sara Benincasa / Photo by Iconic Pinups
I grew up in New Jersey, not too far from the city, but that’s another world. I moved to Boston when I was 18, to go to Emerson College. I spent some time in the Netherlands, eating chocolate. I dropped out and moved back to Jersey when I was 21. I moved to North Carolina later, to attend Warren Wilson College, and then at 23 moved to the Southwest, to work with AmeriCorps, which is the Peace Corps for people who enjoy indoor plumbing and avoid malaria shots whenever possible. I moved to New York when I was 24, to attend Columbia and get a master’s degree and become a public school teacher. I got the degree but swiftly became a comedian and lived some early version of the hit documentary series known as “Broad City.”
In this business we call show, it is generally acknowledged as advantageous to spend a lot of time, perhaps most of one’s time, in Los Angeles. So I’ve been bicoastal for the past few years.
I am now 35. I have had at least 17 addresses since I was 18 years old. I may have a few more before I shuffle off this mortal coil (hopefully, not for a while, of course.) Now, I have an address in Los Angeles, near Mark, my best friend.
I hope I am here to stay. For real.
That doesn’t mean I won’t leave you sometimes, you sexy bitch. I like to travel. I haven’t spent more than four weeks in one place for the past 18 months. The road, she calls me, and I must answer, whether to tell jokes next to a Waffle House or explore the ins and outs of strange and exotic Barnes & Noble stores around the country.
But I’m proud to call you home.
Los Angeles, in you I find a kind of excitement and possibility and hope and weirdness and oddball eccentricity that has increasingly fled New York for other, more affordable cities. You are bizarre and full of witches and curious plant life. You are the mountains and the sea and the desert and the strip mall parking lot and other pieces of paradise.
And while it is true that your real estate market is insane when it comes to purchasing a home, I’m not looking to purchase a home. Not yet, anyway. Nor are many of my friends. We’re looking for decent rent. We’re looking to live lives as that rarest of birds: the middle-class working artist.
This is not possible for most people in New York City. It is a city that has become increasingly hostile to working artists. And I’m done giving myself brownie points for struggling constantly to find some kind of financial stability and peace of mind there.
But it is possible here, sometimes. Particularly if one expands one’s definition of Los Angeles to include the Valley — which I hold to be a glorious place, but you must keep in mind I also love my native state of New Jersey, which is “The Valley East.”
I’ll admit, I don’t have a fancy home. I have a studio. Mark prowls around outside and yells a lot. The pipes make funny noises in the walls. I am fairly certain a skunk is on the loose. Combine this with the stinky marijuana factory nearby and you’ve got a pungent home atmosphere.
You, Los Angeles, are choked with traffic. You survive on stolen water. You have earthquakes. You’re better than NYC when it comes to rent, but you’re still absurd about it. People here live in poverty. People here live in squalor. People here live in pain, just as they do anywhere else in the world.
You are not perfect.
But I love you. You are so much more than an amalgamation of hallucinatory pop culture fantasies and fake-titty manufacturing concerns and dental-whitening facilities. You are diverse geographically, culturally, in so many other ways. You have the best damn food I’ve had in any city in the world. You have a gorgeous parks system, and it’s free. You have the sun, and sometimes the rain, but mostly the sun. You have a passionate, engaged network of nonprofit workers and volunteers who seek to serve all your people.
I’m, like, super-into-you.
So I love you, Los Angeles, and Happy Valentine’s Day.
Sara Benincasa
Sara Benincasa is a comedian, host of the “Where Ya From?” podcast, and the author of four books, including the YA novel (soon film) “DC Trip” and the nonfiction title “Real Artists Have Day Jobs (And Other Awesome Things They Don’t Teach You in School).” At the time of this writing, she lived in Mark the Coyote’s neighborhood. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Posted in DEPARTMENTS, Humor, ISSUES, Letter to L.A., Non-Fiction, REAL. Bookmark the permalink.
Paper Moon by Alan Rifkin
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[Introduction.] [Main JM Index.] [Bridges Index.] [People Index.]
[Abbreviations.] [Units & Currency.] [Glossary.]
Shepparton Bridge (1913-1960s)
Above. Part elevation, part section, dated 13 September 1912.
Note: The drawing above was extracted from a copy published in The Commonwealth Engineer, 1 August 1913, Vol. 1, pp.20-21. The deck of the bridge was just under 26 feet wide [8m], providing a 20-foot roadway and 4-foot footpath.
Photographs of the completed bridge may be seen by searching the Picture Collection of The State Library of Victoria for Image Numbers: rg004150; rg008886; rg008908; and a00818.
Monash's reinforced concrete bridge at Shepparton was built across the Goulburn River in 1913 to replace a decaying timber structure. The bridge led from the end of Fryers St across the river, in the direction of Mooroopna. At that time, the river looped alongside Welsford Street, as shown in the sketch map below. In the 1960s the course of the river was straightened to improve flow, and Monash's bridge became redundant. It was replaced by an embankment.
Sketch map showing course of river at time of construction. Based on a diagram published in the Annual Report for 1969-1970 of the Country Roads Board, Victoria.
Although the bridge no longer exists, the story of its design and construction is worth relating because of the intriguing personal and professional relationships involved. By the time proposals firmed, the Shire Engineer for Shepparton was H F Tisdall, who had worked for Monash eight years earlier, supervising construction of his Stawell Street Bridge at Ballarat. For some time after that, he had served as a travelling representative, marketing the firm's products and services, mainly to the State's municipalities.
The doubtful protection afforded by the Monier patent in Australia had expired in 1910; so in 1912 Tisdall was entirely free to design the new bridge himself as Shire Engineer. However he decided that it would be better to rely on Monash's hard-won experience of the relatively new technology, and with the Council's approval, invited him to act as consulting engineer.
The role of Consulting Engineer would include inspecting and assessing the site; surveying the topography and soil conditions; deciding on the number of spans and placement of piers; calculating the required proportions of concrete components and the size and disposition of reinforcement; preparing cost estimates, drawings and specifications; calling and assessing tenders from construction companies; and finally supervising the work of the appointed conctractor, to ensure compliance with the specifications.
The arrangement was curious because Monash, as a director and chief engineer of the Reinforced Concrete & Monier Pipe Construction Company, had always maintained that both design and construction of reinforced concrete should be carried out by a single firm - that it was specialist work that could not be entrusted to general contractors. However, despite his strong links with the RCMPC's factory and construction team, his engineering practice was consituted as an independent business. There was no legal or contractual reason why he should not act as a consultant in this case. Also, he must have seen the invitation as an opportunity to maximise the chance that RCMPC would win the contract to build the bridge. He was careful to inform the Shire Council that RCMPC would probably enter a tender for construction of the bridge, and added that if they won the contract he would not claim his fee for design, as this would be part of the tender price.
The drawing and specification prepared by Monash and his assistants gave no details of reinforcement, making it possible for prospective tenderers to use patented systems of reinforcement for which they might have licences. It meant, however, they would have to work out the details for themselves, and take full responsibility for the safety and durability of the structure. Monash ensured that the design published as part of the specification was generously dimensioned, and included cast-iron cylinders as pile-caps rather than the economical Monier pipes that he intended to use, should RCMPC win the contract.
In the event, RCMPC's was the only tender received. Obviously, Monash could not now act as both consulting enginer and contractor, so the Council appointed Tisdall with the title of "Supervising Engineer". It also appointed a Clerk of Works to overlook proceedings on site on a daily basis, despite Monash's objection that it was unnecessary.
It seems that Tisdall hoped to re-establish a friendly personal relationship with his former employer, and invited him to stay at his home while on visits to Shepparton. However, Monash politely deflected his approaches. As work progressed some tension developed between them, due to the inevitable conflicts between client's representative and contractor.
When work started on the foundations it was found that the ground was weaker than had been suggested by the rudimentary site investigation, and that it would be advisable to deepen the abutment blocks by four feet (1.22m). Although contracts at the time would normally treat this as part of the Contractor's risk, most contractors would argue for compensation, nonetheless. However, with Monash's name so closely linked to the project, he was determined that the final price should be the one he had quoted: he wanted no "extras". He therefore proposed to Tisdall that the cost of the extra concrete be reduced by including lumps of stone (spawls) in it, to reduce the volume of cement and sand required.
The evidence in RCMPC's archives suggests that Tisdall initially gave verbal approval for this; but then decided or was persuaded that he must enforce the letter of Monash's own specification, which permitted spawls only in the abutment wing walls. This prompted Monash to appeal to Shepparton's Shire Secretary, (Captain) Charles Nugent, to try to use his influence with the Councillors. Their response was to confirm that Tisdall must obtain their prior approval for any deviations from the specification. Monash declared that this situation was intolerable and would lead to "inordinate delay". He noted that he and his foreman preferred to deal with the Clerk of Works who was more willing to adopt a give-and-take approach. He urged the Council to give Tisdall either full powers, or none at all.
Nugent's rank was presumably in the Citizen Military Forces.
The resulting tension gave rise to rumours of malpractice, and Monash travelled to Shepparton for a meeting with the full Council to defend his reputation and argue his point of view. The Councillors confirmed that he had their complete confidence; but continued to insist that all applications for variations be submitted to them. It was made clear that Tisdall's only role was to certify quality and quantity for the monthly progress payments as work was completed. Matters remained in this unsatisfactory state, with Monash continuing to rely heavily on Nugent for support, advice, and at times action, throughout the remainder of the project. After some initial sparring, the foreman and clerk of works negotiated minor issues amicably on a daily basis.
Once the foundations had been completed, construction of the superstructure proceeded reasonably smoothly, and the bridge was nearly complete by June 1913. Part of the old bridge then had to be removed to allow construction of a new wing wall, so traffic had to be directed onto the new structure a few weeks before it could be formally handed over to the Council. The load test took place on 14 August, 1913. The final winding-up of the contract was delayed for some months by the high level of the river, which prevented the removal of temporary timber work, and application of a coat of mortar to the pile caps. Disputes about minor matters brought further delay, and the final cheque was delivered to RCMPC early in April 1914.
Detailed history
How the contract came to RCMPC
First approach
On 1 March 1910, the then Shire Engineer, Blair McKay, wrote to Monash: "I am recommending my Council to erect a Reinforced Concrete Bridge over the Goulburn River at Shepparton in place of present wooden Town Bridge which is worn out and I should be greatly indebted to you if you could let me know the approximate cost of a R.C. structure after the style of Benalla Bridge which you showed me when I called at your office". Monash was happy to do so, but warned that any quote could not be binding until detailed design had been completed. The actual price would be influenced by the time of year at which the contract was let, because the Goulburn River was subject to severe flooding. McKay supplied a sketch cross-section of the river bed, and noted that work would probably commence in the summer because the Council had yet to arrange finance.
First design and estimate
Monash's first thought on commencing design was that, if he made the centre span 50 feet long (15.2m) he would have to build only one pier foundation in the water (under summer conditions). However, he had so far limited his spans in reinforced concrete to about 40 feet (12.2m). He concluded: "All things considered, I do not think it prudent, at present juncture, to jump our practice up to 50-foot spans."
The Public Works Department had specified a clearance of 300 feet (91.4m) between abutments, to allow for discharge during floods. Monash proposed seven spans of 42 feet (12.8m), providing a clearance of 294 feet. Another foot could be added to each span if the PWD insisted on its 300 feet.
Monash decided to make the deck and girders similar to those of his Janevale bridge. This suggested a cost for the Shepparton deck of £824. Turning to the piers, which were relatively "very high", he decided: "we must spread these for stability against heavy floods and I propose a framed pier after the type of Thebarton, but based on 3 legs, i.e. 3 cylinders, with a good spread". At this stage, the "cylinders" seem to have been envisaged as a sort of sunk pile, formed from large-diameter Monier pipes placed vertically one above the other, as at Maribyrnong. Pier superstructures, if similar to those at Thebarton, would cost about £480, and their cylinder foundations about £150. The abutments would need to be "somewhat deeper and wider than Janevale". Allowing for a 50% increase gave a cost for the two of £162. The abutments would be founded on "pot holes" 3 feet square in plan, sunk to the level of the clay, and filled with concrete. For these he allowed £216. A further £80 was allowed for road surfacing and kerbs; £180 for transport of materials to Shepparton; £150 for temporary staging and contingencies; and £375 for handrails and "other ornamentation".
Note. To form a sunk pile in this manner, a large-diameter concrete pipe would have been stood vertically on the ground, pressing on a metal cutting ring of the same diameter. A workman inside the pipe would excavate material within the circle, allowing the cylinder to sink into the ground. A second pipe would then be placed vertically on top of the first, and so on, until the desired depth was reached. The interior of the cylinder pile would then be filled with concrete.
On 5 March 1910, Monash submitted preliminary quotes for three alternative treatments:
With plain timber handrails £3100-3200
With plain steel and iron handrails £3200-3300
With architectural effects (like Benalla) £3400-3500.
These prices included margins of £800, £850, and £900 respectively.
State and Shires reach agreement on funding for reinforced concrete
Following representations from the Council, the Minister for Public Works, W L Baillieu, visited the old bridge on 16 May 1910. The Argus reported that its dilapidated state "has caused considerable anxiety to the travelling public for some time past".
Shortly before Monash's bridge opened, an article appeared in the Shepparton Advertiser of 11 August 1913, remembering the condition of the old timber bridge. It "brought the heart into the mouth of many a mortal and quaked him with fear as its timbers shook when he passed over in a conveyance or dray. Sometimes a piece of the decking would start up as if in protest ... And sometimes horse or pedestrian would trip, and the question of damages and suing the Shire Council would at once take possession of the aggrieved individual's senses. Blackstone, the jurist of old, had pointed out that a corporation has 'neither a body to be kicked nor a soul to be damned'; and the temptation of 'going for the Council' often went no further."
Engineers of the Public Works Department (PWD) had estimated that the life of the timber bridge could be extended by some years at a cost of £800 or £900, while a new "up-to-date" (i.e. reinforced concrete) structure would cost £4000. Baillieu promised to bring the matter to the attention of Cabinet, and urge the Premier and Treasurer to visit Shepparton at once. The Shepparton Council had hoped that the adjoining Shire of Rodney would contribute an equal proportion of the cost, but the Rodney Council argued this was unfair because the bridge lay entirely within the Shepparton boundary.
Eighteen months later, in November 1911, Shepparton councillors, accompanied by their new Engineer, H F Tisdall, inspected the old bridge and declared it unsafe and beyond repair. They enlisted the help of George Graham, a local notable, currently Minister for Agriculture, who contacted W H Edgar, the Acting Minister for Public Works. This group arranged a further inspection of the bridge, together with Carlo Catani, the Chief Engineer of the PWD, and confirmed Baillieu's previous assessment. By now, the cost of a reinforced concrete bridge was being quoted as £4,500. Edgar promised that, if the two shires each contributed one-third, he would recommend that the State Government find the balance. Within a few days, the ratepayers of Rodney Shire met in protest, demanding that any money available be spent instead on repairing the road between Mooroopna and Shepparton.
Wrangling between the two Shires and the Government over their relative contributions continued for several months, with deputations back and forth between the parties. Confusion over the estimated cost of the bridge, and the amounts expected from the two Councils, is reflected in the newspaper reports. Baillieu, back as Minister of Public Works, stated that he had no record of Edgar's promise, and that "strong representations" would have to be made to promote the project within Cabinet, ahead of competing claims. Graham appears to have lost his temper and was reprimanded even by the Shepparton Councillors for his discourteous remarks about the Rodney Shire.
"No record" of Baillieu's promise: Herald 17 Jan.; "strong representations" Age 18 Jan.; "discourteous remarks": Argus 28 Feb. All 1912.
On 28 February 1912, The Argus reported that the Minister of Public Works had agreed to contribute £1,500, and had promised to advance the balance required by loan at 6% on a 33-year basis. Shepparton Council agreed to contribute £2,000, and asked Rodney Council to raise the remaining £1,000. Rodney agreed to do so, on condition it could repay the loan over a shorter period.
The Shire Engineer and Monash negotiate their responsibilities
On 10 March 1912, Tisdall felt able to write to Monash to inform him that "our bridge is nearly assured". It was time to sort out their professional relationship. The protection afforded to RCMPC by the Monier patent had always been questionable, but it had expired in 1910. Tisdall was definitely free to design the bridge himself and supervise the calling of tenders, for which he would receive a fee of 5% of the value of the project. However, he wrote that he would prefer Monash, with his "expert knowledge", to carry out the design, and also hoped that RCMPC would win the job, because its "experienced men" would do "better and quicker work" than less experienced contractors. The only problem was that this would deprive Tisdall of his fee. [It would also deprive him of the satisfaction of having a bridge to his name, but on the other hand relieve him of much of the work and responsibility.]
Note on values. Five per cent of £4500 is £225. This was a significant amount, consistent with the specialist knowledge, effort, and responsibility involved. When Monash was looking in September 1909 for an engineer to head the South Australian Reinforced Concrete Company, he told a prospective applicant that the annual salary would be from £300 to £350 upwards. The position was described as administrative head of "a fairly large construction and general contracting Company, dealing with all kinds of civil engineering projects", whilst "the man selected would have to have a good general knowledge of civil engineering design and practice; but a first class capacity for organisation and administration of industrial works would be essential".
Monash suggested that one solution would be for RCMPC to prepare the drawings and specifications, but allow Tisdall to take the credit for them, as had occurred in the case of the Benalla Bridge. However, in that case, RCMPC would feel obliged to make the dimensions and specification somewhat conservative, to guard against the possibility of an inexperienced contractor winning the job with a recklessly low bid and producing lower quality work. This in turn meant that if RCMPC won the contract, they would expect Tisdall not to stick to the precise detail of the design, because RCMPC, with its greater quality control and its willingness to provide a solid guarantee, would be able to refine it. An alternative arrangement would be for RCMPC to guarantee that, if it won the contract, it would pay Tisdall 2.5% for copies of the drawings and specifications.
Pending agreement on this matter, Monash asked Tisdall to send him a precisely surveyed profile of the river; cross-sections of the ground near the abutments; and information on the underlying soil obtained from holes dug ten feet deep (3.05m) into both banks.
In his reply, Tisdall noted that he counted himself as one of Monash's pupils. (He had worked on the Stawell St bridge and had acted as a roving salesman for RCMPC.) This had equipped him for major responsibilities as an executive Engineer supervising the construction of bridges across the Western Main Channel of Victoria's irrigation scheme. He would be happy to receive drawings from RCMPC that he could approve or modify; but he would not wish to claim any kudos. He noted that a recent fruitless project, for RCMPC to build a bridge at Nalinga, had shown that he and Monash had different approaches to design. Tisdall thought it possible to design the superstructure of a bridge without knowing the profile of the waterway or the nature of the foundation. For Shepparton, he favoured "straight parallel girders of, if possible, fifty feet span". For the foundations and piers, he was "inclined to favour driven piles with rather more reinforcing than is usually allowed, of as large a diameter as can be conveniently manipulated". He concluded: "As the actual site has not yet been decided upon, I cannot give any further notes".
Monash replied cordially, but repeated that he could not make much progress until he had "a proper section of the site", including "soundings, and a few trial pits" to determine subsurface conditions. To optimise the structure he needed to be able to work out the relative cost of substructure and superstructure - and for this he needed to know the length of the columns and the type of foundation necessary, as well as the length of spans. Fifty-foot spans "would be very costly indeed, owing to heavy dead load". Forty-foot spans would be advisable. To provide the specified gap between the abutments, there was a choice of "six spans each 51'-8" with five piers, or seven spans each 44'-4" with six piers, or eight spans each 38'-9" with seven piers". Monash implied that a smaller number of spans would look better and would influence the choice of ornamentation. He was sure that eight spans would prove the cheapest arrangement, "because the cost of the extra piers will be much more than saved by the saving in the superstructure". Reinforced concrete pile foundations would be advisable "if the ground is at all uncertain and there is no rock near the natural surface". He assumed that Tisdall would want a "handsome" bridge, so the number of spans would be a factor in deciding the general lines and ornamental features. He suggested they visit the site together, preferably after the Easter camp of the Militia.
Monash was at this time preparing for what he described later as "eight days of hard work at Military Manoeuvres". Also, on 11 March, his fellow director John Gibson, who played a large role in managing factory operations, material supplies, and logistics, for both RCMPC and the South Australian operations, had left for an extended overseas trip. This threw an additional heavy burden onto Monash.
Late in March, Tisdall fixed the exact location for the new bridge - directly alongside and to the north of the old one. Here he expected to find good clay foundations. Again, he urged Monash to adopt 50-foot spans, to lessen the danger of flood-borne debris becoming caught between the piers and forming a temporary dam. (This debate had arisen also during design of the Waterford Bridge in 1907.)
Monash is appointed as Consulting Engineer for the project
Monash is asked to quote his fees
On 26 March 1912 Charles Nugent, as Shire Secretary, sent Monash a formal request to quote his terms for acting as consulting engineer. He replied that the normal fee for preparing plans and specifications for a project of this size was 2½% of its value; but if the Shire Engineer was willing to survey the site and explore the foundations, this would be reduced to 2% of the lowest tender. Monash added: "It is my duty, however, to inform you that I am connected with the Reinforced Concrete Company which will doubtless tender for the work, and it would not be right for me under such circumstances to accept any fee for the design in the event of my Company securing the work". In view of the fact that contractors might elect to use one of the patent systems of reinforcement available, Monash proposed to design the general layout and dimensions of the concrete work, specifying only the percentage of reinforcement to be used in each member. However, the contract would hold the successful contractor to a "stringent guarantee of strength and efficiency". This would ensure fair competition while providing satisfactory protection for the Council.
On 12 April, Tisdall at last sent Monash a profile of the river bed. Referring to the Easter manoeuvres, he hoped, "now the war is over", that Monash would be able to inspect the site before the river rose from its low summer level. He offered accommodation at his home during the visit.
The Shepparton Council checks RCMPC's previous work at Benalla
Several days later, Monash received a letter from the Shire Engineer of Benalla, S Jeffrey, who had taken credit for the design of the reinforced concrete bridge built there by RCMPC, and completed in 1910. Several councillors from Shepparton, accompanied by Nugent, had inspected the bridge and left a number of questions for Jeffrey to answer in the light of his experience. Would he recommend the use of reinforced concrete for the Shepparton bridge, or would he advise using steel for the superstructure or even for the entire bridge? If he favoured reinforced concrete, did he have any suggestions regarding its design? What did he think about the cracks that had appeared in the Benalla girders?
Accepted design procedure at the time did not provide adequate reinforcement to guard against 'shear' cracks: diagonally-inclined cracks occurring near the ends of beams in buildings, but extending well out from the supports in bridges, due to the moving loads.
Jeffrey and his councillors had their own doubts about the safety of the Benalla bridge, and seized the opportunity to suggest that its strength be demonstrated by subjecting it to a more severe load-test than that used when the bridge was accepted in 1910 (a 16-ton traction engine). If Monash showed his confidence by guaranteeing to make good any damage, the Shepparton councillors would surely be convinced.
Monash confidently advised Jeffrey: "In the light of the Practice and experience all over the world, there is no question that Reinforced Concrete has completely ousted steel construction for bridge work, and the selection of the former method requires no second thought. Even supposing minor errors of design have occurred in some existing concrete bridges, far worse and disastrous errors have occurred in many steel bridges, yet this has never been considered a reason for discarding steel construction in favour of stone or wood." If the Shepparton Council chose reinforced concrete, he would ensure that "any tendency for weakness in shear in the central zones of the main girders will be fully guarded against". He assured Jeffrey that, based on his considerable experience, "the cracks existing in the Benalla Bridge are of no significance as regards the strength or life of the structure".
The bridge has in fact lasted to the present day, although extra shear reinforcement was added.
Monash meets the Councillors and firms the preliminary design and costs
In May, Monash was invited to meet the Council to discuss the project. He arranged to travel by the evening train on Thursday 9th, arriving at 8.30 p.m. for preliminary discussions that evening. He spent Friday inspecting the site prior to further discussions, and left by the 5.30 p.m. train to Melbourne. This allowed him to prepare a fresh estimate as follows:
Bridge itself £2990
Approaches 310
[Total basic cost:] £3300
Contingencies 200
[Cost allowing for contingencies:] £3500
Margin 1000
[Total price before administration:] £4500
2½% for drawings and specs 125
2½% for supervision 125
Clerk of Works 26 weeks @ £3 78
[Administration charges:] 328
Monash proposed a series of steps that the Council could take at its monthly meetings to keep the project on course:
May meeting: instruct him to prepare a report and proposals. If accepted:
June meeting: instruct him to prepare drawings and a specification. If accepted:
July meeting instruct him to obtain approval from the PWD and call tenders.
Monash's appointment as consulting engineer is confirmed.
On 31 May Monash received official confirmation of his appointment, and was told to proceed with the design. He immediately initiated detailed design computations for the foundations.
Detailed design is commenced as final questions of finance and contract administration are resolved
Fresh information regarding the site
Shortly after Monash had produced his £4828 estimate, he received more detailed information regarding the site. Tisdall had at last sent a surveyed profile and the results of his subsurface investigations. Instead of the "stratified clay beds" he had expected, he had found that the material had been "river deposited". Where clay did appear, it was of a "potholey nature", the potholes having been filled with "a bluey white substance which is neither true sand nor true pipe clay". He advised Monash to inspect the exploratory pits, and "put in an appearance before the Council table on Monday week". Monash warmly commended Tisdall for the thoroughness of his survey, and agreed that since the river bed appeared unstable, it would be essential to use driven piles for some of the foundations. He also warned Nugent that there would be extra cost in resisting potential scour of the eastern abutment, on the outside of the bend in the river. This meant that it might be necessary to dispense with ornamentation if the price of a reinforced concrete bridge were to be kept within the specified range of £4500 to £5000. However, he assured him that it would still be much cheaper than a steel bridge at the site, which would cost about £6000.
Technical note: Because of restricted funds, it was assumed that load would be carried partly by the piles, and partly by the base of the pile cap, acting as a spread footing.
State funding becomes doubtful
Late in June (1912), with the process only two-thirds completed, the Councils' plans for financing were undermined. They had understood Baillieu to say that the funds required from the Councils would be advanced by the State Government out of trust funds, at a low rate of interest. However, Cabinet, confronted by competing claims, had resolved simply that, "conditionally on the Shepparton shire contributing £1500 and the Rodney shire £1000, the Government would provide £1500 and advance £500 to the Shepparton shire" (The Age 26 June). Informed of this position by the PWD, the Shepparton councillors protested that if they were to supply the money out of revenue, all the Council's other work would be brought to a complete halt.
Monash negotiates for PWD approval
Submission of the specifications was delayed for a month while Monash analysed the catchment area and river hydraulics to convince the PWD that six spans of 40 feet, plus overflow channels, would cope adequately with the likely magnitude of floods. Part of the problem had been in arranging meetings with Kermode, who was "a very busy man", but by mid-August he finally approved a width between abutments of 240 feet (73.2m). Monash then sent the drawing and proposed specification to the Council, explaining that:
all foundations would rest on piles, ensuring security under changes of river-bed;
the piers would be solid, to ensure that no drift wood could become entangled in them;
the aesthetic appearance of the bridge had been kept in view;
an expansion joint would be provided at the central pier (as required by Kermode).
The price would be about £4500, though instability in labour conditions and in the price of cement made it hard to predict. Engineering and supervision charges would be up to 5%. Because of the difficult foundations and the depth of the river bed, the price could not be reduced without "seriously detracting from the beauty and dignity of the design".
Meanwhile, Monash had drawn up an "Agenda" for his staff to prepare to versions of the design. One, upon which tenders were to be called, was to be somewhat conservative; with generous dimensions, and with cast iron cylinders for the pile caps. The other, upon which RCMPC would base its own tender, would employ Monier pipes from RCMPC's factory for the pile caps, and have member dimensions pared down for maximum efficiency.
The Councils and PWD formally approve design and contract documents
The draft tender documents were approved by the Shepparton and Rodney Councils at the end of August, clearing the way for preparation of detailed drawings. Monash asked for a further delay, because the chief engineer of the PWD, Carlo Catani, was on leave and Kermode was overloaded and spending much of his time up-country. He would aim to have the drawings ready for the October meeting of council. Tenders could then be returnable by the November meeting, and work could start in December. He argued that the delay would not be "an unmixed evil" because the existing flooded condition of the river "would be likely to frighten tenderers and cause an enhancement in the tender price".
Monash instructed his assistants to make the tender drawings still more conservative, and forwarded them to the PWD. Kermode's only major demand was a change to the specification, requiring the successful Contractor to submit details of his proposed reinforcement to the PWD for approval. Final official PWD approval for the design was at last received by Monash on 11 October, allowing him to proceed with the calling of tenders.
Monash argues for a Bulk Sum contract, rather than a Schedule of Rates
There was then a further delay of several weeks during which the documents were mislaid and found, and Monash persuaded the Council to adopt a Bulk Sum, rather than a Schedule of Rates, contract. He argued - through Nugent - that bulk sum contracts were "the invariable practice" of the PWD and most municipalities in the State. A schedule of rates format would involve "all sorts of complications and constant hourly supervision and recording of measurements by those administering the work". This would render the Council liable to "all sorts of disputations with the contractor as to the correctness of the quantities", and the final amount to be paid "would be a quite uncertain quantity". On the other hand, with a bulk sum contract, "the amount is definitely ascertained from the outset, and, provided no changes are made in the scope of the works, there can be no possibility of disputes or claims, as the contractor has to take all risks of every kind in connection with the work". Schedule of rates contracts were only justifiable in cases where the extent of the work could not be foreseen, or where changes were expected. However, at Shepparton, the work to be done simply meant "the Bridge complete or nothing", and the "scope and extent of the works [was] completely defined in every particular".
Monash did not wish even to prepare a list of quantities, for that would "saddle us with moral responsibilities for their correctness, and would be specially impracticable, having regard to the manner in which the specification has been drawn, wherein the particular methods of reinforcement have been left to tenderers subject to the guarantee clauses introduced". It was better to "leave tenderers to arrive at their idea of the value of the work as a whole in their own way". This was the custom of the PWD. "Nevertheless, of course, the successful contractor will be required to submit, in the usual way, a schedule of quantities and rates, by which variations from the contract, should such occur, can be valued."
Note: A decade earlier, confusion over the nature of the contract between Monash & Anderson and the Shires of Corio and Bannockburn for the Fyansford Bridge project landed the partnership in serious financial trouble. On that occasion the partners argued that they had been operating under a Schedule of Rates contract, and claimed payment for a large amount of extra work carried out in the foundations. The Shires argued that they had been led to believe before awarding the contract that it was on a Bulk Sum (fixed price) basis, with all risk to be borne by the Contractor. A single judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria agreed with M&A; but his decision was overturned following an appeal to the full Court. The case received wide publicity and created a perception within municipal circles that RCMPC had a policy of maximising its profits by finding reasons to perform "extra" work.
RCMPC wins the contract as the only bidder
Calls for tenders appeared in the newspapers on 2 November 1912. Rival contractors Pickles & Smith showed an interest and asked RCMPC to quote the price of precast reinforced concrete piles; but later withdrew in favour of tendering for a drainage scheme at Shepparton that would use RCMPC's Monier pipes. No other enquiries are mentioned in the RCMPC file. Monash arranged for company secretary Newbigin to sign and post the tender, as he felt it would be inappropriate for his signature to appear on both the consultant's drawings and the tender documents. He reminded Nugent that if RCMPC won, he would forego his 2% fee for design (about £90), and asked that the Council take this into consideration in assessing bids. If RCMPC's tender was only slightly more than the lowest, the Council should still consider choosing them, because Monash would then be "personally responsible for the faithful execution of the design as prepared by myself, and as arranged for with the Public Works Department".
The ceremony of opening tenders took place on 25 November 1912, and RCMPC's was the only one received, at £4552. On 6 December, Monash sent his first requisition to RCMPC's factory, for reinforcing bars for the concrete piles. On 7th, Nugent sent formal acceptance of the tender. The Shire President and Nugent were in favour of dispensing with a Clerk of Works, and appointing Tisdall to certify progress payments. However the full Council insisted that a Clerk of Works be appointed, and also asked for full details of all reinforcement, as required by the specification.
Tisdall sent RCMPC an account for his detailed topographical and sub-surface survey: ½% of the contract price, amounting to £22/15/0d. Monash explained to Managing Director John Gibson that he had given Tisdall the job because his advice to Council had facilitated RCMPC's success. He added that the payment might "placate" Tisdall, suggesting that some tension had arisen.
Appointment of Supervising Engineer, Clerk of Works, and Foreman
As Monash had now become the Contractor rather than the Consultant, the Council appointed Tisdall as "Supervising Engineer", with the task of ensuring that the specification and drawings were adhered to, and of certifying satisfactory completion of the work as it progressed. A local man, James H Dainton snr, was appointed as Clerk of Works to represent the Council on site from day to day, with a salary of £4 per week.
RCMPC selected A E Jones as their foreman, and his daily reports to Monash commence on 19 December 1912. His first tasks were to get the scrub cleared, establish a site office, and scout for local tradesmen and labourers. He expressed concern that at one end the new bridge would slightly overlap the old one, leading to difficulties in construction. Monash promised he would come "as early as possible in the New Year to give you [a] Bench Mark for levels and Centreline, and generally discuss the whole lay out of the job".
Strangely, Monash first learned of Dainton's appointment from an article in The Age newspaper. He wrote to Jones: "… you might let us have your summing up of this gentleman, and as to whether he is likely to give any trouble". Jones replied that Dainton was "A man of fairly wide experience [in] wood bridge and mass concrete work. Have not quite got his weight yet. He insists on gauging [the concrete] to Specification … Would like to see you about this when you come up." However, a day later he added: "C. of Wks: Will I think, give little trouble".
Monash sets out the bridge
Monash travelled to Shepparton by the evening train on Wednesday 8 January 1913, having courteously declined the Tisdalls' invitation to stay at their house overnight. He explained that he needed to stay at the hotel in order to confer with Jones that evening. He spent the following day taking levels over the site, setting out the new bridge, and holding discussions with Jones and Tisdall.
Monash stayed at the Court House Hotel in Shepparton (SLV image).
Foundation problems test the arrangements for contract supervision
Workers were opening up the foundations at the time of Monash's visit. He and Tisdall decided that the earth was weaker than suggested by the trial pits, and agreed that the abutment blocks should be taken four feet (1.22m) deeper than shown on the drawings. Already they were proposing a variation from the contract. Normally, RCMPC would have claimed payment for the extra work. Monash wanted to avoid this, having argued so strongly for a Bulk Sum contract that would throw all risk on the Contractor; but at the same time wished to minimise the extra cost to RCMPC. He therefore asked Tisdall to agree that large lumps of stone ('spalls') could be added to all unreinforced concrete work, so as to reduce the amount of sand and cement required - cement being a major cost item. To make further saving, he proposed that the procedure for mixing the components of the concrete, as set out in his specification, should be streamlined. Monash left Shepparton believing that Tisdall had full power to approve these measures, and that he had done so.
After Monash's departure Tisdall realised, or was informed, that the terms of his appointment did not give him the power to single-handedly approve variations. He wrote that RCMPC would need first to gain the approval of the PWD to the change, after which he could pass on a recommendation to the Council. Monash's reply was: "I do not relish the idea of having to run to the Public Works Department and your Council for every trifling variation from the strict wording of the specification. I think it is ridiculous to expect me to do so, and if the job is going to be administered on lines such as these, it is going to be an intolerable position for everybody concerned." If Tisdall had no power to run the job on the customary "give and take principle", it might be best for Monash to adopt whatever course he thought best for the integrity of the structure, and trust that Tisdall and Dainton would acquiesce. If RCMPC could not be given some sort of "quid pro quo", RCMPC would no longer offer to do additional work free of charge. The letter ends with the assumption that Tisdall will concur with Monash's sentiments and that their pleasant relationship will be maintained.
Comment. Most contracts of this type place ultimate responsibility for the safety and integrity of the work on the contractor, who therefore has the option of going out on a limb and ignoring the instructions of the client's staff. The relatively forceful terms of the letter are not unusual in the early days of a contract, as representatives of client and contractor spar to test each other's resolve. It was probably intended to be read by the Councillors.
Monash's attitude was restated in a letter to Jones. "I am extremely anxious to have no extras on the job of any kind, and Mr Tisdall has no authority whatsoever to order extras … I have just received a letter from him in which he pretends that he now finds that he has no authority to 'vary the specification', which means that we will still have to battle through as best we can the two points which we thought were settled, viz:- spalls in mass concrete and gauging of concrete."
When Tisdall requested that RCMPC men carry out maintenance work on the old bridge as an extra to the contract, Monash told Jones it would be wiser to lend him the men and let him pay them directly from Council funds. "Of course you will not have a row with Mr Tisdall over day labour; but you can quietly explain the position to him."
Insufficient friction between piles and soil
Above: Drawing of a typical river pier of the new bridge (applicable to Piers 2, 3, and 4). The land piers, Piers 1 and 5, had simple rectangular pile caps running the full width of the pier, rather than the cylinder caps shown above. (From the Commonwealth Engineer, Vol.1., 1 August 1913, p.21, courtesy of UMA.)
While the Shire and RCMPC had been getting to know each other, wooden piles had been driven into the river bed ready to support the temporary 'staging' or working platform (below, at bottom of photo). This had revealed a lower coefficient of friction than had been expected, between the sides of the pile and the ground. A number of 15-foot (4.57m) reinforced concrete piles for permanent support had been cast, and by the end of January, Jones was driving them ready to support Pier 5 on the west bank. He found a similar problem. Monash was "disconcerted", as previous experience in similar country had given him "every reason to expect stiff driving". Skin friction between the piles and the ground could not be relied upon to carry the intended load.
Above: Early work on Shepparton Bridge, with the old timber bridge behind. In left foreground can be seen the piling rig (with ladder) for hammering the reinforced concrete piles into the river bed. Temporary staging provides a rudimentary working platform. Lengths of large-diameter reinforced concrete pipe lie ready to serve as pile-caps for the river piers. Photo: University of Melbourne Archives Location Number BWP/23979a. (See also UMAIC, and search for "Record ID" UMA/I/6517.) A full-length side-on view of the timber bridge, probably taken at the same time as the image above appears in BWP/23980 (not online).
The ideal response to the problem would have been to provide more piles under each pier, or to use longer piles. However, this would have brought work to a halt for several weeks while steel and cement were delivered to site, and the new piles cast and cured. Monash declared this option "not to be thought of". He took advantage of the fact that the base of the pile caps would bear on the soil and provide extra resistance, not included in the original calculations. Fresh comptuations showed, in fact, that the entire load of the pier could be borne in this fashion.
It was still necessary to convince Dainton, who had demanded that 18-foot (5.49m) piles, intended for other foundations, be used in place of the 15-foot piles. However, he was eventually persuaded by Jones that 15-foot piles could be used, so long as the "foundation" [base?] was lowered by two feet (610mm). To comply with the letter of the contract documents, Monash told Jones to make sure that the piles "pulled up" as required by the Specification.
Technical Note. Piles driven into soft ground without reaching rock are capable of resisting imposed loads by means of friction between the vertical surfaces of the pile and the soil. In Monash's time, they were driven by raising a hammer ("monkey") of a certain mass, and allowing it to fall through a specified distance. With the first blows, a pile moves easily into the soil, but as its depth increases the penetration caused by each blow decreases. Formulas based on experience link the mass of the hammer, the drop, and the final increment in penetration, to the load the pile may be expected to carry.
With these issues resolved between Foreman and Clerk of Works, there was a brief scare when Tisdall announced that he would personally observe the driving of the Pier 5 piles "from start to finish". However, on the Friday in question, he was obliged to attend to matters elsewhere in the Shire. The resistance of the piles proved to be better than feared, and satisfied Dainton, with a 3/4" (19mm) set for a monkey drop of 4'-0" (1.22m). Unfortunately, Jones delayed until the Monday before sending the good news to Monash who, with Works Manager Alex Lynch, spent an anxious weekend "in a state of readiness" to travel to Shepparton to deal with Tisdall's "warlike attitude". Monash asked Jones to convey RCMPC's appreciation of Dainton's "fair and reasonable attitude" … "and assure him that we will strive in other directions to please him".
Monash attempts to resolve the Supervision issue
The narrow shave at Pier 5 persuaded Monash to write confidentially to Nugent in an attempt to resolve the problem of supervision. He described the relationship that had developed between RCMPC, Dainton, and Tisdall as "full of delicacy". He explained that he wanted to avoid friction and maintain existing "pleasant relations"; but a conflict could occur at any moment. He and RCMPC were willing to make sacrifices to avoid extras and maintain their reputations; but the cost of generally deepening the foundations was significant (about £50). If Tisdall really did have no power to negotiate variations to the Contract, it would create an intolerable situation:
"It would be impossible to conduct a great public work if the strict provisions of the specification, for good or ill, could never be varied, even if all concerned thought that variation desirable and in the interests of the work. It is impossible to run such a job except on the give and take principle, because, as the works develop, extras unexpectedly arise, which can best be met by setting them against harmless deductions in other places."
If RCMPC could deal solely with Dainton, there would be no trouble on either side. He was "a thoroughly practical and experienced man". The interests of the Council would be safe in his hands; and yet RCMPC could be sure that he would not ask for anything unreasonable from them. Yet Monash was willing to see Tisdall given sole discretionary power which would exclude the need to refer to the Council on "small trumpery matters of detail".
In conclusion, Monash asked if Nugent could give him some clues about the Councillors' perceptions, and their likely reaction to his request.
Nugent reported that the Councillors were particularly sensitive to this proposal (which they thought had originated with Tisdall) because a similar request had been made some time ago on a project carried out jointly by the Shire and the State Water Supply Department. Following public controversy, the Council's Engineer and the WSD Clerk of Works (also an engineer) had been removed from the job at the request of the Department. In the present case, the Shire President noted that Monash, when acting as Consultant, had insisted that the Contractor should take all risk and responsibility for making proper foundations. The Shire would much rather pay for an extra than agree to a deviation from the Specification. It had placed a limit on Tisdall's powers specifically to prevent him from unduly interfering in the work - and now that he had been appointed Supervising Engineer there was little chance that he could be superseded, especially by the Clerk of Works.
Nugent urged Monash to talk directly to the Council to avoid misunderstandings, as he thought Tisdall was not good at "placing or explaining" matters. He concluded: "This Council is solely of opinion that if your specifications are carried out a good job will be done, and are against any alteration suggested by either Mr Dainton or Tisdall".
Confusion continues
Despite Nugent's letter, Monash told Jones that the situation was still unclear regarding the Council's chain of command and "the two concessions that we tried to get passed through" - the use of spalls and the method of gauging the concrete. He felt that an attempt to pursue these issues in writing might stir up trouble; yet he had no time to visit Shepparton to sort the matter out informally. He asked how often Tisdall visited the site, and whether he tried to "boss" Dainton, or give "interfering instructions". He urged Jones to try diplomacy and persuade Dainton to "quietly acquiesce".
First request for Progress Payment
Early in February, Monash requested a first progress payment of £400 to £500 towards RCMPC's investment in pile manufacture and driving, earthworks, temporary staging, and stockpiling of cement, steel and other materials on site.
Disagreement over the positioning of piles below Pier 3.
A few days later, a dispute arose because one of the stay piles of the existing bridge interfered with work on the foundations for Pier 3. It proved impossible to drive the piles to support the upstream cylinder in the pattern shown in the drawings. The only practicable arrangement would be eccentric to the cylinder centreline, although still within its circumference. Dainton considered this unacceptable. Jones argued that the difference would be negligible. Monash backed Jones and assured him that the PWD would consent to the change, "so you can go right ahead without reference to Tisdall or Dainton in this respect, politely telling them that those are your orders". He added that at both the Benalla and Maribyrnong bridge projects RCMPC had made similar changes which had proved "in every respect satisfactory". At the same time, he urged Jones to be more independent, and "battle through" such conflicts as far as he could, calling on Monash and Lynch for support only when deadlock appeared unavoidable, as they were both very busy.
Further discussions on supervision
Monash's letter crossed with a report from Jones that Dainton was still insisting on precise observance of the specification. However, he thought the matter could be left "until the taste of the job fails to tickle the local palate", after which he and Dainton would surely "rub along" well enough. Tisdall was now giving little trouble, seemed unsure of himself, and did not issue instructions.
In mid-February, Monash replied to Nugent's letter, saying it was evident that Tisdall had "unwittingly", misrepresented RCMPC's position by saying that they wanted to use spalls as a substitute for broken stones. The intention was to use "rubble concrete"; and then only in massive portions of the work, such as the deepening of the foundations. This was the practice in all bridges, of which RCMPC had built over 100. It was "really better and stronger work than ordinary concrete".
There was now no need to discuss whether RCMPC should be paid extra for deepening the foundations ("I hate 'extras' in any form"). However, it was necessary to be flexible in the interpretation of the Specification. Councillors must be aware that if it were "to be read strictly as written, without the possibility of any commonsense modification to suit varying conditions, it must be read strictly both against the Council as well as against the Contractor, which means that the Contractor is entitled to be paid for any work not specified or shown that may prove requisite".
The issue regarding rubble concrete was merely an incident that drew attention to the "intolerable position" regarding supervision. It appeared that Tisdall had been appointed "to enforce strictly and to the letter every word and every line of my specification" regardless of the situation. It was "most anomalous" and left room for "the exercise of most unreasonable and unreasoning tyranny". Monash declared he had written the specification "in good faith" believing that it would be administered by himself or an Engineer with customary powers of discretion.
"We, as Contractors, have a moral right to ask that this contract be administered in the same give and take spirit that prevails in normal conditions, and that the Council would appoint an Engineer with ordinary powers and discretions. I raised the question with you solely to avoid future trouble. If such should now arise, I can hardly be held responsible. You may be perfectly assured of a good sound job, but there is every reason to fear that in achieving it, there will be squabbles over unessential details arising from the fact that the Engineer will, in the endeavour to make the most of his very limited authority, pursue the letter and not the spirit of a specification to which he was no party, and which I have grave doubts if he has sufficient specialised knowledge and experience to interpret correctly and fairly."
In mid-February Monash valued the work done, and materials delivered so far, at £850, and requested a further Progress Payment of £600.
Kermode, of the PWD, made a surprise visit to the site and examined the situation at the upstream cylinder of Pier 3 (where it was proposed to use an eccentric layout of piles). Jones feared trouble, but Monash assured him that Kermode was "entirely friendly towards us, and, while requiring every assurance of good work, will not raise petty points against us".
At the end of February, a sub-contractor, J. McAuliffe, was appointed to carry out the earthworks for the approach roads to the bridge.
A breakdown of actual and anticipated costs prepared on 10 March reads:
Clearing site, getting plant and tools to site, setting out temporary staging etc £417
Concrete piles (68) driven 340
Abutments & wing walls west [£]222, east [£]312 534
Piers, to underside of deck 5 @ 262 1310
Superstructure 6 spans @ 246 1488
Roadway and pathway surfaces 114
Handrailing 116
Approach works 233
[Total] £4552
RCMPC's foreman Frederick Bloom, building a bridge over the Goulburn upstream at Cremona, was asked to send warnings of floods and freshets to Jones, about 80 miles downstream. This would provide two or three days' warning of their arrival.
Monash meets the Council to discuss procedure
On Monash's return from the Militia Easter Camp at the end of March, Nugent informed him that the Shepparton Council wished to see him "in regard to the method in which the work is being carried out". He replied that he was very busy catching up with the backlog of design office work, but assured Council that he was prepared to take personal responsibility for "everything that has been done on the works", about which he was fully informed by daily reports. He mentioned that he now had the support of Kermode, regarding the use of spalls. All work had been carried out to the satisfaction of Dainton, the Clerk of Works, seeing that Tisdall's only role now was to issue certificates for progress payments. There would be "no departure from the specification in any particular, except in cases where it is in the best interests of the stability of the work". The Council was "protected by the absolute guarantee" given by RCMPC "in respect of the work as a whole and every part of it". Nevertheless, Monash would be pleased meet Nugent and Councillors. He pointed out once more that it would be better for all concerned if the Council formally ruled either that Tisdall had no power to intervene between RCMPC and Dainton, or that he had "full discretionary power to settle all questions without further reference to the Council".
Jones delivered the letter by hand on 31 March 1913, and a special meeting of Council was arranged for 7 April. The letter was read out, and Monash reinforced its contents verbally, adding that "there was never a contract without some modification or variation occurring". The situation at Shepparton was unique in his 20 years' experience of public works. All projects encountered some unforeseen problems. Rigid adherence to specifications and "dictionary exactitude" would make work impossible. Where mass concrete was more than 2 feet thick, rubble concrete was better than normal concrete. This was a view shared by Kermode of the PWD. Monash had his reputation and that of his firm to maintain.
The Councillors asked a few questions and then went into committee. When they returned, the Shire President explained that, although "they had unanimously accepted Colonel Monash's explanation … they could not see their way clear to accept the suggestion that they should delegate their powers to the shire engineer". The Shepparton Advertiser reported that "Colonel Monash then thanked the Council and retired."
The meeting was reported in the Shepparton Advertiser of 7 April 1913. The Council also decided on the share of the cost to be borne by each of the ridings of which the shire was constituted. After lively discussion, the total estimated cost of £5000 (including approaches) was divided as follows: Shepparton Riding £1050; South Riding £800; North Riding £400; Dookie Riding £150; Kialla Riding £100.
Back in Melbourne, Monash wrote regretting that the Council had refused to grant Tisdall full powers, as prescribed in the Conditions of Contract. In view of this, and for its own protection, RCMPC would be obliged to "decline to recognise any orders or instructions given by your Engineer unless also referred to and formally ratified by the Council". He insisted this policy was in no way hostile, but was taken simply to protect RCMPC's vital interests. (Privately, he told Jones that the aim was "to justify us and yourself in future entirely ignoring any drastic instructions that Mr. Tisdall may give, such as wanting to stop the work, or wanting any of the work pulled down".)
Substructure work continues, interrupted by high water
In the meantime all work on land was nearing completion, but work on the river piers had been hindered by floodwater. The level in the Goulburn River at the site was influenced by the level in the River Murray (now low) and by the operation of the gates to the irrigation channels. Jones contacted the caretaker at the Goulburn Weir to see if flows could be modified to assist RCMPC. He told Monash he planned to keep the best of the workforce going as long as profitable.
Driving of the piles had progressed, but with some difficulty. Sunken timber buried in the bed of the river (debris from previous floods) proved an obstacle, and had to be removed with the aid of the piling rig. The tops of the piles were ending up two feet below water, which reduced the impact of the monkey.
The third claim for a Progress Payment, on 22 April, shows 56 piles driven, and 12 ready to drive. The abutments and their wing walls were nearly complete. Piers 1, 4, and 5 were complete, and the formwork and reinforcement was in place for the girders and deck of three spans. High winds were occurring, and Jones feared that they might damage the partly-completed works. Especially susceptible were the two parts of Pier 3, which was divided into two slender blades, to permit expansion and contraction of the deck either side.
Jones continued to be worried by the threat of new floods, as the superstructure formwork was now supported by a forest of props (see e.g. the photograph of Waterford bridge under construction [link]). These would snare floating debris, block the flow, and be subjected to destructive overturning forces. A week later, one bank of the main Goulburn irrigation channel broke away near Murchison, and the working platform at the bridge site was temporarily four feet under water. Fortunately, no great harm was done.
Construction of deck spans commences
On 21 May Monash claimed a further £940, reporting that all piers were complete, Spans 1 and 6 would soon be complete, and Span 5 would probably be finished by the time of payment. Some concreting had been done on Spans 2 and 4. On 26th, Jones asked permission to remove the props from under Span 1 so that he could use them elsewhere. In view of the delicate political situation, Monash advised him to leave some props near mid-span because, "with the amount of attention that has been concentrated on this bridge, the smallest amount of sagging or even the faintest cracks would cause a lot of unnecessary talk".
June brought further flooding. Monash advised Jones that as soon as the water had receded below the pile caps, he should "get every available plasterer and labourer on the job" to apply the specified finish to the concrete before the next flood arrived.
Completion and load-testing
By mid-June, most of the bridge was finished, but the Mooroopna approach and the upstream wing walls at both ends could not be completed until portions of the old bridge had been removed. This required the diversion of traffic onto the new bridge prior to fulfilment of the contract. Tisdall argued before Council that the bridge should be load-tested prior to the diversion. Also, he wanted to add a train of two waggons behind the 15-ton traction engine required by Monash's specification. After discussion, the councillors seem to have left this question in abeyance, whilst agreeing that RCMPC could divert traffic when it suited them. Monash told Jones, early in July, to get as much work done as possible free from interference by vehicles, and then "quietly" divert the traffic. As a courtesy, he should invite the Shire President to be the first to drive his trap over.
The early diversion of traffic made the traditional ribbon-cutting ceremont redundant, and the Council decided to forgo it. Traffic was diverted on 30 July 1913. On 31st, Monash was finally able to declare the work complete. He explained to Nugent that the youngest concrete was now six weeks old, and he was keen to see the load-test take place so that he could claim final payment and hand the bridge over to Council. He was, however, concerned that Tisdall was still proposing a heavier test load, although this now took the form of a roller dragged behind the traction engine. Monash explained to Jones that if this were too close behind the prime mover, it would be possible for the load on a single girder to exceed the specified design load. Although the bridge had excess capacity, the extra load could cause slight cracking which, though insignificant in itself, might "cause alarm among ignorant laymen and form the subject of silly discussion", especially in a settled district like Shepparton where they were so many "wise-acres".
Of greater concern was the possibility that the opportunity might be taken to roll the asphalt by passing the traction engine five or six times over the bridge. This would "greatly increase the severity of the test". "My policy has always been, in connection with testing, to let them get the load on, make their observations and get the load off and the steam roller on its way home as quickly as possible, because all the time the test is under way is a time of tension, with everybody on the alert for the slightest thing to criticise." For these reasons Jones should use "other means of haulage, say horses", to roll the asphalt before the official test took place. Tisdall would then have no excuse for attaching the roller; but if he did, Jones was to be frank and object that the test would be more severe than that stipulated in the specification.
By now, Nugent seems to have been effectively in charge. He proposed the use of an 11-ton traction engine pulling a 4-ton roller, perhaps believing this would be equivalent to a 15-ton engine. The roller axle would be 15 feet (4.57m) behind the main wheels of the engine. Jones suggested that the roller make a single pass each way along the bridge, down the centreline, without stopping, and Monash agreed to these terms.
Ironically, an unofficial test took place on 11th August, when an eleven-ton traction engine pulling a "heavy" waggon and a 2-ton chaffcutter passed over the bridge as part of normal traffic. Jones reported "slight jarring vibration" and a very slight permanent impression in the asphalt, but no damage to the bridge.
The official test finally took place on 14 August "in the presence of representatives of the Shepparton and Rodney shires, the Shepparton Urban Waterworks Trust, and the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission, and a large number of the public" (Argus, 15th). In the event, the roller was loaded with six casks of cement, producing a combined weight of 15 tons 7 cwt but "the structure was pronounced to be safe and substantial". Jones reported that "Everything went off satisfactorily in spite of Tisdall and about a dozen of the Shire talent including about 250 disappointed spectators".
The project tailed off gradually as minor matters were cleared up. It was arranged for Jones to quit Shepparton, leaving "a reliable local man" to visit the bridge once a day to monitor settlement of approaches and repair any damage to the asphalt. (The man selected was named William Wilson.)
On 24 June 1913, Monash had advised that the bridge was "on the eve of completion" and requested a progress payment of £1000. The total value of work completed was then about £4450. Payments so far had been £2850, the deposit held by Council was £227, and so there was an amount outstanding of £1827. Thus a progress payment of £1000 would leave £827 still with the Council as surety.
A report in the Shepparton Advertiser of 11 August 1913 listed the final break-up of finance as "Total cost £4552 10s, of which the Government has contributed £1500; and Rodney Shire, £1000; the rest being paid by Shepparton Shire."
Final tidying-up of work and contractual matters
Several matters remained to be cleared up. Tisdall maintained that RCMPC should bear the cost of removing the tree stump that had hindered operations in the bed of the river early in the project. He saw this as part of the Contractor's risk. Monash maintained that it had been discovered only because of the decision to deepen the foundations (which he attributed to Dainton), and that there had been no real need to remove it in any case. He wanted the Council to pay for it under a separate job heading, so as to avoid the opprobrium of an 'extra'. The high level of the river still prevented rendering of the pile tops and removal of some falsework. Since completion of the bulk of the work, some defects had begun to show. Provision for drainage of the approaches had proved inadequate, and there had been some scour of the embankments. The asphalt surfacing had suffered under the action of traffic, and Tisdall argued this was because it had been applied under rain. There was disagreement over the starting date for the six-month 'maintenance period' during which RCMPC would be responsible for remedying defects. Jones put the case that it should be counted from the date on which the bridge was first used by traffic. Tisdall argued that it should start from the date on which the work was certified complete.
To move matters along, Monash requested a further progress payment. He predicted that the final account for the bridge contract would be for £4582. A payment of £1000, added to previous payments, would leave the Council with £100 as surety. Monash emphasised that he was not charging for the "large amount of extra concrete" that had been placed in the foundations of Piers 2, 3, and 5, "at the request of Mr Dainton". He recalled that Tisdall had at first agreed to the use of spalls, to compensate for the additional volume, but that this had been disallowed by the Council. However, he did claim payment for the cost of removing the tree stump. After due consideration, the Council backed Tisdall regarding the stump. It also decided that the maintenance period should start from 25 August for all work completed before the diversion of traffic; and should start from the date of official completion for the rest of the work.
Monash was not content to let the matter rest, and negotiations continued through late October, at which stage he proposed the dispute be submitted for arbitration by the Engineer of Roads and Bridges of the PWD. He did not want to disturb "the amicable relations which have prevailed throughout"; but felt very strongly "that an injustice is being done to us".
At the end of December, William Wilson reported that the water level had dropped sufficiently to reveal the decking of the temporary platform. RCMPC started to put the final touches to the bridge in January 1914. Tisdall now demanded that they also clear away all accumulated flood debris, and restore the approach embankment. Monash protested that RCMPC had fulfilled their contractual obligations by clearing debris at the start of the project. Also, the original provision for drainage had been approved by the shire engineer and the PWD, so its inadequacy was not RCMPC's responsibility. Furthermore: "You will find that the maintenance referred to in the contract is strictly defined, and is limited to defects in materials, workmanship or detailed design, being causes within our control, and does not relate either to the inevitable wear and tear on the structure after put into public use, or to the action of Nature". However, he authorised Jones "to do any small amount of work running into a pound [sterling] or two in order to keep this young gentleman quiet".
After yet more negotiations, Monash offered to fix the drainage if Council handed over the remainder of the retained money and relieved RCMPC of all further responsibility. The Council replied that they had not changed their position regarding the stump and that the asphalt had to be restored; but despite this they had pleasure in paying the full amount claimed, because of the very satisfactory manner in which RCMPC had performed and carried out the work and the very cordial relationship that existed between itself and Monash, as Engineer for the bridge. The Council declared itself "very pleased with the structure, which, as it now appears, reflects credit on your reputable engineering skill and ability".
RCMPC obtained a quote for the drainage work from a local contractor, T Dyas.
In acknowledging the cheque, on 8 April 1914, Monash replied "I desire to express my sincere appreciation for the kindly and courteous expressions contained in your letter, and I am very pleased that your Council is satisfied with my efforts to serve their interests. I desire to take the opportunity to make my personal acknowledgements of the uniform courtesy received by me and members of my staff at the hands of your Council and its Officers."
JM T-Girder Bridges extant in Victoria c.1998:
[Part 1.] [Part 2.] [Part 3.] [Part 4.]
Some of JM's other T-Girder Bridges:
[South Australia.] [Stawell St.] [Maribyrnong.] [Miscellaneous 1.] [Miscellaneous 2.]
JM Site Nav:
[JM Intro] [Main JM Index.] [JM Bridge Index.] [JM People Index.]
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This page requires Javascript. Please enable JavaScript to use it!
Spy Tools Chronometry - Interactive Date and Calendar Conversion:
This page allows you to convert dates in a variety of civil, astronomical, and computer calendars.
Enter a date in any calendar you wish, Press ">> Update Page Dates", and you can read the date in any other calendar!
Gregorian Calendar
Time (HH MM SS):
Date Info:
The Gregorian calendar was proclaimed by Pope Gregory XIII, and took effect in most Catholic states in 1582, in which October 4, 1582 of the Julian calendar was followed by October 15 in the new calendar. When comparing historical dates, it's important to note that the Gregorian calendar, used universally today in Western countries and in international commerce, was adopted at different times by different countries. Britain and her colonies (including what is now the United States), did not switch to the Gregorian calendar until 1752, when Wednesday 2nd September in the Julian calendar dawned as Thursday the 14th in the Gregorian.
The Gregorian calendar is a minor correction to the Julian. In the Julian calendar every fourth year is a leap year in which February has 29, not 28 days, but in the Gregorian, years divisible by 100 are not leap years unless they are also divisible by 400. As in the Julian calendar, days are considered to begin at midnight.
Julian Day:
Astronomers frequently need to do arithmetic with dates. Julian days simply enumerate the days and fraction which have elapsed since the start of the Julian era, which is defined as beginning at noon on Monday, 1st January of year 4713 B.C.E. in the Julian calendar. This date is defined in terms of a cycle of years, but has the additional advantage that all known historical astronomical observations bear positive Julian day numbers, and periods can be determined and events extrapolated by simple addition and subtraction. The Julian day notation is so deeply embedded in astronomy that it is unlikely to be displaced at any time in the foreseeable future. It is also an ideal system for storing dates in computer programs, free of cultural bias and discontinuities at various dates, and can be readily transformed into other calendar systems.
Modified Julian Day:
While any event in recorded human history can be written as a positive Julian day number, when working with contemporary events all those digits can be cumbersome. A Modified Julian Day (MJD) is created by subtracting 2400000.5 from a Julian day number, and thus represents the number of days elapsed since midnight (00:00) Universal Time on November 17, 1858. Modified Julian Days are widely used to specify the epoch in tables of orbital elements of artificial Earth satellites. Since no such objects existed prior to October 4, 1957, all satellite-related MJDs are positive.
Julian Calendar
The Julian calendar was proclaimed by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. and underwent several modifications before reaching its final form in 8 C.E. The Julian calendar differs from the Gregorian only in the determination of leap years, lacking the correction for years divisible by 100 and 400 in the Gregorian calendar. In the Julian calendar, any positive year is a leap year if divisible by 4. (Negative years are leap years if the absolute value divided by 4 yields a remainder of 1.) Days are considered to begin at midnight.
In the Julian calendar the average year has a length of 365.25 days. compared to the actual solar tropical year of 365.24219878 days. The calendar thus accumulates one day of error with respect to the solar year every 128 years. Being a purely solar calendar, no attempt is made to synchronise the start of months to the phases of the Moon.
Hebrew Calendar
Nisan Iyyar Sivan Tammuz Av Elul Tishri Heshvan Kislev Teveth Shevat Adar Veadar
Hebrew Month:
The Hebrew (or Jewish) calendar attempts to simultaneously maintain alignment between the months and the seasons and synchronise months with the Moon--it is thus deemed a "luni-solar calendar". In addition, there are constraints on which days of the week on which a year can begin and to shift otherwise required extra days to prior years to keep the length of the year within the prescribed bounds. This isn't easy, and the computations required are correspondingly intricate.
Years are classified as common (normal) or embolismic (leap) years which occur in a 19 year cycle in years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19. In an embolismic (leap) year, an extra month of 29 days, "Veadar" or "Adar II", is added to the end of the year after the month "Adar", which is designated "Adar I" in such years. Further, years may be deficient, regular, or complete, having respectively 353, 354, or 355 days in a common year and 383, 384, or 385 days in embolismic years. Days are defined as beginning at sunset, and the calendar begins at sunset the night before Monday, October 7, 3761 B.C.E. in the Julian calendar, or Julian day 347995.5. Days are numbered with Sunday as day 1, through Saturday: day 7.
The average length of a month is 29.530594 days, extremely close to the mean synodic month (time from new Moon to next new Moon) of 29.530588 days. Such is the accuracy that more than 13,800 years elapse before a single day discrepancy between the calendar's average reckoning of the start of months and the mean time of the new Moon. Alignment with the solar year is better than the Julian calendar, but inferior to the Gregorian. The average length of a year is 365.2468 days compared to the actual solar tropical year (time from equinox to equinox) of 365.24219 days, so the calendar accumulates one day of error with respect to the solar year every 216 years.
Muharram Safar Rabi`al-Awwal Rabi`ath-Thani Jumada l-Ula Jumada t-Tania Rajab Sha`ban Ramadan Shawwal Dhu l-Qa`da Dhu l-Hijja
The Islamic calendar is purely lunar and consists of twelve alternating months of 30 and 29 days, with the final 29 day month extended to 30 days during leap years. Leap years follow a 30 year cycle and occur in years 1, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 18, 21, 24, 26, and 29. Days are considered to begin at sunset. The calendar begins on Friday, July 16th, 622 C.E. in the Julian calendar, Julian day 1948439.5, the day of Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina, with sunset on the preceding day reckoned as the first day of the first month of year 1 A.H.--"Anno Hegiræ"--the Arabic word for "separate" or "go away". Weeks begin on Sunday, and the names for the days are just their numbers: Sunday is the first day and Saturday the seventh.
Each cycle of 30 years thus contains 19 normal years of 354 days and 11 leap years of 355, so the average length of a year is therefore ((19 ? 354) + (11 ? 355)) / 30 = 354.365... days, with a mean length of month of 1/12 this figure, or 29.53055... days, which closely approximates the mean synodic month (time from new Moon to next new Moon) of 29.530588 days, with the calendar only slipping one day with respect to the Moon every 2525 years. Since the calendar is fixed to the Moon, not the solar year, the months shift with respect to the seasons, with each month beginning about 11 days earlier in each successive solar year.
The calendar presented here is the most commonly used civil calendar in the Islamic world; for religious purposes months are defined to start with the first observation of the crescent of the new Moon.
Persian Calendar
Farvardin Ordibehesht Khordad Tir Mordad Shahrivar Mehr Aban Azar Dey Bahman Esfand
The modern Persian calendar was adopted in 1925, supplanting (while retaining the month names of) a traditional calendar dating from the eleventh century. The calendar consists of 12 months, the first six of which are 31 days, the next five 30 days, and the final month 29 days in a normal year and 30 days in a leap year.
As one of the few calendars designed in the era of accurate positional astronomy, the Persian calendar uses a very complex leap year structure which makes it the most accurate solar calendar in use today. Years are grouped into cycles which begin with four normal years after which every fourth subsequent year in the cycle is a leap year. Cycles are grouped into grand cycles of either 128 years (composed of cycles of 29, 33, 33, and 33 years) or 132 years, containing cycles of of 29, 33, 33, and 37 years. A great grand cycle is composed of 21 consecutive 128 year grand cycles and a final 132 grand cycle, for a total of 2820 years. The pattern of normal and leap years which began in 1925 will not repeat until the year 4745!
Each 2820 year great grand cycle contains 2137 normal years of 365 days and 683 leap years of 366 days, with the average year length over the great grand cycle of 365.24219852. So close is this to the actual solar tropical year of 365.24219878 days that the Persian calendar accumulates an error of one day only every 3.8 million years. As a purely solar calendar, months are not synchronised with the phases of the Moon.
Mayan Calendars
Long Count:
Haab:
Tzolkin:
The Mayans employed three calendars, all organised as hierarchies of cycles of days of various lengths. The Long Count was the principal calendar for historical purposes, the Haab was used as the civil calendar, while the Tzolkin was the religious calendar. All of the Mayan calendars are based on serial counting of days without means for synchronising the calendar to the Sun or Moon, although the Long Count and Haab calendars contain cycles of 360 and 365 days, respectively, which are roughly comparable to the solar year. Based purely on counting days, the Long Count more closely resembles the Julian Day system and contemporary computer representations of date and time than other calendars devised in antiquity. Also distinctly modern in appearance is that days and cycles count from zero, not one as in most other calendars, which simplifies the computation of dates, and that numbers as opposed to names were used for all of the cycles.
Composed of
kin 1
uinal 20 kin 20
tun 18 uinal 360 0.986
katun 20 tun 7200 19.7
baktun 20 katun 144,000 394.3
pictun 20 baktun 2,880,000 7,885
calabtun 20 piktun 57,600,000 157,704
kinchiltun 20 calabtun 1,152,000,000 3,154,071
alautun 20 kinchiltun 23,040,000,000 63,081,429
The Long Count calendar is organised into the hierarchy of cycles shown at the right. Each of the cycles is composed of 20 of the next shorter cycle with the exception of the tun, which consists of 18 uinal of 20 days each. This results in a tun of 360 days, which maintains approximate alignment with the solar year over modest intervals--the calendar comes undone from the Sun 5 days every tun.
The Mayans believed at at the conclusion of each pictun cycle of about 7,885 years the universe is destroyed and re-created. Those with apocalyptic inclinations will be relieved to observe that the present cycle will not end until Columbus Day, October 12, 4772 in the Gregorian calendar. Speaking of apocalyptic events, it's amusing to observe that the longest of the cycles in the Mayan calendar, alautun, about 63 million years, is comparable to the 65 million years since the impact which brought down the curtain on the dinosaurs--an impact which occurred near the Yucatan peninsula where, almost an alautun later, the Mayan civilisation flourished. If the universe is going to be destroyed and the end of the current pictun, there's no point in writing dates using the longer cycles, so we dispense with them here.
Dates in the Long Count calendar are written, by convention, as:
baktun . katun . tun . uinal . kin
and thus resemble present-day IPV4 Internet addresses!
For civil purposes the Mayans used the Haab calendar in which the year was divided into 18 named periods of 20 days each, followed by five Uayeb days not considered part of any period. Dates in this calendar are written as a day number (0 to 19 for regular periods and 0 to 4 for the days of Uayeb) followed by the name of the period. This calendar has no concept of year numbers; it simply repeats at the end of the complete 365 day cycle. Consequently, it is not possible, given a date in the Haab calendar, to determine the Long Count or year in other calendars. The 365 day cycle provides better alignment with the solar year than the 360 day tun of the Long Count but, lacking a leap year mechanism, the Haab calendar shifted one day with respect to the seasons about every four years.
The Mayan religion employed the Tzolkin calendar, composed of 20 named periods of 13 days. Unlike the Haab calendar, in which the day numbers increment until the end of the period, at which time the next period name is used and the day count reset to 0, the names and numbers in the Tzolkin calendar advance in parallel. On each successive day, the day number is incremented by 1, being reset to 0 upon reaching 13, and the next in the cycle of twenty names is affixed to it. Since 13 does not evenly divide 20, there are thus a total of 260 day number and period names before the calendar repeats. As with the Haab calendar, cycles are not counted and one cannot, therefore, convert a Tzolkin date into a unique date in other calendars. The 260 day cycle formed the basis for Mayan religious events and has no relation to the solar year or lunar month.
The Mayans frequently specified dates using both the Haab and Tzolkin calendars; dates of this form repeat only every 52 solar years.
Bahá'í Calendar
Kull-i-Shay:
Váhid:
Alif Bá' Ab Dál Báb Váv Abad Jád Bahá Hubb Bahháj Javáb Ahad Vahháb Vidád Badí' Bahí Abhá Vahíd Bahá Jalál Jamál `Azamat Núr Rahmat Kalimát Kamál Asmá' `Izzat Mashíyyat `Ilm Qudrat Qawl Masáil Sharaf Sultán Mulk Ayyám-i-Há `Alá' Bahá Jalál Jamál `Azamat Núr Rahmat Kalimát Kamál Asmá' `Izzat Mashíyyat `Ilm Qudrat Qawl Masáil Sharaf Sultán Mulk `Alá'
The Bahá'í calendar is a solar calendar organised as a hierarchy of cycles, each of length 19, commemorating the 19 year period between the 1844 proclamation of the Báb in Shiraz and the revelation by Bahá'u'lláh in 1863. Days are named in a cycle of 19 names. Nineteen of these cycles of 19 days, usually called "months" even though they have nothing whatsoever to do with the Moon, make up a year, with a period between the 18th and 19th months referred to as Ayyám-i-Há not considered part of any month; this period is four days in normal years and five days in leap years. The rule for leap years is identical to that of the Gregorian calendar, so the Bahá'í calendar shares its accuracy and remains synchronised. The same cycle of 19 names is used for days and months.
The year begins at the equinox, March 21, the Feast of Naw-Rúz; days begin at sunset. Years have their own cycle of 19 names, called the Váhid. Successive cycles of 19 years are numbered, with cycle 1 commencing on March 21, 1844, the year in which the Báb announced his prophecy. Cycles, in turn, are assembled into Kull-I-Shay super-cycles of 361 (19?) years. The first Kull-I-Shay will not end until Gregorian calendar year 2205. A week of seven days is superimposed on the calendar, with the week considered to begin on Saturday. Confusingly, three of the names of weekdays are identical to names in the 19 name cycles for days and months.
Indian Civil Calendar
Caitra Vaisakha Jyaistha Asadha Sravana Bhadra Asvina Kartika Agrahayana Pausa Magha Phalguna
A bewildering variety of calendars have been and continue to be used in the Indian subcontinent. In 1957 the Indian government's Calendar Reform Committee adopted the National Calendar of India for civil purposes and, in addition, defined guidelines to standardise computation of the religious calendar, which is based on astronomical observations. The civil calendar is used throughout India today for administrative purposes, but a variety of religious calendars remain in use. We present the civil calendar here.
The National Calendar of India is composed of 12 months. The first month, Caitra, is 30 days in normal and 31 days in leap years. This is followed by five consecutive 31 day months, then six 30 day months. Leap years in the Indian calendar occur in the same years as as in the Gregorian calendar; the two calendars thus have identical accuracy and remain synchronised.
Years in the Indian calendar are counted from the start of the Saka Era, the equinox of March 22nd of year 79 in the Gregorian calendar, designated day 1 of month Caitra of year 1 in the Saka Era. The calendar was officially adopted on 1 Caitra, 1879 Saka Era, or March 22nd, 1957 Gregorian. Since year 1 of the Indian calendar differs from year 1 of the Gregorian, to determine whether a year in the Indian calendar is a leap year, add 78 to the year of the Saka era then apply the Gregorian calendar rule to the sum.
French Republican Calendar
Mois de:
Vendémiaire Brumaire Frimaire Nivôse Pluviôse Ventôse Germinal Floréal Prairial Messidor Thermidor Fructidor (Sans-culottides)
Décade:
Jour:
du Primidi du Duodi du Tridi du Quartidi du Quintidi du Sextidi du Septidi du Octidi du Nonidi du Décadi ------------ de la Vertu du Génie du Travail de l'Opinion des Récompenses de la Révolution
The French Republican calendar was adopted by a decree of La Convention Nationale on Gregorian date October 5, 1793 and went into effect the following November 24th, on which day Fabre d'Églantine proposed to the Convention the names for the months. It incarnates the revolutionary spirit of "Out with the old! In with the relentlessly rational!" which later gave rise in 1795 to the metric system of weights and measures which has proven more durable than the Republican calendar.
The calendar consists of 12 months of 30 days each, followed by a five- or six-day holiday period, the jours complémentaires or sans-culottides. Months are grouped into four seasons; the three months of each season end with the same letters and rhyme with one another. The calendar begins on Gregorian date September 22nd, 1792, the September equinox and date of the founding of the First Republic. This day is designated the first day of the month of Vendémiaire in year 1 of the Republic. Subsequent years begin on the day in which the September equinox occurs as reckoned at the Paris meridian. Days begin at true solar midnight. Whether the sans-culottides period contains five or six days depends on the actual date of the equinox. Consequently, there is no leap year rule per se: 366 day years do not recur in a regular pattern but instead follow the dictates of astronomy. The calendar therefore stays perfectly aligned with the seasons. No attempt is made to synchronise months with the phases of the Moon.
The Republican calendar is rare in that it has no concept of a seven day week. Each thirty day month is divided into three décades of ten days each, the last of which, décadi, was the day of rest. (The word "décade" may confuse English speakers; the French noun denoting ten years is "décennie".) The names of days in the décade are derived from their number in the ten day sequence. The five or six days of the sans-culottides do not bear the names of the décade. Instead, each of these holidays commemorates an aspect of the republican spirit. The last, jour de la Révolution, occurs only in years of 366 days.
Napoléon abolished the Republican calendar in favour of the Gregorian on January 1st, 1806. Thus France, one of the first countries to adopt the Gregorian calendar (in December 1582), became the only country to subsequently abandon and then re-adopt it. During the period of the Paris Commune uprising in 1871 the Republican calendar was again briefly used.
The original decree which established the Republican calendar contained a contradiction: it defined the year as starting on the day of the true autumnal equinox in Paris, but further prescribed a four year cycle called la Franciade, the fourth year of which would end with le jour de la Révolution and hence contain 366 days. These two specifications are incompatible, as 366 day years defined by the equinox do not recur on a regular four year schedule. This problem was recognised shortly after the calendar was proclaimed, but the calendar was abandoned five years before the first conflict would have occurred and the issue was never formally resolved. Here we assume the equinox rule prevails, as a rigid four year cycle would be no more accurate than the Julian calendar, which couldn't possibly be the intent of its enlightened Republican designers.
ISO-8601 Week and Day, and Day of Year
The International Standards Organisation (ISO) issued Standard ISO 8601, "Representation of Dates" in 1988, superseding the earlier ISO 2015. The bulk of the standard consists of standards for representing dates in the Gregorian calendar including the highly recommended "YYYY-MM-DD" form which is unambiguous, free of cultural bias, can be sorted into order without rearrangement, and is Y9K compliant. In addition, ISO 8601 formally defines the "calendar week" often encountered in commercial transactions in Europe. The first calendar week of a year: week 1, is that week which contains the first Thursday of the year (or, equivalently, the week which includes January 4th of the year; the first day of that week is the previous Monday). The last week: week 52 or 53 depending on the date of Monday in the first week, is that which contains December 28th of the year. The first ISO calendar week of a given year starts with a Monday which can be as early as December 29th of the previous year or as late as January 4th of the present; the last calendar week can end as late as Sunday, January 3rd of the subsequent year. ISO 8601 dates in year, week, and day form are written with a "W" preceding the week number, which bears a leading zero if less than 10, for example February 29th, 2000 is written as 2000-02-29 in year, month, day format and 2000-W09-2 in year, week, day form; since the day number can never exceed 7, only a single digit is required. The hyphens may be elided for brevity and the day number omitted if not required. You will frequently see date of manufacture codes such as "00W09" stamped on products; this is an abbreviation of 2000-W09, the ninth week of year 2000.
In solar calendars such as the Gregorian, only days and years have physical significance: days are defined by the rotation of the Earth, and years by its orbit about the Sun. Months, decoupled from the phases of the Moon, are but a memory of forgotten lunar calendars, while weeks of seven days are entirely a social construct--while most calendars in use today adopt a cycle of seven day names or numbers, calendars with name cycles ranging from four to sixty days have been used by other cultures in history.
ISO 8601 permits us to jettison the historical and cultural baggage of weeks and months and express a date simply by the year and day number within that year, ranging from 001 for January 1st through 365 (366 in a leap year) for December 31st. This format makes it easy to do arithmetic with dates within a year, and only slightly more complicated for periods which span year boundaries. You'll see this representation used in project planning and for specifying delivery dates. ISO dates in this form are written as "YYYY-DDD", for example 2000-060 for February 29th, 2000; leading zeroes are always written in the day number, but the hyphen may be omitted for brevity.
All ISO 8601 date formats have the advantages of being fixed length (at least until the Y10K crisis rolls around) and, when stored in a computer, of being sorted in date order by an alphanumeric sort of their textual representations. The ISO week and day and day of year calendars are derivative of the Gregorian calendar and share its accuracy.
Unix time():
Development of the Unix operating system began at Bell Laboratories in 1969 by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, with the first PDP-11 version becoming operational in February 1971. Unix wisely adopted the convention that all internal dates and times (for example, the time of creation and last modification of files) were kept in Universal Time, and converted to local time based on a per-user time zone specification. This far-sighted choice has made it vastly easier to integrate Unix systems into far-flung networks without a chaos of conflicting time settings.
Many machines on which Unix was initially widely deployed could not support arithmetic on integers longer than 32 bits without costly multiple-precision computation in software. The internal representation of time was therefore chosen to be the number of seconds elapsed since 00:00 Universal time on January 1, 1970 in the Gregorian calendar (Julian day 2440587.5), with time stored as a 32 bit signed integer (long in early C implementations).
The influence of Unix time representation has spread well beyond Unix since most C and C++ libraries on other systems provide Unix-compatible time and date functions. The major drawback of Unix time representation is that, if kept as a 32 bit signed quantity, on January 19, 2038 it will go negative, resulting in chaos in programs unprepared for this. Unix and C implementations wisely (for reasons described below) define the result of the time() function as type time_t, which leaves the door open for remediation (by changing the definition to a 64 bit integer, for example) before the clock ticks the dreaded doomsday second.
C compilers on Unix systems prior to 7th Edition lacked the 32-bit long type. On earlier systems time_t, the value returned by the time() function, was an array of two 16-bit ints which, concatenated, represented the 32-bit value. This is the reason why time() accepts a pointer argument to the result (prior to 7th Edition it returned a status, not the 32-bit time) and ctime() requires a pointer to its input argument. Thanks to Eric Allman (author of sendmail) for pointing out these historical nuggets.
Excel Serial Day Number
Serial day:
1900 Date System (PC)
Spreadsheet calculations frequently need to do arithmetic with date and time quantities--for example, calculating the interest on a loan with a given term. When Microsoft Excel was introduced for the PC Windows platform, it defined dates and times as "serial values", which express dates and times as the number of days elapsed since midnight on January 1, 1900 with time given as a fraction of a day. Midnight on January 1, 1900 is day 1.0 in this scheme. Time zone is unspecified in Excel dates, with the NOW() function returning whatever the computer's clock is set to--in most cases local time, so when combining data from machines in different time zones you usually need to add or subtract the bias, which can differ over the year due to observance of summer time. Here we assume Excel dates represent Universal (Greenwich Mean) time, since there isn't any other rational choice. But don't assume you can always get away with this.
You'd be entitled to think, therefore, that conversion back and forth between PC Excel serial values and Julian day numbers would simply be a matter of adding or subtracting the Julian day number of December 31, 1899 (since the PC Excel days are numbered from 1). But this is a Microsoft calendar, remember, so one must first look to make sure it doesn't contain one of those bonehead blunders characteristic of Microsoft. As is usually the case, one doesn't have to look very far. If you have a copy of PC Excel, fire it up, format a cell as containing a date, and type 60 into it: out pops "February 29, 1900". News apparently travels very slowly from Rome to Redmond--ever since Pope Gregory revised the calendar in 1582, years divisible by 100 have not been leap years, and consequently the year 1900 contained no February 29th. Due to this morsel of information having been lost somewhere between the Holy See and the Infernal Seattle monopoly, all Excel day numbers for days subsequent to February 28th, 1900 are one day greater than the actual day count from January 1, 1900. Further, note that any computation of the number of days in a period which begins in January or February 1900 and ends in a subsequent month will be off by one--the day count will be one greater than the actual number of days elapsed.
By the time the 1900 blunder was discovered, Excel users had created millions of spreadsheets containing incorrect day numbers, so Microsoft decided to leave the error in place rather than force users to convert their spreadsheets, and the error remains to this day. Note, however, that only 1900 is affected; while the first release of Excel probably also screwed up all years divisible by 100 and hence implemented a purely Julian calendar, contemporary versions do correctly count days in 2000 (which is a leap year, being divisible by 400), 2100, and subsequent end of century years.
PC Excel day numbers are valid only between 1 (January 1, 1900) and 2958465 (December 31, 9999). Although a serial day counting scheme has no difficulty coping with arbitrary date ranges or days before the start of the epoch (given sufficient precision in the representation of numbers), Excel doesn't do so. Day 0 is deemed the idiotic January 0, 1900 (at least in Excel 97), and negative days and those in Y10K and beyond are not handled at all. Further, old versions of Excel did date arithmetic using 16 bit quantities and did not support day numbers greater than 65380 (December 31, 2078); I do not know in which release of Excel this limitation was remedied.
1904 Date System (Macintosh)
Having saddled every PC Excel user with a defective date numbering scheme wasn't enough for Microsoft--nothing ever is. Next, they proceeded to come out with a Macintosh version of Excel which uses an entirely different day numbering system based on the MacOS native time format which counts seconds elapsed since January 1, 1904. To further obfuscate matters, on the Macintosh they chose to number days from zero rather than 1, so midnight on January 1, 1904 has serial value 0.0. By starting in 1904, they avoided screwing up 1900 as they did on the PC. So now Excel users who interchange data have to cope with two incompatible schemes for counting days, one of which thinks 1900 was a leap year and the other which doesn't go back that far. To compound the fun, you can now select either date system on either platform, so you can't be certain dates are compatible even when receiving data from another user with same kind of machine you're using. I'm sure this was all done in the interest of the "efficiency" of which Microsoft is so fond. As we all know, it would take a computer almost forever to add or subtract four in order to make everything seamlessly interchangeable.
Macintosh Excel day numbers are valid only between 0 (January 1, 1904) and 2957003 (December 31, 9999). Although a serial day counting scheme has no difficulty coping with arbitrary date ranges or days before the start of the epoch (given sufficient precision in the representation of numbers), Excel doesn't do so. Negative days and those in Y10K and beyond are not handled at all. Further, old versions of Excel did date arithmetic using 16 bit quantities and did not support day numbers greater than 63918 (December 31, 2078); I do not know in which release of Excel this limitation was remedied.
This page is based on the excellent JavaSript date conversion system devloped by John Walker, and is in the public domain!
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Office workers in search of snacks will be counting calories along with their change under new labeling regulations for vending machines included in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law.
Requiring calorie information to be displayed on roughly 5 million vending machines nationwide will help consumers make healthier choices, says the Food and Drug Administration, which is expected to release final rules early next year. It estimates the cost to the vending machine industry at $25.8 million initially and $24 million per year after that, but says if just .02 percent of obese adults ate 100 fewer calories a week, the savings to the health care system would be at least that great.
The rules will apply to about 10,800 companies that operate 20 or more machines. Nearly three quarters of those companies have three or fewer employees, and their profit margin is extremely low, according to the National Automatic Merchandising Association. An initial investment of $2,400 plus $2,200 in annual costs is a lot of money for a small company that only clears a few thousand dollars a year, said Eric Dell, the group's vice president for government affairs.
"The money that would be spent to comply with this — there's no return on the investment," he said.
While the proposed rules would give companies a year to comply, the industry group has suggested a two-year deadline and is urging the government to allow as much flexibility as possible in implementing the rules. Some companies may use electronic displays to post calorie counts while others may opt for signs stuck to the machines.
Carol Brennan, who owns Brennan Food Vending Services in Londonderry, said she doesn't yet know how she will handle the regulations, but she doesn't like them. She has five employees servicing hundreds of machines and says she'll be forced to limit the items offered so her employees don't spend too much time updating the calorie counts.
"It is outrageous for us to have to do this on all our equipment," she said.
Brennan also doubts that consumers will benefit from the calorie information.
"How many people have not read a label on a candy bar?" she said. "If you're concerned about it, you've already read it for years."
But Kim Gould, 58, of Seattle, said he doesn't read the labels even after his choice pops out of a vending machine, so having access to that information wouldn't change what he buys.
"People have their reasons they eat well or eat poorly," Gould said.
Standing with his 12-year-old daughter near a vending machine in a medical clinic where he bought some drinks last week, he said he only makes purchases at the machines when he's hungry and has no other options.
"How do we know people who are buying candy in the vending machines aren't eating healthy 99 percent of the time?" he added.
As for the new labels, Gould said he wasn't sure what the point would be, and that they would just be "nibbling around the edges of the problem."
The FDA also is working on final rules for requiring restaurant chains with more than 20 locations to post calories information, something some cities already mandate and some large fast-food operations have begun doing voluntarily. A 2011 study in New York found that only one in six customers looked at the information, but those who did generally ordered about 100 fewer calories. A more recent study in Philadelphia found no difference in calories purchased after the city's labeling law took effect.
"There is probably a subset of people for whom this information works, who report using it to purchase fewer calories, but what we're not seeing though is a change at an overall population level in the number of calories consumed," said Brian Ebel, the study's author and an assistant professor at New York University's department of population health and medicine.
Ebel said he wouldn't be surprised if the vending machine labels end up being equally ineffective, but he said it's possible that consumers might pay more attention to them for a couple of reasons. In some locations, a vending machine might be the only food option, he said. And reading a list of calorie counts on a machine will be less overwhelming than scanning a large menu at a fast-food restaurant with other customers waiting in line behind you, he said.
"It could go either way, but I think there's at least some reason to think it could be slightly more influential in vending machines."
Even without the calorie counts, consumers already have ways to make healthier choices from vending machines. The vending machine industry group launched its "Fit Pick" system in 2005, which includes stickers placed in front of products that meet healthy guidelines for fat and sugar content. The program is used by nearly 14,000 businesses, schools and government agencies, as well as all branches of the military.
Chinese Demand Keeps Dairy Prices High In 2014
The global dairy industry can expect continued high prices in 2014 due to high Chinese demand, according to a new report from Rabobank.
According to the report, international dairy commodity prices strengthened from already high levels and are expected to remain high at least for the first half of 2014. The increase of export supply since September, as producers have responded to improved margins, has been largely soaked up by continuing vigorous buying from China.
"Global prices have remained high despite the taps being turned on in key export regions," said Rabobank analyst Tim Hunt. "China continues to buy exceptionally large volumes of product from the international market to supplement falling local milk supply and this is likely to mop up most, if not all, of the increase in exports arising from key surplus regions in Q4."
The global dairy market will enter 2014 with farmgate milk prices at record or near record highs in many export and import regions. Meanwhile the prices of commodity feeds, such as soybeans and corn, have fallen 10%-40% below prior year levels, opening up large margins for milk producers in intensive feeding regions.
Despite a small softening in prices in October and November, global prices have remained high due to an uptick in December. By mid-December, Whole Milk Powder (WMP) held above $5,000 per ton in fob Oceania trade, while prices of other key commodities rose between 3% and 5%, as Southern Hemisphere processors switched milk type towards the higher-yielding WMP.
China's buying has left the rest of the buy-side of the international market with less supply to go around, keeping the market tight. With export supply still in the early stages of recovery, prices edged up even further in Q4 to ration supply.
The report predicts a further increase in China's dairy purchases from the world market in 2014. A strong Northern Hemisphere production season, following on from an exceptional season in the Southern Hemisphere should generate more than enough exportable supply to exceed China's additional demand, the report says.
Study: Potentially Harmful Bacteria on Most Tested Chicken Breasts
About half of samples tested had at least one bacteria resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics; bacteria were more resistant to antibiotics approved for use in chicken production
YONKERS, N.Y., Dec. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In its most comprehensive tests of meat and poultry to date, Consumer Reports found bacteria that could make consumers sick on nearly all of the 316 raw chicken breasts purchased at retail nationwide. The full report, "The High Cost of Cheap Chicken," is featured in the February 2014 issue of Consumer Reports and online at www.ConsumerReports.org.
While Consumer Reports has consistently been testing chicken for more than 15 years, this is the first time it has looked at the contamination rates for six different bacteria – enterococcus (79.8 percent), E.coli (65.2 percent), campylobacter (43 percent), klebsiella pneumonia (13.6 percent), salmonella (10.8 percent), and staphylococcus aureus (9.2 percent). It also evaluated every bacterium for antibiotic resistance and found that about half the chicken samples harbored at least one multidrug-resistant bacteria.
As part of this investigation, the Consumer Reports National Research Center recently conducted a nationally representative survey of 1,005 respondents about their understanding of labels and their handling and cooking habits for chicken. The survey found that more than half of respondents thought that "natural" chickens did not receive antibiotics or genetically modified feed and more than one-third thought "natural" was equal to "organic," all of which are not true.
"Our tests show consumers who buy chicken breast at their local grocery stores are very likely to get a sample that is contaminated and likely to get a bug that is multidrug resistant. When people get sick from resistant bacteria, treatment may be getting harder to find," said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, a toxicologist and Executive Director of the Consumer Reports Food Safety and Sustainability Center. "Our survey also shows that consumers are making buying decisions based on label claims that they believe are offering them additional value when that is not in fact the case. The marketplace clearly needs to change to meet consumer expectations."
Consumer Reports' study comes at a time when 48 million people are falling sick and 3,000 dying in the United States each year from eating tainted food, with more deaths being attributed to poultry than any other commodity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Other highlights from Consumer Reports' findings include:
The majority of samples tested positive for one of the common measures of fecal contamination – Enterococcus and E.coli. More advanced testing showed that 17.5 percent of the E.coli are the type (known as ExPEC) that have genes that make these bacteria more likely to cause urinary tract infections.
About half of chicken samples contained at least one bacterium resistant to three or more antibiotics, commonly referred to as multidrug-resistant bacteria or "superbug." Slightly more than 11 percent contained two or more multidrug-resistant bacteria.
Bacteria were more resistant to antibiotics approved for use in chicken production for growth promotion and disease prevention than those not approved for those uses.
One sample was a Foster Farms chicken breast from a plant associated with the recent outbreak. The sample contained a Salmonella Heidelberg that was a match to one of the outbreak strains. Consumer Reports released its results about this sample in October 2013 immediately after it was confirmed.
Since 1998, Consumer Reports' tests of chicken have shown salmonella rates have not changed much, ranging between 11 and 16 percent.
"We know especially for salmonella, other countries have reduced their rates. In fact, systemic solutions were implemented throughout the European Union. Government data show that in 2010, 22 countries met the European target for less than or equal to 1 percent contamination of two important types of salmonella in their broiler flocks. There is no reason why the United States can't do the same," concludes Rangan.
For more information on what has been done in Europe and different sustainability practices, visit www.ConsumerReports.org/cro/chicken0214.
"We are looking to the government to ensure the safety and sustainability of the entire food supply," said Rangan. "We need to attack the root causes of the problems. Without a government focus on effective solutions, meat safety will continue to be compromised."
In order to reduce rates of bacterial contamination as European counterparts have done and preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics, Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, calls on the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA), Congress, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to do the following:
Congress should give the USDA authority to mandate a recall of meat and poultry products, especially when product from a plant matches that of a human outbreak strain. Currently, it cannot mandate any recall.
The FDA should prohibit antibiotic use in food animals except for the treatment of sick ones. FDA's action last week giving voluntary guidance to drug companies to end labeling of antibiotics for growth promotion uses is an important first step, but is far from what is needed overall. An effective way to ensure that antibiotics are only used to treat sick animals is for Congress to pass the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act.
The USDA should classify strains of salmonella bacteria that are resistant to multiple antibiotics and known to have caused disease as "adulterants," so that inspectors look for those strains routinely and when found, the products cannot be sold.
The USDA should move quickly to set strict levels for allowable salmonella and campylobacter in chicken parts. The agency expects to put that proposal out for public review and feedback this year. As part of this process, the USDA should publish a list of meat products like chicken parts for which it has no performance standards and indicate a timetable for establishing them. We say these standards can't come soon enough.
The USDA's proposed rule to increase maximum line speeds and reduce the number of USDA inspectors at slaughter plants should be dropped.
The National Organic Program should eliminate the loophole allowing antibiotics to be used in the chicken eggs up until the first day of life in organic chicken broilers.
USDA should ban the use of the "natural" claim, which is not a meaningful label, and require claims on meat to be certified and inspected.
What Consumers Can Do
Consumer Reports advises consumers to follow these tips to ensure proper handling and cooking of chicken:
Wash hands when handling any type of meat or poultry – frozen or fresh – before touching anything else and wash them for at least 20 seconds with hot soapy water – even if it means multiple washings.
Use a cutting board designated strictly for raw meat and poultry. When done, place it in the dishwasher directly from the counter or wash with hot soapy water.
Don't run chicken under the faucet before cooking.
When cooking, use a meat thermometer and always cook chicken to 165°F.
When shopping, buy meat last; keeping chicken cold delays bacteria overgrowth. Place chicken in a plastic bag to prevent other items from contamination.
Buy chicken raised without antibiotics to help preserve the effectiveness of these drugs; avoid meaningless labels like "natural" and "free range".
re Specific Testing May Lessen Severity Of Fish Allergies
More specific testing to identify fish allergies in affected persons may identify allergens not common to all types of seafood, which could lessen the severity of fish allergies, according to a new study published in the Journal of Investigational Allergology and Clinical Immunology.
Researchers at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), University of Leipzig and Haukeland University Hospital examined 12 patients to determine the extent of their fish allergies. One of the subjects had developed an allergy to Nile perch (Lates niloticus) after having come into contact with the raw fish following consumption of salmon (Salmo salar), called a "cross allergy." Tests indicated signs of allergies to Nile perch and salmon, but not to Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua).
The most common allergen in fish and crustaceans is parvalbumin, a calcium-binding protein. While other substances may also trigger allergies, such as certain proteins in cell metabolism called aldehyde dehydrogenases, these proteins have been overlooked due to the prevalence of the more frequent parvalbumin.
Researchers concluded the tests that are currently used are very non-specific, whereas more specific testing could identify less common allergens. The most direct way of identifying new allergens is through analyzing the serum of affected patients and the proteins of the allergy source. If certain antibodies in the patients’ serum bind to the proteins of the food, the allergy is triggered. The identified allergies can be used initially for individual diagnoses and later for epidemiological studies, to determine the relevance of individual allergies.
"For some people who suffer from fish allergies there may be hope of finding a fish that they can tolerate if we managed to make the relevant tests suitable for mass implementation and use them in allergy diagnostics," said Janina Tomm, Ph.D., from the UFZ, who specializes in research into proteins.
Study Finds Organic Milk Has More Omega 3s Than Conventional Milk
Enlarge imagei
Cows graze in a pasture at the University of New Hampshire's organic dairy farm in Lee, N.H., Sept. 27, 2006.
JIM COLE/AP
While milk consumption continues to fall in the U.S., sales of organic milk are on the rise. And now organic milk accounts for about 4 percent of total fluid milk consumption.
For years, organic producers have claimed their milk is nutritionally superior to regular milk. Specifically, they say that because their cows spend a lot more time out on pasture, munching on grasses and legumes rich in omega-3 fatty acids, the animals' milk is higher in these healthy fats, which are linked to a reduced risk of heart disease.
But the evidence for this has been scant, except for some small studies from Europe.
Now, a new study evaluating organic milk produced in the U.S. finds that organic milk has about 62 percent more omega-3s, compared to milk produced by cows on conventional dairy farms. Cows raised on conventional farms typically spend a lot more time in a barn or confined, and instead of grazing, they're fed a diet of animal feed that contains a lot of corn.
"We were surprised by the magnitude of the differences," lead author Charles Benbrook of Washington State University tells The Salt.
Benbrook and his colleague analyzed about 400 samples of organic and conventional milk over a period of about a year and a half. The samples were taken at processing facilities around the country.
The findings, published in the journal PLoS ONE, come at a time when we're being told to consume more omega-3 fatty acids. Most people hear this advice and think of fatty fish — which is, of course, an excellent source of the omega-3s DHA and EPA.
What's less well known is that plant-based foods, such as leafy greens and nuts, are rich in another omega-3 called ALA. Now, it's becoming clearer that organic milk is a good source of that, too.
Benbrook says that consuming ALA-rich milk is also a good way to change the ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in your diet. According to the National Institutes of Health, the consensus is that, for good health, we need to be eating more omega-3s and less omega-6s.
Omega-6s are found in corn and sunflower oil, and in foods fried in these oils. While some experts don't see a problem with omega-6s, many say that the typical American diet already contains too many. And averaged over 12 months, the study found, organic milk contained 25 percent less omega-6 fatty acids than conventional milk.
So, here's the rub: if you want all of the omega-3s found in organic milk, are you better off drinking whole milk rather than skim?
Yes. That's because skimming off the fat also reduces the omega-3 content. For example, if you choose 1 percent milk, it has about one-third the fat of whole milk. So you're left with a much lower level of omega-3s. Of course, you're also fewer calories, so it might be a hard choice for people who are watching their weight. If they choose whole milk, they may have to trim calories elsewhere.
And there seems to be a movement towards consuming whole milk. Sales of whole, organic milk are up 10 percent this year, making it the fastest-growing category of milk, according to a spokeswoman from Organic Valley. Skim sales, meanwhile, are down 7.0 percent, she says.
As I reported earlier this year, some studies have linked fattier milk to slimmer kids, despite the fact that pediatricians routinely recommend switching kids to low-fat dairy at the age of 2 to reduce their consumption of saturated fats. These fats, which are more abundant in whole milk than in reduced fat milk, are linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.
As falling sales figures show, lots of Americans have simply taken milk out of their diets — due to lactose intolerance or other reasons. Some have replaced dairy milk with alternatives such as almond milk, which many doctors say is fine, since there are plenty of other sources of calcium.
But for people who are still milk drinkers, this study suggests that yes, there is a benefit in choosing organic in terms of boosting omega-3 intake.
One thing to note: Dairy farmers of the Cooperative Regions of Organic Producer Pools, a group which markets through the Organic Valley brand, helped fund the study. But the groups had no role in its design or analysis. The analysis was funded by the Measure to Manage program at the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University.
8 Ounces Of Cranberry Juice Per Day Doubles Flavonoid Intake
Adding eight ounces of cranberry juice per day or one serving of dried cranberries to consumers’ diets would nearly double the U.S. population’s intake of flavonoids, according to research discussed at the American Society for Nutrition’s 2013 Advances and Controversies in Clinical Nutrition Conference in Washington, Dec. 5.
Flavonoids are a category of polyphenols found in colorful fruits and vegetables linked to improved cardiovascular and cellular health as well as reduced inflammation.
Presenter David Baer, Ph.D., USDA-Agricultural Research Service Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center, said polyphenols (plant compounds found in wine, tea and many common fruits) could enhance diets and improve whole body health—a hundred grams of cranberries contains more polyphenolic antioxidants than the equivalent amount of strawberries, broccoli, white grapes, bananas or apples.
Consuming cranberries or cranberry juice can also improve urinary tract health and heart health. During a double blind placebo controlled clinical study, subjects drinking low-calorie cranberry juice cocktail had significantly lower C-reactive protein and diastolic blood pressure than subjects on a placebo beverage. Cranberries, because of their high concentrations of flavonoids, can help promote cardiometabolic markers and help maintain cardiovascular health, including lowering blood pressure.
In addition, people who consume cranberry beverages were more likely to have a lower waist circumference and be less overweight or obese, showing cranberries can be part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle.
Organic Food Sales to Continue Growth into 2018
The increasing usage of pesticides, genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) and antibiotics in the food products are raising health concerns in the United States.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013 estimates shows that about 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides active ingredients are being used annually in the country and over 20,000 pesticides products are being marketed annually, which is adversely impacting the health of the consumers, and the environment. Therefore, the Organic foods which are produced using environment and animal friendly organic farming methods are gaining awareness in the country. Organic Trade Association 2012, estimates shows that about 81% families are purchasing organic food at least some times.
According to “United States Organic Food Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2018”, it is forecasted that the organic food market in United States will grow at the CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of about 14% during 2014-18.
The organic fruits & vegetables will continue to dominate till 2018 and with the growth in organic food market revenues, the demand for organic meat, fish, poultry, etc. is also expected to gain demand in the forecasted period. The western states in United States hold the major market share in the total organic food market revenues. However, increasing per capita income coupled with the growing domestic production and commercial sector are anticipated to surge the demand of organic food in other regions of the country.
Low Vitamin D Levels Linked To Brain Damage
A diet low in vitamin D may cause damage to the brain, according to a new study published in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine.
University of Kentucky researchers fed middle-aged rats a diet low in vitamin D for several months to study its effects on brain health.
Results showed the rats developed free radical damage to the brain, and many different brain proteins were damaged as identified by redox proteomics. These rats also showed a significant decrease in cognitive performance on tests of learning and memory.
"Given that vitamin D deficiency is especially widespread among the elderly, we investigated how during aging from middle-age to old-age how low vitamin D affected the oxidative status of the brain," said lead author Allan Butterfield. “Adequate vitamin D serum levels are necessary to prevent free radical damage in brain and subsequent deleterious consequences."
Previously, low levels of vitamin D have been associated with Alzheimer's disease and to the development of certain cancers and heart disease. Butterfield recommends eating foods rich in vitamin D, taking vitamin D supplements and/or getting at least 10-15 minutes of sun exposure each day to ensure that vitamin D levels are normalized for optimal health.
Obesity May Alter Taste Receptors
Being severely obese may change a person’s ability to taste sweet foods and lead to more weight gain, according to a new study published in the journal PLOS One.
Researchers at University of Buffalo who conducted the study concluded that diet-induced obesity significantly alters the responsiveness of the peripheral taste cells that are responsible for the initial detection of taste stimuli and for sending that taste information to the brain.
Kathryn Medler, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Buffalo, says it's possible that the trouble detecting sweetness may lead obese mice to eat more than their leaner counterparts to get the same payoff.
For the study, researchers compared 25 normal mice to 25 of their littermates who were fed a high-fat diet and became obese. After 10 weeks on the high-fat diet, researchers used calcium imaging to measure how taste-evoked calcium signals were affected in the obese mice discovering that significantly fewer taste receptor cells were responsive to some appetitive taste stimuli, while the numbers of taste cells that were sensitive to aversive taste stimuli did not change.
The researchers noted that further research is imperative to determine the connection between taste, appetite and obesity because it could lead to new methods of encouraging healthy eating.
Low-Carb Product Launches Increase 95% In Europe
New food and drink product launches with "low carb" claims in Europe have increased 95% between 2008 and 2013, suggesting the low-carb trend may be back in action and with support from high-protein claims, according to new market research from Mintel.
Ten percent of new low-carbohydrate food and drink launches were pasta products, 10% baking ingredients or mixes, 9% bread and 8% snack, cereal and energy bars. The top three countries in Europe for new low-carbohydrate food and drink product launches are France (17%) followed by Germany and Spain, accounting for 15% of NPD share respectively.
Research shows high protein is aiding the comeback of the low-carb trend, with European new product launches in the food and drink category carrying both a low-carb and high-protein claim growing 57% between 2008 and 2013.
New product launches with high protein claims have tripled over the past five years in Europe with a 260% increase in high-protein product launches in 2013 compared with 2008, driven by snacks, yogurt and prepared meals. This year in Europe, of total new product introductions making a protein claim, snacks accounted for 24%, dairy 20% and processed fish, meat and egg products 15%.
Protein's satiety benefits constitute as an important component in weight management; research shows new products launched in Europe carrying high-satiety claims grew 164% between 2008 and 2013.
"As well as communicating the low-carb content of the products, the presence or absence of other nutrients is also highlighted, with high-protein claims positioning products as more than just low-carb alternatives," said Laura Jones, food science analyst, Mintel.
In addition, there is also opportunity for further growth for high-protein products—for example, 66% of Polish, 61% of Spanish, 51% of Italian and 51% of German and 48% of French consumers would be interested in trying high-protein bread.
Meanwhile, dairy products are a good source of natural protein that has served as a base for high-protein claims, with milk gaining recognition over the past few years as an ideal sports drink. Indeed, 52% of Italian consumers, 49% of French, 45% of Spanish and 37% of Germans think milk is good to drink during exercise. Meanwhile, 20% consumers in the United Kingdom think milk is good to drink during and after sports activity.
FSIS Publishes New Rule on Generic Meat, Poultry Labels
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) recently published a final rule that expands the circumstances in which the agency will generically approve labels of meat and poultry.
Usually, labels that are used on federally inspected meat and poultry products must be approved first by FSIS through a review of a "sketch label". But FSIS has explained there is an exception for labels whose mandatory label features meet applicable regulations. Such "generic" labels don't need to be submitted for sketch approval.
According to FSIS, the final rule expands the circumstances in which it will generically approve meat and poultry labels, further relieving companies of the requirement to submit their labels for evaluation.
"The final rule provides that establishments are required to submit for evaluation only certain types of labeling, e.g., labels for temporary approval, labels for products produced under religious exemption, labels for products for export with labeling deviations, and labels with claims and special statements," FSIS stated in the final rule.
The agency has adopted the proposed rule with four changes, including making an exception to its sketch approval process for labels that bear a child-nutrition box.
The final rule takes effect. Jan. 6 and can be found here via the Federal Register.
Starbucks Loses Charbucks Appeal
Starbucks Corp has failed to persuade a federal appeals court to stop a small, family-owned New Hampshire roaster from selling coffee known as "Charbucks."
Ruling in a case that began in 2001, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Black Bear Micro Roastery and its owner, Wolfe's Borough Coffee Inc., may keep selling "Charbucks Blend," "Mister Charbucks" and "Mr. Charbucks" coffee.
Circuit Judge Raymond Lohier wrote for a three-judge panel that Seattle-based Starbucks did not deserve an injunction to stop Charbucks sales, having failed to prove that consumers would be confused through a "blurring" of its brand.
The New York-based appeals court let stand a Dec. 2011 finding by U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan that Charbucks was "only weakly associated with the minimally similar" Starbucks trademark.
Many retailers, especially those selling luxury or premium products, file trademark lawsuits against large and small rivals they believe are misusing their brands, potentially reducing profit and revenue and damaging their reputation.
A centerpiece of Starbucks' case had been a phone survey of 600 people by the pollster Warren Mitofsky, which found that "the number one association of the name 'Charbucks' in the minds of consumers is with the brand 'Starbucks.'"
But the 2nd Circuit said the survey was "fundamentally flawed," and drew its conclusions from how consumers thought of "Charbucks" in isolation, not its real world context.
It said that while 39.5 percent of participants thought of "Starbucks" or "coffee" when asked what came to mind upon hearing "Charbucks," just 4.4 percent said "Starbucks" or "coffee house" when asked who might sell a "Charbucks" product. "Grocery store" was the most popular answer to that question.
"Viewed in light of Starbucks' fame," Lohier wrote, "the fact that more survey participants did not think of 'Starbucks' upon hearing 'Charbucks' reinforces the district court's finding that the marks are only minimally similar."
Starbucks did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
"This is a sound decision," Christopher Cole, a lawyer at Sheehan, Phinney, Bass & Green representing Black Bear, said in an interview. "It flows from the dramatic dissimilarity between how the different products actually appear in commerce and are seen by consumers."
Starbucks has grown since 1971 from a single store in Seattle's Pike Place Market into the world's largest coffee shop chain, with close to 18,000 stores in 60 countries and more than $14.8 billion of annual revenue.
Black Bear is based in Tuftonboro, New Hampshire. It created "Charbucks Blend" in 1997, and now sells dark-roast coffee as "Mister Charbucks" or "Mr. Charbucks."
The 2nd Circuit noted that one reason Black Bear used "Charbucks" was the public perception that Starbucks uses an unusually dark roast for its coffee.
The case is Starbucks Corp et al v. Wolfe's Borough Coffee Inc d/b/a Black Bear Micro Roastery, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 12-364.
Spearmint, Rosemary May Hinder Alzheimer's Disease
Enhanced extracts made from special antioxidants in spearmint and rosemary improve learning and memory, which may prove beneficial to reducing Alzheimer's disease risk, according to a study presented at Neuroscience 2013, Nov. 9-13.
Researchers at Saint Louis University tested a novel antioxidant-based ingredient made from spearmint extract and two different doses of a similar antioxidant made from rosemary extract on mice that have age-related cognitive decline.
Results concluded the higher-dose rosemary extract compound was the most powerful in improving memory and learning in three tested behaviors. The lower-dose rosemary extract improved memory in two of the behavioral tests, as did the compound made from spearmint extract.
"We found that these proprietary compounds reduce deficits caused by mild cognitive impairment, which can be a precursor to Alzheimer's disease," said Susan Farr, Ph.D., research professor, geriatrics, Saint Louis University.
Further, there were signs of reduced oxidative stress, which is considered a hallmark of age-related decline, in the part of the brain that controls learning and memory.
"Our research suggests these extracts made from herbs might have beneficial effects on altering the course of age-associated cognitive decline," Farr said.
Additional research has shown a healthy diet with sufficient amounts of vitamin C and vitamin D may also help to ward off Alzheimer's disease.
New Website Aims for Honey Sourcing Transparency
A new search function on www.TrueSourceHoney.com allows U.S. shoppers to be sure that they're not mistakenly buying honey that has been illegally shipped from China. In one easy step they can help ensure the safety and quality of their honey, while also supporting U.S. honey producers and beekeepers. In addition, retailers and manufacturers are able to trace their product back to the hive.
By going to www.TrueSourceHoney.com and clicking on the starburst at the top of the page, consumers can enter the UPC code on the back of their packaged honey to see if it is True Source Certified™.
Millions of pounds of illegally sourced honey may continue to enter the United States, despite continuing federal crack-down efforts. True Source CertificationTM helps ensure honey's safety and quality because it traces the source of that honey from hive to table. The program has been applauded by honey industry leaders, including the American Honey Producers Association and the American Beekeeping Federation.
"The True Source Certified logo tells you that the honey you're buying was ethically and legally sourced," says True Source Honey Executive Director Gordon Marks. "If you don't see the logo, ask your retailer or honey company to join the program. And make sure that your favorite foods with honey – from breakfast cereals to snacks – are made by a manufacturer that purchases honey from a True Source Certified honey company."
Earlier this year, two of the nation's largest honey suppliers admitted to buying illegally imported Chinese honey, including some that was adulterated with unauthorized antibiotics.
About one-third of honey sold in North America today is now True Source Certified. Many large grocery retailers and club stores only use certified honey for store brands, including Costco (Kirkland Signature) and Target (Market Pantry and Simply Balanced).
The U.S. imports more than 60% of the honey it needs from other countries. Most is from high-quality, legal sources. But some honey brokers and importers illegally circumvent tariffs and quality controls, selling honey to U.S. companies that is of questionable origin. This threatens the U.S. honey industry by undercutting fair market prices and damaging honey's reputation for quality and safety.
McDonald's Eyes Bigger Share of Coffee Market
McDonald's wants to be a bigger player in the global coffee business.
The world's biggest hamburger chain on Thursday highlighted beverages as one of its key growth opportunities at a daylong presentation for investors.
McDonald's CEO Don Thompson noted that coffee is one of the fastest growing categories in its global drinks business and said that the company has less than its "fair share" of the market. When asked to identify competitors in the space, Thompson chose to keep the discussion broad.
"Anyone that stops off to get a cup of coffee anywhere, that's an opportunity," Thompson said.
The push comes as Starbucks Corp. is enjoying strong sales growth even in the choppy economy. In the latest quarter, the Seattle-based chain said global sales rose 7 percent at locations open at least a year. At McDonald's, the figure edged up 0.9 percent.
As for the coffee servings sold in the U.S. restaurant industry, McDonald's currently has less than 13 percent of the market, said Kevin Newell, the company's chief brand and strategy officer for the region. Still, he noted McDonald's coffee sales have surged 70 percent since the introduction of McCafe specialty coffees in 2009.
A big part of the attraction of McDonald's coffee is value; many locations in the U.S. offer a regular drip coffee of any size for $1. But McDonald's wants to get people to buy pricier drinks, too. This fall, the company introduced a pumpkin spice latte following the popularity of similar drinks at Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts. And next week, McDonald's plans to launch a white chocolate mocha flavored latte.
The company, based in Oak Brook, Ill., also recently said it's partnering with Kraft Foods Group Inc. to sell McCafe bagged coffee at supermarkets in test markets. The company is hoping the move will help build awareness of the MCafe brand.
"It's about selling more coffee in restaurants," Newell said of the Kraft partnership.
It's not clear what impact the push by McDonald's will have on Starbucks. Richard Adams, who runs a consulting firm for McDonald's franchisees, notes that the chain sells plenty of drip coffee and blended ice frappes in the summer but has struggled to sell espresso-based beverages such as lattes.
In the meantime, Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks are trying to boost food sales and attract more customers in the afternoon and evening hours. Starbucks recently revamped its sandwiches and introduced new salads and baked goods to become more of a lunch destination. About a third of purchases in the U.S. include food and Starbucks is looking to push that figure up.
But Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz doesn't like comparisons to chains such as McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts.
"They're in another business — they're fast-food," Schultz said in an interview on CNBC earlier this year.
Overseas, McDonald's also has about 4,200 separate McCafes that are either sectioned off from the main restaurant or stand-alone locations. McDonald's says it plans to add another 350 to 400 such McCafe locations next year.
Still, Thompson stressed that McDonald's remained in the restaurant business.
"We're not trying to be something we're not," he said.
Trader Joe's Supplier Recalls Products for E.Coli
More than 90 tons of prepackaged salads and sandwiches were recalled by a Richmond catering company because a bacterial strain of E. coli has been linked to its products, federal health officials announced Sunday.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service said Glass Onion Catering recalled approximately 181,620 pounds of salads and sandwich wraps containing cooked chicken and ham after 26 patients in three states were sickened with E. coli O157:H7, a strain of the sometimes deadly bacteria.
The FSIS did not say in which states the E. coli patients became ill. The agency is urging anyone who may have bought salads or prewrapped sandwiches with cooked ham or chicken to throw them away.
The products were produced between Sept. 23 and Nov. 6, and were shipped to distribution centers in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Texas.
The Food and Drug Administration notified the FSIS on Wednesday that California authorities had tied the illnesses to the Richmond company.
Glass Onion Catering has been a source of food for retailer brands, including Trader Joe's, Super Fresh Foods and Delish. The company was launched in 1992. Its owner, Tom Atherstone, did not return multiple messages left with the company on Sunday.
According to the FSIS, the company began monitoring the outbreak Oct. 29 after a cluster of illnesses involving the E. coli strain.
The bacteria can cause dehydration, bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps some 2-8 days after a person is exposed to it, according to the FSIS. Most people recover within a week, but some develop kidney failure, the agency said.
Consumers with questions about food safety can go to AskKaren.gov, a virtual representative available 24 hours a day (via smart phone, the address is m.askkaren.gov). Call the USDA's meat and poultry hotline 7 a.m.-1 p.m. (PST) at 888-674-6854.
Trans Fat Ban Causes Little Stir Among Consumers
They are among our most personal daily decisions: what to eat or drink. Maybe what to inhale.
Now that the government's banning trans fat, does that mean it's revving up to take away our choice to consume all sorts of other unhealthy stuff?
What about salt? Soda? Cigarettes?
In the tug-of-war between public health and personal freedom, the Food and Drug Administration's decision to ban trans fats barely rates a ripple.
Hardly anyone defends the icky-sounding artificial ingredient anymore, two decades after health activists began warning Americans that it was clogging their arteries and causing heart attacks.
New York, Philadelphia, a few other localities and the state of California already have banned trans fat from restaurant food.
McDonald's, Taco Bell and KFC dropped it from their french fries, nachos and chicken years ago.
The companies that fill grocery shelves say they already have reduced their use of trans fat by nearly three-fourths since 2005.
Growers are promoting new soybean oils that they say will eliminate, within a few years, the need for partial hydrogenation, the process that creates trans fats still used to enhance the texture of some pie crusts, cookies and margarine.
Mostly, Americans' palates have moved on, and so have their arguments over what's sensible health policy and what amounts to a "nanny state" run amok.
When they aren't feuding over President Barack Obama's health care law, state politicians are busy weighing the wisdom of legalizing marijuana. Already 20 states and the District of Columbia have authorized it for medicinal use. Voters in Colorado and Washington state approved smoking pot just for fun.
The FDA is taking heat for delays in coming out with new rules on regular-old tobacco cigarettes under a law passed in 2009. There are the new e-cigarettes to worry about, too. More than 20 states have banned stores from selling electronic cigarettes to minors, but the federal government has yet to take them on.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's attempt to stop restaurants from selling sodas larger than 16 ounces, and the federal government's efforts to impose healthier lunches on school kids are causing more of an uproar than the trans fat ban.
Still, Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the nonprofit Trust for America's Health, says a national trans fat ban is "a big deal." After all, the FDA estimates it will prevent 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths a year.
Levi doesn't see it as evidence that federal regulators are suddenly on a roll, however.
"There are other areas where regulation is sort of stuck — everything from nutrition labeling to food safety to the tobacco regulations that have not seen the light of day," Levi said.
Talk of new government regulation typically stirs up libertarians and conservatives. Yet the trans fat ban hasn't provoked much beefing.
Radio host Rush Limbaugh groused that bureaucrats shouldn't regulate what people eat because it's "none of their business" and research on nutrition keeps changing. After all, sticks of margarine made with trans fats used to be recommended as a healthier alternative to butter.
Heritage Foundation research fellow Daren Bakst, who specializes in agriculture issues, blogged that the FDA is "ignoring the most important issue: the freedom of Americans."
A few fans of ready-to-spread cake frostings and microwave popcorn that still contain trans fat griped via Twitter.
They don't have to worry immediately.
The FDA must consider comments from the food industry and the public before it comes up with a timeline for phasing out trans fats, also known as partially hydrogenated oils. It could take years to get them off the market.
Michael Jacobson, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, has been warning about the dangers since the early 1990s. Advocacy by the center helped persuade the government to add trans fat to nutrition labels beginning in 2006.
That created consumer pressure on food companies to find tasty ways to replace partially hydrogenated oil with less harmful fats. The companies' success helped clear the way for the government to consider a trans fat ban, he said.
"It's a little bit of an exception, in that it's so harmful and it was so widely used," Jacobson said, "and there are substitutes so that people can't tell the difference when it's removed."
Next on Jacobson's wish list is something that would be much harder for industry and the FDA to accomplish: reducing the salt in processed foods.
"There are estimates that it's causing around 100,000 deaths prematurely every year in this country," he said. "That is just huge."
Senators Push for More Accessible Crop Insurance
Thirteen senators sent a letter today to the Senate farm bill conferees calling for provisions that aim to make crop insurance more accessible for a wider range of producers, including beginning farmers and specialty crop growers.
In the letter, senators wrote, “Specialty crop growers, organic producers, diversified operations, and young and beginning farmers, who have traditionally been underserved by federal crop insurance, deserve access to affordable and sufficient risk management tools that are on par with what is available for commodity producers … It is important to prioritize and support federal crop insurance products that address these underserved commodities, inadequate coverage, and low participation.”
In the letter, senators push for a whole farm revenue insurance product for diversified farms because, they say, the current system of insuring crop-by-crop does not work for highly diversified operations, including many sustainable and organic farms.
The senators further urged that organic farmers should not face lower rates of crop insurance in the wake of crop losses compared to non-organic products. The letter supported a provision in the House and Senate farm bills that would restore the Risk Management Agency's authority to conduct research and development activities to improve existing products and develop new ones.
Both the Senate and House farm bills would direct USDA to establish a whole farm revenue product that would work for a wide range of diversified operations, be available nationwide, and include a crop and enterprise diversification bonus.
The letter was sent by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Al Franken, D-Minn., Carl Levin, D-Mich., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Jon Tester, D-Mont., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
Starbucks to Supply Coffee Grounds for Renewable Energy Facility
A new renewable energy facility announced Thursday for Augusta Corporate Park will find its main source of power coming from neighboring Starbucks’ waste.
Augusta Renewable Energy LLC will process used coffee grounds from the new Starbucks soluble plant as its primary renewable-energy source after the facility opens next year, according to an announcement from the Augusta Economic Development Authority.
Augusta Renewable Energy is spending about $20 million to build its first anaerobic digestion facility in Georgia. The company, a division of Columbia-based First Generation Energy, will create about 10 highly technical positions.
Construction of the site, which will span about eight acres of the industrial park off Mike Padgett Highway, is expected to start before the end of the year and be completed by mid- to late summer, said Daniel Rickenmann, the operating partner for First Generation Energy.
The 180,000-square-foot Starbucks plant has an opening date planned for early 2014.
“Primarily using coffee grounds, Augusta (Renewable) Energy will convert a landfill component into energy,” authority Chairman Henry Ingram said in a news release.
First Generation Energy is a diversified service company that provides zero-waste solutions and small power generation options for industries, food manufacturers, renewable energy and utilities. The company has formed a partnership with environmental technology provider Eisenmann for the installation and technical support during the plant’s implementation process. Caterpillar will assist with the facility, according to the authority. First Generation Energy also will provide a private label line of soil amendments through a partnership with an unnamed Fortune 200 company.
“Green energy is the wave of the future,” Augusta Mayor Deke Copenhaver said in a statement, “and Augusta Renewable Energy will do their part to make sure we are efficient in our energy needs in the years to come.”
FDA Moves to Ban Trans Fats
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced its preliminary determination that partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the primary dietary source of artificial trans fat in processed foods, are not “generally recognized as safe” for use in food. The FDA’s preliminary determination is based on available scientific evidence and the findings of expert scientific panels.
The agency has opened a 60-day comment period on this preliminary determination to collect additional data and to gain input on the time potentially needed for food manufacturers to reformulate products that currently contain artificial trans fat should this determination be finalized.
“While consumption of potentially harmful artificial trans fat has declined over the last two decades in the United States, current intake remains a significant public health concern,” said FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D. “The FDA’s action today is an important step toward protecting more Americans from the potential dangers of trans fat. Further reduction in the amount of trans fat in the American diet could prevent an additional 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths from heart disease each year – a critical step in the protection of Americans’ health.”
Consumption of trans fat raises low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad” cholesterol, increasing the risk of coronary heart disease. The independent Institute of Medicine (IOM) has concluded that trans fat provides no known health benefit and that there is no safe level of consumption of artificial trans fat. Additionally, the IOM recommends that consumption of trans fat should be as low as possible while consuming a nutritionally adequate diet.
In recent years, many food manufacturers and retailers have voluntarily decreased trans fat levels in many foods and products they sell. Trans fat can be found in some processed foods, such as certain desserts, microwave popcorn products, frozen pizzas, margarines and coffee creamers. Numerous retailers and manufacturers have already demonstrated that many of these products can be made without trans fat.
Thanks to these efforts, along with public education, the consumption of trans fat in American diets has been significantly reduced. Since trans fat content information began appearing in the Nutrition Facts label of foods in 2006, trans fat intake among American consumers has declined from 4.6 grams per day in 2003 to about 1 gram per day in 2012.
“One of the FDA’s core regulatory functions is ensuring that food, including all substances added to food, is safe,” said Michael Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine. “Food manufacturers have voluntarily decreased trans fat levels in many foods in recent years, but a substantial number of products still contain partially hydrogenated oils, which are the major source of trans fat in processed food.”
Following a review of the submitted comments, if the FDA finalizes its preliminary determination, PHOs would be considered “food additives” and could not be used in food unless authorized by regulation. If such a determination were made, the agency would provide adequate time for producers to reformulate products in order to minimize market disruption. The FDA’s preliminary determination is only with regard to PHOs and does not affect trans fat that naturally occurs in small amounts in certain meat and dairy products.
Cargill To Label Finely Textured Beef
Cargill Beef will begin labeling its branded U.S.-made, fresh, ground beef products containing Finely Textured Beef prior to the 2014 grilling season, with the declaration “Contains Finely Textured Beef." The announcement comes nearly 18 months after calls for companies to halt production of “pink slime," as it was dubbed by the media and its critics.
“Our research shows that consumers believe ground beef products containing Finely Textured Beef should be clearly labeled," said John Keating, Cargill Beef president. “We’ve listened to the public, as well as our customers, and that is why today we are declaring our commitment to labeling Finely Textured Beef."
The new labeling procedure is based on consumer research that consumers desire transparency and believe ground beef products containing Finely Textured Beef should be clearly labeled, providing them with choices when they make a purchase. Research also revealed that, upon learning Finely Textured Beef is 100% pure beef and 95% lean, and how it is made, consumers respond positively to its benefits. Cargill also has launched a dedicated Finely Textured Beef website that provides information about the product, including videos showing how Finely Textured Beef is made at its U.S. beef cattle processing plants.
The debate as to whether boneless lean beef trimmings (BLBT) are safe for human consumption made headlines last year as media reports created a troubling and inaccurate picture of the form of beef made by separating lean beef from fat, particularly in their use of the colloquial term “pink slime." The food additive is created by combining beef trimmings, heating them to remove most of the fat, and treating them with ammonia hydroxide gas to kill potentially dangerous bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella.
In May 2012, Beef Products Inc., the maker of lean, finely textured beef (LFTB) dubbed “pink slime" by the media and critics of its use, and the target of the ABC News investigation, announced it would permanently shutter operations in three of its four operating plants. The announcement comes after the company could not recover from the media frenzy that resulted in decreased consumer demand for its product.
In September 2012, Beef Products, Inc. (BPI) sued ABC News and its journalists, contending the network misled consumers into believing its lean finely textured beef (LFTB) was unsafe. In July 2013, a U.S. District Court Judge ruled that the $1.2 billion "pink slime" defamation lawsuit against ABC News, Inc. and its journalists including, Diane Sawyer, will be litigated in state court.
Retail labeling of beef products containing LFTB has been an option since it was first included in ground beef products more than a decade ago. Voluntary statements such as a label indicating ground beef does or does not contain LFTB is considered a claim. USDA regulations require claims to be verified for accuracy before use on product labeling prior to their use by industry.
Washington Voters Turn Down GMO Labeling
A closely watched ballot measure to require labeling of genetically modified foods sold in Washington was defeated Tuesday night after opponents spent heavily on TV ads attacking the initiative.
Results showed Initiative 522 leading in populous King County -- which includes Seattle -- but losing in almost every county in the state. In Clark County, across the Columbia River from Portland, nearly 60 percent of voters were voting no on the measure.
The initiative sparked a record $22 million in spending from food and biotech companies opposed to the measure, and the results could help determine how the issue plays out nationally.
A similar initiative was defeated in California in 2012 by fewer than three percentage points. Opponents spent $46 million fighting the measure there. In Washington, the measure was losing by around 10 percentage points.
Supporters argued that consumers should have the right to know if their food contains genetically engineered ingredients, which now account for more than 90 percent of the corn, soybeans and sugar beets grown in the U.S.
Opponents, who include most of the state's farm and business organizations, argued that labeling would raise costs and unfairly stigmatize these products.
The pro-labeling campaign was driven by an increasing number of activist groups and organic-food manufacturers who raised questions about the impact of genetically engineered food on farming practices and on whether they could affect human health.
Studies haven't shown any adverse human health impacts, but critics note that the industry is moving into new parts of the food supply, such as salmon and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.
Oregon advocates of genetic labeling already have a proposed initiative for the November 2014 ballot in the works. U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., told the Christian Science Monitor that passage of the Washington initiative could help his effort to achieve national labeling requirements.
The industry fought hard against the initiative, just as it did in California. The Grocery Manufacturers Association spent $11 million, with money raised from several of the country's major food manufacturers.
An additional $11 million came from Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer and other major companies that produce genetically modified seeds. The money fueled an aggressive advertising campaign arguing that the measure was rife with nonsensical exemptions and would raise food prices.
Surveys conducted by Seattle pollster Stuart Elway showed that support for the measure dropped by 20 points from early September to mid-October.
Proponents raised nearly $8 million, with $2.3 million coming from Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps and lesser amounts from several companies in the natural food industry.
"It's okay, because guess what: We're gonna win eventually," the soap company's CEO, David Bronner told supporters at their election-night gathering, according to The Stranger, a Seattle newspaper.
New Protease Reduces Bitterness In Enzyme-Modified Cheese
Biocatalysts Ltd. introduced Flavorpro™ 937MDP, a non-animal protease with a de-bittering action when added to enzyme-modified cheese processes.
Flavorpro 937MDP is an exopeptidase preparation with low levels of endopeptidase activity. In enzyme-modified cheese applications, the hydrolysis of cheese proteins by endopeptidases, such as animal and bacterial proteases, can create bitter flavors due to the accumulation of small hydrophobic peptides. Exopeptidases, such as Flavorpro 937MDP, can be used to control bitterness by removing these bitter-tasting peptides. Due to its fungal origins, the enzyme is available kosher, halal and vegetarian.
Earlier this year, Biocatalysts unveiled its Promod™ 950L, a non-genetically modified microbial protease preparation as an alternative to papain, at the IFT 2013 Expo in Chicago.
Humane Society Supports COOL Law
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), along with Organization for Competitive Markets, United Farm Workers of America, American Grassfed Association and three independent livestock farms filed a brief supporting the Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) law in a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.
The court denied a motion to delay the COOL rule in September, and the case is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“Consumers deserve to know where their food comes from. And factory farming organizations that seek to have it otherwise are out of step with their customers,” said Jonathan Lovvorn, senior vice president and chief counsel for animal protection litigation for The Humane Society of the United States, in an issued statement today.
The groups and farmers are represented by lawyers with The HSUS' Animal Protection Litigation section.
Recently in the COOL controversy, Mexico requested the establishment of a compliance panel to determine if USDA's final COOL rule issued this year complies with World Trade Organization (WTO) findings. As well as undergoing WTO review, the final COOL rule also faces court challenges from the trade groups opposed to its implementation.
Several livestock trade associations are challenging the labeling rule. American Association of Meat Processors, American Meat Institute, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Grocers Association, National Pork Producers Council, North American Meat Association and Southwest Meat Association asked the USDA and U.S. Trade Representative to extend an industry outreach program until after a WTO compliance panel determines if the final COOL rule complies with WTO rules.
The National Farmers Union, U.S. Cattlemen's Association and Consumer Federation of America support COOL.
The country-of-origin labeling regulations require that meat products contain labels specifying where the livestock was born, raised and slaughtered. The regulations also prohibit the commingling of meat with different country-of-origin combinations in the same package at retail.
According to the coalition led by HSUS, labeling helps consumers who want to buy from farmers and ranchers “who often use more humane and sustainable practices, rather than industrial corporations that may commingle meat products from several foreign countries.”
Mexico Labels Chocolate Junk Food, Adds Tax
The ancient Aztecs would be up in arms: in the land that gave chocolate to the world, Mexican lawmakers have declared the popular food to be "junk," subject to an extra tax.
The chocolate charge was part of a raft of fiscal changes passed by Mexico's Congress on Thursday that seek to boost tax revenues and to tackle the country's unhealthy eating habits.
Among the amendments added to the tax bill was a levy on "junk food" - defined as products containing more than 275 calories per 100 grams. Many types of chocolate have around twice that amount.
McDonalds hamburgers, for example, fall below the benchmark, according to data on the company's website.
Originally proposed as a 5 percent levy this month, Congress approved an 8 percent charge on the foods.
Chocolate was grouped alongside a host of high-calorie products including gelatine, sweets and some puddings.
Etymologists trace the origin of the word "chocolate" to the Aztec word "xocolatl." It refers to the foamy bitter drink brewed from cacao - or cocoa - beans, according to the website of Washington's Smithsonian Institution.
In Aztec times, the drink was reserved for the nobility.
Historians say cocoa beans were also used like currency in many parts of pre-modern Latin America, and the Maya and Aztecs believed the bean had magical properties.
Legend has it that Aztec king Moctezuma feted Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes with drinking chocolate when he arrived to conquer Mexico in the early 16th Century.
Rising Star Chef Serves Creative Doughnuts in Harlem
Chef Corey Cova, who was featured on Zagat's list of 30 culinary starts under 30 years old, is the mind behind the unusual creations at his East Harlem shop Dough Loco. "Dough Loco is a neighborhood coffee doughnut shop. A lot of the doughnuts up here are from major chains, so they're all a bit smaller, have tons of ingredients like stabilizers, fillers," Cova said. "Ours are just all natural, really simple."It's a small operation, with Cova making hundreds of doughnuts by hand in the minuscule kitchen. On some days, supply can't keep up with demand and guests have to wait for a fresh batch to be put on the shelves. "Sometimes, we'll sell out by like 9 o'clock, and people have to wait an hour for us to kind of catch up," Cova said.The wait is worth it, though, especially for varieties like miso maple and raspberry sriracha. Cova's background in savory cooking inspires flavors you won't find anywhere else. "I think about a lot of different kind of food because I have to go back and run a restaurant as well. The raspberry one today I just kind of was thinking about the last few days," Cova said. "Raspberry and sriracha seemed like they kind of shared, something in there was kind of similar."Even though it just opened, the tiny shop may be ready to grow beyond its East Harlem storefront. Don't be surprised if you see Dough Loco expand its footprint or open new stores elsewhere in New York City.
Low Maternal Vitamin D Levels Linked to Preterm Labor
Low maternal intake of vitamin D has been shown to increase the chances of preterm labor in African American and Puerto Rican females, according to a new study published in American Journal of Epidemiology. The findings may provide insight into the biology connecting low vitamin D and preterm birth.
"Vitamin D is unique in that while we get it from our diets, our primary source is our body making it from sunlight," said lead author Lisa Bodnar, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D., associate professor in the University of Pittsburgh Public Health's Department of Epidemiology. "Previous studies using conservative definitions for vitamin D deficiency have found that nearly half of black women and about 5% of white women in the United States have vitamin D concentrations that are too low."
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh conducted a study to determine the link between maternal vitamin D and the risk of spontaneous preterm labor in women before the 35-week gestation period. The researchers used a sample of more than 700 cases of preterm birth and 2,600 full-term births collected by the Collaborative Perinatal Project that was conducted in 12 U.S. medical centers from 1959 to 1965. The blood samples collected by the project were well-preserved and able to be tested for vitamin D levels 40 years later.
Among non-white mothers, the incidence of spontaneous, preterm labor decreased by as much as 30% as vitamin D levels in blood increased. The researchers did not find similar relationships between maternal vitamin D levels and preterm birth in white women.
"We were concerned that finding this association only in non-white women meant that other factors we did not measure accounted for the link between low vitamin D levels and spontaneous preterm birth in black and Puerto Rican mothers," Bodnar said. "Even after applying these methods, vitamin D deficiency remained associated with spontaneous preterm birth."
Researchers also discovered that vitamin D deficiency was related to preterm births with damage to the placenta caused by inflammation. The vitamin D spontaneous preterm birth relationship should be examined in modern cohorts with detailed data on skin pigmentation and other covariates, the researchers concluded.
A previous study from the University of Pittsburgh linked vitamin D deficiency having a relation with fetal growth that may vary by race.
Study: Consumers Wary of Nanotech Foods
New research from North Carolina State Univ. and the Univ. of Minnesota finds that people in the U.S. want labels on food products that use nanotechnology—whether the nanotechnology is in the food or is used in food packaging. The research also shows that many people are willing to pay more for the labeling.
“We wanted to know whether people want nanotechnology in food to be labeled, and the vast majority of the participants in our study do,” says Dr. Jennifer Kuzma, senior author of a paper on the research and Goodnight-Glaxo Wellcome Distinguished Prof. of Public Administration at NC State. “Our study is the first research in the U.S. to take an in-depth, focus group approach to understanding the public perception of nanotechnology in foods.”
The researchers convened six focus groups—three in Minnesota and three in North Carolina—and gave study participants some basic information about nanotechnology and its use in food products. Participants were then asked a series of questions addressing whether food nanotechnology should be labeled. Participants were also sent a follow-up survey within a week of their focus group meeting.
Study participants were particularly supportive of labeling for products in which nanotechnology had been added to the food itself, though they were also in favor of labeling products in which nanotechnology had only been incorporated into the food packaging.
However, the call for labeling does not indicate that people are necessarily opposed to the use of nanotechnology in food products. For example, many study participants indicated support for the use of nanotechnology to make food more nutritious or to give it a longer shelf life—but they still wanted those products to be labeled.
“People do have nuanced perspectives on this,” Kuzma says. “They want labeling, but they also want access to reliable, research-based information about the risks associated with labeled products—such as a U.S. Food and Drug Administration website offering additional information about labeled products.”
The researchers also found that about 60% of the study participants who responded to the follow-up survey were willing to pay an additional 5 to 25% of the product price for either nanotechnology-free products or for nanotechnology labeling.
Crops May Soon Grow Faster, More Efficient
Global agriculture accounts for one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions, and that number will only increase as global food demand is forecast to double by 2050, which will cause significant strain on the environment. Researchers in London have unraveled the mystery of how some plant species evolved super-efficient photosynthesis—a discovery that could be used to breed super-crops, such as faster-growing, drought-resistant rice, according to a paper published in the journal eLife.
Approximately 3% of all plants use an advanced form of photosynthesis, which allows them to capture more carbon dioxide, use less water, and grow more rapidly. Overall, this makes them over 50% more efficient than plants that use the less-efficient form.
Researchers from the Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge traced back the evolutionary paths of all the plants that use advanced photosynthesis, including maize, sugar cane and millet, to find out how they evolved the same ability independently, despite not being directly related to one another. Using a mathematical analysis, the researchers uncovered a number of tiny changes in the plants’ physiology that, when combined, allow them to grow more quickly; using one-third as much water as other plants; and capturing around 13 times more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
They suggest that together, these individual evolutionary advances make up a “recipe” that could be used to improve key agricultural crops that only use the less-efficient form.
"Encouragingly for the efforts to design super-efficient crops, we found that several different pathways lead to the more efficient photosynthesis—so there are plenty of different recipes biologists could follow to achieve this," the researchers said. “This is not only an interesting mathematical result, it should help biological scientists to develop crops with significantly improved yields to feed the world.”
In 2010, British researchers suggested large-scale crop failures most likely will become more common under climate change due to an increased frequency of extreme weather events. Their findings, published in Environmental Research Letters, suggested adaptation to climate change can be possible through a combination of new crops that are more tolerant to heat and water stress, and socio-economic measures. Over the past two years, record-breaking temperatures in the United States have affected crop yields and forced global food prices to reach record highs.
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Greg Lake’s Legendary 1981 Performance At the Hammersmith Odeon In London To Be Issued On CD & Vinyl
July 21, 2015 by Cleopatra Records
Available in the Cleopatra Web Store!
Purple Pyramid Records will be releasing legendary Greg Lake’s live album from the Hammersmith Odeon in London, November 5, 1981, featuring guitar hero Gary Moore on CD & vinyl! The concert recording features ELP and King Crimson classic tracks such as �Lucky Man�, �Karn Evil 9�, �21st Century Schizoid Man� and �In The Court of The Crimson King�, as well as songs from his critically acclaimed first solo album from 1981. As a founding member of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Greg Lake has been a major force in music for over 40 years. He has long been considered a legendary voice and musical powerhouse whose impact changed the landscape of rock and roll. Many simply refer to him as �The Voice�.
The Greg Lake Band made its live debut on one of the biggest stages available to it, the annual Reading Festival in England in August 1981. Much of the set was new to the audience � Greg’s first solo album would not be released for another month. But the band received a wild reception regardless, and there were enough old favorites on display to ensure the fans remained happy�including the show opener �Fanfare for the Common Man,� truly one of the most effective showstoppers ever to have opened a concert.
The band’s full tour kicked off in October. Purposefully, Lake demanded smaller venues, the theaters and universities that truly represented a refreshing change from the monster domes he’d visited the last time he hit the road in 1977 with ELP. The string of shows launched in Wales, at Aberystwyth University, then moved onto Cardiff University, Dunstable Queensway Hall, Norwich University, Liverpool Royal Court Theatre, Newcastle Mayfair, Glasgow University, Edinburgh Playhouse, Sheffield Lyceum, University of Kent Canterbury, Birmingham Odeon, Leicester Polytechnic, Bournemouth Winter Gardens, Exeter University, St Austell Cornwall Coliseum, Crawley Leisure Centre and, finally, London’s Hammersmith Odeon.
It was not an extravagant performance – no lasers, no levitating keyboards, no priceless Persian carpets. The myths and legends that surrounded ELP when they toured were all firmly locked away. The Greg Lake Band toured like a band, and on stage they simply took up their positions and played. Brilliantly.
That last date on the tour is where this disc was recorded, in front of 2,000 fans who now had every note of Greg’s new album memorized, and the rest of the set firmly entrenched in their DNA: the snatch of �Karn Evil 9� that eased out of the opening �Fanfare�; �Love You Too Much,� the song Lake co-wrote with Dylan in what remains another of the tantalizing collaborations of the age; �Retribution Drive� and �The Lie� from Greg Lake. �21st Century Schizoid Man� and �The Court Of The Crimson King,� from Lake�s stint with King Crimson, wrapped up the evening in positively rhapsodic fashion, and, finally, �C’est La Vie,� from ELP’s Works. (The version of this track included on the CD is taken from a show in New York City 1981)
�A single night at the tail end of a single tour, alive with promise, bristling with presence. And welcoming back some new friends, too� – Dave Thompson, writer
� Tracks:
Medley: Fanfare For The Common Man / Karn Evil 9
Nuclear Attack
The Lie
Retribution Drive
Parisienne Walkways
You Really Got A Hold On Me
Love You Too Much
21st Century Schizoid Man
In The Court Of The Crimson King
Bonus Track: C’est La Vie (Live in NYC 1981)
Greg Lake’s official website: www.greglake.com
Copyright © 2020 Copyright Cleopatra Records, Inc.
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Madhya Pradesh Plans Death Penalty For Rapists
Just about a week after UP CM Yogi Aditya Nath announced an anti-Romeo squad, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced a similar crackdown on sexual predators on Friday, and even went a step further, saying his government will bring about a legislation to hang rapists.
Along with his repeated preaching against alcoholism and shutting down of liquor shops along the Narmada, a tough stance against sex crimes will earn him the goodwill of women — a crucial factor ahead of the 2018 assembly election. The CM is acutely aware that Madhya Pradesh has the shameful tag of being the rape capital of the country with 4,391 cases reported in 2015.
This is the third time Chouhan announced his stand on the death penalty for rapists but the first time that he laid out a timeline. Speaking at the passing out parade of sub-inspectors on Friday, the CM said: "We will table a bill in the monsoon session of the assembly to seek the death sentence for rape. Once it is passed, it will be forwarded to the President for assent."
After taking the salute at Police Training Academy in Bhouri on the outskirts of Bhopal, he said: "The first condition for the development of the state and the country is a good law-and-order system and this is the major responsibility of police... Hum Romeos ke against ek abhiyaan chalayenge (We will run a campaign against Romeos)."
Officials said the IPC needs to be amended to award capital punishment to rapists and the state government cannot do it all alone. However, punishments for various crimes against women can certainly be made tougher, they said.
TOI was first to report that MP will have tough laws to check crimes against women. On February 6, 2017, TOI reported the government's effort to make rape a capital crime, especially when a minor is assaulted, and not to allow bail to accused in sexual crimes for 90 days.
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Suiting Up with Pride
June 26, 2015 October 4, 2017 by Joni Mckervey
Mathieu Chantelois doesn’t see himself as a pioneer but, from what we’ve heard, he’s been blazing trails for gay Canadians for years. In 2001 he was the only openly gay resident on reality television program The Lofters, and he later created and hosted a number of tv shows for PrideTV and OUTtv. As well, he was one of the first to say “I do” when gay marriage was legalised in his home province of Ontario in 2003. Now, as the Executive Director of Pride Toronto, one of the largest Pride organizations in the world, Chantelois is once again in the spotlight, leading the way for his community in style.
It’s a historical moment for gay rights, with the US Supreme Court declaring gay marriage legal in all 50 states. What’s your reaction to the news?
It’s incredible news, and one more reason to celebrate this week, but let’s not forget that you can be fired from your job in 30 states because of your sexual orientation. We still have a lot of work to do.
You’ve done so many different things before joining the Pride Toronto team. How did you get here?
Not too sure. Maybe it’s the result of the three summers I worked as a mascot in an amusement park in Montreal (laughs). But seriously, my career has spanned communications, entertainment and non-profits. The common factor has been to always be surrounded with great people who are passionate about what they do.
Suit: Premium Black Tuxedo by Indochino
Do you see yourself as a pioneer?
Not even close. But, I’m blessed to learn and interact with pioneer activists here in Toronto who inspire me every day. And, I’m looking forward to meeting more fearless activists during our upcoming festival. This year we have three amazing women leading the parade as our International Grand Marshalls. Punk legends Pussy Riot have championed feminism and queer rights in Russia. Celina Jaitly is a UN Champion for the Free and Equal campaign. Cyndi Lauper has opened a shelter for LGBTQ youth.
Pride Toronto hosts the largest Pride celebration in North America—that’s a big deal. What’s so special about Toronto?
I can think of about 2,615,060 reasons: the people. I was born in Montreal, but I’ve been living in Toronto for 15 years now. I moved here for a television gig and my contract was a year, I was convinced that I would return to my hometown after. But something incredible happened: I met incredible people. I can’t see myself living anywhere else.
Is there a difference between your public and private selves?
In public, I’m the Energizer Bunny. I don’t stop. I love to interact with people. At home, I’m quite the opposite. I like downtime with my husband. Yoga classes and TV series are my definition of a good weekend. The two sides of my personality are both real. It’s my essential balancing act to sanity.
Suit: Dark Gray Birdseye by Indochino
What does it mean to you to wear a suit?
Wearing a suit makes me feel good. It shows the people around me that I’m excited to be with them, and that I respect their presence. And nothing turns me on more than seeing a guy getting out of one.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
Can I quote a cheesy lyric? “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
Mathieu Chantelois was measured for his custom Indochino suits at our Toronto Showroom, which opens its doors in a new permanent location at 143 King St East on July 2.
In Toronto? COME OUT AND PLAY! at Pride Toronto, June 19 – 28, 2015.
Not in Toronto? Shop suits online or at another one of our showrooms.
Joni Mckervey
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Interview: Dr. E. Jane Adam, chair of the ESR Quality, Safety & Standards Committee
One of the ESR’s statutory committees underwent two subtle changes earlier this year; its interim chair was officially elected as chairperson, and its name was changed. We spoke to Dr. E. Jane Adam, Chair of the newly re-named ESR Quality, Safety and Standards Committee, to find out a little bit about her role, the committee’s function, and some of the key items on its agenda.
ESR Office: What is the overall purpose of the ESR Quality, Safety and Standards (QSS) Committee and how does it operate?
E. Jane Adam: The committee has several subcommittees and working groups covering radiation protection, audit and standards, management in radiology, e-health and informatics, ethics, ultrasound and a European Medicines Agency task force. They are all active in their various areas, undertaking projects, producing documents on behalf of the ESR, and liaising with other organisations. However, the aim of the committee as a whole is to promote high standards of radiology and, by working together, with cross fertilisation of ideas, the committee becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
Dr. E. Jane Adam, consultant in diagnostic radiology at St. George’s Hospital, London, and chair of the ESR Quality, Safety & Standards Committee.
ESR: What is your background within the ESR committee structure and what motivates you to be involved?
EJA: I first became involved in the work of the ESR when I became chair of the Audit and Standards Subcommittee when it was first formed. This probably came about because I had chaired both the audit and standards committees of the Royal College of Radiologists in the UK. I have more recently been elected to chair the ‘parent’ QSS Committee. I have a long standing interest in these topics, and also wider professional issues in radiology from being chairman of a very large radiology department where I became very aware of the challenges for radiologists when the demands on radiology departments are increasing all the time, expectations are extremely high, and we rarely have the resources or manpower which we would like in order to provide the highest quality service.
ESR: What are the main issues currently on the committee’s agenda, and how are they being tackled?
EJA: There are lots of them! Radiation protection is a very big theme with the launch of the EuroSafe Imaging campaign, but we are also working on providing people with straightforward ways of carrying out clinical audit in their departments, the requirement for which is enshrined in the Euratom EU directive, and sounds rather difficult if you are not doing it already, but can be made quite routine. The promotion of ultrasound as an imaging technique which avoids radiation exposure is another workstream. Teleradiology is becoming more prevalent, and politically is a very hot and rather contentious topic, particularly the outsourcing of reporting. The committee is embarking on a quest to find out what is really happening in Europe, and what are the concerns and implications for service provision and training.
ESR: What new issues do you think the QSS Committee will be dealing with in the coming years?
EJA: I hope that the committee will be alert and responsive to changes in the practice of radiology and be able to help radiologists adapt and thrive, whatever comes along. Its aim must be to promote the highest possible quality of service to patients, and preserve our own professional standards, also helping to ensure that radiology remains an attractive and interesting specialty which attracts the best and most able doctors. Since the whole practice of medicine now seems to be so dependent on the rapid availability of imaging in order to guide management decisions, it is a huge challenge to radiology to provide high quality and even very specialist imaging on a 24-hour basis, but we need to rise to the challenge to maintain our role and importance in patient management.
ESR: Up until ECR 2014, the QSS Committee was called the Professional Organisation Committee. Can you explain why the change of name took place?
EJA: Well strictly the subcommittees always covered issues of quality and safety, but with the advent of clinical audit and all the challenges facing us, quality, safety and standards better expresses the wide remit of the committee, and is a more understandable title too!
ESR: How can ESR members learn more about the committee or contribute to the efforts of its various subcommittees, working groups and task forces?
EJA: There is a turnover of membership on all committees and if anyone has a particular interest or commitment to one of the topics covered by a subcommittee then they can contact the relevant chair and they will let you know how the recruitment process works. There are also a number of ‘members at large’ of the parent QSS committee. Information about the chairs of the subcommittees and working groups can be found on the ESR website.
POSTED IN ESR News
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Interview: Alexandra Huddleston on East or West and Self-Publishing
Interview Alexandra Huddleston on East or West and Self-Publishing photo-eye's Melanie McWhorter talks to Alexandra Huddleston about her newest self-published book East or West and the process and challenges of self-publishing.
East or West: A Walking Journal Along Shikoku’s 88 Temple Pilgrimage
by Alexandra Huddleston. Kyoudai Press, 2014.
Alexandra Huddleston recently released her third self-published book titled East or West: A Walking Journal Along Shikoku’s 88 Temple Pilgrimage. This paper-wrapped book features a carefully edited selection of her personal journal entries and photographs from an 800-mile pilgrimage across Japan. This book follows 333 Saints: A Life of Scholarship in Timbuktu, a project documenting the ancient tradition of Islamic scholarship in Africa, and a collaborative piece Lost Things with images by the photographer and poems by her brother Robert Huddleston. In this interview, we focus on Huddleston’s three successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns that financed the publications, her decision to make East or West a modest publication and the editing and design choices that Huddleston faced with 333 Saints after the conflict in Mali lead to the destruction of some of the same scholarly texts that she photographed.—Melanie McWhorter
East or West: A Walking Journal Along Shikoku’s 88 Temple Pilgrimage by Alexandra Huddleston. Kyoudai Press, 2014.
Melanie McWhorter: I am here with Alexandra Huddleston and we are discussing her new book titled East or West about the religious pilgrimage that she went on a few years ago in Japan. The book itself is quite modest and contains journal entries from your journey as well as photos that you took along the way. Why did you choose this format — selecting just a few passages and images — as opposed to a much larger publication that might chronicle the entire journey?
Alexandra Huddleston: For this book, the edit came together in a way that was much different from my past projects. The edit veered away from the documentary, from being a comprehensive documentation of what I saw and where I went. Instead, it became this very, very tight edit: four stanzas of photographs that follow each other sequentially.
The idea was to put together a book that was more like a poem than a documentation. There are long-form poems, of course, and very wonderful ones, like The Wasteland, but there's a tradition in poetry of trying to express things very concisely and very efficiently. The concision and the efficiency should allow the meaning of things to overlap. By going with a shorter edit, the idea is to give people more time to reflect on what they are seeing, what is actually going on in the photographs and how the photographs are sequenced one after another.
With long sequences of photographs, people get tired. There's an exhaustion of looking, and I think sometimes the reader spends less effort trying to make the connections and trying to figure out what's actually going on in the book.
MM: When I was reading the text, I realized there were probably a number of ways that you can approach this journey, but it seems like you chose to focus on a more spiritual element. You do talk about the physical ordeal of going through the actual journey, but instead of making this a heavy book that becomes about the weight of the journey, it's about the lightness. I really like that about this book.
AH: Thank you! I think it's a book that really lives well in people's hands. I try to make this the case with all of my books and that is why I tend to make smaller books. When I see people looking through East or West, I like how they do it: they flip through it and they don't stop, then they flip back, and then they go back and forth. That's how I want people to interact with the book. If all they did was flip through it once, then my efforts would have been in vain.
MM: Your book made me want to try something that challenged me physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. All this in a very, very small volume.
AH: I talked with other pilgrims about this book and about my aim for it, which was to try and express what you go through as a pilgrim rather than show what you see as a pilgrim. I suspect some other pilgrims would say that I've been partially successful and some would say, "No, it's beyond photography. No one can express that." But in as much as I could, that's what I wanted to do.
333 Saints: The Life and Scholarship in Timbuktu
MM: Let's talk about your previous book, 333 Saints: The Life and Scholarship in Timbuktu. You came into the photo-eye bookstore a few times and showed us a mock-up of how you initially envisioned this book, but you approached the final production from an academic perspective with captions that described what the readers are seeing. Why did you choose to present the work this way rather than as an art object?
AH: Right, as you say, the first edits included a lot more pictures, daily life pictures, and had the flow and design of an art book. What happened was 2012. When Timbuktu was invaded by the Islamist militant groups at that time, it forced me to rethink what I wanted the book to be.
All pictures become historical documents. Any picture of a person does so the moment that they die or they age, and the same is true with landscapes because they change as well. But for my pictures, that change happened really fast. Suddenly, I'm faced with photographs of things that don't exist anymore or might not exist again for many years. That completely changed for me how I viewed the importance of a photograph.
Before the invasion I was evaluating my pictures in a much more classic, artistic, aesthetic kind of way, but afterwards, the questions became: Who's in this picture? What are they doing now? What does this show about this culture that's under threat? The artistic evaluation of a photograph dropped compared to the historical importance.
333 Saints: The Life and Scholarship in Timbuktu by Alexandra Huddleston. Kyoudai Press, 2013.
MM: Were some of the texts destroyed during the invasion?
AH: Fortunately, most of the manuscripts were saved through an amazing, clandestine effort that went on during the occupation. It was all organized by people from Timbuktu. They would put the manuscripts in these metal boxes secretly at night, and then they transported them underneath other cargo in trucks or by boat. They transported hundreds of thousands of manuscripts down to Bamako. When the militants left Timbuktu they did burn quite a number of manuscripts, but it was in the number of a couple of thousand that were destroyed rather than what it could have been. By the time they left, most of the manuscripts were in hiding.
Once the militants started to destroy the shrines in the city, the people of Timbuktu knew the manuscripts were in danger. If the militants were against the Sufi-based Islam in Timbuktu enough to destroy the graves of their ancestors and saints, then they reasoned that they wouldn't hesitate to destroy the manuscripts, even though many are holy Muslim texts.
MM: You funded all three of your publications from successful Kickstarter campaigns. What do you think made each Kickstarter successful?
AH: Part of me, at this point, says, "Ah, I was just lucky." Practically, being a good planner and having a good and realistic budget is really important. I took a basic finance class before I did any of these Kickstarters—
MM: That was for artists?
AH: Yeah, a basic finance class that was for artists. It covered a lot of the skills that I was missing, especially in things like creating budgets. You really want to be able to set down, "These are my anticipated costs," realistically — which, of course, also involves talking to people who have already published. I talked to three or four other photographers who had already self-published, and I got actual quotes from the printer before launching the Kickstarter.
You want to have things as organized and well planned as you can before you do your Kickstarter. That means having a mockup that's going to be very close to what the final book is going to be--or at least very close in terms of things like page count, size, and paper quality, because these are going to big factors in determining your final printing cost. To do a Kickstarter for a book before you know how many pages it's going to be or what size you want the book to be is not a great idea because you're not going to get an accurate quote from your printer, and that accurate quote is essential to knowing how much money you need.
I think it was also good that my first Kickstarter was really small. It was for an artists’ book titled Lost Things that I published with my brother. The amount of money we aimed to raise was modest—
MM: How much was it?
AH: It was $2500, and we wanted to hand-make fifty books. Everything was under my control. I made the actual books myself. I didn't have to outsource anything, and the amount of money we wanted to raise was pretty reasonable. There were two of us spreading the word about the Kickstarter as well. For that project, 100% of the people who contributed were friends and family. But, it let me understand the process: how I wanted to put together a Kickstarter page, what sort of video I wanted to make, what kind of text I needed to write, and what kind of promotion I needed. But, I do have to say that jumping from raising $2500 to $15,000 for the next campaign was a huge leap, and I don't think that would have worked unless I'd been lucky.
I'd heard what people said: that it's a full-time job while you're doing it, that it's an emotional rollercoaster. I'd heard all of that, but until you're in it, especially for a big one, I don't think you fully understand what crowd-funding is all about. With the second Kickstarter, I'd say about a third of the people who contributed were strangers, and what really helped me was the fact that Timbuktu was in the news all the time then. I also had a good network of people who had worked in Mali, traveled to Mali or worked in Africa. Those people understood the importance of the work and they were very willing to share the news with their networks. I think that this network heavily contributed to the success of the campaign.
But, for the duration of that second Kickstarter I was definitely working about ten hours a day, at least. Frankly, after the first two days of the campaign I realized, "Oh my goodness. This is really iffy. I have to do a lot more than I ever thought I'd have to do to make this happen." Fortunately, with the help of many other people, it worked out.
Purchase a signed copy of East or West: A Walking Journey Along Shikoku’s 88 Temple Pilgrimage
Purchase a signed copy or the limited edition of 333 Saints: A Life of Scholarship in Timbuktu
Read Huddleston's essay for photo-eye Blog on the making of 333 Saints
Labels: Alexandra Huddleston, Books
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Anna Faris Announces Pregnancy
Updated Apr. 21, 2017 4:56PM ET / Published May. 10, 2012 12:47PM ET
Ethan Miller / Getty Images
Actress and comedienne Anna Faris is getting to work on her goal to “populate” the world: she announced that she and her husband, Parks & Recreation’s Chris Pratt, are expecting their first child in the fall. Faris, 35, has said she would “love to have eight kids” and said she was eager to get started. Faris and Pratt have been married for three years, since they met on the set of Take Me Home Tonight. She co-stars in Sacha Baron Cohen’s upcoming comedy The Dictator.
Read it at New York Daily News
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Pacific Association of Professional Baseball
# Kai Davis - Profile
- Team - PAPBC Clippers Diamonds Pacifics Stompers Admirals
Hometown: Scottsdale, AZ
Bats/Throws: R/L
College: Arizona Christian University
Enters his first season of professional baseball after a colligiate career at Arizona Christian University...
Appeared in 21 games a senior in 2017... Batted .238 with two homers and nine RBIs...
Played in 12 games with three starts as a first baseman/designated hitter in 2016..… Hit .364 with a double and home run… Drove in three while scoring once…
Summer 2018 Napa Silverados 44 123 18 30 2 0 4 17 14 36 3 .244
Total 44 123 18 30 2 0 4 17 14 36 3 .244
Aug 8 @Stompers L 2-3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.329 0.358 0.244 0.687
Aug 7 @Stompers L 3-11 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0.329 0.358 0.244 0.687
Aug 5 @Admirals W 6-3 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0.333 0.364 0.248 0.697
Aug 3 @Pacifics W 10-9 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0.336 0.373 0.254 0.709
Jul 31 @Clippers L 4-8 4 1 1 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.339 0.358 0.257 0.697
Jul 29 Pacifics L 7-10 2 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.342 0.333 0.257 0.675
Jul 27 Stompers L 7-13 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.342 0.333 0.255 0.675
Jul 26 Stompers L 5-6 2 0 2 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.354 0.347 0.265 0.701
Jul 21 @Clippers W 6-4 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0.336 0.333 0.247 0.669
Jul 20 @Admirals L 4-10 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.333 0.337 0.247 0.670
Jul 19 @Admirals L 2-5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0.327 0.337 0.247 0.664
Jul 15 @Diamonds W 6-1 5 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0.320 0.337 0.247 0.657
Jul 14 @Diamonds L 2-4 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0.326 0.345 0.250 0.671
Jul 13 Clippers L 2-11 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0.326 0.354 0.256 0.680
Jul 11 Stompers W 5-4 4 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0.337 0.367 0.266 0.704
Jul 8 @Admirals L 5-9 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.321 0.352 0.239 0.673
Jul 6 @Stompers L 8-9 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0.321 0.353 0.235 0.674
Jul 4 Pacifics L 6-9 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.329 0.349 0.238 0.678
Jul 3 Diamonds L 1-8 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.333 0.355 0.242 0.688
Jul 1 Admirals W 14-11 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.343 0.367 0.250 0.710
Jun 30 Admirals W 5-3 3 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0.338 0.373 0.254 0.711
Jun 22 Admirals L 10-17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.328 0.321 0.250 0.649
Jun 21 @Diamonds W 11-10 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.317 0.321 0.250 0.638
Jun 20 @Clippers W 8-7 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.328 0.333 0.259 0.661
Jun 19 @Clippers W 11-6 5 2 2 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.351 0.360 0.280 0.711
Jun 16 Diamonds L 5-14 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.346 0.356 0.267 0.702
Jun 15 @Admirals L 6-13 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.353 0.364 0.273 0.717
Jun 14 @Admirals L 3-8 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.375 0.390 0.293 0.765
Jun 13 Clippers L 8-9 5 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.386 0.405 0.297 0.791
Jun 12 Clippers W 17-6 3 2 2 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0.410 0.438 0.313 0.848
Jun 10 Pacifics W 13-12 5 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0.353 0.414 0.276 0.767
Jun 9 Diamonds W 7-4 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0.345 0.417 0.250 0.762
Jun 8 @Clippers W 4-1 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.360 0.455 0.273 0.815
Jun 7 @Clippers W 12-3 5 1 1 0 0 1 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0.381 0.500 0.278 0.881
Jun 6 @Stompers W 8-5 5 1 2 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.400 0.385 0.308 0.785
Jun 5 @Stompers L 4-6 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.400 0.375 0.250 0.775
Jun 3 @Pacifics L 3-12 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.500 0.500 0.333 1.000
Jun 2 @Pacifics L 2-7 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.571 0.600 0.400 1.171
Jun 1 Pacifics L 3-13 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.500 0.667 0.333 1.167
May 31 Pacifics W 11-3 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1.000 2.000 1.000 3.000
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Home Uncategorized TITANPOINTE: The NSA’s Spy Hub in New York, Hidden in Plain Sight
TITANPOINTE: The NSA’s Spy Hub in New York, Hidden in Plain Sight
TITANPOINTE
The NSA’s Spy Hub in New York,
by Ryan Gallagher and Henrik Moltke
THEY CALLED IT Project X. It was an unusually audacious, highly sensitive assignment: to build a massive skyscraper, capable of withstanding an atomic blast, in the middle of New York City. It would have no windows, 29 floors with three basement levels, and enough food to last 1,500 people two weeks in the event of a catastrophe.
But the building’s primary purpose would not be to protect humans from toxic radiation amid nuclear war. Rather, the fortified skyscraper would safeguard powerful computers, cables, and switchboards. It would house one of the most important telecommunications hubs in the United States — the world’s largest center for processing long-distance phone calls, operated by the New York Telephone Company, a subsidiary of AT&T.
The building was designed by the architectural firm John Carl Warnecke & Associates, whose grand vision was to create a communication nerve center like a “20th century fortress, with spears and arrows replaced by protons and neutrons laying quiet siege to an army of machines within.”
Excerpt from “Project X,” a short film by Henrik Moltke and Laura Poitras, screening at the IFC Center starting Nov. 18. This article is the product of a joint reporting project between The Intercept and Field of Vision.
Construction began in 1969, and by 1974, the skyscraper was completed. Today, it can be found in the heart of lower Manhattan at 33 Thomas Street, a vast gray tower of concrete and granite that soars 550 feet into the New York skyline. The brutalist structure, still used by AT&T and, according to the New York Department of Finance, owned by the company, is like no other in the vicinity. Unlike the many neighboring residential and office buildings, it is impossible to get a glimpse inside 33 Thomas Street. True to the designers’ original plans, there are no windows and the building is not illuminated. At night it becomes a giant shadow, blending into the darkness, its large square vents emitting a distinct, dull hum that is frequently drowned out by the sound of passing traffic and wailing sirens.
For many New Yorkers, 33 Thomas Street — known as the “Long Lines Building” — has been a source of mystery for years. It has been labeled one of the city’s weirdest and most iconic skyscrapers, but little information has ever been published about its purpose.
It is not uncommon to keep the public in the dark about a site containing vital telecommunications equipment. But 33 Thomas Street is different: An investigation by The Intercept indicates that the skyscraper is more than a mere nerve center for long-distance phone calls. It also appears to be one of the most important National Security Agency surveillance sites on U.S. soil — a covert monitoring hub that is used to tap into phone calls, faxes, and internet data.
Early model of the entrance of 33 Thomas Street as designed by John Carl Warnecke & Associates. — Still from “Project X”
Documents obtained by The Intercept from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden do not explicitly name 33 Thomas Street as a surveillance facility. However — taken together with architectural plans, public records, and interviews with former AT&T employees conducted for this article — they provide compelling evidence that 33 Thomas Street has served as an NSA surveillance site, code-named TITANPOINTE.Inside 33 Thomas Street there is a major international “gateway switch,” according to a former AT&T engineer, which routes phone calls between the United States and countries across the world. A series of top-secret NSA memos suggest that the agency has tapped into these calls from a secure facility within the AT&T building. The Manhattan skyscraper appears to be a core location used for a controversial NSA surveillance program that has targeted the communications of the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and at least 38 countries, including close U.S. allies such as Germany, Japan, and France.
It has long been known that AT&T has cooperated with the NSA on surveillance, but few details have emerged about the role of specific facilities in carrying out the top-secret programs. The Snowden documents provide new information about how NSA equipment has been integrated as part of AT&T’s network in New York City, revealing in unprecedented detail the methods and technology the agency uses to vacuum up communications from the company’s systems.
“This is yet more proof that our communications service providers have become, whether willingly or unwillingly, an arm of the surveillance state,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “The NSA is presumably operating under authorities that enable it to target foreigners, but the fact that it is so deeply embedded in our domestic communications infrastructure should tip people off that the effects of this kind of surveillance cannot be neatly limited to non-Americans.”
The NSA declined to comment for this story.
The FBI occupies the entire 23rd floor of 26 Federal Plaza, seen here behind 33 Thomas Street. — Still from “Project X”
THE CODE NAME TITANPOINTE features dozens of times in the NSA documents, often in classified reports about surveillance operations. The agency uses code names to conceal information it deems especially sensitive — for instance, the names of companies it cooperates with or specific locations where electronic spying is carried out. Such details are usually considered “exceptionally controlled information,” a category beyond top secret and thus outside the scope of most of the documents that Snowden was able to obtain.
Secret NSA travel guides, dated April 2011 and February 2013, however, reveal information about TITANPOINTE that helps establish its connection to 33 Thomas Street. The 2011 guide, written to assist NSA employees visiting various facilities, discloses that TITANPOINTE is in New York City. The 2013 guide states that a “partner” called LITHIUM, which is NSA’s code name for AT&T, supervises visits to the site.
The 33 Thomas Street building is located almost next door to the FBI’s New York field office — about a block away — at Federal Plaza. The 2011 NSA travel guide instructs employees traveling to TITANTPOINTE to head to the FBI’s New York field office. It adds that trips to the site should be coordinated with AT&T (referenced as “LITHIUM”) and the FBI, including an FBI “site watch officer.”
Intercom at 33 Thomas Street. — Still from “Project X”
When traveling to TITANPOINTE, NSA employees are told to hire a “cover vehicle” through the FBI, especially if they are transporting equipment to the site. In order to keep their true identities secret while visiting, agency employees are instructed not to wear any clothing displaying NSA badges or insignia.Upon arrival at TITANPOINTE, the 2011 travel guide says, agency employees should ring the buzzer, sign in, and wait for a person to come and meet them. The Intercept visited 33 Thomas Street and found a buzzer outside its entrance and a sign-in sheet on a desk in the building’s lobby, which is manned by a guard 24 hours a day. There are also parking bays in front of the skyscraper designated “AWM,” a traffic code for federal agencies.
A 1994 New York Times article reported that 33 Thomas Street was part of AT&T’s “giant Worldwide Intelligent Network, which is responsible for directing an average of 175 million phone calls a day.” Thomas Saunders, a former AT&T engineer, told The Intercept that inside the building there were at least three “4ESS switches” used to route calls across phone networks. “Of the first two, one handled domestic long-distance traffic and the other was an international gateway,” said Saunders, who retired from his role at the company in 2004. The NSA’s documents describe TITANPOINTE as containing “foreign gateway switches” and they state that it has a “RIMROCK access.” RIMROCK is an NSA code name for 4ESS switches.
The NSA’s documents also reveal that one of TITANPOINTE’s functions is to conduct surveillance as part of a program called SKIDROWE, which focuses on intercepting satellite communications. That is a particularly striking detail, because on the roof of 33 Thomas Street there are a number of satellite dishes. Federal Communications Commission records confirm that 33 Thomas Street is the only location in New York City where AT&T has an FCC license for satellite earth stations.
Design plan for the tower mechanical equipment floor at 33 Thomas Street.
THE MAN BEHIND the design of 33 Thomas Street, John Carl Warnecke, was one of the most prominent architects in the U.S. between the 1960s and 1980s.
Warnecke’s high-profile projects included producing designs for the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., and the Hawaii State Capitol. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy’s administration commissioned Warnecke to preserve and restructure buildings at Lafayette Square, across from the White House. And following Kennedy’s assassination, Warnecke was asked to design the president’s eternal flame and gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery. He also helped construct a new embassy complex in Washington for the Soviet Union, in which the Soviets claimed they found eavesdropping equipment embedded in the walls.
But it was not only governments that trusted Warnecke — who died in 2010, aged 91 — with major construction projects. He cultivated a close relationship with telecommunications companies, too, possibly helped by family ties to the industry. Warnecke’s father-in-law had been a director at Pacific Bell, a California-based AT&T subsidiary. In the 1960s, Warnecke was asked to design a telephone exchange building for Pacific Bell in Oakland. He would subsequently receive a series of other major commissions from AT&T: Aside from the 33 Thomas Street building, he also designed a telephone exchange in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and an AT&T facility in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Some of Warnecke’s original architectural drawings for 33 Thomas Street are labeled “Project X.” It was alternatively referred to as the Broadway Building. His plans describe the structure as “a skyscraper to be inhabited by machines” and say that it was “designed to house long lines telephone equipment and to protect it and its operating personnel in the event of atomic attack.” (At the time the building was commissioned and built, amid the Cold War, there were genuine fears in the U.S. about the prospect of a Soviet nuclear assault.)
Sketch of the plaza at 33 Thomas Street.
It is not clear how many people work at 33 Thomas Street today, but Warnecke’s original plans stated that it would provide food, water, and recreation for 1,500 people. It would also store 250,000 gallons of fuel to power generators, which would enable it to become a “self-contained city” for two weeks in the event of an emergency power failure. The blueprints for the building show that it was to include three subterranean levels, including a cable vault, where telecommunications cables likely entered and exited the building from under Manhattan’s bustling streets.After it was built, the unusual style of 33 Thomas Street attracted a lot of attention. Its dark, somewhat dystopian appearance contrasted dramatically with other buildings in lower Manhattan. Yet it proved popular, particularly among architecture buffs.
In a 1982 piece in the New York Times, architecture critic Paul Goldberger praised 33 Thomas Street as “one of the neighborhood’s few pieces of good modern architecture,” adding that it “blends into its surroundings more gracefully than does any other skyscraper in this area.”
“Other telephone company buildings from that era, designed solely for equipment, all look like horrible boxes,” Goldberger told The Intercept. “This one has an allure of its own to it. … There’s something about that shape. You see it and you don’t see it at the same time.”
Satellite dishes on top of 33 Thomas Street. At TITANPOINTE, a program called SKIDROWE intercepts satellite communications. — Photo: Henrik Moltke
IN 1975, JUST a year after Warnecke’s 33 Thomas Street building was completed, the NSA became embroiled in one of the biggest scandals in the U.S. intelligence community’s history. Following revelations about domestic surveillance operations targeting anti-Vietnam War activists, a congressional select committee began investigating the alleged abuses.
The inquiry, led by Democratic Sen. Frank Church, published its findings in April 1976. It concluded that U.S. intelligence agencies had “invaded individual privacy and violated the rights of lawful assembly and political expression.” Surveillance programs operated by the NSA through this period, it was later revealed, had targeted “domestic terrorist and foreign radical” suspects, including a host of eminent Americans, such as the civil rights leaders Martin Luther King and Whitney Young, the boxer Muhammad Ali, Washington Post columnist Art Buchwald, and New York Times journalist Tom Wicker.
The Church Committee recommended that new and tighter controls be placed on intelligence gathering. And in 1978, Congress approved the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, requiring the executive branch to request warrants for spying operations from a newly formed court.
Diagrams showing NSA-controlled equipment inside TITANPOINTE. — Document: NSA
Through this tumultuous time for American spies, the NSA established a new surveillance program under the code name BLARNEY, which was first exposed in a Snowden-leaked slide published in 2013. According to a previously unpublished document provided to The Intercept by Snowden, BLARNEY was established in the early 1970s and, in mid-2013, remained one of the agency’s most significant initiatives.BLARNEY leverages “commercial partnerships” in order to “gain access and exploit foreign intelligence obtained from global networks,” the document states. It carries out “full take” surveillance — a term that refers to the bulk collection of both content and metadata — under six different categories: counterproliferation, counterterrorism, diplomatic, economic, military, and political.
As of July 2010, the NSA had obtained at least 40 court orders for spying under the BLARNEY program, allowing the agency to monitor communications related to multiple countries, companies, and international organizations. Among the approved targets were the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Bank of Japan, the European Union, the United Nations, and at least 38 different countries, including U.S. allies such as Italy, Japan, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Mexico, and Cyprus.
The program was the NSA’s leading source of data collection under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, an April 2013 document disclosed, and information gleaned from the communications it intercepted was a top contributor to the president’s daily briefing.
Notably, TITANPOINTE has played a central role in BLARNEY’s operations. NSA documents dated between 2012 and 2013 list the TITANPOINTE surveillance facility among three of BLARNEY’s “core sites” and describe it as “BLARNEY’S site in NYC.” Equipment hosted at TITANPOINTE has been used to monitor international long-distance phone calls, faxes, voice calls routed over the internet (known as Voice-Over-IP), video conferencing, and other internet traffic.
In one case that may have involved 33 Thomas Street, NSA engineers with the BLARNEY program worked to eavesdrop on data from a connection serving the United Nations mission in New York. This spying resulted in “collection against the email address of the U.N. General leading the monitoring mission in Syria,” an April 2012 memo said.
Mogens Lykketoft, former president of the U.N.’s general assembly, criticized the surveillance. “Such spying activities are totally unacceptable breaches of trust in international cooperation,” he told The Intercept.
Logo for the NSA’s satellite communications exploitation program SKIDROWE. — NSA
At the TITANPOINTE site, the NSA equipment is stored inside a secure room, known as a “Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.” Top-secret diagrams dated April 2012 show that within the secure space there is “NSA controlled” equipment linked to the routers of its “access partner,” referring to AT&T. Intercepted internet data was collected from the “backbone,” then processed at TITANPOINTE, before being passed to NSA for storage. Phone calls that were intercepted were collected from TITANPOINTE’s “foreign gateway switches” before being routed through the partner’s “call processor.” They were then forwarded to NSA’s headquarters in Maryland through an interface shared with the partner.
Much of the surveillance carried out at TITANPOINTE seems to involve monitoring calls and other communications as they are being sent across AT&T’s international phone and data cables. But the site has other capabilities at its disposal. The NSA’s documents indicate that it is also equipped with powerful satellite antenna — likely the ones located on the roof of 33 Thomas Street — which monitor information transmitted through the air.
The SKIDROWE spying program focuses on covertly vacuuming up internet data — known as “digital network intelligence” — as it is passing between foreign satellites. The harvested data is then made accessible through XKEYSCORE, a Google-like mass surveillance system that the NSA’s employees use to search through huge quantities of information about people’s emails, chats, Skype calls, passwords, and internet browsing histories.
Fletcher Cook, an AT&T spokesperson, told The Intercept that the company does not “allow any government agency to connect directly to or otherwise control our network to obtain our customers’ information. Rather, we simply respond to government requests for information pursuant to court orders or other mandatory process and, in rare cases, on a legal and voluntary basis when a person’s life is in danger and time is of the essence, like in a kidnapping situation.”
Cook added that NSA representatives “do not have access to any secure room or space within our owned portion of the 33 Thomas Street building.” When pressed on whether any room within 33 Thomas Street contains equipment used for the purposes of NSA surveillance, an AT&T spokesperson pointed to a 1983 deed and declaration filed with New York City indicating that Verizon’s predecessor company maintained ownership of three floors and a basement floor in the building. The New York City Department of Finance said the predecessor company has an easement for the space and pays utility taxes, but insisted that AT&T owns the whole building. The AT&T spokesperson declined to comment further.
The NSA’s documents do not state that it can “connect directly to” or “otherwise control” AT&T’s networks, but they do make clear that the agency has placed its own equipment inside TITANPOINTE to tap into phone calls and internet data. It may be the case that the secure room where the equipment is installed is overseen by AT&T’s own engineers or technicians who have a security clearance. One NSA document dated from March 2013 suggests such a relationship, noting that the “corporate sites” the agency collects data from “are often controlled by the partner, who filters the communications before sending to NSA.”
As in 1983, AT&T may not be completely alone at 33 Thomas Street. Earlier this year, a technician working at the building — who did not want to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media — told The Intercept that a handful of Verizon employees were still based inside. However, the NSA’s documents do not suggest that Verizon is implicated in the surveillance at the TITANPOINTE facility, and instead only point to AT&T’s involvement. Verizon declined to comment for this story.
The entrance to 33 Thomas Street. — Still from “Project X”
AT&T IS FAR from the only company that has a relationship with the NSA. The agency has established what it calls “strategic partnerships” with more than 80 corporations. But some companies are more cooperative than others.
Historically, AT&T has always maintained close ties with the government. A good example of this came in June 1976, when a congressional subcommittee served AT&T with a subpoena demanding that it hand over information about its alleged role in unlawful FBI wiretapping of phone calls. President Gerald Ford personally intervened to block the subpoena, stating that AT&T “was and is an agent of the United States acting under contract with the Executive Branch.” Ford said the company was in a “unique position” with respect to telephone and other communication lines in the U.S., and therefore it had been “necessary for the Executive Branch to rely on its services to assist in acquiring certain information necessary to the national defense and foreign policy.” The details sought by the committee could not be shared, Ford asserted, because they could expose “extremely sensitive foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information.”
In more recent decades, as the New York Times and ProPublica reported last year, AT&T has allowed the NSA to access billions of emails, exhibiting what the agency called its “extreme willingness to help.” These revelations were foreshadowed in 2006 by allegations made by Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician. Klein stated that the company had maintained a “secure room” in one of its San Francisco offices, which was fitted with communications monitoring equipment apparently used by the NSA to tap into phone and internet traffic. Klein’s claims formed the basis of a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of AT&T customers (Jewel v. NSA), which remains ongoing today.
Mark Klein at 33 Thomas Street in 1988. Klein worked as an AT&T employee at that location for 10 years. — Photo courtesy of Mark Klein
Coincidentally, between 1981 and 1990, Klein also worked for AT&T at 33 Thomas Street. “I wasn’t aware of any NSA presence when I was there, but I had a creepy feeling about the building, because I knew about AT&T’s close collaboration with the Pentagon, going way back,” he told The Intercept. When presented with the details linking 33 Thomas Street to NSA’s TITANPOINTE, Klein added: “I’m not surprised. It’s obviously a major installation. … If you’re interested in doing surveillance, it’s a good place to do it.”According to the Snowden documents, AT&T has installed surveillance equipment in at least 59 U.S. sites. And on any given day, NSA employees may be working at the company’s facilities. Classified memos dated from April 2013 describe one- to four-day deployments of NSA technical staff to TITANPOINTE and other buildings. Most AT&T personnel at these locations, however, are unlikely to have knowledge of the agency’s presence. NSA staff are encouraged to wear clothes that make them “blend in to the environment.” Even the car hire company the agency uses for its trips to AT&T facilities is kept in the dark. “Some personnel are aware of the FBI link,” states the agency’s travel guidance, “but [they] have no knowledge of NSA’s involvement.”
This article is the product of a joint reporting project between The Intercept and Field of Vision. “Project X,” a Field of Vision documentary directed by Henrik Moltke and Laura Poitras, will screen at IFC Center starting November 18.
Documents published with this story:
BLARNEY site book
FAIRVIEW site book
FAIRVIEW dataflow charts April 2012
Special Source Operations corporate overview
BLARNEY report April 2013
BLARNEY program overview
SKIDROWE program
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york-hidden-in-plain-sight/
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home: news: 2006: 16th September feedback
New Single and Album!
Yes, I'm away behind the time but thought I might as well get this site at least nearly up to date.
My Neighbour's House is the first single from the forthcoming album. It's released on Monday 18th September on CD and 7". You can pre-order both from Townsend Record.
It was produced by Hugh Jones so could indicate a return to Expecting to Fly land.
You can listen to it on-line here:
http://www.tapeterecords.de/index.php?id=206
See the band's myspace site for details of how to win tickets to a secret listening event for the new album with the band.
The new, self-titled album The Bluetones will be released on 9th October on CD. You can pre-order it from Townsend Record.
2. Baby, Back Up
3. Hope & Jump
4. Head On A Spike
5. The King Of Outer Space
6. Thank You, Not Today
7. My Neighbour's House
8. Fade In/Fade Out
9. The Last Song But One
10. Wasn't I Right About To You
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Planetary Transport
Home | Transport | Recreation | Navigation | Industry | Biology | Accommodations |
Modules | Planetary | Interplanetary | Interstellar |
NASA (Advanced Space Transportation)
Earth to Orbit. Launching a payload to Earth orbit requires its acceleration to 26 times the speed of sound (Mach 26). Hence, a lot of propellant -- about 10 tons per passenger -- is consumed. Worse, even the Space Shuttle jettisons much of its hardware which greatly boosts the already high cost. More cost-effective launching options have been proposed, but few are being developed, and those slowly without the generous funding of yesteryear. (A summary on past and proposed Earth-to-orbit space vehicles is available from spacefuture.com.)
Soyuz. First launched in 1963, the Soyuz is a two-stage rocket that can deliver a payload of over 15,000 pounds (5,600 kg) into Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) at a 51.6 degree inclination. It is the primary launcher used for manned Russian space flights but also launches nearly half of all Russian space missions (manned and unmanned) as it is also used to deploy low-altitude reconnaissance satellites. On October 31, 2000, a Soyuz rocket was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan with the first three-man crew of the International Space Station (see photo).
Launch of Proton rocket
carrying the first component
(Zarya Control Module) of
the International Space
Station on November
20, 1998.
Proton. This medium-lift rocket was first introduced in 1965 as the first Russian launcher not based on a ballistic missile prototype. It has been used in both three- and four-stage versions, where the three-stage rocket was used for many support missions of the Mir Space Station while the four-stage version primarily launches geostationary satellites. The first stage of the Proton incorporates 6 strap-on boosters that provide over two million pounds (746,000 kg) of thrust. As 3-stage Proton rockets can lift over 44,000 pounds (16,400 kg) into LEO, it is being used for the largest components of the International Space Station that are launched by the Russian Space Agency.
Partially Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV)
The Space Shuttle launches with rockets but soon jettisons them, eventually gliding back to land without propulsive power. Although each of the three Shuttle Orbiters remaining in operation -- Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour -- is designed to fly at least 100 missions, they have flown only a combined total of 100 by October 2000. Excluding the prototype Enterprise used for testing, the first operational Orbiter was Columbia, which was delivered to NASA's Kennedy Space Center (Florida) in March 1979 but was destroyed on re-entry on February 1, 2003. The fifth operational Orbiter Challenger was destroyed in an explosion soon after launch in January 1986. As a result, Endeavour was built as a replacement for Challenger and delivered in May 1991. No decision to replace the Columbia had been made as of February 27, 2003.
NASA -- larger image
Launch of Space Shuttle
mission STS-106 on
September 8, 2000 to
stock the International
Space Station for its
first crew.
The Shuttle consists of three major components: the Orbiter which houses the crew and cargo; a large external tank that supplies liquid fuel holds fuel for the Orbiter's main engines; and two solid rocket boosters that provide most of the Shuttle's lift during the first two minutes of a Shuttle's launch. The Orbiter is intended to returns intact, and the two solid rocket boosters are recovered from the sea for re-use after jettisoning from a height of about 28 miles (45 km). However, the external fuel tank is left to burn up in the atmosphere after each launch, after being jettisoned at near orbital velocity from about 70 miles (133 km) up.
Each Shuttle can lift 63,500 pounds (28,803 kg) of cargo and passengers into orbit. The orbiters can achieve a maximum speed of over 17,300 mph (almost 27,880 kph). Their orbits range from 115 to 400 statute miles (185 to 643 km) from the Earth's surface. See NASA's "Shuttle basics" page for more statistics.
NASA RLV Development Program
The goal of the cancelled RLV program was to design each succeeding generation of RLVs to be 10 times less expensive and 10 times safer than the previous generation. Three generations of RLVs will be developed to succeed the Space Shuttle over a 40-year period. See Nasa's chart comparing the desired characteristics of each generation.
Second-Generation RLV : Single-Stage-to-Orbit (SSTO) Reusable Launch Vehicle
The wedge shaped X-33 was being developed cooperatively by NASA and Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. It was to be a half-scale prototype of a Single-Stage-to-Orbit (SSTO) Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) with two linear aerospike engines that would fly at 15 times the speed of sound and replace the Space Shuttle. On 3/1/2001, however, market competition for intended commercial applications from lower cost Russian, Chinese, and European rockets, as well as a fuel tank design setback and cost-overruns, led NASA to cancel the project despite good engine tests and near completion (90 percent) of the hull. Efforts by the U.S. Air Force is to takeover X-33 funding for meeting its near-term space deployment needs were blocked repeatedly.
X33 and full-sized,
2nd-generation RLV
Larger X33 image, and
comparison to Shuttle
Third-Generation RLV : maglev-assisted launch vehicles.
The weight of rocket fuel is a big problem in launching spacecraft. While it takes a lot of fuel to lift a vessel off the ground, the fuel loaded on also has to be lifted. Hence, if electrical power through a maglev-assisted launch can substitute for some of the fuel needed, the spacecraft would be a lot lighter and cheaper to launch since the electrical power used would cost much less than the rocket propellant used today.
NASA / Aerospace
Another image with more details.
Maglev-assisted launch of a
3rd-generation RLV would use
magnetic fields on a long track to
lift up and accelerate a spacecraft to
600 mph (965 kph) until it takes off
like an airplane and switches on
rocket engines to fly into space.
Currently, NASA has a test track at its Marshall Space Flight Center that is 50 feet (15 meters) long, about 2 feet (0.6 meters) wide and about 1.5 feet (0.5 meter) high, that sits on concrete pedestals. Each 5-foot-long (1.5 meter) section of the track weighs about 500 pounds (230 kg) because of the weight of the iron used in its motor, and the track is also covered with non-magnetic stainless steel. A larger 400-foot (122 meter) track is planned to demonstrate show that the maglev system is controllable at higher speeds and to assess if energy can be saved by only powering small sections of the track at a time.
Fourth-Generation RLV : beam-assisted launch vehicles.
Prototype Lightcraft. A laser-launched "lightcraft" could rise on pulses of expanding, superheated air detonated into plasma as it is blasted by a high-energy laser beam focused on its parabolic-mirror-designed bottom. The air below the vessel is heated to temperatures of 10,000 to 30,000 degrees �K (about 18,000 to 54,000 �F) and explodes, providing thrust but leaving no chemical exhaust. Slots in the lightcraft's skirt push new colder, denser air into the engine as the vessel rises, to be detonated by another beamed pulse that pushes it higher. To maintain stability, the lightcraft is sent spinning on a spindle with a jet of nitrogen gas at about 6,000 revolutions per minute before launch.
NASA -- tested prototype
(Advanced Space Transportation)
Laser-launched lightcraft.
In 1997, a six-inch (15-cm) diameter model was successfully tested in brief flights at the U.S. Army's High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility (HELSTF) near Los Cruces, New Mexico (toward the southern end of the White Sands Missile Range (Leonard David, New Scientist, 1/10/98.) The power source was the U.S. Army's Pulsed Laser Vulnerability Test System (PLVTS), a 10-kilowatt carbon dioxide laser that is used to test the vulnerability of military systems to laser attacks. To get the lightcraft flying, PLVTS produced 20 infrared pulses a second (Andy Walton, CNN Interactive). Each test only runs for about 100 laser pulses (or 5 seconds) because a metal band around the combustion chamber overheats and breaks. Hence, a cooling system is planned in continuing tests.
Sponsored by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, future tests will involve lightcraft built with exotic materials such as composites or high-temperature-resistant ceramics. The plan is to launch a 2.2 pound (1 kg) satellite into orbit within five years. Over the next three years, the U.S. Air Force and NASA plan to use equipment already in the HELSTF inventory to assemble a 100-kilowatt laser, 10 times more powerful than the PLVTS -- which is already the most powerful laser of its kind in the United States.
An orbital launch will require a megawatt laser, 10 times more powerful than even the new Air Force-NASA laser that is planned, as such a lightcraft will have to travel five to six times the speed of sound. An orbital lightcraft will also have to carry fuel on board, most likely in the form of liquid hydrogen, for use when the vessel rises too high to use air as fuel. Of course, adding fuel will increase the vehicle's weight which then necessitates the use of a more powerful laser.
NASA -- another view and landed image
(Advanced Space Transportation Program)
Microwave-propelled, "advanced" lightcraft.
Advanced Lightcraft. Resembling a flying saucer, a 4th-generation RLV also could rely on beamed microwaves for propulsion. An advanced lightcraft under design at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute would convert microwaves into electricity to power magnetohydrodynamic engines that would heat air (breaking air molecules into a plasma) and a magnetohydrodynamic fanjet would provides the lifting force. Only a small amount of propellant would be required for circularization, attitude control and deorbit. One prototype being considered may be made with a large helium-filled balloon that focuses microwaves beamed from the ground or space, which would power ion engines ringing the balloon to electrify air that pushes the vessel upwards.
Space Elevator
A space elevator would reduce Earth-to-orbit transport costs from about US$ 10,000 per pound (US$ 22,000 kg) today to a few dollars (per lb or kg). Konstantin Tsiolkovsky first suggested the construction of a "celestial castle" in geosynchonous orbit that would be attached to a tower like the Eiffel Tower in 1895. Although technical discussions of the space elevator concept continued through 1975, it did not engender wide public awareness until renowned science-fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke, used the concept in his 1978 novel, Fountains of Paradise. In 1999, a NASA conference determined that such a structure might become feasible by the end of the 21st Century (press release of September 7, 2000). David Smitherman of the Advanced Projects Office at NASA�s Marshall Space Flight Center has compiled a report titled, "Space Elevators: An Advanced Earth-Space Infrastructure for the New Millennium," based on the findings of the 1999 conference.
Pat Rawlings, NASA -- larger image
A space elevator to Earth orbit
may be feasible around 2100.
A space elevator is essentially a long cable extending from Earth's surface to space with its center of mass at geostationary Earth Orbit, 22,366 miles (35,786 km) above. As a result, the entire structure orbits the Earth in synchrony with the Earth�s rotation and so maintains a stationary position over its base attachment at an equatorial site, where such a tall structure is also less likely to experience tyhe high winds of tornadoes and hurricanes. Special vehicles and pipes and wires traveling along the cable would transport people, freight, gases, and power between Earth and space. Current proposals require a base tower about 30 miles (50 km) tall for tethering the cable tethered to the top. To keep the cable from falling back to Earth, it would be attached to a large counterbalancing mass beyond geostationary orbit, such as a re-positioned asteroid. Four to six elevator tracks, extending up the sides of the tower and cable structure to platforms at different levels, would allow electromagnetic vehicles to travel at high speed -- reaching thousands of miles (or km) per hour. Carbon nanotubes up to 100 times stronger than steel may be used for the space-segment of the space elevator structure. (For more information, go to NASA's Space Elevator Concept site.)
Propelled by magnets without moving parts,
electromagnetic vehicles would float above
space elevator tracks, so that high speeds
would be attained without the wear and tear
experienced with wheeled vehicles.
Orbital Transfer through Tethers : Tether systems for spacecraft, orbital stations, and planetary bases.
The new International Space Station and other future orbital stations and spacecraft may one day maintain their orbits without using rockets if they attach a propulsive tether system for propellant-free propulsion. NASA is developing the Propulsive Small Expendable Deployer System (ProSEDS) under the Future-X space technology development program to demonstrate feasibility of the propulsive tether concept. In essence, ProSeds will deploy a tether that applies the same principle powering electric motors -- sending a current through a wire loop to create an electrical circuit within a magnetic field. In space, one part of the circuit would be a long tether attached to an orbiting spacecraft, where the return path of the circuit is supplied by the electrically charged gas in the ionosphere and where the magnetic field is supplied by Earth itself. When properly controlled, the tether generates forces that can be applied as a brake or as a booster for an orbiting spacecraft or station.
NASA -- another image
A propulsive tether system can be used
to maintain a spacecraft's orbit
(press release of 1/22/1999).
© 1998-2009 Sol Company. All rights reserved. SolStation.com and ChView are trademarks of the Sol Company. Any other trademarks appearing on this website are the property of their respective owners. Unless explicitly stated, SolStation.com and the Sol Company do not imply any business relationship with Earth-based institutions.
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• List/Buy Works
Lord (Edward) Benjamin Britten
(Born; Lowestoft, 22 Nov 1913; Died; Aldeburgh, 4 Dec 1976). English composer. He studied with Frank Bridge as a boy and in 1930 entered the RCM. In 1934 he heard Wozzeck and planned to study with Berg, but opposition at home stopped him. The next year he began working for the GPO Film Unit, where one of his collaborators was Auden: together they worked on concert works as well, Auden's social criticism being matched by a sharply satirical and virtuoso musical style (orchestral song cycle Our Hunting Fathers, 1936). Stravinsky and Mahler were important influences, but Britten's effortless technique gave his early music a high personal definition, notably shown in orchestral works (Bridge Variations for strings, 1937; Piano Concerto, 1938; Violin Concerto, 1939) and songs (Les illuminations, setting Rimbaud for high voice and strings,1939).
In 1939 he left England for the USA, with his lifelong companion Peter Pears; there he wrote his first opera, to Auden's libretto (Paul Bunyan, 1941). In 1942 he returned and, partly stimulated by Purcell, began to concentrate on settings of English verse (anthem Rejoice in the Lamb and Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, both 1943). His String Quartet no.2 (1945), with its huge concluding chaconne, also came out of his Purcellian interests, but the major work of this period was Peter Grimes (1945), which signalled a new beginning in English opera. Its central character, the first of many roles written for Pears, struck a new operatic tone: a social outcast, he is fiercely proud and independent, but also deeply insecure, providing opportunities for a lyrical flow that would be free but is not. Britten's gift for characterization was also displayed in the wide range of sharply defined subsidiary roles and in the orchestra's sea music.
However, his next operas were all written for comparatively small resources (The Rape of Lucretia, 1946 ; Albert Herring, 1947; a version of The Beggar's Opera, 1948 ; The Little Sweep, 1949), for the company that became established as the English Opera Group. At the same time he began writing music for the Aldeburgh Festival, which he and Pears founded in 1948 in the Suffolk town where they had settled (cantata St Nicolas, 1948 ; Lachrymae for viola and piano,1949). And in this prolific period he also composed large concert works (The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, 1946 ; Spring Symphony with soloists and choir,1949) and songs.
The pattern of his output was thus set, though not the style, for the operas show an outward urge to ever new subjects: village comedy in Albert Herring, psychological conflict in Billy Budd (1951), historical reconstruction in Gloriana (1953), a tale of ghostly possession in The Turn of the Screw (1954), nocturnal magic in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), a struggle between family history and individual responsibility in Owen Wingrave (1971) and, most centrally, obsession with a doomed ideal in Death in Venice (1973), the last three works being intermediate in scale between the chamber format of Herring and The Screw, and the symphonic fullness of Budd and Gloriana, both written for Covent Garden. But nearly all touch in some way on the themes of the individual and society and the violation of innocence. Simultaneous with a widening range of subject matter was a widening musical style, which came to include 12-note elements (Turn of the Screw) and a heterophony that owed as much to oriental music directly as it did to Mahler (cycle of 'church parables', or ritualized small-scale operas: Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace, The Prodigal Son, 1964-8).
Many of these dramatic works were written for the Aldeburgh Festival, as were many of the instrumental and vocal works Britten produced for favoured performers. For Rostropovich he wrote the Cello Symphony (1963) as well as a sonata and three solo suites; for Pears there was the Hardy cycle Winter Words (1953) among many other songs, and also a central part in the War Requiem (1961). His closing masterpiece, however, was a return to the abstract in the String Quartet no.3 (1975).
Britten was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1952, to the Order of Merit in 1965, and was awarded a life peerage in 1976.
Operas: Paul Bunyan (1941); Peter Grimes (1945); The Rape of Lucretia (1946); Albert Herring (1947); The Little Sweep (1949); Billy Budd (1951); Gloriana (1953); The Turn of the Screw (1954); Noye's Fludde (1958); A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960); Owen Wingrave (1971); Death in Venice (1973)Church parablesCurlew River (1964); The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966); The Prodigal Son (1968)BalletThe Prince of the Pagodas (1957).
Orchestral music: Sinfonietta (1932); Simple Symphony (1934); Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, strs (1937); Pf Conc. (1938); Vn Conc. (1939); Sinfonia da requiem (1940); The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1946); Cello Sym. (1963).
Choral music: A Boy was Born (1933); Ballad of Heroes (1939); Hymn to St Cecilia (1942); A Ceremony of Carols (1942); Rejoice in the Lamb (1943); Festival Te Deum (1944); St Nicolas (1948); Spring Sym. (1949); Cantata academica (1959); Missa brevis (1959); War Requiem (1961); Cantata misericordium (1963); Voices for Today (1965); The Golden Vanity (1966); Children's Crusade (1968); many others.
Chamber music: 3 str qts (1941, 1945, 1975); Lachrymae, va, pf (1949); Vc Sonata (1961); 3 vc suites (1964, 1967, 1972); many others.
Solo vocal music: Our Hunting Fathers (1936); Les illuminations (1939); Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo (1940); Serenade, T, hn, strs (1943); The Holy Sonnets of John Donne (1945); 5 canticles (1947, 1952, 1954, 1971, 1974); Winter Words (1953); Songs from the Chinese (1957); Nocturne (1958); Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente (1958); Songs and Proverbs of William Blake (1965); The Poet's Echo (1965); Phaedra (1975); many others.
Incidental music.
Tue, Jan 21, 2020 11:46:19 PM US EST
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Digital Humanties BeNeLux
The Digital Humanities BeNeLux initiative started in 2014. It has the aim to bring Digital Humanities (DH) researchers in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands closer together, make DH research in this region more visible, and foster collaboration.
DH BeNeLux organises annual conferences in order to build a community of DH researchers that is open and inclusive. We interpret ‘digital humanities’ broadly,covering all aspects of digital and computational research and its practices in the humanities and social sciences. The conference should be open for participation by both early career and senior researchers, and serve as a helpful platform for early career researchers to present and get feedback on their research.
The conference is hosted by a different institution in the BeNeLux each year, with a group of volunteer organisers is responsible for local organisation, programme committee and publicity. DH BeNeLux has a large steering committee which includes DH researchers representing all of the BeNeLux and all of Humanities. The committee offers advice to the conference organisers and decides on future directions to achieve the long-term goals.
Although hosted in the BeNeLux, the conferences are open to everyone interested in DH in- and outside the BeNeLux. The language of communication is English but the community strives for a situation where participants can write and present their papers in any of the official languages of the BeNeLux. DH BeNeLux has become a Partner Organisation of the European Association for Digital Humanities (EADH) in order to promote the conferences and embed DH Benelux in the wider European DH community and to promote the EADH to the BeNe:ux DH community.
Get involved by joining the DH BeNeLux mailing list.
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Artunderwraps
Annotated Reference Guide to Collectible Books
US Civil War Annotated Bibliography & Selected Collectible Books
Declaration Of The Immediate Cause. Evans and Cogswell (1860). Full title-Declaration Of The Immediate Cause (Causes) Which Induce And Justify The Secession Of South Carolina From The Federal Union; And The Ordinance Of Secession
Copies on Abebooks
Copies on eBay
Kirkwood, Samuel. Special Message of Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood, in Reply to a Resolution of Inquiry, Passed by the House of Representatives, March 2d, 1860, in Relation to the Requisition of the Gov. of Virginia, for One Barclay Coppic. John Teesdale: Des Moines, IA (1860). Full title-Special Message of Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood, in Reply to a Resolution of Inquiry, Passed by the House of Representatives, March 2d, 1860, in Relation to the Requisition of the Gov. of Virginia, for One Barclay Coppic
Lincoln, Abraham. Political Debates Between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas. Follett, Foster and Company: Columbus (1860). Full title-Political Debates Between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, In the Celebrated Campaign of 1858, in Illinois; Including the Preceding Speeches of Each, at Chicago, Springield, etc; Also, the Tow Great Speeches of Mr. Lincoln in Ohio, in 1859, as Carefully Prepared by the Reporters of Each Party, and Published at the Times of Their Delivery; Other author-Stephen A. Douglas
Winner, Septimus. Col. Ellsworth's Funeral March. Lee & Walker: Philadelphia, PA (1861).
Barnard, J.G. The C.S.A. And The Battle Of Bull Run. D. Van Nostrand: New York (1862).
MacMahon, T. W. Cause and Contrast: An Essay on the American Crisis. West & Johnston: Richmond, VA. (1862).
Tomes, Robert. The War with the South a History of the late Rebellion. Virtue & Yorston (1862). 3 volumes; Other author-Benjamin G. Smith
Squier, E.G. Frank Leslie's Pictorial History of the American Civil War. Frank Leslie: New York (1862).
Cook, Joel. The Siege of Richmond. George W. Childs: Philadelphia, PA (1862). Full title-The Siege of Richmond, A Narrative, of the Military Operations of Major-General George B. McClellan, In Broadfoot
Gillmore, Gen. Q. A. Official Report to the United States Engineer Department of the Siege and Reduction of Fort Pulaski, Georgia, February, March, and April, 1862.. D. Van Nostrand: New York (1862).
Smith, Benjamin G. The War with the South. Virtue & Yorston: New York (1862). Full title-The War with the South / A History of the Late Rebellion with Biographical Sketches of Leading Statesmen and Distinguished Naval and Military Commanders
Heth, Henry. A System of Target Practice. Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C. (1862). Full title-A System of Target Practice: For the Use of Troops When Armed with the Musket, Rifle-Musket, Rifle, or Carbine. Prepared Principally from the French.; Published by Order of the War Department; Other author-Edwin M. Stanton
Alcott, Louisa May. Hospital Sketches. James Redpath: Boston, MA (1863).
Fisher, Richard Swainson. A Chronological History of the Civil War in America. Jonhson and Ward: New York (1863).
Board Of Officers. Instruction for Heavy Artillery; Prepared by a Board of Officers, for the Use of the Army of the United States. Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C. (1863).
Coffey, Thomas. Battle-Fields of the South from Bull Run to Fredericksburg. Smith, Elder and Co.:London (1863). 2 volumes; Full title-Battle-Fields of the South From Bull Run to Fredericksburg; with Sketches of Confederate Commanders, and Gossip of the Camps
Nason, Elias. A Brief Record of Events in Exeter, N. H. During the Year 1862 Together With the Names of the Soldiers of this Town in the War. Fogg and Fellows: Exeter, New Hampshire (1863).
Lincoln, Abraham. An Oration delivered on the Battlefield of Gettysburg. Baker & Godwin: New York (1863). Other author-Edward Everett; Full title-An Oration delivered on the Battlefield of Gettysburg, November 19, 1863, at the Consecration of the Cemetery Prepared for the Internment of the Remains of those who fell in Battles of July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, 1863
Fisher, Richard Swainson. Johnson's New Illustrated Steel Plate Family Atlas, With Physical Geography. Johnson and Ward: New York (1864). Other author-Alvin Jewett Johnson
Osbon, Bradley S. Hand Book of the United States Navy. D. Van Nostrand: New York (1864). Full title-Hand Book of the United States Navy: being a Compilation of all the Principal Events in the History of every Vessel of the United States Navy. From April, 1861, to May, 1864
Duganne, A. J. H. Camps and Prisons: Twenty Months in the Department of the Gulf. J. P. Robens: New York (1865).
Rogers, Wm. H. History of One Hundred and Eighty-Ninth Regiment of New-York Volunteers. John A. Gray & Green Printers: New York (1865).
Lippitt, Francis J. A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery and Calvalry. D. Van Nostrand: New York (1865).
Iowa Adjutant General. Report of the Adjutant General and Acting Quartermaster General of the State of Iowa; January 11, 1864 to January 1, 1865. F. W. Palmer: Des Moines, IA (1865).
The Trial of the Assassins and Conspirators at Washington City, D. C., May and June, 1865 for The Murder of President Abraham Lincoln. T.B. Peterson & Brothers: Philadelphia, PA (1865).
Fleharty, S.F. Our Regiment. Brewster & Hanscom: Chicago (1865). Full title-Our Regiment: A History of the 102d Illinois Infantry Volunteers; Sketches of the Atlanta Campaign, The Georgia Raid, and the Campaign to the Carolinas
Sanderson, James M. My record in rebeldom. W.E. Sibell: New York (1865). Full title-My record in rebeldom, as written by friend and foe. Comprising the official chalges [sic] and evidence before the Military Commission in Washington, Brig. Gen'l J.C. Caldwell, Pres't, together with the report and finding of the Court
Quiner, E. B. The Military History of Wisconsin. Clarke & Co.: Chicago (1866). Full title-The Military History of Wisconsin: A Record of the Civil and Military Patriotism of the State, in the War for the Union
Reed, William Howell. Hospital Life in the Army of the Potomac. William V. Spencer: Boston, MA (1866).
Gardner, Alexander. Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War. Philp & Solomons: Washington (1866). 2 volumes
Guernsey, Alfred H. Harper's Pictorial History of the Great Rebellion. McDonnell Bros.: Chicago (1866). 2 volumes; Other author-Henry M. Alden
Lossing, Benson J. Pictorial History of the Civil War in the United States of America. George W. Childs: Philadelphia, PA (1866). 3 volumes
Stille, Charles J. History of the United States Sanitary Commission Being the General Report of Its Work During the War of Rebellion. J. B. Lippincott: Philadelphia, PA (1866).
Cudworth, Warren H. History of the First Regiment (Massachusetts Infantry). Walker, Fuller and Company: Boston, MA (1866). Full title-History of the First Regiment (Massachusetts Infantry), from the twenty-fifth of May, 1861, to the 25th of May, 1864, Including Brief References to the Army of the Potomac
Scott, John. Partisan life with Col. John S. Mosby. Harper & Brothers: New York (1867).
Brown, William Wells. Negro in the American Rebellion; His Heroism and His Fidelity. Lee & Shepard: Boston, MA (1867).
Thompson, Edwin Porter. History of the First Kentucky Brigade. Caxton Publishing House: Cincinnati, OH (1868).
Jordan, General Thomas. Campaigns of Lieut.-Gen. N. B. Forrest, and of Forrest's Cavalry. Blelock & Company: New Orleans, LA (1868). Other author-J.P. Pryor
Stephens, Alexander H. A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States; Its Causes, Character, Conduct and Results. National Publishing: Philadelphia, PA (1868). 2 volumes
Bates, Samuel. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers 1861-5. Singerly: Harrisburg, VA (1869). 5 volumes
Trescott, J. Johnston. Memorial of the Life of J. Johnston Pettigrew Brig. Gen. Of the Confederate States Army. John Russell: Charleston, SC (1870).
Cooke, John Esten. Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee. D. Appleton and Company: New York (1871).
North, Thomas. Five Years in Texas or What You Did Not Hear During the War From January 1861 to January 1866. Elm Street Printing Co.: Cincinnati, OH (1871). Full title-Five Years in Texas or What You Did Not Hear During the War From January 1861 to January 1866: A Narrative of His Travels, Experiences, and Observations in Texas and Mexico
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Holabird, S.B. Flags of the Army of the United States Carried during the War of the Rebellion. Philadelphia (1887). Full title-Flags of the Army of the United States Carried during the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865, to Designate the Headquarters of the Different Armies, Army Corps, Divisions and Brigades Civil War
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Williams, George W. A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-65. Harper & Brothers: New York (1888). Full title-A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-65: Preceded by a Review of the Military Services of Negroes in Ancient and Modern Times
Isham, Asa B. Prisoners of War and Military Prisons. Lyman & Cushing: Cincinnati, OH (1890). Other authors-Henry M. Davidson and Henry B. Furness; Full title-Prisoners of War and Military Prisons: Personal Narratives of Experience in the Prisons at Richmond, Danville, Macon, Andersonville, Savannah, Millen, Charleston and Columbia with a General Account of Prison Life, Prisons in the South, List of Officers
Dawes. Rufus R. Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers. E. R. Alderman & Sons: Marietta OH (1890).
Forbes, Edwin. Thirty Years After: An Artist's Story of the Great War. Fords, Howard & Hulbert: New York (1890). 2 volumes
Davis, Varina Jefferson. Jefferson Davis: Ex President of the Confederate States of America. Belford Company, Publishers: New York (1890). 2 volumes
Leslie, Frank. The Soldier in Our Civil War: A Pictorial History of the Conflict, 1861-1865. Stanley Bradley Publishing Company: New York (1890). 2 volumes; Edited by P. Mottelay and T. Campbell-Copeland
Jackman, Lyman. History of the Sixth New Hampshire Regiment in the War for the Union. Republican Press Association (1891). Other author-Amos Hadley
Emilio, Luis F. History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865. Boston Book Company: Boston, MA (1891).
Eldredge, D. The Third New Hampshire and All About It. E. B. Stillings: Boston, MA (1893).
Rush, Richard. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C. (1894). 30 volumes; Other author-Robert H. Woods
Crane, Stephen. Red Badge of Courage. D. Appleton & Company: New York (1895).
Tourgee, Albion W. Story of a Thousand. S. McGerald & Son: Buffalo, NY (1896). Full title-Story of a Thousand: Being a History of the Service of the 105th OhioVolunteer Infantry in the War for the Union from August 21st, 1862 to June 6, 1865
Boynton, Henry V. Was General Thomas Slow At Nashville?. Francis P. Harper: New York (1896). 150 copies
Brown, J. Willard. The Signal Corps, U. S. A. in the War of Rebellion. U. S. Veteran Signal Corps Association: Boston, MA (1896).
Leslie, Frank. Frank Leslie's Famous Leaders and Battle Scenes of the Civil War. Mrs. Frank Leslie: New York (1896). Edited by Louis Shepheard Moat
Miles, Nelson A. Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles. Werner Company: Chicago (1896).
Thompson, Ed Porter. History of the Orphan Brigade. Lewis N. Thompson: Louisville, KY (1898).
Wilmer, L. Allison. History and Roster of Maryland Volunteers. Press of Guggenheimer, Weil & Co.: Baltimore, MD (1898). 2 volumes; Other authors-J.H. Jarrett and Geo. W.F. Vernon; Full title-History and Roster of Maryland Volunteers, War of 1861-5. Prepared under Authority of the General Assembly of Maryland
Chetlain, Augustus L. Recollections of Seventy Years. The Gazette Publishing Company: Galena (1899).
Bowen, J.R. Regimental History of the First New York Dragoons. Published by the Author (1900).
Clowes, Walter F. The Detroit Light Guard, A Complete Record of the Organization. John F. Eby & Co. (1900).
West, John C. A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood's Texas Brigade. Press of J. S. Hill & Co.: Waco, TX (1901).
Davis, William. The Partisan Rangers of the Confederate States Army. Geo. G. Fetter Company: Louisville, KY (1904).
McMorries, Edward Young. History of the First Regiment Alabama Volunteer Infantry C.S.A.. Brown Printing Co.: Montgomery, AL (1904).
Fitch, Michael H. Echoes of the Civil War as I Hear Them. R. F. Fenno & Company: New York (1905).
Fleming, Walter L. Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama. Columbia University Press: New York (1905).
Sipes, William B. The Seventh Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Cavalry Its Record, Reminiscences and Roster. Miners's Journal Print: Pottsville, PA (1905).
Smith, J.L. History of the 118th Pennsylvania Volunteers. J.L. Smith, Map Publisher: Philadelphia, PA (1905). Introduction by Joshua L. Chamberlain; Full title-History of the 118th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Corn Exchange Regiment, From Their First Engagement at Antietam to Appomattox, to Which is Added a Record of Its Organization and a Complete Roster
Munson, John W. Reminiscences of a Mosby Guerilla. Moffat, Yard, and Company: New York (1906).
Curtis, Newton Martin. From Bull Run to Chancellorsville: The Story of the Sixteenth New York. Putnam: New York (1906).
Thomas, Clarence. General Turner Ashby, the Centaur of the South. Eddy Press: Winchester VA (1907).
Howard, Oliver Otis. The Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, Major General United States Army. The Baker & Taylor Company: New York (1907). 2 volumes
The Union Army - A History of Military Affairs in the Loyal States, 1861-65. Federal Publishing Company: Madison, WI (1908). 8 volumes
Mann, Albert W. History of the Forty-Fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. Spooner: Boston, MA (1908).
Wright, Marcus Joseph. Battles and Commanders of the Civil War. C. Stanley: Washington, D.C. (1908). Full title-Battles and Commanders of the Civil War: A Graphic and Pictorial History Prepared Directly from the Government Records
Childers, Erskine. War And The Arme Blanche. Edward Arnold: London (1910).
Bigelow, John, Jr. The Campaign of Chancellorsville; a Strategic and Tactical Study. Yale University Press: New Haven (1910). 1000 copies
Dickey, Luther S. History of the 103rd Regiment, Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantry. L.S. Dickey: Chicago (1910). Collaborated by Samuel M. Evans
Miller, Francis Trevelyan. Photographic History of the Civil War. Review of Reviews: New York (1911). 10 volumes; Edited by Robert Lanier
Farrar, Samuel Clarke. The Twenty-Second Pennsylvania Cavalry and the Ringgold Battalion 1861-1865. Twenty-Second Pennsylvania Ringgold Cavalry Association: Pittsburgh, PA (1911).
Roe, Alfred S. The Fifth Regiment Massachsetts Volunteer Infantry in Its Three Tours of Duty. Fifth Regiment Veteran Assoc.: Boston, MA (1911).
Phisterer, Frederick. New York in the War of the Rebellion. J. R. Lyon Company: Albany, NY (1912). 6 volumes
Dawson, Sarah Morgan. A Confederate Girl's Diary. Houghton Mifflin/Riverside: Boston, MA (1913).
Terhune, Albert Payson. Dad. W.J. Watt: New York (1914). Other author-Sinclair Lewis
Cyrus A. Peterson and Joseph Mills Hanson. Pilot Knob. The Neale Publishing Company: New York (1914). Other author-Joseph Mills Hanson
Peterson, Cyrus A. Pilot Knob: The Thermopylae of the West. Neale Publishing Co., New York (1914). Hardcover. 324 pages, dark blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine. An account of a Civil War battle fought in Missouri. Tight, clean copy. None
Richardson, J. A. Richardson's Defense of the South. A. B. Caldwell: Atlanta, GA (1914).
McIlvaine, Mabel. Reminiscences of Chicago During the Civil War. The Lakeside Press: Chicago (1914).
Butler, M. B. My Story of the Civil War and the Underground Railroad. United Brethren Publishing Co.: Huntington, IN (1914).
Roe, Alfred S. Thirty-Ninth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers 1862-1865. Worcester, MA (1914).
Nicolay, John G. Abraham Lincoln: A History. Century Co.: New York (1917). 10 volumes; Other author-John Hay
Hills, Lucius Perry. The Yank and the Reb (And Other Poems). A. B. Caldwell, Publishing Co: Atlanta, GA (1917).
Brent, Joseph Lancaster. The Lugo Case: Capture of the Ironclad Indianola. Search & Pfaff: New Orleans, LA (1926).
Greely, A. W. Reminiscences of Adventure and Service: A Record of Sixty-Five Years. Charles Scribner's Sons: New York (1927). Signed Edition
Mathews, William H. Harry. Iowa Printing Company: Iowa City, IA (1927). Full title-Harry: Being the Recollections of an English Boy, who served four years in the Union Army during the Civil War
Warren, Robert Penn. John Brown: The Making of a Martyr. Payson & Clarke, Ltd.: New York (1929).
Lytle, Andrew Nelson. Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company. Minton, Balch & Co: New York (1931).
Colton, Matthias Baldwin. The Civil War Journal And Correspondence Of Matthias Baldwin Colton. Macrae-Smith Company: Philadelphia, PA (1931). 200 copies; Edited by Jessie Sellers Colton
Freeman, Douglas Southall. The Last Parade. Whittet & Shepperson: Richmond, VA (1932).
Freeman, Douglas Southall. R.E. Lee: A Biography. Charles Scribner's Sons: New York (1934). Sgined Edition; 4 volumes
Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With The Wind. Macmillan: New York (1936).
Faulkner, William. The Unvanquished. Random House: New York (1938).
Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. Harcourt, Brace & Company: New York (1939). Signed Edition; 4 volumes; 525 copies
Robinson, William M., Jr. Justice in Grey, A History of the Judicial System of the Confederate States of America. Harvard University Press: Cambridge (1941).
Haydon, F. Stansbury. Aeronautics in the Union and Confederate Armies; With a Survey of Military Aeronautics Prior to 1861. The John Hopkins Press: Baltimore, MD (1941).
Miller, Francis. The Photographic history of the Civil War. Thomas Yoseloff (1957). 10 volumes
Burchard, Peter. One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment. St. Martin's Press: New York (1965).
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I don't usually reblog science stories, but this week there's an article so interesting, and so close to my own research, that I'd feel silly if I didn't. And also I think the various websites which have re-printed the official press release have kind of missed the point of why this particular story is so interesting, so I'm going to try and redress that here. This is all about "dark galaxies", which are the very thing that led me into radio astronomy in the first place.
This is going to be a pretty long post. If you're already familiar with dark matter, skip section 1. If you already know about dark galaxies and why they might be important, skip section 2 and go straight to section 3, where I describe the latest results.
1) Dark... what now ?
Although not everyone likes the term, a "dark galaxy" is generally reckoned to be a cloud of gas sitting quietly inside a dark matter halo minding its own business. The point being that the gas isn't forming - or has ever formed - any stars, making it dark. Technically this means it's only dark to visible light - it can still emit at other wavelengths, like radio waves, so some people prefer to call them "optically dark galaxies" or "gas only galaxies".
People who worry about such things probably don't get invited to parties very much, so I'm going to stick with plain-old dark galaxies for the rest of this post.
Firstly, the dark matter. Over the years, "being mostly made of dark matter" has become the de facto definition of a galaxy. Dark matter is pretty simple really - galaxies are rotating too fast to be stable, so without something else beside the visible matter to hold them together, they should just fly apart. The links have more details if you like that sort of thing.
This is what happens if you take the dark matter away.
There are alternatives to dark matter (like different theories of gravity) and I'll admit to holding a small degree of skepticism about it even now. However, the evidence is leaning pretty far in favour of dark matter's existence (Ethan Siegel has this excellent summary), so I can't justify my skepticism rationally. For the rest of the post, let's go with the consensus and assume it does indeed exist.
Sometimes, it can be tricky to tell the difference between a cluster of stars and a genuine galaxy (I stole this idea from Robert Minchin while he wasn't looking). What gives the game away is the dark matter - if the object needs dark matter to hold it together it's a galaxy, if it doesn't, it's a star cluster. Keep a copy of this identification chart handy if you have any doubts.
Mind you, not everything without dark matter is a star cluster.
With dark galaxies we're looking for clouds of hydrogen that need dark matter to hold them together, but haven't bothered to form any stars. If "dark galaxies" is a controversial term, then perhaps we could go with "lethargic galaxies" ?
In some ways, they wouldn't be all that remarkable. In almost all cases, the hydrogen gas extends further from the center of galaxies than their stars do (usually by a factor ~2, but sometimes much further) - so in that sense, all galaxies have a dark component. But the idea of objects which don't have any stars at all is intensely controversial.
2) Are you sure you're talking about "dark matter" and not "doesn't matter" ?
Pretty much everyone, I think, accepts the idea that some dark galaxies might exist. The sticking point is : are there just a few exotic, weird objects, or are there bajillions of the little blighters ? And that brings us to the "missing satellites" problem. This is nothing to do with China blasting satellites out of the sky - it's about how many smaller "satellite" galaxies should be buzzing around large galaxies like our own Milky Way.
Theories suggest that there should be about ten times as many dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way as we actually see. Huge projects like the Millennium Simulation (below) attempt to re-create the Universe inside computers. And they do very well on large scales, like filaments and voids, but fail miserably on the much smaller scales of individual galaxies.
Dark matter (used as a proxy for galaxies) distribution in an artificial Universe.
There are lots of possible explanations for this - finding galaxies can be quite hard, we may not understand the physics of galaxy formation all that well, or possibly there are just too many problems with our whole cosmological model and we should just give up and start again. That last one probably isn't as outlandish as some of us might like, but let's assume that we don't need to resort to such drastic measures. Even so, the missing satellite problem is a big problem in cosmology, and solving it would be a seriously major breakthrough*.
* It's unclear whether the newer, spectacular Illustris simulation has any answers to this - we'll have to wait and see.
Dark galaxies could offer a way out of this if most of those missing galaxies just haven't formed any stars. And, just like black holes, that would make them fiendishly difficult to spot. I'll let Red Dwarf's Holly explain why.
Quite. But it's possible that some of those dark galaxies could have hydrogen in them - just enough to detect, but not so much that they'd start forming stars (more gas => more star formation... usually). Now, if there are only a very few such objects, then perhaps they don't really matter much in the grand scheme of things. But if we can prove that even one exists, then that allows the possibility that there could be many more, potentially solving the missing satellite problem.
Proving the existence of even one dark galaxy turns out to be darn tricky. Which leads us on to the object that got me into radio astronomy in the first place : VIRGOHI21. It's not too much of a stretch to say that if this gif hadn't been shown at my PhD interview, I probably would have ended up doing something completely different*. I stole this one off Robert Minchin again. Poor Robert... allow me to compensate by saying, "go and read Robert's awesome blog !"
* This is just one particularly famous example. During my PhD I discovered 8 other objects that might be sort-of similar to this one, but we don't have such good data for these yet. Various other candidates have been proposed over the years, but none have ever quite satisfied everyone.
VIRGOHI21 is in the center, linked by a stream to the nearby galaxy NGC 4254 (the biggest, brightest blob). This is the hydrogen "data cube" for the region - for more on these, have a look here, here and here - well, throughout the whole blog, really.
Robert has a detailed post about this object, so I'll just give a short summary. Basically, it's a cloud of hydrogen in the Virgo Cluster that's rotating too fast and seems to have interacted with a the spiral galaxy NGC 4254, with a long stream linking the two. It looks as though the hydrogen cloud be a dark galaxy that's pulled some of the gas out of NGC 4254... but the interaction is the problem. It's possible that the apparent rotating "dark galaxy" was formed when some other object pulled the gas out of NGC 4254, creating the illusion of a stable, rotating cloud of gas.
And that's the crux of the matter. It's easy (ish) to prove that a gas cloud is rotating too fast and would require dark matter to be stable. It's far more difficult to prove that it actually is stable, and not just tearing itself apart.
3) Jeez Louise, get on with it and tell me about the new results already !
Which bring us on, at last, to the latest awesome press release, concerning an object called the Smith Cloud. This is an object which is interacting with our own Milky Way galaxy called a high velocity cloud - simply because it's gas that's moving more quickly than gas in the disc at a similar position on the sky.
Lots of other HVCs are known, and there are almost as many theories as to what they are - maybe just gas thrown outside the galaxy by supernovae, though for the Smith Cloud this doesn't seem very likely... it's too massive. As the authors of the study say, it would take the power of 1,000 supernovae to eject it (you know you've got something cool when you cut out the bit about one thousand exploding stars from your press release). Or perhaps they're torn off by other interacting galaxies, or maybe they're primordial gas that's condensing from the intergalactic medium. Some of course, might be dark galaxies. In all likelihood, different clouds are probably formed in different ways.
From the official press release : "If it were visible with the naked eye,
the Smith Cloud would cover almost as much sky as the constellation Orion."
The idea that (some) HVCs could be dark galaxies is by no means new. The difficulty is proving it. In the current paper, the authors describe the result of simulations of the Smith Cloud as it orbits our galaxy. From observations, they've been able to constrain its orbit (how well, I'm not sure) and find that it passed through the disc of our galaxy about 70 million years ago. They've gone to some lengths to test lots of different models, with and without dark matter, using different gas densities, to see what should happen to a cloud this massive as it punches through the Milky Way's own gas disc.
What they find is that without dark matter, the gas density needs to be very high for anything to survive that even remotely resembles the cloud we actually see - and then it would end up having more gas than we observe. With dark matter, however, they're able to reproduce something that not only looks quite remarkably similar to the observations, but more quantitatively, also has the correct mass and density of gas. Here's their figure :
Contours indicate the dark matter.
Impressive stuff, especially since they have the comparison simulations without dark matter that just don't work. As far as I'm aware, the paper hasn't been accepted for publication yet, but it looks extremely interesting to me. What would be really exciting about this is that it implies that at least some other HVCs could also be dark galaxies. That would really overturn a lot of current ideas and could, potentially, totally knock the missing satellite problem on the head.
But let's be cautious, and remember VIRGOHI21. When this object was announced to the world, the controversy was intense, and the debate more than a little heated - in the end, few people still think it's a likely dark galaxy candidate. To me, it looked like a very plausible candidate initially, but as more observations were completed and more simulations run, it looked less and less plausible.
I shall certainly be awaiting the final version of the Smith Cloud paper with baited breath (or in reality, with a nice cup of tea). The devil's in the details, of course... and it's always possible that this object is special, and not really representative of HVCs in general (it is, after all, a lot more massive than most of them). The authors themselves make no claims in their paper for anything as grandiose as solving the missing satellites problem - even if it is a dark galaxy, it doesn't mean there are more out there. Ultimately, though, if this object fits the bill, then it certainly makes dark galaxies look like a perfectly valid way to solve the problem.
My biggest concern is a philosophical one : the authors have found a model that works, but that doesn't mean there isn't another model they haven't considered. Such things have been known to happen in the past. Also, I'm not an expert on simulations, so I can't tell if you what they've done is sensible or bonkers. Actually they don't give very many details about the simulation setup, or much description of exactly what happens during the simulation. Some of those details could be very important.
For example, how high does the gas density get when the cloud and disc collide - high enough for star formation ? Would the simulation have allowed star formation to happen, or was it turned off to save CPU hours ? Or does the complex hydrodynamics actually make the gas density decrease in some way ? The simulation reproduces the observed cloud, yes, but that's all we're shown. It would certainly be nice to watch how the cloud evolves.
Make no mistake, I'm excited about this paper. But I also don't want to leave readers with a feeling that any minute now someone will reach an exciting or uninteresting but definitive conclusion - science isn't like that. It's a process - people have been observing the Smith Cloud for years, and it's very unlikely we'll get a decisive result anytime soon, if we ever get one at all.
So, what would it take to prove a dark galaxy, definitively ? It would be difficult, but not impossible. The gas would have to show all the features of ordered, stable rotation we see in normal galaxies. It would have show no any signs of interacting with another object - otherwise there could always be some doubt that it was formed by the interaction, somehow. It would have to be extremely isolated, to avoid any suggestion that it formed by an interaction in the past. The Smith Cloud research is very exciting, but the platonic ideal of dark galaxies has yet to be found. Until then, the hunt goes on.
Posted by Rhysy at Tuesday, May 27, 2014 1 comment: Links to this post
Labels: Science
D U N E : A Pug's Tale
Ah, Dune... a novel of such epic proportions and complexity that it's probably unfilmable. Not that that's stopped people from trying, however.
"They tried and failed ?"
"No, they tried and no-one liked it very much."
Unless you read the book, David Lynch's 1984 movie is, at best, a broken masterpiece. Rich, dark and with a soundtrack to match, it also just doesn't make any sense. And why should it ? About half the book consists of what characters think other characters are thinking - and what they think they're thinking isn't always what they're really thinking, I think. You can't really film that.
However, it adds at least one detail to the Dune story that puts a rather different slant on the whole shebang. I'm talking, of course, about Paul Atreides' pet pug. Knowing pugs, this alters the tone of the entire movie.
Dune is not hard science fiction, but pugs are pretty consistent with the established universe. Like Paul's tiny Bible*, pugs are small and therefore well-suited to space travel. They can withstand high accelerations due to their natural crumple zone. And, although set at least ten thousand years in the future, the survival of the breed would be assured by the Bene Gesserit sisterhood's enduring eugenics program (were they trying to breed a Kwisatz Haderpug ? we'll never know).
*This always bothered me. In the Duniverse, huge space fleets aren't a problem (though they are expensive). Compressing an 1800 page book into something the size of your thumb doesn't seem like much of a saving.
One may further infer that the survival of the pugs was guaranteed by the Buterlian Jihad - the war against the thinking machines. Because if there's one thing in the Universe that's definitely not a thinking machine, it's a pug.
I CANNOT BRAIN TODAY. I HAS THE DUMB.
Paul is clearly quite attached to little Scruffles, because he took him with him from the safe (though somewhat damp) environment of Castle Caladan to the desert furnace of Arakis. What, then, was life like in the Atreides household during Paul's youth ?
We will have to assume that Scruffles was much like any other pug. And that means that just occasionally, Duke Leto would have raged around the castle complaining that everything was covered in poop. Lady Jessica would have forbidden Paul from learning the Weirding Way "until all that *!"£@ing pug hair is cleaned up, young man !". Thufir Hawat would likely have complained that even Mentats can't concentrate "with that ugly little runt barking at leaves all day."
There is, however, something very wrong with the scene where the Atreides family leave Caladan to board the Guild heighliner, and it's that the family pug doesn't do anything. In the movie I can only assume this was done by lacing Scruffles' food with horse tranquillisers. In the narrative, I expect Paul (or possibly Gurney Halleck) spent his last few hours on Caladan chasing his beloved pug around the castle grounds. Because if God created Arakis to train the faithful, then surely God created pugs to train the patient.
We don't see the pug again until the Harkkonen attack. In the absence of Sigourney Weaver - although honestly even if she were available it would be a tough choice - there's only one man Paul trusts to guard his childhood pet : Patrick Stewart, aka Gurney Halleck, weapons master of the Atreides. And thus do we see Patrick Stewart charging into battle, blaster in one hand and pug in the other.
"LONG LIVE DUKE LETO.... AND HIS PET PUG, SCRUFFLES !"
We don't really know what happens to Scruffles after this. However, pugs are naturally suited even to avoiding the mighty Shai-Hulud, since they're lightweight and blessed with about as much sense of rhythm as William Shatner. We can only infer that the furry little idiot survived through many adventures....
I don't know who made this image but I'd like to thank them.
... because we do know the pug survives. Right at the end of the film, when Paul has brought the empire to its knees and freed the Fremen from the Harkonnen yoke, we can just about see an attendant doing their best to stop little Scruffles from interrupting Paul during his big speech.
Is it definitely the same pug ? I don't know, but how many pugs do you think there are on Arakis ?
Posted by Rhysy at Saturday, May 24, 2014 4 comments: Links to this post
Ours Is Bigger, Probably
Pretty soon, Europe will be blasting the heck out of a Chilean mountain so that they can build a great big telescope there. This extremely large telescope will be so large, in fact, that they'll call it the Extremely Large Telescope. At 40m across its extreme largeness is beyond dispute. However, some articles claim it will be the world's largest telescope, so here's a friendly reminder that (despite being 40m wide) compared with some other facilities, this will still only be an Extremely Little Telescope.
Nonetheless, other names considered included, "The Really Quite Enormous Telescope",
the "Too Big to Fail Telescope", and, of course, the "Telescope of Devastation".
Because 300m > 40m. I've counted.
Now, obviously, radio telescopes and optical telescopes work very differently, and the challenge of building a 40m diameter mirror is quite different to building a 300m diameter metal bowl. But a telescope is a telescope, and calling the ELT the world's largest is a bit like calling Snowdon the tallest mountain - sure it is, in Wales. Omitting that qualifier makes the statement.... well, wrong.
The ELT will be the world's largest optical telescope. And it will be mindbogglingly awesome. But the more general question of "which is the world's largest telescope ?" is slightly more tricky - and much more interesting - to answer.
OK, Hubble isn't a giant telescope, but let's face it, it's pretty darn neat.
Sphinx model came from here. Anyone who responds with claims about mystical pyramid energy will be given a stern glare.
The diagram above shows some notable present and planned classical telescopes - big reflective (single-dish) mirrors that focus light onto a receiver. Several other very large optical telescopes are also planned (e.g. the Giant Magellan Telescope, which will consist of seven massive mirrors stuck together, and the aptly-named Thirty Metre Telescope, the American rival to Europe's ELT). There are also several other large ground-based telescopes already operating (e.g. the Very Large Telescope) and while JWST will be the successor to Hubble, it's worth pointing out that the now inoperable Herschel is currently the largest single mirror* ever flown in space at 3.5m diameter.
* Arguably. Keep reading.
Many radio telescopes work in the same way as optical telescopes, it's just that the light they collect is a at a longer wavelength. So there's no need to make their mirrors smooth and shiny - they don't care about visible (or optical) light, and the radio waves aren't affected by small bumps in the surface. That makes it quite a lot easier to build really enormous radio receivers.
In fact, the Arecibo reflector is pretty much transparent to visible light. To save weight (and, interestingly, also to let enough light through so that the plants underneath don't die), each metal panel has lots of little holes, and you can easily see through it from underneath (just like the protective grille in a microwave oven, the radio waves are too big to pass through the holes).
And that raises an important question - does the reflecting surface have to be solid and continuous ? If you insist that the surface has to be like, watertight - then the world's largest telescope is probably the 10.4m GTC in La Palma. And by that rather contrived definition, then yes, the ELT will indeed be the world's largest telescope.
A more reasonable interpretation would be that the surface must be continuous at the wavelength it's observing. In that sense, Arecibo is a clear winner, and has been for over 50 years. But all glory is fleeting, and in a few years time the massive FAST will dwarf even Arecibo. This 500m behemoth will have the extra complication of a deformable dish - thousands of cables will pull the spherical reflector into a paraboloid, allowing it to point at different parts of the sky. Whether this crazy scheme will actually work remains to be seen.
And yet, by taking a few more liberties, even FAST won't be the largest telescope. If you don't mind your reflector having some bloomin' great gaps in it, then the remarkably obscure Russian RATAN-600 claims the prize. This crazy instrument is almost like what you'd get if you built Arecibo without bothering to find a sinkhole for the reflector - basically it's a huge ring of reflectors, 576m across, which focus the radio waves onto a central receiver.
My professional opinion is that it's freakin' weird.
But we can't stop there. If we're allowing gaps, we may as well allow arrays of telescopes and not just single dishes. Then we can get very large telescopes indeed. The 27 antennas of the so-called Very Large Array form a telescope up to 22 miles (35 km) across using a technique called interferometry, and it's pretty common to connect multiple telescopes spread across the entire planet*. And yet those wonderful, crazy Russian scientists refuse to let a little thing like the size of the planet stand in their way...
* There's a price to be paid, of course - you can use multiple telescopes to get very high resolution, but you lose sensitivity by having so much empty space (especially to low density material).
I suppose it is fairly large.
Radio Astron takes interferometry to extremes. This is a 10m diameter Russian radio telescope... iinnnn sppppaaaaacce ! 10m is too large to launch a conventional reflector, so, like a giant umbrella, it was folded up during launch and unfolded once in space. Working in conjunction with ground-based telescopes, it can effectively form part of a telescope 350,000 km across. Given the existence of a telescope larger than the Earth, the question of the "world's largest telescope" seems a tad petty.
Because the world is not enough.
Then again, up until now we've been biased by assuming that telescopes have to collect light emitted by distant objects. This isn't always the case. Neutrinos are particles (so not even part of the EM spectrum at all) of almost zero mass that almost never interact with anything - most of them pass straight through the Earth unhindered. Building a camera to detect them isn't really an option. So neutrino telescopes work in a completely different way : they detect the light emitted on the (very) rare occasions when a neutrino does happen to interact with, say, a water molecule.
Yes, that's a boat. Yes, there was a missed opportunity for a Bond movie here.
The spheres house the sensors that will detect the light emitted by neutrinos colliding with water molecules (when the entire tank is filled).
The Super-Kamiokande neutrino telescope seen above holds 50,000 cubic metres of water in a cylindrical tank about 40m tall and 40m across. For more "normal" telescopes, the area of the reflector determines how many photons of light you can detect. For neutrino telescopes, it's volume that matters, not area. Which makes them fundamentally different, so we can't really compare them to classical telescopes. That would be completely unfair, so let's do it anyway.
If we emptied all the water of Super-Kamiokande into Arecibo, it would only fill the reflector to a depth of about 8m. Assuming it somehow didn't just drain away, which it would.
Critics agreed that budget cuts to the remake of Goldenye were a mistake.
So, can radio astronomers point at laugh at all the other astronomer's puny instruments ? Possibly, but it would be inadvisable. For one thing, there's another, much bigger neutrino telescope : IceCube. Instead of building an enormous tank filled with liquid water, this is an even more audacious project using the ice of Antarctica. Buried over a mile below the surface are 86 boreholes each filled with 60 detectors, enclosing an entire cubic kilometre (1 billion cubic metres) of ice. That's a mass of 900 million tonnes - easily enough to crush Arecibo a like a puny little bug.
LIKE A BUG !!!
Still, although its mass is much, much greater, a mere cubic kilometre is paltry compared to the 350,000 km baseline of Radio Astron. For now, then, radio astronomers can laugh at other scientists as long as they're very very careful about it. Neutrino telescopes may have the most physical mass, but radio telescopes have the biggest reflectors and the largest diameters. They're likely to retain the prize for biggest mirrors for the foreseeable future, but another exotic type of astronomy has the crown for largest diameter firmly in its sights.
Gravitational waves are nothing less than ripples in space itself, produced by any moving object. These distortions should be detectable using a system of lasers and mirrors - roughly speaking, if a wave passes through, the length between the mirrors changes, altering the time it takes the laser to travel along its path. The path of the laser beam needs to be as long as possible since the changes are damnably small. Current detectors have laser paths a few kilometres in length.
LIGO detector in Louisiana.
Much to the disgust of other astronomers, none of these facilities have ever detected anything. In fact, it's the radio astronomers - yet again - who can point and laugh, since the only convincing evidence for gravitational waves comes indirectly from observations of binary pulsars (first measured, by the way, at Arecibo), whose orbital decay is in perfect agreement with the predictions of general relativity assuming they're emitting gravitational waves.
However, unless something is staggeringly, astonishingly wrong with the theory, given enough time it will be possible to directly detect gravitational waves. Fed up of other astronomers calling them "gravy waves", the GW community has hatched a foolproof plan to massively increase sensitivity and make absolutely sure if the pesky things are real or not. And that involves another giant space telescope - one that makes even Radio Astron look just a little bit pathetic. If it works.
The LISA gravitational wave observatory will use lasers to create a telescope ~5 million km across. This is a no-lose situation. If it works, we'll have a whole other way of studying the Universe. If it doesn't - I mean if the telescope itself functions correctly but fails to detect anything - it will be the greatest non-detection since the aether, and a scientific revolution is sure to follow. And, best of all, until it's built the rest of the astronomy community can continue to poke fun at the gravy wavers with all their oh-so-interesting noise measurements.
So, there you have it. The world's largest telescope is a tricky question to answer, and maybe even irrelevant. Already we have telescopes as big as or even larger than the world, in some sense, with more on the way. And that's just artificial telescopes. Arguably, even more exotic techniques like pulsar timing arrays and gravitational lensing use entire galaxies to form natural telescopes. But that's another story.
Posted by Rhysy at Tuesday, May 20, 2014 6 comments: Links to this post
Hercules, Probes, a Talking Moose... it's funnier without the commas
Sometimes I don't bother posting anything because I'm lazy. Well, Game of Thrones isn't going to watch itself, is it ? You're goddamn right it isn't. Other times, as lately, I don't post anything because I don't have time to.
First, my parents visited. Hurrah ! I had all of two - count 'em TWO visitors in two years at Arecibo. And that's an average. "An average ?" Yes, an average - one person came specifically to visit me (although that was tacked on to an observing trip somewhere else in America-land), one person I'd never met before but was planning to work on AGES, so doesn't really count, and the other I've only met at conferences, and - surprise surprise - was there mainly for a conference, so also doesn't really count.
The excuses, "it's too far", "I can't drive", "it's too expensive" are all perfectly valid for Puerto Rico, but don't pass muster with Prague. And since another visitor is lined up for the end of the month, my visitor rate in six months has already exceeded that from 2.5 years in the Caribbean.
With my parents, we mostly explored things I've already seen before, so I won't repeat them. Perhaps the highlight was wandering through the Wallenstein Gardens, which I had not done before, and discovering a pure white peacock. It was displaying the moment we entered, but didn't do it again. My mission is now to keep going back there and get a photograph of the peacock in full "look at me I'm a giant Elizabethan ruff" mode.
There were also regular, crappy peacocks.
The other noteworthy thing about the gardens is that Prague has again failed at dragons. This time it's a statue of Hercules fighting a small though ferocious-looking dragon. Nothing wrong with that, except that it's abundantly clear that Hercules has really got the upper hand. Specifically, he looks like he's about the knock the poor thing's head off. It doesn't stand a chance.
We also visited the senate halls, which are resplendent and made a nice change from all the churches, and Petrin hill, because you can't really go wrong with Petrin hill. This time we went inside Štefánik Observatory, which has quite a nice public exhibition. It even has a little panel about Arecibo, and I learned that "Sondy" means "probes" in Czech. As in "meziplanetarni sondy" - interplanetary probes. Which I think must be very funny if you're a planetary scientist and your name is Sondy.
The week after that I was back in Cardiff giving a seminar. For seminars these days I'm trying to up the ante on the theatrics, which means a lot of preparation time - pretty much every spare evening beforehand. The title is, "The Arecibo Galaxy Environment Survey : Science with a Lonely Smurf and a Talking Moose", and it includes a physical data cube and three properly 3D movies. As in the old-school 3D glasses. None of this fancy full-colour nonsense.
I've been wanting to do this for years.
Full colour versions can be seen in this video.
There's not a lot else to say about Cardiff other than that May is bluebell season, which doesn't sound so impressive unless you realise that they grow by the million. Add in a large friendly dog and we have ourselves a winner.
We also went to the sand dunes at Merthyr Mawr - yes, Wales has sand dunes, believe it or not. The Czech Republic does not have any coastline, of course, despite some laudably hair-brained schemes to overcome this particular difficulty. The problem is I've been spoiled by the ridiculous warm waters of the Caribbean, and Merthyr Mawr is more on an estuary than the actual sea. You can see the other side, for heaven's sake. Which left the whole experience somewhat unsatisfying.
Once back in Prague I gave the same seminar in Ondrejov, where the other half of the institute is located. The 3D movies were just as popular, though overall the reaction was a lot more muted than in Cardiff. Several people fell asleep. Well, I was battling a cold at the time, and it's very difficult to speak with any enthusiasm when you can't actually hear even how loud you're speaking. It probably also doesn't help that the galaxy group is a lot smaller in Prague and there were very few native English speakers in the room.
This done, I pointedly spent the rest of the week watching Netflix and DVD box sets, because I'm sick of doing science in the evenings. I don't like ad-libbing in front of large audiences, hence I end up repeating the entire 50-minute talk to an empty room again and again and again.
Anyway, that's how I spent the last two weeks. No more seminars in the foreseeable future - the next conference is in Vienna, but mercifully that's a poster presentation. And a jolly good thing too, because short of buying an Occulus Rift, or baking everyone a cake, I have absolutely no idea how I raise the stakes for the next talk. Fireworks ? Cheerleaders ?* Random pictures of cats ? Further research is required.
* If nothing else, a letter-by-letter chant for "extragalactic neutral atomic hydrogen" would probably obviate the need for an actual talk.
Posted by Rhysy at Sunday, May 18, 2014 No comments: Links to this post
Hercules, Probes, a Talking Moose... it's funnier ...
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What is the QSL Card?
Publish Time : 21 October, 2019 11:16 : AM
A QSL card is not a verbal rather than a written confirmation of either a two-way radiocommunication between two amateur radio stations .
And often it works as a one-way reception of a signal from an AM radio, FM radio, television or shortwave broadcasting station.
A Q code message can stand for both a statement and a question.
If a code is followed by a question mark like ‘QSL?’ means “Do you confirm receipt of my transmission?”
On the contrary, ‘QSL’ without a question mark means “I do confirm receipt of your transmission.”
In the very first days of radio broadcasting, it was considered as a pride for the DXer’s who received distance signal into the radio set.
a radio listener who received a distance radio signal called DXer.
DXer/Listeners send mail “reception reports” to radio broadcasting stations in order to get a written letter from a distant station which is marked as an official verification that they had heard.
As the volume of reception reports made a growth, stations decided to take to sending postcards in which a brief form is contained that acknowledged reception.
Who uses QSL cards?
There are many people who send QSL cards. in spite of being not nearly as widely used, they are still considered as useful and also attractive to collect;
Radio amateurs: Many transmitting ham radio operators, particularly those using the HF bands send them regularly QSL cards.
Short wave listeners: Listeners often send QSL cards as well. They may send a card to a transmitting station to give a listener a report in the hope of receiving a card back.
Broadcast stations: Occasionally other stations may send QSL cards. Often short wave broadcast stations may send them to listeners who send in good reports.
To qualify for a QSL card, broadcast stations often require that the listener has listened to the station over a period of time.
Collecting QSL cards can be an interesting addition to the hobby of radio listeners.
Note: Tell us if there is any wrong information and needed more information. Please Send – dxingworld.com@gmail.com
List of International Radio station ’s English Service Email Address
International Radio station ‘s List of Website Link
RFA announces Chinese Lunar Year QSL
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Our Work » Press Releases » Legislation Will Protect NY’s Drinking Water from Dangerous Contaminants
Legislation Will Protect NY’s Drinking Water from Dangerous Contaminants
Brian Keegan (EANY): 518-462-5526, ext. 238
Liz Moran (NYPIRG): 518-610-1828
1,001 Days Since Governor Cuomo Promised Emerging Contaminant Testing
Albany – Advocates joined Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard Gottfried and other legislators in Albany today to call for immediate action to protect New York’s drinking water. Assembly Member Gottfried has introduced new legislation (A.7839) establishing a list of dangerous chemicals to be tested for in drinking water, and setting a deadline for the New York State Department of Health (DOH) to implement this testing.
The legislation lists emerging contaminants that all New York communities, no matter the size, will be required to test for in their drinking water sources. The list includes not only toxic PFAS chemicals like PFOA and PFOS, but also other contaminants known to occur in New York, largely drawn from US EPA’s Third Unregulated Contaminant Rule.
In New York State, small communities are not being tested for emerging contaminants like PFOA, PFOS, and 1,4-dioxane in their drinking water. Under federal regulations, only public water systems serving more than 10,000 people are required to test for certain chemicals that may harm human health. This gap in testing leaves approximately 2.5 million New Yorkers in the dark when it comes to the safety of their drinking water.
On September 7, 2016, the Cuomo Administration promised swift action to close the federal loophole. That was exactly 1,001 days ago. DOH has yet to implement statewide testing for emerging contaminants, despite being instructed by the Legislature to do so in 2017. Additionally, DOH hasn’t set enforceable drinking water standards (Maximum Contaminant Levels) for PFOA, PFOS, and 1,4-dioxane, so contamination can be treated where elevated levels are discovered.
Following drinking water contamination crises in Hoosick Falls, Petersburgh, Newburgh, and on Long Island, and with recent data detailing that nearly 16 million New Yorkers are served by water systems in which emerging contaminants have been detected, New York still has much to do to ensure that drinking water for all residents is prote cted from source to tap.
In addition to Assembly Member Gottfried’s legislation, advocates are urging the passage of several other bills to protect drinking water and public health from emerging contaminants:
S439/A445 - bans PFAS chemicals in firefighting foam
S2000/A4739 - bans PFAS chemicals in food packaging
S4389/A6295 - bans 1,4-dioxane in personal care products
S3337-C/A5477-C - extends the statute of limitations extender for public water supplies to hold polluters accountable
A7625 - requires industry to test surrounding groundwater and surface water
Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried said, “Since 2017 we’ve made historic investments in water quality, but it’s only as good as our implementation and oversight. New Yorkers – especially those depending on smaller water systems – deserve the same protections as the rest of us, and that means monitoring for emerging contaminants statewide. No one should have to wait any longer for comprehensive testing for these potentially dangerous chemicals.”
Senator James Skoufis said, “I’ve committed to sponsoring this legislation because it is our duty to protect our State’s access to clean water. Amending the public health law to add this list of contaminants will significantly decrease their presence, particularly in smaller communities that may not enjoy the protections available in larger cities. I thank Environmental Advocates of New York for their tireless efforts on this issue and look forward to working together to protect every New Yorker’s fundamental right to clean and safe water.”
Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, Chair of the Committee on Children and Families said, “Working to ensure we have a safe, sustainable, long-term water supply, which is critical to protecting public health and safety, the environment and our very quality of life, has always been a top priority of mine. Our children and all residents of New York State in communities large and small, urban, suburban, and rural, should be able to turn on the tap and drink water without fear of consuming contaminants that put their health and the health of their families at greater risk. I am proud to co-sponsor this legislation (A.7839), and will continue to urge swift state action to combat emerging contaminants, including the establishment of strong Maximum Contaminant Levels for PFOA, PFOS, and 1,4-dioxane.”
Senator Liz Krueger said, “New York families have been waiting for years to find out the answer to a simple and crucial question – is my water safe to drink? They must not be forced to wait any longer. The Department of Health has been dragging its feet on creating a list of emerging contaminants that all public water systems must test for. Since they won’t act, the Legislature must. Three years after PFOA was discovered in Hoosick Falls, New Yorkers should not still be in the dark about what’s in their water.”
Senator Brad Hoylman said, “One of the basic duties of government is to ensure that our constituents have a water supply that is safe and clean. But between an aging infrastructure and an ever-growing list of unregulated chemicals infiltrating our water systems, New Yorkers are justifiably concerned about the quality of their drinking water. What happened in Hoosick Falls years is a stark indication that the Legislature can and must do more to proactively address water safety in a comprehensive way. I'm grateful to Assembly Member Gottfried for introducing this critical legislation.”
Newburgh City Councilmember and Local Progress member Karen Mejía said, “We lost a lot as a community through our water contamination crisis, including trust in the ability of our federal and state government to protect us from harmful contaminants. I and my colleagues on the Newburgh City Council will continue to be a strong voice for drinking water and public health protections. New York State has an opportunity right now to lead. We can protect our drinking water and our residents, or we can sit back and watch while our streams, lakes and drinking water supplies are further tainted for years to come. We can do better. We must do better.”
Brennan Kearney, Dutchess County Legislator, said, “As the County Legislator for the Towns of Clinton and Rhinebeck, I know how important it is to protect our water sources for our residents. Throughout the County, we have 526 small public water supplies that are currently not required to test for emerging contaminants. As a result, nearly 150,000 residents throughout the County may be going without drinking water protections from chemicals that may harm human health. Clearly, this is unacceptable, and the proposed legislation would begin requiring public water supply testing throughout the state – an important step in ensuring the environmental health of the region and the safety of our residents.”
Maureen Cunningham, Senior Director for Clean Water at Environmental Advocates of New York said, “No one in New York wants to drink contaminated water. Unbelievably, New York has now waited 1,001 days for a promised emerging contaminant monitoring list that is stalled in the New York State Department of Health. We are grateful for the leadership of Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard Gottfried – his legislation would test the drinking water of 2.5 million New Yorkers whose water has not been tested. We now need to act quickly to set strong drinking water standards for emerging contaminants and prevent these toxic chemicals from entering our water supplies in the first place.”
Liz Moran, Environmental Policy Director for NYPIRG said, “The longer New York goes without statewide emerging contaminant testing, the longer residents remain in the dark about the quality of their water – and the greater the chances they could be needlessly exposed to unsafe levels of chemicals. With knowledge comes power – the power to fight to ensure that our water is safe to drink. NYPIRG applauds Assemblyman Gottfried and Assemblyman Englebright for their leadership in this fight. Now is the time for action.”
FASNY Secretary John D’Alessandro said, “The health and safety of both the public and our firefighters is of the utmost importance. Removing these dangerous contaminants from firefighting foam will help protect New York’s groundwater supply, while also preventing the exposure of firefighters to possible carcinogens. We applaud the State Senate for passing S.439 and urge the Assembly to swiftly follow suit and pass A.445.”
Members of Newburgh Clean Water Project said, “Three years after Newburgh declared an emergency due to high PFOA and PFAS readings in our drinking water, the source of the pollution has not been remediated. We urge the Governor to allow small communities to test their water, and to set contamination levels for these emerging contaminants as low as possible based on available detection and treatment technologies, to safeguard the health of every New Yorker.”
Jennifer Plouffe, Hoosick Falls resident and New York Water Project Member said, “We were kept in the dark about our poisoned water because New York doesn't have universal emerging contaminant testing. Our friends and family didn't know they were exposed to toxic chemicals because New York doesn't have universal emerging contaminant testing. Governor Cuomo promised to close this loophole, but 1,001 days later he's still dragging his feet. We thank Assembly Member Gottfried for acting where the Governor has failed. We can't expose New Yorkers to dangerous chemicals any longer.”
John Gebhards, executive director of Quassaick Creek Watershed Alliance said, “Our Newburgh community has been exposed, unknowingly, for possibly decades to the 'emerging contaminant' Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, which is now known to be a toxin very hazardous to our health. Legislation such as Assembly Member Gottfried's bill will be a move in the right direction to discover toxics in our drinking water before, not after, years of exposure.”
Food & Water Watch senior organizer Nisha Swinton said, “We have a clean water crisis across the state, and it’s time for the Legislature to stand up for the health and safety of affected communities by closing the federal loopholes that put them at risk. State political leaders already know what needs to be done to protect New Yorkers from an array of emerging contaminants. Now it’s time to move forward on sensible legislation that protects our right to safe, clean drinking water.”
NYS PTA President Lorey A. Zaman said, “We thank the sponsors of this legislation and Environmental Advocates for working to ensure the safety and well-being of our children and their families. Protecting safe drinking water sources is critically important, and NYS PTA looks forward to working collaboratively on this issue as we make every child’s potential a reality.”
David VanLuven, Town of Bethlehem Supervisor said, “Strong state and federal standards are crucial to ensuring that New Yorkers have clean drinking water. In Bethlehem, we tested for PFOA, PFOS, and 1,4-dioxane and found no signs of contamination. I support the proposed legislation because not only will it benefit our community, it will help all New Yorkers.”
Kathleen Curtis, LPN, Executive Director of Clean and Healthy New York said, “All New Yorkers deserve the right to know what’s in their drinking water. Requiring testing of emerging contaminants in drinking water in all communities, large and small, is a necessary step in protecting the health of all state residents. New York should commit to using this information to promote green chemistry and engineering as drivers to ‘turn off the tap’ on toxic PFOA, PFOS, and 1,4-dioxane chemicals and replace them with viable, safer alternatives.”
Jeremy Cherson, legislative advocacy manager for Riverkeeper said, “New York must prevent harmful chemicals from getting into the environment, and hold polluters accountable when they do. We've seen too often the consequences when harmful chemicals contaminate our drinking water, fish and wildlife. We urge the New York State Legislature to take quick action to protect public health and the environment by passing these bills.”
Alok Disa, Senior Research and Policy Analyst at Earthjustice said, “With the Trump Administration dragging its feet on regulating PFAS, it is important that New York State step up and act on behalf of its residents. These man-made chemicals linked to cancer and other serious illnesses are creating a public health crisis in New York communities. The time to act is now. To help get PFAS out of our drinking water and food, the Legislature should pass, and Governor Cuomo should sign, S.439/A.445 and S.2000/A.4739-A, which ban PFAS in firefighting foam and food packaging – two major sources of PFAS contamination.”
Lorraine Merghart Ballard, a long-time member of the Southern Washington County community and the Director of the Battenkill Conservancy said, “The need for vigilance of the public water systems in small towns like those of Southern Washington County is crucial. Local governments are not equipped with the resources to test for these contaminants on their own. Lowering the thresholds to safeguard these communities would build confidence and spur investment.”
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Bulk date: 1940s
Subject: Corporate name: University of Pennsylvania. Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
All names: Mason, John Alden, 1885-1967
Sitio Conte, Panama expedition records
Mason, John Alden, 1885-1967
Extent: 1.5 linear feet
At the turn of the century, the Río Grande de Coclé changed course, revealing the site of a pre-Columbian cemetery when pottery and gold ornaments were washed out of the river banks. In 1940 the University of Pennsylvania Museum began to excavate Sitio Conte, which belonged to a private landowner, located in the province of Coclé. A very small portion of the pre-Columbian cemetery, estimated to cover four or five acres in its entirety, was selected for excavation. The expedition yielded 6,600 pounds of pottery and stone. The textual records consist of 1.5 linear feet of field notes, diaries, and object cards; correspondence; administrative records concerning contracts, expenses, transportation, and equipment; and unpublished and published reports and articles concerning findings. The arrangement of the records became apparent after some research, for the original order had been lost. Most of the original folder titles, however, have been maintained.
PU-Mu. 1108
1930s 1940s
Mason, John Alden, 1885-1967 Kidder, Alfred Vincent, 1885-1963 Madeira, Percy C., Jr., 1889-1967 Mason, John Alden, 1885-1967 Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Satterthwaite, Linton, 1897-1978 University of Pennsylvania. Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Correspondence Field notes Photographs
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Debate: Ban on sale of violent video games to minors
Revision as of 02:30, 2 July 2011 (edit)
(→Pro)
← Previous diff Current revision (22:58, 9 July 2011) (edit)
(→Con)
===Background and context === ===Background and context ===
- The US Supreme Court ruled in June of 2011 against California's ban on the sale of violent video games to minors. The California law would have imposed $1,000 fines on stores that sold violent video games to anyone under 18. The ruling highlights what is a much larger, national and international debate regarding the effect of violent video games on youth, and the potential need, subsequently, for the regulation of their sale. The California law defined violent games as those 'in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being' in a way that was 'patently offensive,' appealed to minors’ 'deviant or morbid interests' and lacked 'serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.'"[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html] Accepting that this description of violent video games may be true, the debate about banning them relates largely to the limits of free speech and government censorship. + The US Supreme Court ruled in June of 2011 against California's ban on the sale of violent video games to minors. The California law would have imposed $1,000 fines on stores that sold violent video games to anyone under 18. The ruling highlights what is a much larger, national and international debate regarding the effect of violent[[Image:Violent video games.jpg|right|240px]][[Image:Violence-game-teens.jpg|left|190px]] video games on youth, and the potential need, subsequently, for the regulation of their sale. The California law defined violent games as those 'in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being' in a way that was 'patently offensive,' appealed to minors’ 'deviant or morbid interests' and lacked 'serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.'"[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html] Accepting that this description of violent video games may be true, the debate about banning them relates largely to the limits of free speech and government censorship. Should the government be involved in limiting speech regarding violence toward youth? Can violent images be considered "obscene" in the same way as sexual imagery, and thus receive the same age-restricted regulation? Are video games an entirely new medium stretching beyond the ordinary boundaries of "speech" due to their ability to engage players in virtual acts of violence and murder? Does this kind of engagement pose unique risks to youth, perhaps encouraging them to emulate the acts they see in these games? These and other pros and cons are considered below.
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- === Arguments === + === Violence: Do violent games make youth more agressive/violent? ===
- |WRITE SUBQUESTION BETWEEN "=== ===" width="45%" bgcolor="#FFFAE0" style="border:1px solid #BAC5FD;padding:.4em;padding-top:0.5em;"| + |width="45%" bgcolor="#FFFAE0" style="border:1px solid #BAC5FD;padding:.4em;padding-top:0.5em;"|
====Pro==== ====Pro====
- *'''Violent game ban puts children above corporations.''' Leland Yee, a California state senator who wrote the law, said in a statement that “the Supreme Court once again put the interests of corporate America before the interests of our children. It is simply wrong that the video game industry can be allowed to put their profit margins over the rights of parents and the well-being of children.”[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html] + *'''Some youth have tried to emulate violence in games.''' [http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2011/07/its_up_to_parents_to_enforce_l.html Paul Boxer. "It's up to parents to enforce a ban on violent video games." NJ.com. July 1st, 2011]: "A few years ago, on Long Island, six teenagers were arrested after a crime spree involving break-ins, a violent mugging and a carjacking attempt. According to what the teens told authorities, they had been trying to live out the life of Niko Belic. Ever heard of him? He is the protagonist in the wildly popular video game 'Grand Theft Auto IV.' What the teens did represents one of the worst-case scenarios imagined by those who advocate for government to limit the sale of violent video games to minors. Fortunately, such scenarios are very few and very far between. And Monday, the Supreme Court handed down a decision preventing the state of California from instituting a ban on the sale of such games to minors. The decision was steeped in legal precedent concerning free speech and censorship. But make no mistake: The Supreme Court’s decision in no way negates or devalues the decades of scientific research that have been conducted demonstrating that the consumption of violent media leads to increases in aggressive and anti-social behavior."
- *'''Some games so offensive they are certainly harmful to youth.''' Justice Alito: “The objective of one game is to rape a mother and her daughters [...] players attempt to fire a rifle shot into the head of President Kennedy as his motorcade passes by the Texas School Book Depository.” He also added that children may soon play three-dimensional high-definition games wearing equipment that allows them to “feel the splatting blood from the blown-off head” of a victim.[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2] + *'''Youth playing violent games exhibit more aggression.''' [http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2011/07/its_up_to_parents_to_enforce_l.html Paul Boxer. "It's up to parents to enforce a ban on violent video games." NJ.com. July 1st, 2011]: "High-profile events such as teenagers getting inspired by the actions of a violent video game character can be tragic, but they also distract from the large body of knowledge that has accumulated on the impact of violent media on children. Since the early 1970s, scientists have observed very clear, frequently replicated and strikingly robust effects. In experimental studies, children who view violent television shows or films — or who play violent video games — are significantly more likely to behave aggressively in comparison to children who view nonviolent television shows or films, or who play nonviolent video games. In long-term studies, individuals who consume violent media during childhood end up more aggressive as adults, in comparison with peers who consume nonviolent media during childhood. The studies that have produced such findings now number in the hundreds. The effects have been seen in children from urban areas, as well as suburban and rural areas; in the United States, as well as many other Western and non-Western nations."
+ *'''Violent video games are real danger to young minds.''' [http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2011/07/its_up_to_parents_to_enforce_l.html Paul Boxer. "It's up to parents to enforce a ban on violent video games." NJ.com. July 1st, 2011]: "As policy statements from organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association have made clear, violent media represents a real and compelling risk to the behavioral and mental health of children and adolescents. In fact, research studies have yielded the conclusion that the effect of violent media consumption on aggressive behavior is in the same ballpark statistically as the effect of smoking on lung cancer, the effect of lead exposure on children’s intellectual development and the effect of asbestos on laryngeal cancer."
*'''Legislators have grounds to conclude harm to children.''' Justice Breyer: “Unlike the majority. I would find sufficient grounds in these studies and expert opinions for this court to defer to an elected legislature’s conclusion that the video games in question are particularly likely to harm children.”[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2] *'''Legislators have grounds to conclude harm to children.''' Justice Breyer: “Unlike the majority. I would find sufficient grounds in these studies and expert opinions for this court to defer to an elected legislature’s conclusion that the video games in question are particularly likely to harm children.”[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2]
+ |width="45%" bgcolor="#F2FAFB" style="border:1px solid #BAC5FD;padding:.4em;padding-top:0.5em;"|
+ ====Con====
+ *'''Violent video games do not increase aggression.''' A 2005 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign study found: "Players were not statistically different from the non-playing control group in their beliefs on aggression after playing the game than they were before playing." He added: "Nor was game play a predictor of aggressive behaviors. Compared with the control group, the players neither increased their argumentative behaviors after game play nor were significantly more likely to argue with their friends and partners."[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/15/video_games_and_aggression/]
- |WRITE CONTENT FOR THE "Pro" BOX ABOVE THIS CODE width="45%" bgcolor="#F2FAFB" style="border:1px solid #BAC5FD;padding:.4em;padding-top: 0.5em;"| + *'''People know video game violence is fake.''' [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/opinion/28olson.html Cheryl Olson. ¨It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend.¨ The New York Times. June 27, 2011]: ¨Many people assume that video game violence is consistently and unspeakably awful, that little Jacob spends most afternoons torturing victims to death. But these people haven’t played many video games. The state drew its examples of depravity almost exclusively from an obscure game called Postal 2, which, surveys show, is rarely played by children or young teens. The game is deliberately outrageous; you can, for example, impale a cat on your gun as a makeshift silencer. A trailer for Postal 3, said to be out later this year, encourages players to ´Tase those annoying hockey moms or shoot them in the face! This may sound disturbing, but it’s also ridiculous. And young people know it: as one 13-year-old said during a study I conducted at Harvard, “With video games, you know it’s fake.”
+ *'''Youth violence has been declining, violent video games fine.''' F.B.I. data shows that youth violence continues to decline. It is now at its lowest rate in years. Violent video games, therefore, can hardly be seen as a major problem since they´ve been around for years.[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/opinion/28olson.html]
+ *'''TV violence is more harmful than violent video games.''' [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/opinion/28olson.html Cheryl Olson. "It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend." The New York Times. June 27, 2011]: "there is much better evidence to support psychological harm from exposure to violence on TV news."
+ *'''Games help develop youths' minds, skills, confidence.''' [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/opinion/28olson.html Cheryl Olson. ¨It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend.¨ The New York Times. June 27, 2011]: "such games (in moderation) may actually have some positive effects on developing minds."
+ *'''Youths can test/find their own identity in violent games.''' [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/opinion/28olson.html Cheryl Olson. ¨It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend.¨ The New York Times. June 27, 2011]: "a teen can try out different identities — how it feels to be a hero, a trickster, a feared or scorned killer, or someone of a different age or sex — in the safe fantasy world of a video game."
+ *'''Video game bans fail test of strict scrutiny.''' BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL: "Because the Act imposes a restriction on the content of pro-tected speech, it is invalid unless California can demonstrate that itpasses strict scrutiny, i.e., it is justified by a compelling governmentinterest and is narrowly drawn to serve that interest. R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 395. California cannot meet that standard. Psy-chological studies purporting to show a connection between exposureto violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively. Any demon-strated effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects pro-duced by other media."[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
+ |-
+ |colspan="2" width="45%" bgcolor="#F2F2F2" style="border:1px solid #BAC5FD;padding:.4em;padding-top:0.5em;"|
+ === Free speech: Do violent games qualify for free speech protections? ===
+ |width="45%" bgcolor="#FFFAE0" style="border:1px solid #BAC5FD;padding:.4em;padding-top:0.5em;"|
+ ====Pro====
+ *'''Banning sale of games to minors is limited infringement.''' Justice Alito opinion June 2011: "The California law involved here, by contrast, is limited to the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. The California law imposes no restriction on thecreation of violent video games, or on the possession of such games by anyone, whether above or below the age of 18. The California law does not regulate the sale or rental of violent games by adults. And the California law does not prevent parents and certain other close relatives from buying or renting violent games for their children or otheryoung relatives if they see fit. [...] The Court’s opinion distorts the effect of the California law. I certainly agree with the Court that the governmenthas no “free-floating power to restrict the ideas to whichchildren may be exposed,” ante, at 7, but the California law does not exercise such a power. If parents want theirchild to have a violent video game, the California law does not interfere with that parental prerogative. Instead, the California law reinforces parental decisionmaking inexactly the same way as the New York statute upheld in Ginsberg. Under both laws, minors are prevented frompurchasing certain materials; and under both laws, par-ents are free to supply their children with these items if that is their wish."[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
+ *'''[[Argument: If sex images can be banned for youths, so can violence| If sex images can be banned for youths, so can violence]]''' [http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/oped/2011/jul/02/TDOPIN02-albanese-supreme-court-got-it-wrong-on-vi-ar-1146804/ Jay Albanese. ¨Albanese: Supreme Court got it wrong on violent video games.¨ Richmond Times Dispatch. July 2nd, 2011]: ¨Legal definitions and prosecutions for obscene materials in the United States always have been directed at depictions of sexual conduct. Violence has never been part of that definition, and the Supreme Court continues in its belief that depictions of sex are harmful, but depictions of violence are not. The terms "patently offensive" and "prurient interest" in past court decisions invariably resulted in subjective line-drawing in attempting to distinguish gratuitous depictions of sex from those that have "literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Simply stated, the value of adult sex is an elusive concept, difficult to determine in an objective way, which poses a fundamental problem that underlies legislation and court decisions in this area. When sexual conduct is carried out in a tasteless manner, little social interest is involved. This makes it difficult to regulate or prohibit, due to its unclear impact on public health, safety or welfare. Objectively more harmful than gratuitous sex are depictions of gratuitous violence. A significant social concern arises when sex is depicted in a way that involves force against an unwilling victim, against children, or even when unjustified violence without sex is depicted. A similar case can be made for depictions of violence resulting from hate, due to race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.¨
+ *'''[[Argument: Some games are clearly too offensive for youth| Some games are clearly too offensive for youth]]''' Justice Alito: “The objective of one game is to rape a mother and her daughters [...] players attempt to fire a rifle shot into the head of President Kennedy as his motorcade passes by the Texas School Book Depository.” He also added that children may soon play three-dimensional high-definition games wearing equipment that allows them to “feel the splatting blood from the blown-off head” of a victim.[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2]
+ :Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 2011: "It also appears that there is no antisocial theme too base for some in the video-game industry to exploit. There are games in which a player can take on the identity and re-enact the killings carried out by the perpetrators of the murders at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech. The objective of one game is to rape a mother and her daughters; in another, the goal is to rape Native American women. There is a game in which players engage in ´ethnic cleansing and can choose to gun down African-Americans, Latinos, or Jews."[http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/oped/2011/jul/02/TDOPIN02-albanese-supreme-court-got-it-wrong-on-vi-ar-1146804/]
====Con==== ====Con====
+ *'''Violent video games are protected by the first amendment.''' Justice Scalia wrote in June 2011 "opinion of the court" against the California ban on the sale of video games to minors: "Like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages — through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection. Under our Consti-tution, “esthetic and moral judgments about art and lit-erature . . . are for the individual to make, not for the Government to decree, even with the mandate or approvalof a majority.” United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U. S. 803, 818 (2000). And whatever the challenges of applying the Constitution to ever-advancing technology, “the basic principles of freedom of speech and the press, like the First Amendment’s command, do notvary” when a new and different medium for communication appears. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495, 503 (1952)."[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
- *'''Depictions of violence should be subject to govt regs.''' [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html Adam Liptak. "Justices Reject Ban on Violent Video Games for Children." New York Times. June 27th, 2011]: "Depictions of violence, Justice Scalia added, have never been subject to government regulation. 'Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed,' he wrote, recounting the gory plots of 'Snow White,' 'Cinderella' and 'Hansel and Gretel.' High school reading lists and Saturday morning cartoons, too, he said, are riddled with violence." + *'''[[Argument: No tradition of protecting children from depictions of violence| No tradition of protecting children from depictions of violence]]''' BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL: "the State wishes to cre-ate a wholly new category of content-based regulation that is permis-sible only for speech directed at children. That is unprecedented and mistaken. This country has no tradition of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence."
+ [http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
- *'''Violent video games are defended by the first amendment.''' Justice Scalia wrote in his opinion defending the June 2011 Supreme Court ruling against the California ban on the sale of video games to minors: "Like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages — through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection."[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html] + *'''State shouldn't restrict ideas exposed to kids.''' Justice Scalia opinion: “No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."
+ *'''Ideas expressed in violent games shouldn´t be surpressed.''' BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL: "JUSTICE ALITO has done considerable independent re-search to identify, see post, at 14–15, nn. 13–18, video games in which “the violence is astounding,” post, at 14. “Victims are dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled, set on fire, and chopped into little pieces. . . . Blood gushes, splatters, and pools.” Ibid. JUSTICE ALITO recounts all these disgusting video games in order to disgust us—butdisgust is not a valid basis for restricting expression. [...] JUSTICE ALITO’s argument highlights the precise danger posed by the California Act: that the ideas expressed by speech—whether it be violence, or gore, or racism—and not its objective effects, may be the real reason for governmental proscription."[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
+ *'''Ban wrongly alienates video games.''' BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL, Opinion of the Court (June 2011): "Califor-nia has singled out the purveyors of video games for disfa-vored treatment—at least when compared to booksellers,cartoonists, and movie producers—and has given no per-suasive reason why."[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
+ *'''Speech about violence not "obsene" (only sex is).''' Holding that obscenity only covers sexual material, the US Supreme Court struck down California´s law for not satisfying the "strict scrutiny" required of content-based speech restrictions.[http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/06/scalia-wrong-thomas-right-violent-video-games#ixzz1RHDGPsIV]
+ *'''Ban on video games follows long history of similar bans.''' The Entertainment Software Association and the Entertainment Merchant Association wrote in a 2011 brief for the US Supreme Court on their consideration of a California ban on violent video games for youths: "The California statute at bar is the latest in a long history of overreactions to new expressive media. In the past, comic books, true-crime novels, movies, rock music, and other new media have all been accused of harming our youth. In each case, the perceived threat later proved unfounded."[http://www.pcworld.com/article/205302/game_vendors_stand_against_video_game_ban.html]
+ === Exceptional: Are video games a different category, unlike other speech? ===
+ *'''Games put violence in hands of players, unlike other speech.''' Justice ALITO June 2011 opinion: "Spending hour upon hour controlling the actions of a character who guns down scores of innocent victims is not different in “kind” from reading a description of violence in a work of literature.See ante, at 10–11. The Court is sure of this; I am not. There are reasons to suspect that the experience of playing violent video games just might be very different from reading a book, listening to the radio, or watching a movie or a television show. [...] the Court is far too quick to dismiss the possi-bility that the experience of playing video games (and the effects on minors of playing violent video games) may bevery different from anything that we have seen before. Any assessment of the experience of playing video gamesmust take into account certain characteristics of the video games that are now on the market and those that arelikely to be available in the near future. Today’s most advanced video games create realistic alternative worlds in which millions of players immersethemselves for hours on end. These games feature visual imagery and sounds that are strikingly realistic, and in the near future video-game graphics may be virtually indistinguishable from actual video footage.7 Many of thegames already on the market can produce high definition images,8 and it is predicted that it will not be long before video-game images will be seen in three dimensions.9 It is also forecast that video games will soon provide sensory feedback.10 By wearing a special vest or other device, a player will be able to experience physical sensations sup-posedly felt by a character on the screen.11 Some amici who support respondents foresee the day when ‘virtual-reality shoot-‘em-ups’ will allow children to ‘actually feel the splatting blood from the blown-off head’” of a victim.Brief for Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press et al. as Amici Curiae 29 (quoting H. Schechter, Savage Pas-times 18 (2005)). Persons who play video games also have an unprece-dented ability to participate in the events that take placein the virtual worlds that these games create. Players can create their own video-game characters and can use pho-tos to produce characters that closely resemble actualpeople. A person playing a sophisticated game can make a multitude of choices and can thereby alter the course ofthe action in the game. In addition, the means by whichplayers control the action in video games now bear a closer relationship to the means by which people control action in the real world. While the action in older games wasoften directed with buttons or a joystick, players dictate the action in newer games by engaging in the same motions that they desire a character in the game to per-form.12 For example, a player who wants a video-gamecharacter to swing a baseball bat—either to hit a ball or smash a skull—could bring that about by simulating the motion of actually swinging a bat. These present-day and emerging characteristics of video games must be considered together with characteristics of the violent games that have already been marketed."[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
+ *'''Violent games protected like violent literature, plays, etc.''' BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL: "(a) Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like pro-tected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through fa-miliar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium. And “the basic principles of freedom of speech . . . do not vary"[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
+ *'''Player can control video game and even disengage.''' [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/opinion/28olson.html Cheryl Olson. ¨It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend.¨ The New York Times. June 27, 2011]: ¨one could just as easily argue that interactivity makes games less harmful: the player controls the action, and can stop playing if he feels overwhelmed or upset."
+ *'''Participatory video games equally protected by free speech.''' "California’s claim that “interactive” video games present special problems, in that the playerparticipates in the violent action on screen and determines its out-come, is unpersuasive."
*'''Depictions of violence not category exempted from free speech.''' Only a few kinds of speech, like incitement, obscenity and fighting words, are beyond the protection of the First Amendment, according to Justice Scalia, adding that the court would not lightly create new excluded categories.[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html] *'''Depictions of violence not category exempted from free speech.''' Only a few kinds of speech, like incitement, obscenity and fighting words, are beyond the protection of the First Amendment, according to Justice Scalia, adding that the court would not lightly create new excluded categories.[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html]
- *'''Violent games don't have clear "harm" to kids.''' Justice Scalia opinion: “No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2] + *'''Violent games protected like violent literature, plays, etc.''' BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL: "(a) Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like pro-tected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through fa-miliar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium. And “the basic principles of freedom of speech . . . do not vary"[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
+ *'''Interaction with violent speech is nothing new.''' BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL, Majority Opinion (November, 2010): "California claims that video games present specialproblems because they are “interactive,” in that the playerparticipates in the violent action on screen and determines its outcome. The latter feature is nothing new: Sinceat least the publication of The Adventures of You: Sugar-cane Island in 1969, young readers of choose-your-own-adventure stories have been able to make decisions that determine the plot by following instructions about which page to turn to. As for the argument that video games enable participation inthe violent action, that seems to us more a matter of de-gree than of kind. As Judge Posner has observed, all literature is interactive. ´[T]he better it is, the moreinteractive. Literature when it is successful draws the reader into the story, makes him identify with the charac-ters, invites him to judge them and quarrel with them, toexperience their joys and sufferings as the reader’s own.´"[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
- |WRITE CONTENT FOR THE "Con" BOX ABOVE THIS CODE colspan="2" width="45%" bgcolor="#F2F2F2" style="border:1px solid #BAC5FD;padding:.4em;padding-top: 0.5em ;"| + |colspan="2" width="45%" bgcolor="#F2F2F2" style="border:1px solid #BAC5FD;padding:.4em;padding-top:0.5em;"|
- ==External links== + === Like fairy tales: Is violence in games akin to that in fairy tales? ===
+ *'''[[Argument: Violent video games aren't equivalent to fairy tales| Violent video games aren't equivalent to fairy tales]]''' [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-i-mitroff/its-a-grim-day-for-our-children_b_888012.html Ian Mitroff. "It's a Grim Day for Our Children." Huffington Post. June 30th, 2011]: "In equating the violence in the Grimm fairy tales with that of video games, the Court committed a grievous error in arguing that free speech protected the producers of violent video games. In short, the Court's argument is that if we shouldn't ban fairytales because they contain violence, then we shouldn't ban video games, as well. The argument is false, because neither the violence nor the purpose of the two is even remotely the same. Adults generally read fairy tales to young children so that adults both mediate and interpret the violence. Most important of all, unlike in video games, children do not cause the violence themselves. The Grimm brothers did not invent, but brought together and embellished the fairy tales that had already existed in European culture for hundreds of years. In other words, fairy tales were spontaneous creations of the human psyche. They were not created for the 'marketplace.'"
+ *'''[[Argument: Violence in video games similar to that in ferry tales, etc| Violence in video games similar to that in ferry tales, etc]]''' BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL, Opinion of the Court (June 2011): "California’s argument would fare better if there were alongstanding tradition in this country of specially restrict-ing children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read—orread to them when they are younger—contain no shortageof gore. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim in-deed. As her just deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers “till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jeal-ousy.' Cinderella’s evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves."[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
+ ===Corporate interests: Is protecting violent games just pro-business? ===
+ *'''Violent game ban puts children above corporations.''' Leland Yee, a California state senator who wrote the law, said in a statement that “the Supreme Court once again put the interests of corporate America before the interests of our children. It is simply wrong that the video game industry can be allowed to put their profit margins over the rights of parents and the well-being of children.”[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28scotus.html]
+ *'''Coporate interests irrelevant to protecting free speech.''' It may be true that video game companies benefit from protecting their right to produce violent games and for youth to buy them. But, this is a consequence of a ruling based on principles of free speech, not the consequence of a ruling based on enriching corporations. There is nothing wrong with companies benefiting from such free speech protections.
+ ===Helping parents: Does a violent video game ban help parents?===
+ *'''Ban makes parents' job easier.''' [http://newsone.com/newsone-original/tmallory/supreme-court-video-game-ban-minors/ Tamika Mallory. "Failure To Ban Violent Video Games Makes Job Harder For Parents." News One. July 1, 2011]: "As a mother of a teenage son, I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve walked into a room and turned off a video game or TV program that I felt was inappropriate for a still developing child. But despite how often I pull the plug or refuse to let him buy certain products, the reality is that our Supreme Court just made my job and the job of other parents that much more difficult. Ruling on Monday that violent and dangerous video games could not be banned to minors, the Supreme Court in essence said to all of us: you’re on your own."
+ *'''Speech bypassing parents for kids is unprotected category.''' Clarence Thomas explains, "the practices and beliefs held by the Founders reveal another category ...: speech to minor children bypassing their parents. ... Parents had absolute authority over their minor children and ... parents used that authority to direct the proper development of their children."[http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/06/scalia-wrong-thomas-right-violent-video-games#ixzz1RHELE6Ip]
+ *'''Parents have responsibility to monitor video games, not state.''' Parents have the responsibility to decided to expose or not expose their children to these kinds of games, based on their own value systems. If the state does this for them, it both nanny's them and robs them of the opportunity to excercise responsible parenting.
+ *'''Voluntary rating system lets parents restrict video game access.''' BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL (November, 2010): "California also cannot show that the Act’s restrictions meet the alleged substantial need of parents who wish to restrict their children’s access to violent videos. The video-game industry’s voluntary rating system already accomplishes that to a large extent."[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
+ *'''Many kids would be prohibited whose parents don´t mind.''' BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL, Majority Opinion (November, 2010): "as a means of assisting parents the Act is greatly overinclusive, since not all of the children who are pro-hibited from purchasing violent video games have parents who dis-approve of their doing so. The Act cannot satisfy strict scrutiny."[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf]
+ ===Pro/con sources ===
+ *[http://newsone.com/newsone-original/tmallory/supreme-court-video-game-ban-minors/ Tamika Mallory. "Failure To Ban Violent Video Games Makes Job Harder For Parents." News One. July 1, 2011]
+ *[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-i-mitroff/its-a-grim-day-for-our-children_b_888012.html Ian Mitroff. "It's a Grim Day for Our Children." Huffington Post. June 30th, 2011]
+ *[http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/oped/2011/jul/02/TDOPIN02-albanese-supreme-court-got-it-wrong-on-vi-ar-1146804/ Jay Albanese. ¨Albanese: Supreme Court got it wrong on violent video games.¨ Richmond Times Dispatch. July 2nd, 2011]
+ *[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/opinion/28olson.html Cheryl Olson. ¨It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend.¨ The New York Times. June 27, 2011]
+ ==External links==
+ *[http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/06/scalia-wrong-thomas-right-violent-video-games Garrett Epps. "What Clarence Thomas's Video-Games Dissent Tells Us About 'Originalism'" The Atlantic. June 27 2011]
The US Supreme Court ruled in June of 2011 against California's ban on the sale of violent video games to minors. The California law would have imposed $1,000 fines on stores that sold violent video games to anyone under 18. The ruling highlights what is a much larger, national and international debate regarding the effect of violent
video games on youth, and the potential need, subsequently, for the regulation of their sale. The California law defined violent games as those 'in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being' in a way that was 'patently offensive,' appealed to minors’ 'deviant or morbid interests' and lacked 'serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.'"[1] Accepting that this description of violent video games may be true, the debate about banning them relates largely to the limits of free speech and government censorship. Should the government be involved in limiting speech regarding violence toward youth? Can violent images be considered "obscene" in the same way as sexual imagery, and thus receive the same age-restricted regulation? Are video games an entirely new medium stretching beyond the ordinary boundaries of "speech" due to their ability to engage players in virtual acts of violence and murder? Does this kind of engagement pose unique risks to youth, perhaps encouraging them to emulate the acts they see in these games? These and other pros and cons are considered below.
Violence: Do violent games make youth more agressive/violent?
Some youth have tried to emulate violence in games. Paul Boxer. "It's up to parents to enforce a ban on violent video games." NJ.com. July 1st, 2011: "A few years ago, on Long Island, six teenagers were arrested after a crime spree involving break-ins, a violent mugging and a carjacking attempt. According to what the teens told authorities, they had been trying to live out the life of Niko Belic. Ever heard of him? He is the protagonist in the wildly popular video game 'Grand Theft Auto IV.' What the teens did represents one of the worst-case scenarios imagined by those who advocate for government to limit the sale of violent video games to minors. Fortunately, such scenarios are very few and very far between. And Monday, the Supreme Court handed down a decision preventing the state of California from instituting a ban on the sale of such games to minors. The decision was steeped in legal precedent concerning free speech and censorship. But make no mistake: The Supreme Court’s decision in no way negates or devalues the decades of scientific research that have been conducted demonstrating that the consumption of violent media leads to increases in aggressive and anti-social behavior."
Youth playing violent games exhibit more aggression. Paul Boxer. "It's up to parents to enforce a ban on violent video games." NJ.com. July 1st, 2011: "High-profile events such as teenagers getting inspired by the actions of a violent video game character can be tragic, but they also distract from the large body of knowledge that has accumulated on the impact of violent media on children. Since the early 1970s, scientists have observed very clear, frequently replicated and strikingly robust effects. In experimental studies, children who view violent television shows or films — or who play violent video games — are significantly more likely to behave aggressively in comparison to children who view nonviolent television shows or films, or who play nonviolent video games. In long-term studies, individuals who consume violent media during childhood end up more aggressive as adults, in comparison with peers who consume nonviolent media during childhood. The studies that have produced such findings now number in the hundreds. The effects have been seen in children from urban areas, as well as suburban and rural areas; in the United States, as well as many other Western and non-Western nations."
Violent video games are real danger to young minds. Paul Boxer. "It's up to parents to enforce a ban on violent video games." NJ.com. July 1st, 2011: "As policy statements from organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association have made clear, violent media represents a real and compelling risk to the behavioral and mental health of children and adolescents. In fact, research studies have yielded the conclusion that the effect of violent media consumption on aggressive behavior is in the same ballpark statistically as the effect of smoking on lung cancer, the effect of lead exposure on children’s intellectual development and the effect of asbestos on laryngeal cancer."
Legislators have grounds to conclude harm to children. Justice Breyer: “Unlike the majority. I would find sufficient grounds in these studies and expert opinions for this court to defer to an elected legislature’s conclusion that the video games in question are particularly likely to harm children.”[2]
Violent video games do not increase aggression. A 2005 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign study found: "Players were not statistically different from the non-playing control group in their beliefs on aggression after playing the game than they were before playing." He added: "Nor was game play a predictor of aggressive behaviors. Compared with the control group, the players neither increased their argumentative behaviors after game play nor were significantly more likely to argue with their friends and partners."[3]
People know video game violence is fake. Cheryl Olson. ¨It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend.¨ The New York Times. June 27, 2011: ¨Many people assume that video game violence is consistently and unspeakably awful, that little Jacob spends most afternoons torturing victims to death. But these people haven’t played many video games. The state drew its examples of depravity almost exclusively from an obscure game called Postal 2, which, surveys show, is rarely played by children or young teens. The game is deliberately outrageous; you can, for example, impale a cat on your gun as a makeshift silencer. A trailer for Postal 3, said to be out later this year, encourages players to ´Tase those annoying hockey moms or shoot them in the face! This may sound disturbing, but it’s also ridiculous. And young people know it: as one 13-year-old said during a study I conducted at Harvard, “With video games, you know it’s fake.”
Youth violence has been declining, violent video games fine. F.B.I. data shows that youth violence continues to decline. It is now at its lowest rate in years. Violent video games, therefore, can hardly be seen as a major problem since they´ve been around for years.[4]
TV violence is more harmful than violent video games. Cheryl Olson. "It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend." The New York Times. June 27, 2011: "there is much better evidence to support psychological harm from exposure to violence on TV news."
Games help develop youths' minds, skills, confidence. Cheryl Olson. ¨It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend.¨ The New York Times. June 27, 2011: "such games (in moderation) may actually have some positive effects on developing minds."
Youths can test/find their own identity in violent games. Cheryl Olson. ¨It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend.¨ The New York Times. June 27, 2011: "a teen can try out different identities — how it feels to be a hero, a trickster, a feared or scorned killer, or someone of a different age or sex — in the safe fantasy world of a video game."
Video game bans fail test of strict scrutiny. BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL: "Because the Act imposes a restriction on the content of pro-tected speech, it is invalid unless California can demonstrate that itpasses strict scrutiny, i.e., it is justified by a compelling governmentinterest and is narrowly drawn to serve that interest. R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 395. California cannot meet that standard. Psy-chological studies purporting to show a connection between exposureto violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively. Any demon-strated effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects pro-duced by other media."[5]
Free speech: Do violent games qualify for free speech protections?
Banning sale of games to minors is limited infringement. Justice Alito opinion June 2011: "The California law involved here, by contrast, is limited to the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. The California law imposes no restriction on thecreation of violent video games, or on the possession of such games by anyone, whether above or below the age of 18. The California law does not regulate the sale or rental of violent games by adults. And the California law does not prevent parents and certain other close relatives from buying or renting violent games for their children or otheryoung relatives if they see fit. [...] The Court’s opinion distorts the effect of the California law. I certainly agree with the Court that the governmenthas no “free-floating power to restrict the ideas to whichchildren may be exposed,” ante, at 7, but the California law does not exercise such a power. If parents want theirchild to have a violent video game, the California law does not interfere with that parental prerogative. Instead, the California law reinforces parental decisionmaking inexactly the same way as the New York statute upheld in Ginsberg. Under both laws, minors are prevented frompurchasing certain materials; and under both laws, par-ents are free to supply their children with these items if that is their wish."[6]
If sex images can be banned for youths, so can violence Jay Albanese. ¨Albanese: Supreme Court got it wrong on violent video games.¨ Richmond Times Dispatch. July 2nd, 2011: ¨Legal definitions and prosecutions for obscene materials in the United States always have been directed at depictions of sexual conduct. Violence has never been part of that definition, and the Supreme Court continues in its belief that depictions of sex are harmful, but depictions of violence are not. The terms "patently offensive" and "prurient interest" in past court decisions invariably resulted in subjective line-drawing in attempting to distinguish gratuitous depictions of sex from those that have "literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Simply stated, the value of adult sex is an elusive concept, difficult to determine in an objective way, which poses a fundamental problem that underlies legislation and court decisions in this area. When sexual conduct is carried out in a tasteless manner, little social interest is involved. This makes it difficult to regulate or prohibit, due to its unclear impact on public health, safety or welfare. Objectively more harmful than gratuitous sex are depictions of gratuitous violence. A significant social concern arises when sex is depicted in a way that involves force against an unwilling victim, against children, or even when unjustified violence without sex is depicted. A similar case can be made for depictions of violence resulting from hate, due to race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.¨
Some games are clearly too offensive for youth Justice Alito: “The objective of one game is to rape a mother and her daughters [...] players attempt to fire a rifle shot into the head of President Kennedy as his motorcade passes by the Texas School Book Depository.” He also added that children may soon play three-dimensional high-definition games wearing equipment that allows them to “feel the splatting blood from the blown-off head” of a victim.[7]
Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 2011: "It also appears that there is no antisocial theme too base for some in the video-game industry to exploit. There are games in which a player can take on the identity and re-enact the killings carried out by the perpetrators of the murders at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech. The objective of one game is to rape a mother and her daughters; in another, the goal is to rape Native American women. There is a game in which players engage in ´ethnic cleansing and can choose to gun down African-Americans, Latinos, or Jews."[8]
Violent video games are protected by the first amendment. Justice Scalia wrote in June 2011 "opinion of the court" against the California ban on the sale of video games to minors: "Like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages — through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection. Under our Consti-tution, “esthetic and moral judgments about art and lit-erature . . . are for the individual to make, not for the Government to decree, even with the mandate or approvalof a majority.” United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U. S. 803, 818 (2000). And whatever the challenges of applying the Constitution to ever-advancing technology, “the basic principles of freedom of speech and the press, like the First Amendment’s command, do notvary” when a new and different medium for communication appears. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495, 503 (1952)."[9]
No tradition of protecting children from depictions of violence BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL: "the State wishes to cre-ate a wholly new category of content-based regulation that is permis-sible only for speech directed at children. That is unprecedented and mistaken. This country has no tradition of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence."
State shouldn't restrict ideas exposed to kids. Justice Scalia opinion: “No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."
Ideas expressed in violent games shouldn´t be surpressed. BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL: "JUSTICE ALITO has done considerable independent re-search to identify, see post, at 14–15, nn. 13–18, video games in which “the violence is astounding,” post, at 14. “Victims are dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled, set on fire, and chopped into little pieces. . . . Blood gushes, splatters, and pools.” Ibid. JUSTICE ALITO recounts all these disgusting video games in order to disgust us—butdisgust is not a valid basis for restricting expression. [...] JUSTICE ALITO’s argument highlights the precise danger posed by the California Act: that the ideas expressed by speech—whether it be violence, or gore, or racism—and not its objective effects, may be the real reason for governmental proscription."[11]
Ban wrongly alienates video games. BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL, Opinion of the Court (June 2011): "Califor-nia has singled out the purveyors of video games for disfa-vored treatment—at least when compared to booksellers,cartoonists, and movie producers—and has given no per-suasive reason why."[12]
Speech about violence not "obsene" (only sex is). Holding that obscenity only covers sexual material, the US Supreme Court struck down California´s law for not satisfying the "strict scrutiny" required of content-based speech restrictions.[13]
Ban on video games follows long history of similar bans. The Entertainment Software Association and the Entertainment Merchant Association wrote in a 2011 brief for the US Supreme Court on their consideration of a California ban on violent video games for youths: "The California statute at bar is the latest in a long history of overreactions to new expressive media. In the past, comic books, true-crime novels, movies, rock music, and other new media have all been accused of harming our youth. In each case, the perceived threat later proved unfounded."[14]
Exceptional: Are video games a different category, unlike other speech?
Games put violence in hands of players, unlike other speech. Justice ALITO June 2011 opinion: "Spending hour upon hour controlling the actions of a character who guns down scores of innocent victims is not different in “kind” from reading a description of violence in a work of literature.See ante, at 10–11. The Court is sure of this; I am not. There are reasons to suspect that the experience of playing violent video games just might be very different from reading a book, listening to the radio, or watching a movie or a television show. [...] the Court is far too quick to dismiss the possi-bility that the experience of playing video games (and the effects on minors of playing violent video games) may bevery different from anything that we have seen before. Any assessment of the experience of playing video gamesmust take into account certain characteristics of the video games that are now on the market and those that arelikely to be available in the near future. Today’s most advanced video games create realistic alternative worlds in which millions of players immersethemselves for hours on end. These games feature visual imagery and sounds that are strikingly realistic, and in the near future video-game graphics may be virtually indistinguishable from actual video footage.7 Many of thegames already on the market can produce high definition images,8 and it is predicted that it will not be long before video-game images will be seen in three dimensions.9 It is also forecast that video games will soon provide sensory feedback.10 By wearing a special vest or other device, a player will be able to experience physical sensations sup-posedly felt by a character on the screen.11 Some amici who support respondents foresee the day when ‘virtual-reality shoot-‘em-ups’ will allow children to ‘actually feel the splatting blood from the blown-off head’” of a victim.Brief for Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press et al. as Amici Curiae 29 (quoting H. Schechter, Savage Pas-times 18 (2005)). Persons who play video games also have an unprece-dented ability to participate in the events that take placein the virtual worlds that these games create. Players can create their own video-game characters and can use pho-tos to produce characters that closely resemble actualpeople. A person playing a sophisticated game can make a multitude of choices and can thereby alter the course ofthe action in the game. In addition, the means by whichplayers control the action in video games now bear a closer relationship to the means by which people control action in the real world. While the action in older games wasoften directed with buttons or a joystick, players dictate the action in newer games by engaging in the same motions that they desire a character in the game to per-form.12 For example, a player who wants a video-gamecharacter to swing a baseball bat—either to hit a ball or smash a skull—could bring that about by simulating the motion of actually swinging a bat. These present-day and emerging characteristics of video games must be considered together with characteristics of the violent games that have already been marketed."[15]
Violent games protected like violent literature, plays, etc. BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL: "(a) Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like pro-tected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through fa-miliar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium. And “the basic principles of freedom of speech . . . do not vary"[16]
Player can control video game and even disengage. Cheryl Olson. ¨It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend.¨ The New York Times. June 27, 2011: ¨one could just as easily argue that interactivity makes games less harmful: the player controls the action, and can stop playing if he feels overwhelmed or upset."
Participatory video games equally protected by free speech. "California’s claim that “interactive” video games present special problems, in that the playerparticipates in the violent action on screen and determines its out-come, is unpersuasive."
Depictions of violence not category exempted from free speech. Only a few kinds of speech, like incitement, obscenity and fighting words, are beyond the protection of the First Amendment, according to Justice Scalia, adding that the court would not lightly create new excluded categories.[17]
Interaction with violent speech is nothing new. BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL, Majority Opinion (November, 2010): "California claims that video games present specialproblems because they are “interactive,” in that the playerparticipates in the violent action on screen and determines its outcome. The latter feature is nothing new: Sinceat least the publication of The Adventures of You: Sugar-cane Island in 1969, young readers of choose-your-own-adventure stories have been able to make decisions that determine the plot by following instructions about which page to turn to. As for the argument that video games enable participation inthe violent action, that seems to us more a matter of de-gree than of kind. As Judge Posner has observed, all literature is interactive. ´[T]he better it is, the moreinteractive. Literature when it is successful draws the reader into the story, makes him identify with the charac-ters, invites him to judge them and quarrel with them, toexperience their joys and sufferings as the reader’s own.´"[19]
Like fairy tales: Is violence in games akin to that in fairy tales?
Violent video games aren't equivalent to fairy tales Ian Mitroff. "It's a Grim Day for Our Children." Huffington Post. June 30th, 2011: "In equating the violence in the Grimm fairy tales with that of video games, the Court committed a grievous error in arguing that free speech protected the producers of violent video games. In short, the Court's argument is that if we shouldn't ban fairytales because they contain violence, then we shouldn't ban video games, as well. The argument is false, because neither the violence nor the purpose of the two is even remotely the same. Adults generally read fairy tales to young children so that adults both mediate and interpret the violence. Most important of all, unlike in video games, children do not cause the violence themselves. The Grimm brothers did not invent, but brought together and embellished the fairy tales that had already existed in European culture for hundreds of years. In other words, fairy tales were spontaneous creations of the human psyche. They were not created for the 'marketplace.'"
Violence in video games similar to that in ferry tales, etc BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL, Opinion of the Court (June 2011): "California’s argument would fare better if there were alongstanding tradition in this country of specially restrict-ing children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read—orread to them when they are younger—contain no shortageof gore. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim in-deed. As her just deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers “till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jeal-ousy.' Cinderella’s evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves."[20]
Corporate interests: Is protecting violent games just pro-business?
Violent game ban puts children above corporations. Leland Yee, a California state senator who wrote the law, said in a statement that “the Supreme Court once again put the interests of corporate America before the interests of our children. It is simply wrong that the video game industry can be allowed to put their profit margins over the rights of parents and the well-being of children.”[21]
Coporate interests irrelevant to protecting free speech. It may be true that video game companies benefit from protecting their right to produce violent games and for youth to buy them. But, this is a consequence of a ruling based on principles of free speech, not the consequence of a ruling based on enriching corporations. There is nothing wrong with companies benefiting from such free speech protections.
Helping parents: Does a violent video game ban help parents?
Ban makes parents' job easier. Tamika Mallory. "Failure To Ban Violent Video Games Makes Job Harder For Parents." News One. July 1, 2011: "As a mother of a teenage son, I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve walked into a room and turned off a video game or TV program that I felt was inappropriate for a still developing child. But despite how often I pull the plug or refuse to let him buy certain products, the reality is that our Supreme Court just made my job and the job of other parents that much more difficult. Ruling on Monday that violent and dangerous video games could not be banned to minors, the Supreme Court in essence said to all of us: you’re on your own."
Speech bypassing parents for kids is unprotected category. Clarence Thomas explains, "the practices and beliefs held by the Founders reveal another category ...: speech to minor children bypassing their parents. ... Parents had absolute authority over their minor children and ... parents used that authority to direct the proper development of their children."[22]
Parents have responsibility to monitor video games, not state. Parents have the responsibility to decided to expose or not expose their children to these kinds of games, based on their own value systems. If the state does this for them, it both nanny's them and robs them of the opportunity to excercise responsible parenting.
Voluntary rating system lets parents restrict video game access. BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL (November, 2010): "California also cannot show that the Act’s restrictions meet the alleged substantial need of parents who wish to restrict their children’s access to violent videos. The video-game industry’s voluntary rating system already accomplishes that to a large extent."[23]
Many kids would be prohibited whose parents don´t mind. BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL, Majority Opinion (November, 2010): "as a means of assisting parents the Act is greatly overinclusive, since not all of the children who are pro-hibited from purchasing violent video games have parents who dis-approve of their doing so. The Act cannot satisfy strict scrutiny."[24]
Pro/con sources
Tamika Mallory. "Failure To Ban Violent Video Games Makes Job Harder For Parents." News One. July 1, 2011
Ian Mitroff. "It's a Grim Day for Our Children." Huffington Post. June 30th, 2011
Jay Albanese. ¨Albanese: Supreme Court got it wrong on violent video games.¨ Richmond Times Dispatch. July 2nd, 2011
Cheryl Olson. ¨It’s Perverse, but It’s Also Pretend.¨ The New York Times. June 27, 2011
Garrett Epps. "What Clarence Thomas's Video-Games Dissent Tells Us About 'Originalism'" The Atlantic. June 27 2011
Retrieved from "http://dbp.idebate.org/en/index.php/Debate:_Ban_on_sale_of_violent_video_games_to_minors"
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1.11(4) (4) Nothing in this section affects the specific statutory obligations of any agency:
1.11(4)(a) (a) To comply with criteria or standards of environmental quality;
1.11(4)(b) (b) To coordinate or consult with any other state or federal agency; or
1.11(4)(c) (c) To act, or refrain from acting contingent upon the recommendations or certification of any other state or federal agency.
1.11(5) (5) The policies and goals set forth in this section are supplementary to those set forth in existing authorizations of agencies.
1.11 History History: 1971 c. 274; 1973 c. 204; 1979 c. 89, 262; 1985 a. 29, 332; 1991 a. 273; 1993 a. 184, 213; 2001 a. 103.
1.11 Cross-reference Cross-reference: See also chs. NR 150, PSC 4, TCS 4, and Trans 400 and ss. Adm 60.01, ATCP 3.07, DOC 335.01, DHS 18.01, NR 2.085, and SPS 301.01, Wis. adm. code.
1.11 Annotation The Wisconsin Environmental Protection Act, while not creating a public trust analogous to the public trust in the state's navigable waters, recognizes an interest sufficient to grant a person standing to question compliance with its provisions when it is alleged that agency action will harm the environment in the area where the person resides. Wisconsin's Environmental Decade, Inc. v. PSC, 69 Wis. 2d 1, 230 N.W.2d 243 (1975).
1.11 Annotation Counties are not “agencies of the state" within meaning of sub. (2) (c). Robinson v. Kunach, 76 Wis. 2d 436, 251 N.W.2d 449 (1977).
1.11 Annotation Sub. (2) (e) is applicable to proceedings involving authorization of priority systems for the curtailment of natural gas service. Wisconsin's Environmental Decade, Inc. v. PSC, 79 Wis. 2d 161, 255 N.W.2d 917 (1977).
1.11 Annotation On judicial review of a state agency's decision not to prepare an environmental impact statement, the agency has the burden of producing a reviewable record reflecting a preliminary factual investigation into relevant areas of environmental concern and of showing a reasonable determination based on the same. Wisconsin's Environmental Decade, Inc. v. PSC, 79 Wis. 2d 409, 256 N.W.2d 149 (1977).
1.11 Annotation The lack of a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) prepared environmental impact statement did not invalidate a DNR order to close a landfill site. Holtz & Krause, Inc. v. DNR, 85 Wis. 2d 198, 270 N.W.2d 409 (1978).
1.11 Annotation The Department of Natural Resources' decision to limit the scope of a threshold decision to consideration of the impact of a segment of a proposed sewer interceptor was reasonable when the segment had: 1) independent utility; 2) a main purpose of fulfilling a local need; 3) logical termini; and 4) construction of the first segment did not compel construction of the second segment. Wisconsin's Environmental Decade, Inc. v. DNR, 94 Wis. 2d 263, 288 N.W.2d 168 (Ct. App. 1979).
1.11 Annotation An agency determination that an environmental impact statement was adequately prepared is reviewed under s. 227.20 [now s. 227.57]. Wisconsin's Environmental Decade, Inc. v. PSC, 98 Wis. 2d 682, 298 N.W.2d 205 (Ct. App. 1980).
1.11 Annotation The court erred in finding that this section applied to the Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations' code compliance review procedure. Wisconsin's Environmental Decade, Inc. v. DILHR, 104 Wis. 2d 640, 312 N.W.2d 749 (1981).
1.11 Annotation An order establishing depreciation rates for a utility's nuclear plant did not require an environmental impact statement. Wisconsin's Environmental Decade, Inc. v. PSC, 105 Wis. 2d 457, 313 N.W.2d 863 (Ct. App. 1981).
1.11 Annotation Standing to challenge a final environmental impact statement requires that the agency decision directly cause injury to the interest of the petitioner, which must be an interest recognized by law. Fox v. DHSS, 112 Wis. 2d 514, 334 N.W.2d 532 (1983).
1.11 Annotation An environmental impact statement is not required when the project will have minor impacts on the environment but will have possible socio-economic impacts. Wisconsin's Environmental Decade, Inc. v. DNR, 115 Wis. 2d 381, 340 N.W.2d 722 (1983).
1.11 Annotation Increased traffic congestion was a sufficient allegation of injury to acquire standing to challenge a final environmental impact statement. Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club v. DHSS, 130 Wis. 2d 56, 387 N.W.2d 245 (1986).
1.11 Annotation When a state action did not come within an action type listed in Department of Administration rules, an environmental assessment was required. A determination following an assessment that an environmental impact statement was not required for a building constructed for the state by a private developer under a lease/purchase agreement was reasonable under the circumstances. Larsen v. Munz Corp., 167 Wis. 2d 583, 482 N.W.2d 332 (1992).
1.11 Annotation The test as to whether an environmental impact statement (EIS) should be conducted is one of reasonableness and good faith. When conditions for approval that compensate for any adverse environmental impacts are imposed, the statutory threshold of significant environmental impact is not crossed, and no EIS is required. State ex rel. Boehm v. DNR, 174 Wis. 2d 657, 497 N.W.2d 445 (1993).
1.11 Annotation Section 227.42 (1) does not grant a right to a contested case hearing regarding the need for an environmental impact statement. North Lake Management District v. DNR, 182 Wis. 2d 500, 513 N.W.2d 703 (Ct. App. 1994).
1.11 Annotation When the legislature has selected a specific project site, consideration of alternative sites is too remote and speculative and not reasonably related to the proposed project. Shoreline Park Preservation, Inc. v. DOA, 195 Wis. 2d 750, 537 N.W.2d 388 (Ct. App. 1995), 94-2512.
1.11 Annotation The burden of proving the adequacy of an environmental impact statement is discussed. Citizens' Utility Board v. PSC, 211 Wis. 2d 537, 565 N.W.2d 554 (Ct. App. 1997), 96-0867.
1.11 Annotation It was reasonable to suspend the requirement for a draft environmental impact statement and the corresponding comment period when legislatively imposed time constraints could not have been met if they were not suspended. Responsible Use of Rural & Agricultural Land v. PSC, 2000 WI 129, 239 Wis. 2d 660, 619 N.W.2d 888, 99-2430.
1.11 Annotation A court must assess an environmental impact statement (EIS) in light of the rule of reason, which requires an EIS to furnish only such information as appears to be reasonably necessary under the circumstances for evaluation of the project rather than to be so all-encompassing in scope that the task of preparing it would become either fruitless or well nigh impossible. While reasonable alternatives are to be considered, every potentiality need not be evaluated. Clean Wisconsin, Inc. v. PSC, 2005 WI 93, 282 Wis. 2d 250, 700 N.W.2d 768, 04-3179.
1.11 Annotation The environmental impact statement is an informational tool that does not compel a particular decision by the agency or prevent the agency from concluding that other values outweigh the environmental consequences of a proposed action. Clean Wisconsin, Inc. v. PSC, 2005 WI 93, 282 Wis. 2d 250, 700 N.W.2d 768, 04-3179.
1.11 Annotation Agency decision-making under the Wisconsin environmental policy act. 1977 WLR 111.
1.12 1.12 State energy policy.
1.12(1)(1) Definitions. In this section:
1.12(1)(a) (a) “Local governmental unit" has the meaning given in s. 19.42 (7u).
1.12(1)(b) (b) “State agency" means an office, department, agency, institution of higher education, the legislature, a legislative service agency, the courts, a judicial branch agency, an association, society, or other body in state government that is created or authorized to be created by the constitution or by law, for which appropriations are made by law, excluding the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.
1.12(2) (2) Conservation policy. A state agency or local governmental unit shall investigate and consider the maximum conservation of energy resources as an important factor when making any major decision that would significantly affect energy usage.
1.12(3) (3) Goals.
1.12(3)(a)(a) Energy efficiency. It is the goal of the state to reduce the ratio of energy consumption to economic activity in the state.
1.12(3)(b) (b) Renewable energy resources. It is the goal of the state that, to the extent that it is cost-effective and technically feasible, all new installed capacity for electric generation in the state be based on renewable energy resources, including hydroelectric, wood, wind, solar, refuse, agricultural and biomass energy resources.
1.12(3)(c) (c) Afforestation. It is the goal of the state to ensure a future supply of wood fuel and reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide by increasing the forested areas of the state.
1.12(4) (4) Priorities. In meeting energy demands, the policy of the state is that, to the extent cost-effective and technically feasible, options be considered based on the following priorities, in the order listed:
1.12(4)(a) (a) Energy conservation and efficiency.
1.12(4)(b) (b) Noncombustible renewable energy resources.
1.12(4)(c) (c) Combustible renewable energy resources.
1.12(4)(cm) (cm) Advanced nuclear energy using a reactor design or amended reactor design approved after December 31, 2010, by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
1.12(4)(d) (d) Nonrenewable combustible energy resources, in the order listed:
1.12(4)(d)1. 1. Natural gas.
1.12(4)(d)2. 2. Oil or coal with a sulphur content of less than 1 percent.
1.12(4)(d)3. 3. All other carbon-based fuels.
1.12(5) (5) Meeting energy demands.
1.12(5)(a) (a) In designing all new and replacement energy projects, a state agency or local governmental unit shall rely to the greatest extent feasible on energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy resources, if the energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy resources are cost-effective and technically feasible and do not have unacceptable environmental impacts.
1.12(5)(b) (b) To the greatest extent cost-effective and technically feasible, a state agency or local governmental unit shall design all new and replacement energy projects following the priorities listed in sub. (4).
1.12(6) (6) Siting of electric transmission facilities. In the siting of new electric transmission facilities, including high-voltage transmission lines, as defined in s. 196.491 (1) (f), it is the policy of this state that, to the greatest extent feasible that is consistent with economic and engineering considerations, reliability of the electric system, and protection of the environment, the following corridors should be utilized in the following order of priority:
1.12(6)(a) (a) Existing utility corridors.
1.12(6)(b) (b) Highway and railroad corridors.
1.12(6)(c) (c) Recreational trails, to the extent that the facilities may be constructed below ground and that the facilities do not significantly impact environmentally sensitive areas.
1.12(6)(d) (d) New corridors.
1.12 History History: 1977 c. 29; 1993 a. 414; 2003 a. 89; 2005 a. 74; 2011 a. 7; 2013 a. 20; 2015 a. 344.
1.12 Note NOTE: 1993 Wis. Act 414, which creates subs. (1) and (3) to (5), contains extensive explanatory notes.
1.12 Cross-reference Cross-reference: See also ch. NR 150 and s. PSC 4.30, Wis. adm. code.
1.12 Annotation When the Public Service Commission (PSC) makes a determination under the plant siting law, s. 196.491, it applies sub. (4) in the context of determining whether to approve the requested plant siting. The question the PSC should ask is: Given the requirements of the plant siting law, what is the highest priority energy option that is also cost effective and technically feasible? Clean Wisconsin, Inc. v. PSC, 2005 WI 93, 282 Wis. 2d 250, 700 N.W.2d 768, 04-3179.
1.13 1.13 Land use planning activities.
1.13(1)(1) In this section:
1.13(1)(a) (a) “Local governmental unit" has the meaning given in s. 1.12 (1) (a).
1.13(1)(b) (b) “State agency" has the meaning given in s. 1.12 (1) (b).
1.13(2) (2) Each state agency, where applicable and consistent with other laws, is encouraged to design its programs, policies, infrastructure and investments of the agency to reflect a balance between the mission of the agency and the following local, comprehensive planning goals:
1.13(2)(a) (a) Promotion of the redevelopment of lands with existing infrastructure and public services and the maintenance and rehabilitation of existing residential, commercial and industrial structures.
1.13(2)(b) (b) Encouragement of neighborhood designs that support a range of transportation choices.
1.13(2)(c) (c) Protection of natural areas, including wetlands, wildlife habitats, lakes, woodlands, open spaces and groundwater resources.
1.13(2)(d) (d) Protection of economically productive areas, including farmland and forests.
1.13(2)(e) (e) Encouragement of land uses, densities and regulations that promote efficient development patterns and relatively low municipal, state governmental and utility costs.
1.13(2)(f) (f) Preservation of cultural, historic and archaeological sites.
1.13(2)(g) (g) Encouragement of coordination and cooperation among nearby units of government.
1.13(2)(h) (h) Building of community identity by revitalizing main streets and enforcing design standards.
1.13(2)(i) (i) Providing an adequate supply of affordable housing for individuals of all income levels throughout each community.
1.13(2)(j) (j) Providing adequate infrastructure and public services and an adequate supply of developable land to meet existing and future market demand for residential, commercial and industrial uses.
1.13(2)(k) (k) Promoting the expansion or stabilization of the current economic base and the creation of a range of employment opportunities at the state, regional and local levels.
1.13(2)(L) (L) Balancing individual property rights with community interests and goals.
1.13(2)(m) (m) Planning and development of land uses that create or preserve varied and unique urban and rural communities.
1.13(2)(n) (n) Providing an integrated, efficient and economical transportation system that affords mobility, convenience and safety and that meets the needs of all citizens, including transit-dependent and disabled citizens.
1.13(3) (3) Consistently with other laws, each state agency, whenever it administers a law under which a local governmental unit prepares a plan, is encouraged to design its planning requirements in a manner that makes it practical for local governmental units to incorporate these plans into local comprehensive plans prepared under s. 66.1001.
1.13 History History: 1999 a. 9, 148; 2001 a. 30.
1.14 1.14 Display of flag at public buildings, structures, and facilities.
1.14(1)(a) (a) “Local governmental unit" has the meaning given in s. 16.97 (7).
1.14(1)(b) (b) “State agency" has the meaning given for “agency" under s. 16.70 (1e).
1.14(1)(c) (c) “State authority" has the meaning given for “authority" under s. 16.70 (2).
1.14(2) (2) Each state agency, state authority, and local governmental unit shall ensure that each United States flag that is displayed at each building, structure, or facility that is owned or occupied entirely by the agency, authority, or unit is manufactured in the United States.
1.14 History History: 2007 a. 166.
/statutes/statutes/1 true statutes /statutes/statutes/1/12/1 Chs. 1-4, Sovereignty, Jurisdiction and Civil Divisions of the State statutes/1.12(1) statutes/1.12(1) section true
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FilmReviewVideo Games
Silent Hill: Revelation Review
President November 2, 2012
Viktoriya Berezovskaya ’16 /Emertainment Monthly Staff
Adelaide Clemens stars in “Silent Hill: Revelation.” Photo via ign.com.
For years, the Silent Hill franchise has been one of the biggest hits among fans of survival horror video games, lauded and loved for its psychological horror, its compelling visuals, and the eerie malevolence of the town of Silent Hill. When Silent Hill, the movie, hit theaters in 2006, fans of the game had mixed reactions. Silent Hill fans were let down by the plot, which did not follow any one of the games themselves, and by the protagonist, a character created especially for the film, rather than being pulled from the games. The general consensus, among fans and newcomers alike, was that while the visuals were striking, scary, and perfectly in tune with the aesthetic of the games, which is one of the franchise’s major selling points, the amateurish writing and flat acting made it impossible to call Silent Hill a good movie.
In a lot of ways, Silent Hill: Revelation tries to succeed where the previous film failed, while still keeping the atmosphere and aesthetic that the first film managed to get so right. For the most part, the attempt is pretty successful.
Where Silent Hill had Rose (Radha Mitchell), a new character made for the movie, Silent Hill: Revelation focuses on Heather (Adelaide Clemens), the protagonist of Silent Hill 3 of the video game series. The story, while somewhat changed from the game in order to be a coherent sequel to the first movie, stays fairly faithful to the story of Silent Hill 3. Heather, adopted daughter of Harry Mason (Sean Bean), is a girl sought by the resident cult of storied ghost town Silent Hill, a mysterious and nightmarish Hell on Earth located somewhere in Virginia. Naturally, she was not randomly chosen—her birth mother, revealed in the first film, is Alessa, once a troubled girl, now the demonic abomination responsible for the nightmare that is Silent Hill. The story differs from that of the video game in a few ways, which is particularly noticeable in the complete re-imagining of the character of Vincent (Kit Harrington), who goes from being a mysterious and implacable man residing in Silent Hill to being a teenager who falls in love with Heather.
On the whole, it’s clear that Revelation was intended to appeal to a broader audience than just fans of the games. The romance between Heather and Vincent is confusing at best to long-time fans of the franchise, and the quiet tension and psychological isolation that characterize the games are largely replaced with faster-paced action scenes, resembling boss fights, which are clearly meant to hook in moviegoers expecting a shocking and scary horror experience. The lack of isolation is probably the film’s largest departure from its source material and even from the first Silent Hill movie. In the first Silent Hill, viewers got at least a small taste of the real nature of Silent Hill, the malevolent environment that isolates you and royally screws with your head. In Revelation, it seems that that was what had to be cut to make time for the main plot—already stretching the limits of the movie’s scant 94 minutes—as well as for an abridged romantic subplot.
The aesthetic of the film’s setting does not disappoint, however. The visuals, arguably Silent Hill‘s most important selling point, are flawless and appropriately disturbing, and the monsters are still just as artfully portrayed and executed as they were in the first film. Fans of the iconic Pyramid Head will not be disappointed by his return, and the stunning performance of the first movie’s monster nurses is followed up in this film as well. Visually, this is undoubtedly a Silent Hill that long-time fans will appreciate.
In the end, the plot and writing are definitely the movie’s weaker points, although they are soundly more coherent and compelling than that of the first film. That, along with the relatively decent acting, serves to make this a rare case when the sequel is a truly better-rounded film than its predecessor. Moviegoers expecting something spectacular out of what can only be, after all, a video game movie will certainly not be impressed, but those of us who have had the bar set low by the first film are sure to be more than satisfied. The film more or less delivered what fans of the franchise were looking for—better writing, better acting, epic visuals, the occasional Easter Egg—without completely alienating newcomers. All in all, a successful video game movie.
Watch it: If you love the Silent Hill franchise and want to see a film adaptation of it that’s actually pretty good.
Don’t watch it: If you don’t like gore, don’t like blood, or don’t like video game movies.
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Hezbollah Moves Troops To The Israeli Border As It Prepares To Attack If A U.S.-Iran War Breaks Out
July 21, 2019 July 21, 2019 by Michael Snyder
It has become exceedingly clear that if the U.S. and Iran go to war, the entire region is going to be set ablaze. Iran has already threatened to hit Israel extremely hard if the U.S. attacks, and hordes of Hezbollah fighters are massing along Israel’s borders right now in anticipation of a military conflict. As you will see below, it is estimated that Hezbollah now has 150,000 missiles of their own pointed at Israel, and one Hezbollah military officer recently warned that they “will fire the first shot this time”. The war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 was highly destructive, but the truth is that it isn’t even worth comparing to what the next conflict will be like. Today, Hezbollah is the most heavily armed terror organization the world has ever seen, and their forces are battle-hardened after spending many years engaged in the bloody war in Syria. After victory after victory in that struggle, now those same fighters are being deployed along the Israeli border. The following comes from the Daily Beast…
Hezbollah’s forces, battle-hardened in the Syrian civil war, have begun redeploying toward the Israeli border, not only in Lebanon, but in Syria opposite the Israeli-occupied side of the Golan Heights.
Hezbollah fighters who spoke to The Daily Beast say their organization is hurting from sanctions and ready to initiate hostilities—if and when Tehran deems that necessary.
All Tehran has to do is give the order and those forces are going in.
In fact, one Hezbollah commander that was interviewed by the Daily Beast is openly admitting that “we will fire the first shot this time”…
“The sanctions now have us preparing for dealing with the Israeli front,” says “Commander Samir,” a Hezbollah officer in charge of 800 fighters on Lebanon’s border with Israel. He declines to use his real name because he is not authorized to speak to the media. “We will fire the first shot this time,” he says.
As I keep warning, we are literally on the verge of World War 3 breaking out in the Middle East.
The moment U.S. missiles start hitting Iran, the Israelis will have to go on full alert because they will be attacked.
One Hezbollah official even said that “if any missile hits Iran, it will be treated like Israel did it”.
And let there be no doubt – Hezbollah is fully capable of raining down hell on Israeli cities. According to a report in an Israeli news source from late last year, it is estimated that Hezbollah’s arsenal of missiles and rockets has now risen to 150,000…
The Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah’s arsenal of missiles and rockets has grown to 150,000, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) revealed Sunday.
Speaking at a conference hosted by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies on Sunday, Erdan highlighted the increasing military presence of Iran and its allies along the Israeli border, Israel Hayom reported.
Can you imagine the devastation that would be caused by 150,000 missiles and rockets being fired into an area roughly the size of New Jersey?
Yes, the Israeli military would intercept some of them, but many would get through.
Of course Israel has even more firepower, and they would undoubtedly win the conflict. Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that Israel would “act with tremendous force” if a war with Hezbollah were to erupt.
Unfortunately, it probably would not be just Hezbollah that Israel would be fighting. The Iranians have also been “providing training and support” for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And it definitely raised eyebrows when a delegation from Hamas visited Tehran over the weekend. The following comes from the Jerusalem Post…
The head of the political bureau of the Hamas terrorist movement, Ismail Haniyeh said on Saturday that he hoped that a visit by a senior Hamas delegation in Tehran over the weekend would provide “important results,” according to a Hamas press release on the terror group’s website.
In the end, Israel could find itself fighting Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Iran simultaneously, and such a war would be unlike anything we have ever seen before.
And the violence would not just be limited to the Middle East. In a previous article, I detailed the enormous presence that Hezbollah already has in North America, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad definitely have a presence here too.
Could you imagine the chaos that we would see if all of those terrorists were suddenly unleashed and they started destroyed “soft targets” all across America?
So the Trump administration should think very, very carefully before going to war with Iran. Because once it starts, there will be no going back.
At this point our border security is a complete and utter joke, and conservative activists have been documenting for years that illegal immigrants can hop back and forth across the border with ease. For highly organized terror organizations, getting operatives into the United States is not exactly a problem. They are here, and when the right moment comes, they will strike.
I have been loudly calling for the U.S. government to secure our borders for many years, but it hasn’t happened, and now we could pay a very great price for our foolishness.
All it is going to take is one wrong move for war to erupt. Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are all preparing to fight, and all of them would throw literally everything that they have at the United States and Israel.
We do not want to fight a war against hordes of apocalyptic terrorists that hate us with a passion that most westerners cannot even imagine. It would be a horrible, bloody, nightmarish war, and none of our lives would ever be the same again.
Categories War, WorldTags Hezbollah, Iran, Iran War, War, War With Iran, World War 3, World War 3 In The Middle East, World War III Post navigation
On The Brink Of World War 3: Here Are 5 Major Developments Within The Last 48 Hours…
It’s Over: The Democrats And The Republicans Are Both Conspiring To Bankrupt America And Destroy Our Future
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Author: CARMINE DELLAGLIO
Metabolomics is a newborn cousin to genomics and proteomics. Specifically, metabolomics involves the characterization of the small molecule metabolites found in an organism. Since the metabolome is closely tied to the genotype of an organism, its physiology and its environment, metabolomics offers a unique opportunity to look at genotype-phenotype as well as genotype-envirotype relationships. Metabolomics is increasingly being used in a variety of health applications including pharmacology, pre-clinical drug trials, toxicology, transplant monitoring, newborn screening and clinical chemistry. However, a key limitation to metabolomics is the fact that the human metabolome is not at all well characterized.
Being the intermediates of biochemical reactions, metabolites play a very important role in connecting the many different pathways that operate within a living cell. The level of the metabolites are determined by the concentration and the properties of the enzymes, and their level is a complex function of many different regulatory processes inside the cell. The level of metabolites represents integrative information of the cellular function and defines the phenotype of a cell or tissue in response to genetic or environmental changes.
Increases in mRNA levels do not always correlate with increases in protein levels, and once translated a protein may or may not be enzymatically active. Therefore, changes observed in the transcriptome or in the proteome do not always correspond to phenotypic alterations. Thus, measurement of the metabolites synthesized by a biological system, the metabolome constitutes an important complement to assess genetic function. In common with the transcriptome and the proteome, the metabolome is context-dependent, and the levels of each metabolite depend on the physiological, developmental, and pathological state of a cell, tissue, or organism. Metabolome analysis covers the identification and quantification of all intracellular and extracellular metabolites (with molecular mass lower than 1000 Da), using different analytical techniques. In addition to applications in functional genomics, quantification of metabolite concentrations enables identification of the kinetics that underlies specific intracellular reactions.
The genome, transcriptome, and proteome elucidations are based on target chemical analyses of biopolymers composed of 4 different nucleotides (genome and transcriptome) or 22 aminoacids (proteome). Those compounds are highly similar chemically, and facilitate high-throughput analytical approaches. Within the metabolome, there is, however, a large variance in chemical structures and properties. Thus, the metabolome consists of extremely diverse chemical compounds from ionic inorganic species to hydrophilic carbohydrates, volatile alcohols and ketones, amino and non-amino organic acids, hydrophobic lipids, and complex natural products. That complexity makes it virtually impossible to simultaneously determine the complete metabolome. Therefore, the metabolome has been studied with efficient sample preparation and with selective extractions coupled to a combination of different analytical techniques to achieve as much information as possible.
Analysis of cellular function at the molecular level requires recruitment of several different analytical techniques. Whereas comprehensive methods for analysis at the transcriptional level (transcriptome) and at the translational level (proteome) are currently in a rapid state of development. So Mass spectrometry (MS) and NMR are the most frequently employed methods of detection in the analysis of the metabolome. NMR is very useful for structure characterization of unknown compounds, and has been applied to the analysis of metabolites in biological fluids and cells extracts. The most important advantages of MS are its high sensitivity, and high-throughput in combination with the possibility to confirm the identity of the components present in the complex biological samples as well as the detection and, in most of the cases, the identification of unknown and unexpected compounds. The use of NMR or MS-based methods to analyze urine and blood samples has the potential to offer a minimally invasive method for the diagnosis of late-life diseases (cancer, atherosclerosi, diabetes).
Metabolomics approaches provide an analysis of changing metabolite levels in biological samples. In the past decade, technical advances have spurred the application of metabolomics in a variety of diverse research areas spanning basic, biomedical, and clinical sciences. In particular, improvements in instrumentation, data analysis software, and the development of metabolite databases have accelerated the measurement and identification of metabolites. Metabolomics approaches have been applied to a number of important problems, which include the discovery of biomarkers as well as mechanistic studies aimed at discovering metabolites or metabolic pathways that regulate cellular and physiological processes, especially within the context of pathways linked to disease.
The Human Metabolome Database (HMDB) is a bioinformatic/cheminformatic database with detailed information about human metabolites and metabolic enzymes. It can be used for fields of study including metabolomics, biochemistry, clinical chemistry, biomarker discovery, medicine, nutrition, and general information. The HMDB contains an extensive collection of experimental metabolite concentration data for plasma, urine, CSF, and/or other biofluids The HMDB is fully searchable, with many tools for viewing, sorting and extracting metabolite names, chemical structures, biofluid concentrations, enzymes, genes, NMR or MS spectra, and disease information. The database contains over 7900 metabolite entries including both water-soluble and lipid soluble metabolites as well as metabolites that would be regarded as either abundant (> 1 uM) or relatively rare (< 1 nM). Additionally, approximately 7200 protein (and DNA) sequences are linked to these metabolite entries. Each metabolite entry in the HMDB contains an average of 90 separate data fields including a comprehensive compound description, names and synonyms, chemical structure information, physico-chemical data, reference NMR and MS spectra, normal and abnormal biofluid concentrations, tissue locations, disease associations, pathway information, enzyme data, gene sequence data, and SNP and mutation data, as well as extensive links to images, references and other public databases. Our additional databases, DrugBank (URL), T3DB (URL), SMPDB (URL), and FooDB (URL) are also part of the HMDB suite of databases. DrugBank contains equivalent information on ~1500 drugs, T3DB contains information on 2900 common toxins and environmental pollutants, SMPDB contains pathway diagrams for 350 human metabolic and disease pathways, while FooDB contains equivalent information on ~2000 food components and food additives.
The use of metabolomics for the discovery of new biomarkers of effect, 2007
Scripps Center for Metabolomics and Mass Spectrometry
Metlin
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Epsom 'Spa Period': new evidence
Back to Newsletter Archives
In view of the notes on Epsom Spa mentioned above, it is perhaps appropriate to mention Norman Mail’s letter to the Borough Development Officer (2 July 1974) concerning the White Horse Public House, 63 Dorking Road, Epsom. ‘The present structure has a Victorian front but the building behind is older probably 18th century… in a group of 17th and early 18th century buildings most of which still survive… it was at this point that an approach track to the wells diverged from the Ashtead/Epsom road. The focal point of this settlement was the New Inn which later became in the 18th century the White Horse… ever since the days of Pownall in 1825 the legend has gone the rounds that Waterloo House (then the Assembly Rooms to Woodcote Hall) was originally called the New Inn. This is quite untrue and arises from the assumption that New Inn Lane was so called because it began at the New Inn, i.e. Waterloo House, quite apart from the 1755 evidence that it did not begin till Woodcote House, it is usual for roads from a centre such as the Spa to be called after their destination not their point of departure’.
‘Unfortunately Clark in his Surrey Archaeological Collections article which is a very fine piece of research in other respects adopts it and consequently misdates Waterloo House by some 26 years (1716 instead of 1690). In fact the building in 1716 to which he refers must relate to a building in the White Horse area not necessarily the inn itself but the Hylands or Tamarisk Cottage’.
‘There is no good evidence that Waterloo House was in Spa days ever an inn or referred to as one. Even as late at 1829 we find it referred to as the old assembly rooms and at least 3 early 18th century accounts of the Spa refer to it as containing two long rooms, a coffee house and a tavern but do not refer to it as containing lodgings of any kind; in fact these descriptions preclude the possibility that it did. There can be no doubt that the New Inn of 17th and 18th century references is in fact what is now the White Horse. Without some probing in its interior, especially some inspection of the roof structure and the nature of the rear and side walls, it is not possible to say how far the present White Horse building is the original spa period building referred to in 1672 but it is certain that the present building is at least early 18th century with a very obvious addition of a Victorian front. There should in my Society’s view be no further erosion of the buildings in this group and the White Horse, its southern boundary wall and the Orchard Walls on the other side of the Dorking Road, south of Tamarisk Cottage should be listed as soon as possible to prevent further demolitions’.
Norman Nail
1974/4 p4
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They say that God looks after fools, and if that's the case my idiot writer is very well looked after indeed as he accidentally came into contact with Jake Simpson and Eric Kinkead, programmer and artist respectively for this game. The email exchange that followed brought a lot (and I mean a lot) of previously unknown facts about the game to light. We've now peppered this write-up with some of the more interesting quotes from these emails- any quotes from Jake will be pointed out in yellow, and any quotes from Eric will be pointed out in green, both surrounded by quotation marks, just so you can't miss them. Please, enjoy.
You can consider this article as the complete opposite of the Sailor Moon one. Both are about arcade games based on licensed properties, but there's a key difference between the two; I know dick all about Sailor Moon, but I absolutely love Judge Dredd in a way that's probably unhealthy. I usually refrain from talking about myself on the site, but I'm a big Dredd fan, and nothing pleases me more than to leaf through one of the great Dredd epics every now and then. I heartily recommend buying The Complete Case Files collections, they're a great introduction to the series.
Although pretty well known in his home country of Britain, there's every possibility that our American viewers won't know who Judge Dredd is, perhaps only vaguely remembering the 1995 movie, or the song Anthrax wrote about him. I'm really not in a place to assume how well-known he is on the other side of the pond, but while I could bore you with a very intricate explanation of his comic book roots in 2000 AD, or about how over the years the strip has evolved from a blackly humourous bit of escapism into a dark bit of political satire while retaining the gung-ho action of the earlier strips... I won't. Instead, I shall share with you this single image. Remember, this is the epitome, the very essence if you will, of Judge Dredd:
Says it all, really.
So, after the success of Terminator 2 - The Arcade Game, Midway were looking for another movie license to make an arcade game out of, and since the Judge Dredd movie had been announced at the time, they decided to grab the license and beat the cinemas to it. Utilising a slightly-better form of digitised graphics than the original Mortal Kombat (pioneered in this game) it was planned for release in 1993. Of course, this might seem a bit strange for an American company such as Midway, seeing as Dredd is a British institution, but Jake Simpson- one of the programmers for the game, who was a new employee at the time- explains that 'I'm actually British (through and through), so I knew Judge Dredd really well... All 4 of us on the team were massive fans, so we wanted to do it.'. Eric Kinkead, who was an artist on the game, adds that 'Judge Dredd was very, very underground in the states at the time. In America to be exposed to Judge Dredd you had to be a) from England with a love for English Sci-Fi, b) a comic book nerd ball or c) into heavy metal + art + the crossover of GamesWorkshop and the current English grindcore/thrash movement. I was the 'C' factor to the letter' and that 'I remember John Vogel and Tim Colman taking particular interest in a rendering in my sketchbook of Judge Anderson of the PSI division'. You can tell that this was made by fans, because there's some really neat references to the original comics that made me titter like an excited schoolgirl when I caught them, like the hopeless nerd that I am.
However, there's something very odd about the arcade Judge Dredd- it was never released. Hell, it wasn't even completed, but was playtested in Chicago- 'we were still relatively early in development to be testing - normally the game doesn't go out on test till it's 100% complete and we weren't - but we were starting to get glimmers of the fact that this wasn't going to be great and we wanted to know early so we could just put a bullet in it and stop wasting our time, if that was the case.'. Unfortunately, the locaction test didn't quite go to plan (we'll go into the specifics a little later), so the plug was pulled on the project. Fortunately, the game was preserved, to an extent- although only four boards were ever made, a version of the game slightly older than the version play-tested was dumped and is available to play in MAME. Only through the miracle of emulation can we play Dredd's first arcade game... Sure, Gremlin released their own Dredd arcade game a few years down the line, but this is the Dredd game we never saw!
The general plot of the comics- and, as such, the game- is cheerfully outlined in the attract mode:
As Dredd, you hit the streets and bring your own brand of justice. Remember, he is the law- and you'd better believe it!
The nature of the original comic books make them ideal fodder for a lightgun game, seeing as Dredd loved to use his Lawgiver to dispense justice with wanton abandon- this is the form the Gremlin game took- but ultimately, inspiration came from a different source- 'the actual premise of the game was it was supposed to be a cross between MK and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - we literally had one in my office to play, the 4 player version... '. So yeah, it's a scrolling brawler! You should be familiar with what's gonna go down by this point- just fight through waves of enemies, and beat the boss character at the end of the stage. In fairness, it's a rather sophisticated one for its time, as each stage is different in some way, be it the controls or the mission objective. It's definitely a different approach than the norm- 'We wanted each level to have a different mechanic (although not too different) because at the time, no one else had done that, at least not in a brawler.'- although it has to be said that not all of it works... The controls are odd too, as the game has not 2, not 3, but 4 buttons, very unusual for a scrolling brawler at the time. The Jump and Crouch buttons are universal to each stage, but the other two change depending on the mission- sometimes they're for punching and kicking, other times for firing Dredd's Lawgiver.
The controls are a little awkward, truth be told. This is mostly because, unlike games like Final Fight and Sailor Moon, Dredd can attack enemies in the eight cardinal directions- left, right, towards the screen, and away from the screen, and the four directions in-between. This is a nice idea, in theory, but it not only means that the enemies have 2 extra directions from which to attack you, it also means that trying to judge (arf! arf!) whether you're going to hit the enemy when attacking towards/away from the screen is a bit difficult. You can avoid this problem most of the time, though, as the screen's relatively uncrowded (and quite small) and it stops being a problem on Stage 2 when you've got your gun. Another problem is the Crouch button, which you'll need to pick up items, unlike every other beat-em-up ever made. You can also use the Crouch button to perform a Mortal Kombat-esque uppercut (press Punch) or drop a grenade, killing any enemies nearby (press Kick or Jump). The only other 'special' move is a jump kick, which you can perform by pressing either Kick or Jump while in the air. You'll get used to it eventually, but what baffles me the most is the apparent layout of the buttons on the cabinet...
I hope you caught all that, it won't be repeated.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "God-damn, that's one hideous layout!". In fact, I thought the same thing when I first slapped eyes on the control scheme- I mean, look at it. Look at where the Crouch button is- it seems like it's miles away from the other buttons (which wouldn't be so bad if the Crouch wasn't necessary for so much stuff in this game). However, it turns out this isn't the first time such a wretched control scheme was used in the arcades- the layout is actually recycled from NARC, Williams' ultra-violent (and ultra-shite, let's be honest) run-and-gunner. The control panel was used because 'everyone else said it had worked out well with Narc. This was my first game, so I just let it go.'. Fortunately, since MAME is literally the only way to play this game, you can reconfigure the controls to your liking (on a SNES controller via USB, the Crouch button is best assigned to the shoulder buttons) and you won't have to put up with this awkward scheme.
With the controls out of the way, let's deal with the items.
Again, this changes depending on the stage- Stage 3 has several unique items, so we'll deal with them then. The generic ones are...:
Judge's Badge
This item gives you temporary invincibility. It's an overpowered item, as the invincibility almost lasts forever...
Judge's Helmet
This gives ol' Stoney Face a boost to his health. You'd assume it was an Extra Life item, but noooo...
There's two types of Grenades available- Yellow and Red.
Picking up a Yellow Grenade gives you another grenade (although the grenade counter only ever shows one grenade, you can carry more).
Grabbing a Red Grenade kills everything on screen instantly.
There's very little else to say, to be honest, as the game's short because it's unfinished- 3 main stages, and a bonus stage after each mission. Fortunately, I'm not going to let you people down, as there's a lot of extra stuff to deal with after the main game's over... And in the game itself too. So, let's hit the streets of Mega-City One- let's play Judge Dredd!
The game starts on the next page, so you'd better read on, drokk it!
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About Hobnail
Training at Altitude photo shoot at Masterton airfield 1998
It has been 25 years since Hobnail (then Hobnail Boots) made their first tentative steps in the world. Rob Joass (singer/songwriter) and Jo Moir (vocals/violin) had previously played together in the short-lived Wild Blue Yonder, an acoustic folk/pop band influenced by the likes of Paul Kelly and The Go-Betweens, their career highlight opening for Suzanne Vega!
Hobnail was a different animal back then, starting life as a party band playing Celtic and country music, but always with a solid slice of original material thrown in. Finding their original material as popular with audiences as the cover versions, they started taking things a bit more seriously, recording and touring their own music. They were invited to play in North America on the back of their first 2 albums; "Deboot" (1996) and "Training at Altitude" (1998). Dates in England and Germany followed. Great gigs, great times.
Warming up back stage at Wellington Summer City 2004
Things changed when families were started, as the business of life meant that touring the world wasn't such an option. But this band has a commitment to their music and each other, so they continued working together - touring around NZ and releasing albums whenever they could. Earlier influences resurfaced, and at this point there was a noticeable shift back to a more folk/country sound.
Photo shot for The Fortune Horses at Tauherenikau Racecourse, 2007
2007 saw a return to active service and the fabulous Caroline Easther was recruited on drums. Together with Rob and Jo, bassist Hamish Graham and guitarist/singer Bill Hickman they recorded "The Fortune Horses" which was nominated for best folk album at the 2009 NZ music awards. A concert at Wellington's Paramount Theatre was filmed by acclaimed director Costa Botes, and released on DVD in 2008.
Hobnail Boots in 2010
In 2011 Rob started work on what he thought would be a solo album. But as it evolved it became clear that this was a Hobnail album. Hamish, Caroline and Jo had contributed to many of the arrangements and Hobnail were already playing many of the songs live. "Baggage" was released to great reviews, with the title track being nominated as a finalist for Best Country Song at the 2013 NZ Music Awards.
In 2015 Hobnail released their 6th album, "String Things", which was the most popular of their career (to that point). It was a 21st Birthday album and a bit of a retrospective, including new songs, old favourites re-recorded and some crowd-pleasing cover songs they have made their own, and it also featured many guest performers including Wayne Mason, Dusty Burnell and Kim Bonnington. The subsequent tour took in new towns around NZ and saw audiences growing wherever they went.
Their 7th album "Blue Sky Songs" was released in 2017, again with a national tour, great reviews and growing audiences. "A band that just keeps getting better" as one reviewer put it.
They often get asked how they have made it to 25 years. There is a Michael Leunig cartoon that Rob likes to quote called "How to get there." "….keep going towards the horizon. Sit down and have a rest every now and again. But just keep going, keep on with it. Keep going as far as you can. That's how you get there."
So now, 25 years on, Hobnail celebrate 25 years of recording and performing music around NZ and the world with their "Boots And All" national tour and "Best Of" album.
For more information, pictures or interviews contact Rob Joass 0274 500615 or robjoass@gmail.com
Submit your details and we will keep you up to date!
Press and Promos
Copyright © Hobnail 2020
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“ And with such a small cast he shines as he carries the film from start to finish making you feel so many different emotions at the same time for this incredibly fascinating character.
“ This is not a perfect movie, by any means it is quite slow, and the sentimentality can be overpowering at times.
“ It doesn't matter because he's still making mistakes, cheating on his wife, confusing his boss and his best friend, and putting every aspect of his life at risk.
“ Waste of money and time.
“I did find the film dragged, and there was a slow agony to it, somewhat like slowly removing a band-aid, so while I think the core of it is a very powerful set of emotions, as a film I was less impressed, and that as a film it was solid, but not stand out.
“ On the whole, 'Boulevard' is a compelling watch, with a towering performance by Williams.
“Don't waste your time on this one and definitely keep the kids away.
“ Someone wrote that the film is predictable.
“This boring, risk-free life takes a change when Williams decides to chat up a male prostitute Leo (Roberto Aguirre) when he drives home past this known prostitute bridge.
“ An incredibly gripping final performance in an average movie .
“ His life is predictable and boring.
“Williams gives a very restraint performance but it is predictable.
“ It's the kind of film that feels well-intentioned if a tad pretentious, existing in its own precious little bubble and one that is poised to burst.
“ There is a neediness in Nolan that is both off-putting and compelling.
“ We've seen the story before many times; a middle aged gay man living a closeted life, a good (if predictable and boring) job, a beautiful home, and a wife who really loves him.
“ A slow character-study drama of a man with many secrets.
“ An engaging story .
“ I like Robin Williams but this movie was slow, plodding, flat.
“ Too many of them are dreary where silly situations arise and characters do the stupidest things.
“ Robin Williams could do serious as well as funny, and brilliantly too, so long as the role was creepy, (see "Insomnia" and "One Hour Photo").
“ The idea of someone in a marriage having an affair usually is linked with boredom or disinterest, or some sort of deficiency present.
“ Dreary talkie...
“ There is very little action, very little intensity and I ended up being bored.
“ There is certainly emotion- Roberto Aguire, as the Leo, the young prostitute with whom Nolan becomes enamored, quite effectively portrays the confusion he feels, caught between simply an encounter with client and the deeper feeling he holds for Nolan.
“ The main problem that I found with the movie was that it was very slow and it seemed more depressing than entertaining.
“ Nolan Mack(Williams)became too comfortable with his mundane, sexless life.
“ Still, it's a performance from Williams that is worth watching – in fact, must be watched if you are a Robin Williams fan.
“ It has nice acting, but directing and script were highlights - at running time 1 h 24 min this movie barely drags and is very watchable one, if sometimes a bit predictable.
“ Plodding .
“ Because the film characters and their relationship constructions were absorbing.
“ Based roughly on Soesbe's own coming out story, the overall film is unfortunately calculated and predictable.
“ Calculated and predictable .
“ Nolan is unhappy and bored, with his tedious unthrilling life, until he meets Leo (Aguire); on his drive home from work one day.
“ Thanks to Williams' tender, vulnerable, aching performance, the film always stays on the side of watchable, and often fascinating.
“ The movie was engaging, and although it was predictable done many times before, it had a compelling message that is still relevant.
“ "Boulevard" tells a very engaging story about a man finally coming to terms with his inner turmoil.
“Somehow, the slow pace of the movie and kinda darker colors / cinematography reminded me of the 60's and 70's and that added something moody, melancholic to the movie which I liked.
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Society/Heraldry - GHGB-en
Books printed
Burgher Archive
Church Books
Church Court Books
Genealogical-Heraldic Society of Berne, Switzerland
GHGB
Society/Heraldry
The term coat of arms occurred in the middle ages. Because the suits of armor made their carriers at tournaments or armed conflicts unrecognizable, distinctive marks were necessary. These signs were usually painted on the shields, which were part of the armament. So called heralds took care that nobody wore a coat of arms they were not entitled to, and they kept records. Therefore, it is called heraldry.
Description of the coat of arms
Each coat of arms can be described in a special language. The official description is called a blazon. For example the armorial bearings of Berne is:
"In red a golden diagonal bar, occupied with a black bear in motion with red claws."
A characteristic of the blazon is that the right and left side are always described from the point of view by the bearer of the coat of arms or shield respectively. This means for the observer, it is reversed. E.g. is there a star in the upper-left corner of the coat of arms, the blazon indicates it is top right.
Heraldic coloring
In heraldry, following colors are admitted:
and the so-called metallic colors:
Gold = yellow
Silver = white
An important heraldic rule is, colors may never touch each other. Of course, the same rule for metallic colors applies.
The coat of arms of the Swiss canton of Ticino with red alongside with blue is a heraldic misconduct!
Who may bear a coat of arms?
In contrast to coat of arms of noble families, coat of arms of country families (and that includes most people) are not protected. This means everyone can accept any family crest and refer to it as “his” and bear it.
Cases are known from the past, in which a bearer changed his coat of arms several times within a few years. Whether it's fun to bear a coat of arms that has no history and not passed from one generation to the next, remains a question.
In Switzerland, at the end of the 18th century, to have a coat of arms was fashionable. He who considered himself to be someone of importance, and who could afford it, created a coat of arms in glass for personal use or to give as a gift. Flying "heraldists" went from door to door and offered their services. Not only today, but also at that time they played fast and loose with coat of arms. Elaborate research was saved and any coat of arms (very often a stolen one) was offered to the client. A method that is unfortunately used by some contemporary heraldists plying their wares at many trade fairs.
Where do I find my coat of arms?
People who are originated in the canton of Bern, for example, will most probably find his coat of arms in the State Archives of Berne. Information is free of charge.
Usually, the index card will list who has worn the coat of arms as well as the oldest known source (letter, seal, etc.). Very often, several coats of arms are available per name. He who seriously wants to run the whole heraldry, doesn’t just take any coat of arms which he likes best, but tries to find out, by genealogy, which one was actually held by his ancestors.
Today they are also published on State Archives. Unfortunately, the details as above are missing on the web site.
Other sources: "Emmentaler Geschlechter und Wappenbuch", Hans Rudolf Christen, ISBN 3-85681-405-1 or CD-ROM family names of Swiss citizens until 1861 published by the GHGB.
What represents the coat of arms?
Family names have arisen around the Reformation period (Canton of Berne 1528), coat of arms often hundreds of years later, when the meaning of the name no longer was known. Subsequently they tried to create a descriptive coat of arms. For example, some family coat of arms of the Lüthi families (as a verb = to pull a bell) show a bell because the name was associated with the activity of the people. But the name Lüthi has neither in the rarest cases something to do with a bell, nor was the ancestor a ringer, but it is clearly derived from the old name of Leuthold or Leuthard.
Represented symbols are interpreted completely wrong. In many cases, for example, it is claimed that a three mountains on a coat of arms is indicative of large land holdings. The aforementioned popular glass discs were usually oval. The creators tried with stars, moons, three mountains, etc to fill only upper and lower roundings of the oval. The election was random. Sometimes a subsequent bearer of a coat of arms added a celestial body or a rose, so that it distinguished him from his predecessors.
Those who are interested with family coat of arms, would be wise not to take it too serious and consider it rather playfully, as our ancestors did.
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Education / Glendale City Government
Glendale Town Hall Meeting on Election Issues
by Kenneth Landon · November 28, 2014
I attended Glendale’s Town Hall Meeting moderated by Ardy Kassakhian, city clerk, that pertained to elections issues, i.e. voting methods, changes, ideas, and suggestions. Mike Garcia, City Attorney was also present who provided a briefing on Elections by District, At Large Elections vs. District Elections. This was prompted by threat of a potential lawsuit, under the California Voting Rights act that aims to protect the voting clout of minority groups by mandating a district-based system in elections where the at-large process dilutes their votes. The voting rights act “was meant to give everybody an equal opportunity to participate” in elections. (1)
Attorney Kevin Shenkman, of Shenkman & Hughes, who initiated a letter to the three bodies, Glendale Community College Board, Glendale Unified School Board, as well as the City Council, indicated that a lawsuit was forthcoming if each of the three bodies did not conform.
GCC officials in October already passed a resolution to switch from the at-large system. The resolution is now before the GCC Chancellor’s office for consideration. If approved, the change is expected to take effect for the April 2017 election. The GUSD board will take up a resolution on December 9, 2014 that would seek approval from the City council to allow GUSD to go to the voters in April 2015 to amend the City Charter to go to a district-based system.
If the resolution is passed, members of each body would be required to live within the specific geographic area of the district that they represent as opposed to the current at-large system that allows council candidates to be elected regardless of their address. In addition, each voting district must be proportional, equal in population, whether there are five or seven districts.
Glendale school officials recently moved to change the district’s voting system from an At-Large election to a district-based system to remove the school district from scrutiny under the California Voting Rights Act and the potential for litigation, after threat of a lawsuit by law firm Shenkman & Hughes, earlier this year. We learned that the school board had in fact approved elections by district.
Presently, the City is also considering putting on the ballot for the electorate to decide changing Council Elections from at Large to District Election. At the meeting, City Attorney Michael Garcia said the doesn’t think the City has discriminated against any particular group, i.e. Latinos’, since one of its members, Frank Quintero, was elected to the City Council in the past. A defiant Garcia speculated that looking at the demographics as it pertains to Latinos, it would not create a district where you would increase the likelihood of a Latino council member. Of course Garcia did not provide any data or source reference that supports his theory.
What is clear, No local government had won a state voting rights lawsuit, that cannot demonstrate a fair treatment of minorities in at-large election systems. Garcia said that a loss could be between $3.5 million to $5 million without divulging his source. Does this include both the cost of the City hiring an outside attorney as well as paying the plaintiff’s attorney? When Garcia said that he feels that the City has a very strong case if the City is sued on this statute, but he can’t guarantee it, what he is saying, is don’t bet on the City prevailing. All you need to do is look at Garcia’s track record since being appointed City Attorney, to know what the likelihood of success vs. failure is.
Per the 2010 Census, the City of Glendale population demographics included 17.9% Hispanic and 14.9% Asian, totaling 32.8% of Glendale’s population or 63,286 people. Most of this population live in the unrepresented Geographical districts.
South Brand comprises a large majority of renter occupied apartments, in which Hispanics and Asians represents over 50% of the population. (2) In Grand Central, Hispanics and Asians represents about 70% of the population. (3) In Woodbury, Hispanics and Asians represents about 45% of the population. (4) In Tropico, Hispanics and Asians represents about 75% of the population. (5) In Somerset, Hispanics and Asians represents about 43% of the population. (6) In Riverside-Rancho, Hispanics and Asians represents about 60% of the population. (7) In Rancho-San-Rafael, Asians alone represents over 50% of the population. (8) In Pacific Edison, Hispanics and Asians represents about 60% of the population. (9) In Moorpark, Hispanics and Asians represents about 50% of the population. (10) In Milford Industrial, Hispanics and Asians represents about 48% of the population. (11) In Adams Hills Square, Hispanics and Asians represents about 50% of the population. (12) In Grand Central, Hispanics and Asians represents about 60% of the population. (13) In Mariposa Glendale,, Hispanics and Asians represents about 44% of the population. (14)
It should be noted that Hispanic and Latino classifications are not necessarily the same. Basically,
you’re Hispanic if you and /or your ancestry come from a country where they speak Spanish, i.e. Mexico, majority of Central and South American Countries. i.e. Mexican American and Spanish American are Hispanic
you’re Latino if you and/or your ancestry come from a Latin American Countries., i.e. the term Latino is restricted to immigrants and their descendants from either Spanish, French, Italian, Romania or Portuguese speaking counties in North Central and South America, i.e. Brazillian American are Latino.
The 2010 Census maintain additional separate reports on Hispanic or Latino population.
The Nixon Administration tried unsuccessfully to fit racially mixed North, Central and South Americans into an established race group.
Since the late 90’s Hispanic/Latino labels were questioned and forced the Census to put a disclaimer that Hispanic or Latino were ethnic and not racial terms which is not the case.
Latinos are classified as white, like Armenians. Over 70% of Mexicans are Mestizo and Mulato , Brown, was considered inferior to White and they knew most people would not identify with the labels, so Hispanic and Latino labels were selected for use. (15)
At Large Elections:
1. There is Geographical unfairness. Most council persons live in one to two district leaving the other five districts unrepresented.
2. Voters do not have one specific council member who answers direct to them
3. Most citizens cannot get representatives to speak on their behalf and address their concerns.
4. When citizens do speak at city council meetings, addressing their concerns, there is generally disrespect from the council seat, if they don’t like the speaker or subject matter i.e. if you don’t like it then sue us.
5. This is why most citizens don’t see the necessity to vote, and why there is very low voter turnout.
6. Most people do not choose to run for City Council because of the high expense involved, competing with Unions cherry picking their candidates whom will support their interest.
District Elections:
• candidates must live within the district boundaries
• Each Geographic area is represented whom each community can hold their elected representative accountable.
• Campaigns would address more local community concerns rather than citywide policy issues
• Minorities fare better in district elections
• Cost of running for election is much less expensive, not influenced by Unions
• There would be at least 7 to 9 council seats, based on 39 nighborhood, that would spur more community involvement and increase voter turnout
• Result in Racial fairness, in some jurisdiction, may be possible to draw a majority from one minority group to elect a candidate of their choice.
It’s apparent that Glendale will eventually be forced to change to elections by Council District voluntarily or involuntarily. With the City’s sustainability plan, bringing in more multi-use buildings in downtown, pushing affordability, this will certainly attract more minorities. Renters now exceed the number of single family homeowners.
Three members of the City Council, last week passed on putting Term Limits on the ballot for their own personal self serving reasons, rather than let the city electorate decide. The majority if not all of the council members live in North Glendale, in one to two districts. It’s obvious that other districts within the City of Glendale are underrepresented and that minorities if the City made the transition to District Elections would stand a much better chance to being elected considering the higher populations they represent in Glendale’s various other districts.
If the City Council fails to allow District Elections to be placed on the ballot, they effectively will cost taxpayers over $5 million dollars in attorney fees that could be put to better use. Elections should have consequences on each City Council members’ performance. The ball is in the City Councils court.
(1) http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-local-elections-20130915,0,409412,full.story
(2) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/South-Brand-Glendale-CA.html
(3) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Grand-Central-Glendale-CA.html
(4) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Woodbury-Glendale-CA.html
(5) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Tropico-Glendale-CA.html
(6) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Somerset-Glendale-CA.html
(7) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Riverside-Rancho-Glendale-CA.html
(8) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Rancho-San-Rafael-Glendale-CA.html
(9) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Pacific-Edison-Glendale-CA.html
(10) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Moorpark-Glendale-CA.html
(11) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Milford-Industrial-Glendale-CA.html
(12) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Adams-Hill–Square-Glendale-CA.html
(13) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Grand-Central-Glendale-CA.html
(14) http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Mariposa-Glendale-CA.html
(15) http://www.diffen.com/difference/Hispanic_vs_Latino
Kenneth Landon
Mr. Landon is a Certified Public Accountant since 1977. He Retired from the State Controller's Office, Division of Audits, Financial Bureau for the state of California. He has acted as lead auditor specialist in mandates, oil and gas, and unclaimed property audits. He was also an Outreach Coordinator in the Los Angeles Executive Office under California State Controller Gray Davis. Mr Landon's Experience includes special assignment with the California State Lottery that included preparation of reports on the installation and implementation of internal controls in the Revenue and Collection unit. He addressed fiscal concerns on security, integrity and accountability; documented deficiencies and offered alternative solutions. Mr. Landon is engaged in multiple civic organizations that advocate for fiscally responsible governance.
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Judith CARY
ABT 1726 - 1790
RESIDENCE: of Warwick Co. VA
Father: Henry CARY of Ampthill
Family 1 : David BELL of Lynchburg
+Judith Cary BELL
_Miles CARY Esq. "the Immigrant"_+
_Henry CARY of "The Forest"_|
| (1650 - 1720) |
| |_Anne TAYLOR ____________________+
| (1621 - 1656) m 1645
_Henry CARY of Ampthill_|
| | _________________________________
| | |
| |_Judith LOCKEY _____________|
| (1650 - ....) |
| |_________________________________
|--Judith CARY
| _________________________________
| ____________________________|
| | |_________________________________
|________________________|
| _________________________________
| |
|____________________________|
|_________________________________
James William GAINES
RESIDENCE: VA and Simpson Co. KY
Father: William GAINES
Mother: Catherine Gaines JOHNSON
_James GAINES I___________+
_Francis GAINES _____|
| |_Mary PENDLETON __________+
_William GAINES ___________|
| (1778 - 1860) |
| | _Edward LEWIS ____________+
| | | (1740 - ....)
| |_Elizabeth LEWIS ____|
| (1755 - ....) m 1776|
| |_Anna MUSE _______________
| (1740 - ....)
|--James William GAINES
| __________________________
| |
| _Benjamin JOHNSON ___|
| | (1750 - 1814) m 1784|
| | |__________________________
| |
|_Catherine Gaines JOHNSON _|
(1786 - ....) |
| _Henry GAINES ____________+
|_Elizabeth GAINES ___|
|_Ann (Martha Ann) GEORGE _+
William MCCLANAHAN I
1692 - BET 1760 AND 0000
RESIDENCE: Westmoreland Co. VA
BIRTH: 1692, Northumberland Co. Virginia
DEATH: BET 1760 AND 0000, Westmoreland or Richmond Co. Virginia [412975]
RESOURCES: See: notes Will [S3081]
Family 1 : Martha SMITH
Thomas MCCLANAHAN
William MCCLANAHAN II
Peter MCCLANAHAN
James MCCLANAHAN
John MCCLANAHAN
Martha MCCLANAHAN
Westmoreland County, Virginia Wills, 1654-1800
Name Title Description Residence BookPage Date Prove Date Notes
Moore, Garland Son-in-law 15/9/1760 29/10/1771 McClanahan, William, 15 Sept. 1760; 29 Oct. 1771. Wife Martha estate for life; son in law Garland Moore land in Richmond Co.; grand children Robert, Garland, Peter and McClanahan and Martha Moore amount from sale of land in Richmond Co. at death of wife; sons Thomas, Peter, William, James and John McClanahan estate at death of wife.
d. 15 Sep 1760 will date
Sarah B. MCKNEELY
ABT 1840 - BET 1860 AND 0000
RESIDENCE: E. Feliciana Parish, LA
DEATH: BET 1860 AND 0000
RESOURCES: See: NOT PROVEN WIFE? [S605] [S1118]
Family 1 : William Thomas WORSHAM
MARRIAGE: BEF 1860
Harvey Ross MCLEOD
!LIVING
Sarah Thomas PENN
RESOURCES: See: [S586] [S2490] [S2649]
Father: Gabriel Thomas PENN
Mother: Mary Elizabeth MITCHELL
Family 1 : Frank Terry CARMACK
_Abraham PENN __________+
_Edmund PENN ______________________|
| |_Ruth STOVALL __________+
| (1743 - 1810) m 1767
_Gabriel Thomas PENN _____|
| (1836 - 1920) |
| | _Josiah FERRIS FARRIS I_+
| | | (1766 - ....) m 1788
| |_Mary Clark "Polly" FERRIS FARRIS _|
| (1796 - 1862) m 1816 |
| |_Mary "Polly" STOVALL __+
| (1759 - ....) m 1788
|--Sarah Thomas PENN
| ________________________
| ___________________________________|
| | |
| | |________________________
|_Mary Elizabeth MITCHELL _|
(1840 - ....) |
| ________________________
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Home Victoria Street - 1921-1940 National Bank of New Zealand Ltd building in Victoria Street
National Bank of New Zealand Ltd building in Victoria Street
Title National Bank of New Zealand Ltd building in Victoria Street
Subject Victoria Street (Hamilton, N.Z.)
Description This is the National Bank of New Zealand Ltd building at the northern end of Victoria Street in Hamilton, New Zealand. This building was demolished in 1983 and replaced with a more modern building. Other businesses pictured from left to right are: Glencoe House (Frocks Millinery); Koala (fur dyeing, renovating, remodelling, repairing); Clearys (men’s drapers). Also visible in the image are bicycles, two cars and a truck.
Coverage Victoria St – Bryce St to London St
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Global drylands imperative challenge paper pastoralism and mobility in drylands
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DRAFT 9 (26 MARCH 03)
GLOBAL DRYLANDS IMPERATIVE
CHALLENGE PAPER
PASTORALISM AND MOBILITY IN DRYLANDS
Nomadic pastoralists and the dryland ecosystems they occupy form a critically important but little known livelihood system. Pastoralists have been ill-served by development policies and actions so far, since planners have almost without exception tried to convert the pastoralists into something else, judged more modern, more progressive and more productive. Happily this is now changing, as researchers and planners revise their ideas and identify a new development agenda. Many of these changes have resulted from successfully listening to herders themselves.
On closer study, many widely believed ideas about pastoralists turn out to be myths without logical or factual basis, grounded in large part on ignorance and prejudice. A more realistic vision of future pastoralism envisages a flourishing economy, with well-educated and successful pastoral producers, no longer marginalised from mainstream society. To achieve this, we need for new policies about:
the basic structure of the pastoral economy: a ranching model will not be successful;
pastoral population growth: in many cases an overflow channel for herders who want to leave pastoralism is needed, so that pastoral populations can regain flexibility in relation to the natural resources that sustain them;
managing natural resources to give priority to pastoralism where that is justified;
improving natural resource tenure to remove present ambiguities and strengthen corporate tenure;
improving pastoral productivity;
providing more efficient markets, and encouraging pastoralists to identify and produce for particular markets;
providing services including education and health, often through a mix of mobile and static facilities;
providing financial services such as credit, savings, hire purchase and insurance, in forms adapted to a nomadic lifestyle;
developing risk management plans, and ways to reduce conflict;
improving pastoral governance.
Drylands cover 40 percent of the Earth’s surface, and more if mountain pastures, which share many dryland ecological characteristics without necessarily being dry, are included. Drylands have one over-riding feature: they have low, but highly variable, precipitation in the form of rain or snow. As much as lack of precipitation, it is the variability which gives drylands their special features. When rain fails across the Sahelian belt of west Africa, half a dozen countries may face disaster. Yet the following year there may be so much rain that herders lose their animals in the thick grass. On the edge of deserts like the Gobi, the Dasht-e-Lut or the Sahara, a single good rainstorm transforms the landscape, creating rich meadows on a broad front 100 kilometres deep, where the previous year there had been only sand and gravel. Mobile pastoralism is a sophisticated technique to make the best use of such ecological variability. Domestic animals transform the vegetation into economically useful products - meat, hides, wool, milk, traction power - and mobility allows them to find vegetation which is scattered sometimes over huge distances. Pastoralists tend animals which are adapted to particular environmental and economic niches: camels in the driest areas, goats where shrubs and trees dominate, sheep on mountain or dry pastures too rugged for cattle and where small readily marketable animals are convenient. Cattle are herded in richer areas where open savannas provide decent grass cover and adequate water.
Pastoral development
Mobile pastoralism is an ancient form of land use, well-adapted to the problems of maintaining sustainable and productive livelihoods in drylands today. In the past half century, research has illuminated the processes at work. Pastoralists have long been studied by anthropologists, interested at first principally in political systems and kinship, but since the 1950s also in pastoralism as an ecological adaptation to dryland environments. More recently economists and geographers have added new perspectives. Thanks to this work, we now begin to understand what mobile pastoralists do in everyday life, why, and with what consequences. Animal scientists came at pastoralism from a different point of view, often seeing traditional livestock systems as inefficient, to be modernised with the help of genetically superior animals, and new management systems. Range scientists at first followed the same path, promoting range management techniques developed in the prairies of North America. The spectacular failure of this enterprise prompted many range managers to rethink their science as it applied to the tropical drylands, with important results.
When governments and development agencies first started to address pastoralism in the early 1970s, the dominant view was that the enterprise was backward and needed to be modernised using an intensive, western livestock development model. 'Desertification' was thought to be in large part the result of anarchic pastoralism, and to threaten the future of the drylands. Modern science would provide the solutions, ignoring the very considerable scientific knowledge of the herders themselves, and the internal logic of their land use system. Government would play the main role, deciding investments and acting as overall land manager. Movement would be reduced by providing services and resources, ignoring the wider ecological necessity behind mobility. A development model depending on a new and untested scientific approach, sedentarisation, and a key role for government, underpinned the main projects funded in the 1970s.
Not surprisingly, they failed. 'Genetically superior' animals died from disease and malnutrition, grazing rules based on the ecological dynamics of the western United States didn't work in Tanzania, and sedentarisation was resisted by herders who needed grass for their animals and had to move to find it. The new services were not delivered. Following the principle of blaming the victim, pastoralists were accused of sabotaging development in the name of ignorance and tradition (which were seen as synonymous). The large pastoral livestock projects of the 1970s and early 1980s were halted, and major donors abandoned the livestock sector as too difficult.
In the last decade, interest has been growing cautiously again in pastoral livestock development, led by some imaginative projects constructed by the World Bank and by non-governmental organisations. The new generation of pastoral projects has common characteristics: a respect for mobile pastoral strategies, and for herders' technical understanding, a concern with risk and variability, a priority given to institutional development, and to a systematic participation of pastoralists themselves in project identification and management. Scientific approaches have become more relevant: range managers are starting to understand the vegetation dynamics of drylands, animal scientists have a new respect for the genetic potential of indigenous breeds, and social scientists are beginning to understand how customary institutions work. In a remarkable reversal of its reputation, mobile pastoralism is now seen as one key to environmental sustainability in the drylands. Paradoxically, just as we are coming to realize the real value of traditional and emergent forms of mobile pastoralism to biodiversity conservation, we are once again undermining the forms of land tenure that support these systems, this time through measures “scientifically” designed for environmental protection.
Problems remain. Old myths die hard, and outdated policies are recycled. Pastoralists are still often treated as second-class citizens when it comes to investments, service delivery, political power and citizenship. Their 'irrational' mobility is often cited as a reason, although an atavistic fear among sedentary people of those who are here today and gone tomorrow may be more often to blame.
Nomadic pastoralism
Pastoral systems take many forms, adapted to particular natural, political and economic environments. There are two components in any definition: the degree of dependence on livestock-based activities, and the nature and form of mobility.
Different livelihood systems use animals in different ways. At one extreme, a farming household or a city school teacher may keep a sheep at home, fattened on household scraps for an annual religious festival. At the other is a prosperous Turkana household in northern Kenya entirely dependent on a herd of cattle for every aspect of daily life and all its income. The latter is clearly a pastoralist, the former clearly not, but where is the break point on the continuum which separates them?
Mobility creates a similar definition problem. There are many types of mobility and the degree of mobility may change according to environmental conditions, or household life cycle stage. Mobility can be seasonal, regular as a pendulum between two well-defined pasture areas, following marked transhumance routes that have not changed for centuries. It can also be nearly random, following erratic rain clouds, and rarely the same from one year to another. Movement can be up and down mountains, between a summer and a winter village. Movement is not necessarily only for ecological reasons: it can be for trade, because of conflict, or to seal new political alliances. People move away from drought, animal disease or conflict, towards newly available resources, or simply because they don't like their neighbours.
This makes it difficult to classify mobility. At one extreme, a Wodaabe pastoral nomad household in Niger may move its camp every few days throughout the year. It is clearly highly mobile. The same household, after a catastrophic drought in which it loses all its animals, may settle and live from agriculture, food aid or migrant labour while it builds up its herd again. For a time it becomes sedentary. But as soon as the herd grows large enough again for the household to live from it, the household will become mobile again, to find pasture for the animals. At the other extreme from the Wodaabe is a farming household where a young girl takes the sheep away from the village every day a mile or two to graze. There is some displacement, but the livelihood system clearly does not depend on mobility. There is also a difference between mobility of animals (some may move and some stay behind, or all may move) and mobility of people (members of the household may all move together, or herdsmen and women alone may move, leaving other family members in a fixed camp or settlement).
Any definition is arbitrary to some degree, but we need to clarify how we are using words. Recognising that there will be many cases which are borderline or fall outside neat categories, we may think of mobile pastoralism in a grid. One axis shows the degree of dependence on livestock, the other the importance of mobility. We may arbitrarily label an economic system in which most households gain more than 50 percent of total gross household income (ie including the value of products produced and consumed within the household) from livestock related activities, using unimproved pastures, as pastoral. Systems where more than 25 percent of income comes from livestock, and more than 50 percent from cropping may be labelled agro-pastoral, other rural households as agricultural, ignoring in this the important role played in most rural household income by off-farm activities. On mobility, we may label all types of movement which include substantial irregularities as nomadic, regular back and forward movements between two relatively fixed locations (for example summer and winter pastures) as transhumant, and others as sedentary. This gives the following grid. The number of stars gives an idea of how commonly these two sets of criteria combine in real livelihood systems:
pastoral agro-pastoral agricultural
nomadic *** *
transhumant *** *** *
sedentary * *** ***
In this paper, if not otherwise qualified, we use the term mobile pastoralism to refer mainly to nomadic and transhumant pastoral livelihoods. But many of the conclusions also apply to nomadic and transhumant agro-pastoral livelihoods.
Mobile pastoralists are found in most of the world's drylands and mountains. This includes South America, where there are indigenous grazing economies in the highlands of Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile and Argentina. One example: Aymara herders live at a mean altitude of 4,000m in the Bolivian Altiplano at the limit of agricultural production, where altitude and latitude combine to form one of the harshest and driest landscapes in the continent. Native varieties of potato yield a meager harvest once every two or three years, making agriculture a precarious investment. Livestock - alpacas, lamas, and sheep - remain the core of local livelihood systems. Paradoxically, the Aymara keep their animals in the same pastures most of the year, but make a seasonal migration to their distant potato fields.
Mobile pastoralists are found in Alpine and Mediterranean Europe. Transhumance is widespread in the dry uplands across southern and parts of central Europe. Flocks - mainly sheep and goats, but in some cases cattle - depend on natural rain-fed pastures and sometimes cereal stubble. Harvested fodder is rare. Seasonal movements of flocks with their shepherds, occasionally also with their families, are generally from summer highland pastures, where herding households have a village base, to winter lowland areas. In some cases the pattern is reversed: the base is in the winter pastures, with summer visits to the uplands.
Such mobile pastoral populations are usually ethnic minorities, and include the people of the Spanish Sierra, Basque shepherds, shepherds of Languedoc in France, herders in the Abruzzi in southern Italy, Sarakatsani and Koutsovlach shepherds in northern Greece, other Vlachs distributed throughout the Balkans, Muslim shepherds in the mountains of Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as pastoralists on the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Crete. In many parts of Alpine Europe, cattle from agricultural villages migrate in summer to mountain pastures. Mobile pastoralism is also found in northern Europe if Sami reindeer herders in northern Scandinavia, and the transhumant sheep flocks of Wales are included.
Africa is home to large numbers of nomadic pastoralists, ranging from the camel and sheep herders of North Africa, the Sahara and northern Sahel (including Sudan), the cattle herders of the belt of savanna vegetation from west Africa to the Horn and south into Kenya and Tanzania. Pastoralists, some of them mobile, are also scattered throughout southern Africa.
Much of the Middle East, and south-west Asia, especially Iran and Afghanistan, has large nomadic pastoral populations, as do the deserts and mountains of India and Pakistan. Mongolia has the distinction of being a largely pastoral country, with between a third and a half of the national population engaged in mobile livestock husbandry. Large areas of China are inhabited mainly by pastoralists, as are parts of central Asia, although on a smaller scale
Because of the difficulty in defining them, it is almost impossible to say how many pastoralists there are in the world today. Using the strict definition of nomadic and transhumant pastoralists outlined above, there may be between 100 and 200 million people in such livelihood systems. If nomadic and transhumant agro-pastoralists are included, the number rises very sharply, and such people are often a clear majority of dryland inhabitants. Interestingly, the number of mobile pastoralists is probably stable in many countries, but rising in some. In parts of southern Europe for example, and even more in central Asia following de-collectivisation, mobile pastoralism is seen as a viable and modern livelihood, and people are reverting to ways of living which seemed to have disappeared a generation earlier.
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On free speech, satire and faith
Probably like many people I'd never heard of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and its controversial cartoon depictions of the prophet Mohammed. We all have now since Muslim extremists gunned down twelve people at the magazine's office last Thursday. Editor Stephane Charbonnier, who was one of the victims refused to be cowed by threats of violence against him for publishing the offending cartoons saying, 'I'd prefer to die standing than live on my knees'.
Fear of such attacks has led to self-censorship in the mainstream media. On Thursday's edition of BBC Question Time it emerged that the national broadcaster's 'policy with regards to representations of Mohammed was to not depict the Prophet in any shape or form.' Presumably no such guideline exists governing the depiction of any other religious figure, whether that depiction be respectful or mocking. Is that simply out of respect for Islamic religious sensibilities, or have fatwas and threats of violence successfully intimidated our media into submission? After all, who wants to be attacked by an axe wielding fanatic as was Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard whose image of Mohammed was published in his newspaper, Jyllands-Posten?
Now, it needs to be said that many Muslims have condemned the killings at Charlie Hebdo and the associated murder of hostages at a Jewish supermarket. Rightly so. But Muslim majority countries aren't exactly renowned for championing free speech. In Saudi Arabia blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and ten years in prison for 'insulting Islam'. He has just received the first of fifty installments under the whip (here). According to Rod Liddle, writing in the Sunday Times, 'An NOP poll in 2006 reported that 68% of our Muslim community thought that British people who insulted the prophet should be prosecuted.' Not killed, Liddle hastens to add, just imprisoned, but still.
So where does all this leave Christians? Admittedly the church hasn't always had a good track record when it comes to freedom of speech. What with the Inquisition, Roman Catholic persecution of Protestants during the reign of Queen Mary and all that. Protestantism doesn't have an unblemished record on this subject either. But the days of church-sponsored repression are long gone and in any case such acts were carried out because Christians failed to pay proper heed to the teaching of the New Testament. Stuff about Jesus's kingdom not being of this world, and our weaponry not being carnal, but spiritual come to mind. Not to mention the command to love our neighbour as ourselves. (John 18:36, 2 Corinthians 10:4, Matthew 22:39). It's simply lazy to lump all faiths together and say that Christians are just as likely to launch terror attacks on those who ridicule their beliefs as radicalised Islamists. It just ain't happening that way.
Christians are willing for their beliefs to be held up to public scrutiny. We invite investigation of the historical claims of our faith such as the bodily resurrection of Jesus. We're up for robust and searching theological discussion with no holds barred. We can cope with our beliefs being satirised and ridiculed. When Jesus faced the charge that he cast out demons by the prince of demons he practiced what he preached and turned the other cheek. His claims to be the Son of God and King of the Jews were mercilessly mocked at when he hung upon the cross. His response? Jesus prayed, 'Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.' Similarly Paul faced ridicule when be preached salvation through the cross of Jesus, a message dismissed as arrant foolishness by cultured Greeks. Some of the clever intellectuals at Mars Hill, Athens laughed openly when the apostle spoke of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. What did Paul do? He steadfastly determined to carry on preaching Christ crucified and risen for he had no other message to proclaim. A message that proved to be the power of God to those who were being saved.
Paul asked that he and the churches he founded be granted freedom from the authorities go about their work, but he did not expect the state to use its powers to clamp down on opponents of the Christian faith. He wanted the church to be granted tolerance, not dominance. That is in keeping with the New Testament's insistence on maintaining separation between church and state. We do not want people who insult our Lord Jesus in cartoons or words to be persecuted, flogged, or imprisoned, but we'd be more than happy to see them converted.
In any case it would be a bit rich for Christians to be too precious when it comes to our beliefs being satirised, as believers have been known to pour scorn on what they regard as false forms of belief. Witness the prophets of the Old Testament ridiculing the worship of idols, Isaiah 44:9-20, 1 Kings 18:27. Respectful inter-faith dialogue? Er, no. Jesus was not above mocking the rank hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, Matthew 23:23-24. Can we not detect just a little hint of sarcasm when Paul rounds on his opponents in Corinth, 1 Corinthians 4:8-13? The biblical injunction to 'speaking the truth in love' means that we won't set out to gratuitously offend those with whom we disagree, but that doesn't indicate that Christian speech should amount to little more than mealy mouthed niceness.
Christians should welcome the extension to others of the freedom to communicate and practice their beliefs that we ourselves enjoy. That applies even if as is the case with Muslims that the same freedoms are not afforded to Christians in many Muslim majority countries. Tolerance and the rule of law must apply to all citizens, irrespective of their faith or lack of it. Exercise of that freedom may occasionally mean that our dearly held beliefs are scorned and disrespected. So be it. Christians sometimes need to develop thicker skins and be willing to participate in the cut and thrust of religious debate without succumbing to a whingeing persecution complex.
Beyond that, have we not been commanded to 'go to [Jesus] outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured'? (Hebrews 13:13). In the words of the old hymn we say in defiance of ridicule and scornful laughter,
Let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in thy name!
Posted by Guy Davies at 8:00 am 2 comments: Links to this post
Labels: Christian faith, Politics, Society
Stephen Hawking famously concluded his bestselling A Brief History of Time with these words, "If we do discover a theory of everything...it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would truly know the mind of God." When in the film Hawking's wife Jane sees those words for the first time she is exited by the prospect that her atheistic husband had suddenly come to believe in God. It turned out that he hadn't and his 'mind of God' language was meant figuratively rather than theologically. Jane's faith in God and Stephen's lack of it is one of the key themes in this portrait of an unlikely couple.
Hawking has devoted his scientific career to discovering a simple theory that can account for both Einstein's theory of relativity that describes the universe writ large and well ordered in light, energy and gravity, and quantum mechanics that describes the universe writ small and random at the level of sub-atomic particles. Scientists believe that both descriptions of reality are true, and yet they seem irreconcilable. That's where the so-called theory of everything comes in. In the film Jane with great simplicity explains this complex scientific idea to a friend using a potato and a pea from her dinner plate as visual aids.
Despite the sciencey bits, the film is less a cinematic exploration of Hawking's attempt to develop a theory of everything and more a meditation the power and fragility of human love. Stephen and Jane meet at Cambridge where he is studying cosmology and she Romance languages. Hawking as we first encounter him in the film was an ungainly, but intellectually brilliant young man. However, as is well known his clumsiness was but an early symptom of his debilitating motor neuron disease. Stephen and Jane have already stared seeing each other when his illness is diagnosed. The prognosis is around two years, but Jane is determined to continue with their relationship. When it is objected that in marrying Stephen she doesn't know what she is letting herself in for, Jane objects, 'But I love him' and that's that. But the power of love will be sorely tested both by Hawking's illness and by Jane and Stephen's conflicting beliefs.
Early in their relationship Hawking explains that as a cosmologists he cannot believe in God, as faith would make the scientific quest for the origins of the universe redundant. Jane quickly retorts, 'That seems like a good argument for not believing in cosmologists'. One incident highlights their different faith perspectives. Stephen takes Jane to the University May ball. In a quiet moment together they both stand staring up at the night sky. The sight prompts Jane to quote from the Book of Genesis, but Stephen cannot hear the heavens declaring the glory of God.
Both the main parts are extremely well acted. Eddie Redmayne contorts himself into Hawking's twisted, wheelchair encased frame. Felicity Jones plays Jane with convincing subtlety as a prim beauty with strong beliefs and determined love who is none the less overwhelmed by the task of caring for her increasingly disabled husband. Things are further complicated as Jane develops feeling for family friend and informal carer for Stephen, Jonathan Jones. Hawking's nurse, Elaine Mason played in the film by Maxine Peake also helped to drive a wedge between the couple.
Hawking grew increasingly famous for his scientific theories popularised in A Brief History of Time. Wheelchair-bound and with his synthesised voice he became a globally recognised iconic figure. In a scene from the film the scientist is invited to address a conference in America. A member of the audience asks him, “You state that you do not believe in God, do you have a philosophy of life that helps you?” He replies,
It is clear that we are just an advanced breed of primates on a minor planet orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among around a hundred billion galaxies. But, ever since the dawn of civilization people have craved for an understanding of the underlying order of the world... However bad things may seem there is always something you can do and succeed at. While there is life there is hope.
I don't know whether the script was based on an actual Hawking quote. If they are the sentiments are considerably more positive than his thoughts on another occasion,
The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit.
Hawking is right to say that the whole universe cannot conceivably exist simply for our benefit. Christians believe that God created the world first and foremost to display his glory. But human beings are more than 'chemical scum'. We were created in the image of God that we might glorify him and delight in his creation in all its wonder, beauty and complexity. Against the backdrop of an immense expanding universe human life may seem insignificant. But we are loved by God. The mind of God is known above all else in that the Word through whom all things were created was made flesh to bring sin-broken human beings back to himself.
The Theory of Everything presents a moving if romanticised portrait of a relationship that was tested to breaking point by terrible suffering. The contrasting faith outlooks of Stephen and Jane were an added complication and highlight the tensions that can be caused when a husband and wife don't share the same essential beliefs. The reality by all accounts was much more raw and painful, with one writer labeling Hawking a misogynist for the way in which he treated his devoted wife and carer, Jane. Another writes of his intense loathing of religion, which can't have helped matters. (See here and here).
'But I love him' protested Jane. What a powerful, yet fragile thing is human love.
Labels: Film Review
5 Flicks: brief film reviews (and a review preview)
We've seen a few films in recent months/weeks/days. Look no further for in-depth and insightful reviews. From art house to blockbuster.
Well acted, esp. Timothy Spall in title role. Visually stunning in parts. Fighting Temeraire scene gorgeous, but all too brief. One of my favourite paintings. A print hangs in our dining room. Featured in Bond film Skyfall, which I had for Christmas on DVD. I digress. Mr. Turner amusing. Sketchy plot. Salacious interest in painter's private life. Spall like an overexited Gruffalo. Nooo.
Fury & The Imitation Game
Benedict Cumberbatch convincing as brilliant, yet tragic Alan Turing. A war film for crossword puzzlers and computer nerds. Intelligent in a way that Fury wasn't. Keira Knightley does her cut glass English Rose thing. How breaking the Enigma code helped us to win WW2. Fury, a computer game for people whose thumbs have fallen off.
The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies
Samug the dragon (voiced by Cumberbatch) not happy. Spoiler. Dragon (not red) killed by Welshman. So that's how Sauron became the eye of fire thing. Big battle. Men, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Bats, Eagles, a Wizard and a man/big black bear creature fight it out. Spoilers: Orcs lose. Good uns die. Short chap with big hairy feet wins the day. Got a ring. Could be important.
Fronts seats. Craned necks. Screen too big. Games over. Revolution begins. Tyranny defied. Katniss Everdeen: face and voice of insurgency. Fragile hope. Misery and madness.
Boffin boy meets arty girl. Love. Boy falls ill. Marry. Black holes and stuff. More when we've seen film, not just preview. But preview shown before all films reviewed, so only seemed right to preview the review.
Posted by Guy Davies at 11:22 am No comments: Links to this post
5 Flicks: brief film reviews (and a review preview...
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THE 40-YEAR ITCH: POPULISM AND POLARISATION THREATEN LATIN AMERICA / THE ECONOMIST
| Etiquetas: Democracy, Latin America Economic And Political, Populism
The 40-year itch
Populism and polarisation threaten Latin America
After dictatorships gave way to democracy trouble is brewing again
IT WAS ONE of the greatest waves of democratisation ever. In 1977 all but three of the 20 countries in Latin America were dictatorships of one kind or another. By 1990 only Mexico’s civilian one-party state and communist Cuba survived. Several things lay behind the rise of democracy in the region. One was the waning of the cold war. Another was the economic failure of most of the dictators. And democracy was contagious. One country after another in Latin America put down democratic roots as power changed hands between right and left through free elections.
The outlook is suddenly much darker. Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, is an originally elected autocrat ruling as a dictator. He clings to power with the support of Cuba at the cost of wrecking his country and destabilising its neighbours. At least 3.7m Venezuelans have fled economic collapse and repression; organised crime and Colombian guerrillas flourish there. The repressive family despotism into which Nicaragua has degenerated under Mr Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, is almost as nasty.
These autocratic extremes would be less worrying were not elections across the region showing that there are clear signs of disenchantment with democracy elsewhere. Election rules are sometimes flouted and independent institutions undermined. Many voters are turning to populists with little commitment to restraints on power. Parties of the moderate centre are weakening or collapsing.
Immoderate urges
An election marked by fraud in Honduras saw Juan Orlando Hernández, the conservative president, win a constitutionally dubious second term in 2017. In Guatemala, which will hold elections in June, the president recently ordered out a UN investigative body into organised crime and corruption which had helped to jail two of his predecessors. Evo Morales, a leftist who has been Bolivia’s president since 2006, will seek a fourth term in October—also on dodgy constitutional grounds. In the same month, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a populist former president of Argentina who abused institutions in partisan fashion and faces corruption charges, stands a chance of being returned to office.
And then there are Latin America’s two giants, Brazil and Mexico. Both have elected presidents who share a populist disregard for the norms, checks and balances, and toleration of critics that are necessary for lasting democracy.
The threat is more obvious in Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro, an army captain turned far-right politician, took over on January 1st. A seven-term congressman, Mr Bolsonaro is a political insider in Brazil but one nostalgic for military rule. Eight generals sit in his 22-strong cabinet and scores more officers occupy second- and third-tier posts. “Democracy and freedom only exist when the armed forces want them to,” he said in a speech in March at a military ceremony. This will be news to Costa Rica. Its decision to abolish its army in 1948 is widely regarded as having helped it stay free. He even ordered the armed forces to commemorate a military coup in 1964, which he calls a revolution. Evidence is emerging that appears to show ties between Mr Bolsonaro’s family and paramilitary militias that operate in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a veteran populist of the left known as AMLO, has struck a more moderate tone in his first five months in office. Mexicans overwhelmingly approve of his promises to sweep away corruption and crime, as well as his modest way of life (he sits in economy on commercial flights around the country). But there are warning signs.
AMLO is not a fan of independent centres of power. He has named his own “co-ordinators” to supervise elected state governors, cut the salaries of judges and civil servants, named ill-qualified allies to regulatory bodies, and stopped giving public funds to NGOs. He has also shown deference to the armed forces, placing them in charge of a new National Guard, a paramilitary police force, despite the objection of the Senate. A proposed bill to pack the Supreme Court would end its independence. In March the tax agency threatened the owner of Reforma, a critical newspaper, with a tax investigation over the seemingly trivial matter of owing 12,000 pesos (around $630) from 2015.
These steps, though some are small-scale, all come from the populist handbook of disqualifying and intimidating opponents, building a political clientele and what Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt of Harvard University have called “capturing the referees” of democracy. The measures also hint at a return to what Enrique Krauze, a historian, calls Mexico’s “imperial presidency” of past one-party rule.
Not all of the region is under threat. Chile and Uruguay, among others, still enjoy stable democracy, and most governments remain committed to that goal. The region’s people are not so sure. In 2018 Latinobarómetro, a multi-country poll, found that only 48% of respondents saw themselves as convinced democrats, down from 61% in 2010. Just 24% pronounced themselves satisfied with democracy in their country, down from 44% in 2010 (see chart 1). How did democracy fall into such disrepute? How great is the threat to it? And how can democrats fight back?
The warning signs were clear. Take Eldorado, a sprawling suburb of São Paulo. In Brazil’s boom of 2005-13 it had hopes of becoming solidly middle class. A year ago, as the country’s election campaign got under way, people in Eldorado were fed up with rising crime, unemployment and a sense of official neglect. “When we go out we don’t know whether we will return alive,” lamented Cleber Souza, the president of Sítio Joaninha, a former favela. In what had been a stronghold of the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT), several people said they would consider voting for Mr Bolsonaro. “He’s a cry for justice from the society,” said Anderson Carignano, the owner of a large DIY shop. “People want a return to order.”
Behind the discontent lies a toxic cocktail of crime, corruption, poor public services and economic stagnation. With only 8% of the world’s population, Latin America suffers a third of its murders. In many countries, the rule of law remains weak.
In the 1980s, many of the new democratic governments inherited economies bankrupted by debt-financed statist protectionism. The adoption of market reforms known as the “Washington consensus” provided a modest boost to growth. The democratic governments gradually expanded social provision. After the turn of the century many economies benefited from a surge in exports of minerals, oil and foodstuffs thanks to the vast demand from China. Poverty fell dramatically, while income inequality declined steadily.
Carnival’s over
The end of the commodity boom has brought a sharp correction. Taken as a whole, the region’s economies expanded at an average annual rate of 4.1% between 2003 and 2012; since 2013 that figure has shrunk to only 1%, taking income per head with it (see chart 2). Some countries, mainly on the Pacific seaboard, have done better. Others have done much worse. Brazil is barely recovering from a deep recession in 2015-16; Argentina is stuck in a long-term pattern of economic stop-go. Mexico has grown by only 2% annually for decades.
The underlying causes include low productivity, rigid regulation, a lack of incentives for small companies to expand or become more efficient, and corrupt political structures benefiting from the status quo. For a time an expanding labour force saw the region grow despite the problems. That demographic bonus is now mostly spent. In many countries the working-age population will start shrinking in the 2020s. As economies have faltered poverty has edged up and the decline in income inequality has slowed. This has exacerbated an existing crisis of political representation.
Against this bleak landscape, the worldwide ills of democracy have taken an acute form in Latin America. “There’s a kind of repudiation of the whole political class,” says Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a sociologist and former Brazilian president. Political structures “don’t correspond any more to the moment societies are living in,” he adds. That is partly a result of the digital-communications revolution in which social media have bypassed intermediaries. Political traditions also play a role.
Latin America has a long history of caudillos and populists, sometimes embodied in the same person, such as Argentina’s Juan Perón. The strongman tradition stemmed from long and bloody wars of independence two centuries ago, and from the difficulties of governing large territories, often with challenging terrains and ethnically diverse populations. Many countries were rich in natural resources. Latin American societies, partly because of the legacies of colonialism and slavery, were long scarred by extreme income inequality. That combination of natural wealth and inequality bred resentments that populists exploited.
But there is another political tradition in the region, one of middle-class democratic reformism, honed in the long struggle to turn the constitutionalism present at the birth of Latin American republics into a lasting reality. In various guises, this political current was in the ascendant in many countries for much of the past 40 years. Now the integrity and competence of the politicians that embodied it have been called into question.
Voters abandoned such dominant parties as Brazil’s PT and Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party because “they were hypocritical in talking of the public interest while being inward-looking, self-serving and corrupt,” says Laurence Whitehead of Oxford University.
Corruption usually diminishes as countries get richer. Yet Latin American politics seem, for a mainly middle-income region, unusually grubby. The region’s states are marked by heavy-handed regulatory overkill mixed, in practice, with wide discretionary power for officials. The commodity boom meant more resources flowing into state coffers, and thus more money for politicians to steal.
The investigation known as Lava Jato (car wash), originating in Brazil into bribery by Odebrecht and other construction companies across Latin America, has exposed the scale of the corruption to the public, leading to a widespread perception that the region’s entire political class is corrupt. In fact the investigations are a sign of overdue change. The traditional impunity of the powerful in Latin America has been challenged by independent judiciaries and investigative journalism, both a product of democracy. Brazil has seen scores of politicians convicted on charges of corruption. In Peru four former presidents have been under investigation. One of them, Alan García, committed suicide last month as police arrived at his house in Lima to jail him for alleged corruption.
Off-centre
Ironically, populists have been relatively untouched by scandal, either because they control the judiciary and the media or because a halo of the saviour of the people surrounds them. It is often centrist parties that pay the political price. That is partly because they have struggled to practise good government. The reformist zeal of the early years of the democratic wave has fallen victim to two recent tendencies in politics: fragmentation and polarisation.
Brazil’s new Congress contains 30 parties, up from five in 1982. The 130 seats in Peru’s single-chamber parliament are divided among 11 groupings. In Colombia’s parliament, once dominated by Liberals and Conservatives, there are now 16 parties. Even Chile’s stable system is starting to splinter. One reason is Latin America’s unique—and awkward—combination of directly elected presidencies and legislatures chosen by proportional representation. Party switching carries a low cost.
In some countries politics has become a way of making money, or a brazen means to promote private business interests. In Peru, for example, such interests often buy their way into parties, undermining party solidity and the representative character of the country’s democracy, according to Alberto Vergara, a political scientist at Lima’s Pacifico University.
Another factor is that the old left-right divide is no longer the only cleavage. Evangelical conservatives are pushing back against liberal secularism on issues such as abortion and gay rights. In Costa Rica, which had a two-party system until the turn of the century, an evangelical Christian gospel singer of little previous political experience made it to a run-off presidential election last year (though he lost). As a consequence of fragmentation, governments often lack the majorities required to push through unpopular but necessary reforms.
Recent elections have seen a swing to the right in South America and to the left in Mexico and Central America. In both cases that has involved the alternation of power that is normal in democracies. But the switch has been accompanied by extreme political polarisation. That has been both cause and consequence of the collapse of the moderate reformist centre. And it risks making politics more unstable.
Yet there are some grounds for optimism. Latin American democracy is more resilient than outward appearances might suggest. Opinion polls suggest that only around a fifth to a quarter of Latin Americans might welcome authoritarian government. In some countries checks and balances provide safeguards. In Brazil, for example, Mr Bolsonaro’s government is a ramshackle assortment of generals, economic liberals and social conservatives. “Bolsonaro isn’t a party, he isn’t anything, he’s a momentary mood,” thinks Mr Cardoso, who trusts in the countervailing strength of the legislature, a free media and social organisations. “You have to be forever vigilant but I don’t think the institutions here are going to embark on an authoritarian line.”
In Mexico, where opposition to AMLO is weak and checks and balances on executive power are only incipient, there may be greater cause for concern. But the president’s popularity may decline as the economy weakens. And the centre is not dead everywhere.
Amid the dust from the collapse of old party systems, there are glimpses of democratic renewal, led by a new generation of activists. There’s “an ecosystem of new politics in Brazil,” explains Eduardo Mufarej, an investment banker who has set up Renova, a privately funded foundation to train young democratic leaders in politics, ethics and policy. In the 2018 elections, 120 of Renova’s graduates ran (for 22 different parties). Ten were elected to the federal Congress and seven to state legislatures. They are trying to convince the public that not all politicians are self-serving.
One was Tabata Amaral, a 25-year-old activist for better public education elected as a federal deputy for São Paulo. She mobilised 5,000 volunteers through social media; her campaign cost 1.25m reais ($320,000), raised through individual donations. To cut costs, she has teamed up with two other Renova graduates (in different parties) to share congressional staff. Her first brush with the old order was to find that the apartment assigned to her in Brasília by the Congress was illegally occupied by the son of a long-standing legislator, who refused to move.
Julio Guzmán tried to run for president in Peru in 2016. He was thwarted when the electoral authority barred his candidacy on a technicality. He has spent the time since travelling round the country building a new centrist party. He insists that he is engaged in “a different way of doing politics” in which all members are scrutinised and donations will be made public. His Morado party is aimed at “the new Peruvian, who looks to the future, is entrepreneurial and from the emerging middle classes”.
Polarisation in Colombia’s election last year led to a run-off between Iván Duque, the conservative victor, and Gustavo Petro, a leftist who until recently was a fan of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. But there, too, is a demand for a new politics, thinks Claudia López, the vice-presidential candidate of the centrist Green Party (which narrowly failed to make the run-off).
The task, she says, is to restore the trust of citizens in politicians. That partly involves competing in the emotional terrain occupied by populists. But it also means a different approach. “Nobody is interested in being a member of a hierarchical political organisation anymore,” she says. “Those of us in parties have to adapt to citizen causes or we’re dead.”
These are green shoots in a forest of dead wood. But they are a sign of the dynamism of Latin American societies—democracy’s greatest asset. Latin America remains the third most-democratic region in the world according to the Democracy Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The past four decades have created a culture of citizen rights and political participation. But democracy’s defences in Latin America are relatively frail, as Venezuela shows. All the evidence is that citizens want a new political order, in which politicians are more concerned with public services, security and the rule of law rather than lining their pockets.
And they want it now.
U.S.-CHINA TRADE: CHINA VOWS A "FIGHT TO THE END" IN TRADE FEUD WITH AMERICA / THE ECONOMIST
| Etiquetas: China, Trade Wars, U.S. Economic And Political, World Economic And Political
US-China trade
China vows a “fight to the end” in trade feud with America
War of words points to escalation risk, but there are some hopeful signs
THOUGH CHINA runs a massive trade surplus with America, over the past year it has run a massive rhetoric deficit. During that period President Donald Trump has tweeted about China 133 times; Chinese leaders, by contrast, have mostly kept mum about the trade dispute with America. But in the past few days that has begun to change. A sudden barrage of commentaries about the trade war in state media has struck a note of defiant nationalism. “If you want to talk, our door is wide open,” said an anchor on China’s most-watched news programme on May 13th, in a clip that went viral. “If you want to fight, we’ll fight you to the end.”
The aggressive language comes as the two countries’ trade war heats up. Last week American negotiators alleged that China had reneged on a draft deal that was nearly complete. Chinese officials said it was the Americans who were making unreasonable demands. The breakdown in talks led to America’s decision on May 10th to raise tariffs on $200bn-worth of Chinese imports from 10% to 25%, covering products such as car parts and circuit boards.
On May 13th Mr Trump tweeted, warning China not to retaliate. It will only get worse, he said. Barely an hour later China ratcheted up tariffs on $60bn-worth of imports from America, including natural gas. And it did indeed get worse, with the United States Trade Representative shortly thereafter beginning the process of implementing tariffs on “essentially all” Chinese imports. When all is said and done, China’s nearly $560bn-worth of annual exports to America could face tariffs of 25%. Much of America’s $180bn of annual exports to China could also be subject to similar levies.
Those already in place will hurt. Many economists estimate that China’s growth this year could be dragged down by about half a percentage point, to 6%. In America consumers will start to see higher prices: inflation could rise by half a percentage point, according to economists at Société Générale, a French bank. If Mr Trump follows through on the threat to hit all Chinese imports with duties—and few doubt his love of tariffs—the damage could be far greater. Chad Bown and Eva Zhang of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, reckon that the scale of American tariffs on China would resemble the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, levied just before the Great Depression.
At that point China might well start making life difficult for American businesses in China. One possibility would be consumer boycotts, fanned by state media. Forecasting models scarcely capture the alarm that would spread through markets if the world’s two biggest economies engage in a full-blown trade war.
There is still hope that America and China will step back. A recovery in global share prices after a big sell-off on May 13th, when the tit-for-tat tariffs were announced, reflects optimism that cooler heads will prevail. Most of the latest measures are not yet in force. America’s new 25% tariffs apply only to goods that left China after they were announced. Because it takes about three weeks for ocean freighters to make the journey, it will be June before the pain is truly felt. China’s new tariffs take effect only on June 1st. So there is time to talk.
In its official statements, China’s consistent message has been that, though it will not be bullied, it wants to work towards a deal with America. Mr Trump has also shown a willingness to resume talks, saying that he will hold meetings with Xi Jinping, China’s president, at a G20 summit in Japan at the end of June. The last time the two leaders met at a G20 summit, in November in Argentina, they agreed to a truce in the trade war. That might be a reason for optimism. Then again, given where the two countries are now, it could just as well be a reason for despair.
BRAZIL AND COLOMBIA: RESPONSES TO THE VENEZUELAN CRISIS / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES
| Etiquetas: Brazil, Colombia, Latin America Economic And Political, Venezuela
Brazil and Colombia: Responses to the Venezuelan Crisis
As countries that share borders with Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil are most vulnerable to the fallout from the crisis.
By Allison Fedirka
Colombia and Brazil have adopted similar approaches to Venezuela and likely will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Both countries have followed the United States’ lead in opposing the Maduro government but for different reasons. Their responses to the crisis stem from their individual interests and the geopolitical forces driving their behavior.
Venezuela has been mired in an economic and political crisis for years. Hyperinflation, corruption, oil sector mismanagement and plummeting energy exports have spelled disaster for the country’s economy. The U.S. has led the international response against President Nicolas Maduro, but two of Venezuela’s neighbors – Brazil and Colombia – have been critical partners in the campaign to remove Maduro from office. Their role in opposing his government stems from the fact that they are the most vulnerable to the mass migration and general instability resulting from the crisis. They have approached the issue in similar fashion so far, calling for Maduro’s removal but rejecting military intervention.
But what’s really driving their responses to the crisis? And why have they been among the region’s most vocal opponents of the Maduro government? Before we can answer these questions, we need a geopolitical basis for understanding South America’s place in the world and Brazil’s and Colombia’s most pressing geopolitical interests. South America is a region that gets little attention in geopolitical discussions, in part because the continent lies on the edge of the global system. It interacts with major geopolitical players but generally doesn’t drive major shifts, disruptions and developments. This doesn’t mean, however, that the basic rules of geopolitics aren’t at play in South America. In fact, they can help us identify the interests of neighboring countries and foreign powers in a country like Venezuela and, therefore, how they may respond to the unfolding crisis. Using models developed by some of the top geopolitical theorists, this Deep Dive will lay out a framework for understanding South America’s connection to the global system and the Brazilian and Colombian reactions to the upheaval in Venezuela.
South America’s Model Behavior
Geopolitically, South America is part of the periphery of the global system. Located in the Southern Hemisphere, which accounts for roughly one-third of the world’s landmass and one-tenth of its population, the continent is fairly removed from the rest of the world. It’s separated from the Eastern Hemisphere by the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and connected to Central America by a short 140-mile (225-kilometer) border between Colombia and Panama.
In analyzing the behavior of South American nations, there are two common pitfalls. First, many tend to dismiss events on the continent as unimportant based on the erroneous belief that the periphery doesn’t matter. Second, there is a tendency to overemphasize politics and political leaders and treat them as geopolitically relevant. To avoid these pitfalls, we need to look at how some of the founding fathers of geopolitical theory – Alfred Thayer Mahan, Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman – framed South America in the global context.
As a former U.S. naval officer, Mahan believed that if a country could dominate the world’s oceans, it could dominate the world. This view served as the basis for the expansion of U.S. interests across the Western Hemisphere at the turn of the 20th century – which included the creation of a security perimeter that stretched into the Caribbean. The first step in this project was to reduce Spanish influence in the Caribbean so that the U.S. could emerge as the dominant power there, which was accomplished in part through the Spanish-American War. The second was to control the Isthmus of Panama, a strategic land bridge between the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. The U.S. supported construction of a canal at the isthmus, which opened in 1914, so that it could control transit between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, a power that had enormous economic value.
In contrast, English geographer Mackinder took a more European approach to geopolitics. He focused on land power rather than sea power as the determinant of a nation’s global status. Mackinder formulated the heartland theory, which defined the center of Eurasia as the world’s heartland and argued that the dominant global power would come from this region. Its coastal areas – much of Europe, the Middle East and East Asia – were seen as secondary powers and areas beyond Eurasia, including the entire Western Hemisphere, as largely irrelevant. Mackinder updated his model following the two world wars, elevating North America and the North Atlantic to a status almost equivalent to that of the heartland. South America, however, still played a minimal role in Mackinder’s updated model.
Spykman believed that Mackinder overemphasized the importance of the heartland and instead posited that the center of global power was in the rimland, the coastal areas around Eurasia. He viewed the Caribbean Sea and surrounding areas as the American Mediterranean because of their central location in the Western Hemisphere. He also believed that the dividing line between north and south in the Western Hemisphere was not the Isthmus of Panama but the northern edge of the Amazon. According to Spykman, then, the northern part of South America, including Colombia and Venezuela, was essentially part of North America and included in the American Mediterranean. He believed the U.S. needed to dominate the Caribbean to establish regional security and that the construction of the Panama Canal further increased the importance of the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean in U.S. strategy. For Spykman, the U.S. faced few challenges in the Western Hemisphere, but any threat to its domination of the hemisphere come from the southern cone.
There are two important takeaways from these three models. First, the Caribbean, which includes the northern coast of South America, plays a key role in U.S. maritime security. This explains why the U.S. has intervened in Caribbean conflicts and why developments in South America can be critical to U.S. interests. Second, the northern nations of South America represent a borderland between North and South America. Conflicts and instability in this region threaten to draw in countries from both continents, and the Venezuelan crisis is one key example of this.
Brazil’s Territorial Integrity
Geographically, Brazil is defined by three key features: its large size, its natural boundaries and its north-south divide. Brazil is the fifth-largest country in the world by landmass and has long faced the challenge of filling and controlling that space. Portugal was forced to colonize northeast Brazil (rather than use it as a trading post) and move south for both security and economic reasons. Shortly after the Portuguese arrived in the Americas, other European powers followed.
While it had an agreement with Spain on how to divide their respective territories, no such deal existed with the U.K., France and the Netherlands – all three of which challenged Portuguese claims in the New World. The colony also needed land, labor and resources. Portuguese pioneers therefore pushed west for land on which to grow sugar cane and to find indigenous populations for enslavement.
Natural geographic barriers, however, limited Portuguese expansion beyond Brazil’s current borders. But in terms of security, its geography actually worked in its favor. Natural barriers insulated the country from the rest of South America and protected it from external threats. In the north, the Amazon’s dense forest and vast size prevented major military incursions from Venezuela, Colombia and Peru. Farther south, the massive Pantanal swamp fortified borders with Bolivia and Paraguay. In the east, the Atlantic Ocean protected Brazil from outside powers. The one area of geographic vulnerability is its flat southern border, though Uruguay provides some strategic depth there as a buffer state.
Brazil’s north-south divide is a result of its climate, unevenly distributed natural resources and river systems. The south, which has a more hospitable climate than the northeast, is the location of the country’s major population centers and the vast majority of its wealth. Its two major river systems – the Parana River and the Amazon River – split the country between north and south. The Amazon system passes through dense jungle and flows into the North Atlantic, while the Parana system generally flows south where it merges with the Rio de la Plata, though some of its tributaries flow directly into the South Atlantic. The two systems do not cross paths and have fostered their own economic and population centers with little connection between them.
These geographic features play critical roles in the models developed by the pioneers of Brazilian geopolitical theory, Carlos de Meira Mattos, General Golbery do Couto e Silva and Therezinha de Castro, in the mid-20th century. All three theorists emphasized the importance of territorial integrity – which is most at risk in the sprawling Amazon basin – and Brazil’s control over the South Atlantic.
This is where the Venezuelan crisis could have implications for Brazil’s broader geopolitical imperatives. Venezuela is just north of the Amazon, one of the most poorly integrated regions of Brazil. In fact, Roraima state isn’t even connected to Brazil’s electrical grid and gets its power from Venezuela. If Venezuela’s political crisis leads to military conflict or foreign military intervention, it could result in foreign forces pushing against Brazil’s borders. Any spillover into Brazilian territory could destabilize the area and disrupt connections to ports, making it even harder to reach and control this region. In the past, Brazil has opposed foreign involvement in management of the Amazon and permitted development and mining projects there because the government wants to maintain control over the whole region that falls within Brazil’s borders. This strategy helps Brazil repress any potential internal rebellion and provides strategic depth should an attack or blockade be waged on coastal areas.
Venezuelan migrants fleeing the crisis are also a challenge for Brazil. The flow of migrants toward and across the Brazilian border risks creating a borderland between the two countries that could pull the outer reaches of Brazil further away from its core. Another concern is that migrants who settle along the Brazilian border will compete with Brazilians for resources and jobs. Thus, early relief efforts involved flying Venezuelan migrants to areas farther south and settling them in larger cities. Brazil is also wary of delivering foreign humanitarian aid to Venezuelans from Brazilian territory, concerned that it could invite other kinds of external involvement in regional affairs. Brazil has therefore refused to deliver humanitarian supplies from other countries (including the United States) to Venezuela, insisting on providing only its own support.
Trade is another issue. Brazil has direct access only to the Atlantic Ocean, but its top trade partner, China, is a country that can be reached by sea only through the Pacific. To access the Pacific, therefore, it depends on sea lanes that run past Venezuela and the Caribbean to the Panama Canal. Any potential disruptions in this route – as a result of a conflict in Venezuela or a blockade to further isolate Maduro – could have major implications for the Brazilian economy.
Colombia’s Geographic Constraints
Unlike Brazil, Colombia is a bicoastal nation, meaning it has access to both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. But this status is not nearly as advantageous as one might expect. When the Panama Canal opened in 1914, it became the most important corridor between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the Western Hemisphere. Colombia never developed into a good alternative to the canal because its various mountain ranges dissect the country, making overland transportation between coasts difficult. In addition, the vast majority of Colombia’s exports and imports transit through the Atlantic Ocean, so Pacific ports and infrastructure have been relatively neglected.
Colombia’s two defining geographic features are the Andes Mountains and the Magdalena River. The Andes comprise roughly half of Colombia’s territory. (The other half is composed of the Amazon and Orinoco basins.) Just beyond the country’s Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, three distinct ranges of the Andes run across the entire length of the country’s territory, stretching from Ecuador to Venezuela. The majority of its population resides in different mountain valleys, which are poorly connected by land. The Magdalena River, however, helps integrate these disjointed parts of the country. An estimated 70-80 percent of the population lives near this river or one of its tributaries. It also facilitates the transport of goods between the interior and the Caribbean port cities of Barranquilla and Cartagena, both of which are relatively close to the Venezuelan border.
Colombia has several geographic constraints that are difficult to overcome despite the country’s strategic location. According to leading Colombian geopolitical thinker Julio Londono Paredes, it was South America’s general disjointedness and difficult terrain that gave North America a substantial power advantage over its southern neighbor. Londono Paredes believed the formation of five confederations including Gran Colombia – which united present-day Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador into one entity from 1819 to 1831 – were necessary to ensure peace in South America.
But without such a union, Colombia remains weak in relation to other large Caribbean countries, particularly Mexico and Venezuela. Both countries have influence over the region in ways that Colombia does not. Mexico has historical ties to Central America (many Central American nations belonged to the same viceroy as Mexico during colonial times) and has used these links to help protect its interests on the western edge of the Caribbean. Venezuela’s islands in the southern Caribbean Sea give the country strategic depth and influence over sea lanes. Venezuela is also situated farther east along the Caribbean coast, giving it greater access to the sea and beyond.
Colombia has overcome some of these challenges by aligning with the United States on a number of issues, including how to handle Venezuela. The U.S. welcomes Colombia as a close ally in a region where it has had few in the past, and Colombia’s alignment with the U.S. gives it a boost in the regional power balance.
It’s an advantage Colombia needs given that it shares borders with five different countries and has three three-country borders. Colombia has had territorial disputes with each of its neighbors in the past, but tensions have run deepest with Venezuela, whose disputes over land and sea borders with Colombia have focused on resource-rich areas. The Venezuelan crisis threatens to reignite these tensions. Mass migration has forced Colombian authorities to dedicate more resources to border security, though thus far, it hasn’t prevented irregular crossings. For the most part, Colombia has welcomed the migrants, but it has also struggled to cope with the sheer number of Venezuelans, about 1.5 million in total, who have fled across the border. In fact, the influx has cost Colombia 0.5 percent of gross domestic product (or roughly $1.5 billion) per year, according to Colombian President Ivan Duque. Organized crime and drug trafficking are also concerns as groups involved in illicit activities operate more or less without impunity along the Colombia-Venezuela border, raising the possibility of military involvement from both sides. The country’s two major ports, Barranquilla and Cartagena, are close to the Venezuelan border, so any spillover violence or instability could disrupt some of Colombia’s most important trade hubs.
Considering all these variables, it makes sense that Colombia has taken the strongest stance against Maduro of any country in the region. It has joined the U.S. and several other nations, including Brazil, in recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president. Bogota doesn’t want the crisis to escalate into a full-blown civil war, but unlike other countries in the region, it can’t completely rule out military intervention because of the history of border disputes between the two countries, as well as the risk that the violence might spill over into Colombian territory.
Colombia needs U.S. support to protect its interests. Brazil, on the other hand, doesn’t have that same dependency on the U.S. For now, however, both Brazil and Colombia will cooperate with U.S. efforts to orchestrate Maduro’s departure because it aligns with their own national interests.
DONALD TRUMP HAS LET THE ISRAELI ANNEXATION GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE / THE FINANCIAL TIMES OP EDITORIAL
| Etiquetas: Benhamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Israel, Middle East, U.S. Economic And Political
Donald Trump has let the Israeli annexation genie out of the bottle
The US president’s recent statements are a gift to Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing rivals
The West Bank: Benjamin Netanyahu said at the weekend that he 'will not uproot anyone [among the Jewish settlers], and I will not transfer sovereignty to the Palestinians' © Reuters
Benjamin Netanyahu has a deserved reputation for raising the stakes on the eve of knife-edge elections, turning them into a no-limits game. In 2015, Israel’s prime minister scraped home to victory after warning on election day that the country’s Arab citizens were voting “in droves”.
He later apologised for implicitly casting Israeli Arabs as fifth columnists. But it did the job.
Some observers think he is at it again, as he bids for a record fifth term as prime minister, with the shadow of indictment for corruption hanging over him, and facing an even tougher contest in Tuesday’s general election from a centre-right alliance led by Benny Gantz, a former army chief of staff. On Saturday Mr Netanyahu pledged to annex huge swaths of the occupied West Bank on which the Palestinians still hope to build an independent state alongside Israel. He said Israel would take not just the big clusters of Jewish settlements, mostly around Jerusalem, but also the settler outposts deep inside the West Bank.
“I will impose sovereignty, but I will not distinguish between settlement blocs and isolated settlements,” Mr Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 12 News. “I will not uproot anyone [among the Jewish settlers], and I will not transfer sovereignty to the Palestinians.”
Some argue this is just rhetoric fashioned for election eve by a canny politician who is ready to say anything but is fundamentally risk-averse. That view is almost certainly wrong.
It first of all underestimates how far the Israeli political spectrum has tipped to the right, pulled enthusiastically by Mr Netanyahu and a cast of extremists he has no compunction in embracing.
This should not be a surprise. Last year the central committee of his rightwing Likud party — whose charter expressly repudiates a Palestinian state — voted unanimously to extend Israeli sovereignty and law to “all liberated areas of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]”. If the polls are right Mr Gantz’s coalition will narrowly beat Likud, but Mr Netanyahu will still have the better chance of forming another coalition — stretching even further to the far-right, and taking in groups that advocate the “transfer” of Palestinians to neighbouring Arab countries.
That alone makes it unlikely that the prime minister will tone things down. Even in his outgoing government, his education minister Naftali Bennett was demanding annexation, while his justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, wants to draw the teeth of Israel’s high courts and extend Israeli law into the West Bank — de facto annexation and a two-pronged assault on the rule of law.
But the really fundamental change has been wrought by President Donald Trump, who has ripped up decades of US policy and international law on the Middle East.
Last year Mr Trump recognised Jerusalem — including the Israeli-occupied Arab east of the holy city annexed after the Six day war in 1967 — as Israel’s capital and moved the US embassy there. Last month he called for recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the same war and annexed in 1981. Both these decisions were declared legally null and void by the UN Security Council — respectively in resolutions 478 and 497 — a decision made possible only because the US declined to use its veto, which it has wielded 41 other times since 1967 to shield its Israeli ally.
Mr Trump’s volte-face on Israel’s land-grabs seems aimed at boosting the threatened political fortunes of his friend Mr Netanyahu. The idea that Mr Netanyahu will resist annexation because it cuts across the eternally delayed “deal of the century” — whereby Mr Trump will solve at a stroke the conflict between Jews and Arabs about how or whether to share the Holy Land — is risible. Mr Trump and his point-man on this, his politically callow son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have been ticking off the Israeli right’s wishlist. There is, however, an underlying point lurking here.
Mr Trump’s endorsements of annexation, aside from delighting the west’s adversaries from Russia to China, are a gift to Mr Netanyahu’s irredentist rivals, such as Mr Bennett and Ms Shaked. They would put an eventual US imprimatur on something between applying Israeli law in most of the West Bank (the Golan model) or outright annexation (the Jerusalem model).
He has opened a path for Israel’s ultra-right to annex the West Bank, now home to almost 650,000 Jewish settlers, including the 200,000 in occupied Arab East Jerusalem, among close to 3m Palestinians. That would end any lingering hopes of an independent Palestinian state, and condemn future generations of Israeli Jews to the instability of living in a single state with Palestinian Arabs as second-class citizens — who would eventually outnumber them in the cramped and combustible space between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean.
That is why some Israeli leaders such as Ehud Barak, a former army chief and prime minister, have warned that the alternative to a two-state outcome was a single “apartheid state” that would undermine Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish and democratic state. That is also why even Mr Netanyahu, who has never actually been willing to give Palestinians more than some sort of supervised, supra-municipal government, saw pragmatic virtue in keeping the two-states scenario in play.
Mr Trump, in his casual geopolitical munificence towards his Israeli friend, has ended that. The annexation genie is out of the bottle. This story, seen by Arabs as the colonisation of the Palestinians by Israel, is reaching the point of no return.
OUR LONG-ANTICIPATED GOLD MOMENTUM RALLY BEGINS / THETECHNICALTRADERS.COM
Our Long-Anticipated Gold Momentum Rally Begins
Chris Vermeulen
Over the past 6+ months, we’ve been covering the price rotations in precious metals very closely.
We’ve issued a number of amazing calls regarding Gold and Silver over the past few months. Two of the biggest calls we’ve made were the late 2018 research post that suggested Gold would rally to above $1300, then stall. The other amazing call was our research team’s suggestion that April 21~24 would see Gold setup an Ultimate Base, or what we were calling a “Momentum Base”, near $1250 to $1275.
We issued both of these markets calls many months in advance of these dates/price levels targeting these moves. In both cases, we issued these market calls well over 60 days prior to the move actually taking place. The accuracy of these calls can be attributed to our proprietary price modeling solutions as well as the skill and techniques of our research team. Don’t mind us while we take a few seconds to take credit for some truly amazing precious metals calls over the past 6+ months.
This Weekly Gold chart highlights just about everything we have been suggesting would happen over the past 12+ months. The rally in Gold from below $1200 to almost $1350 setup an upside price leg that we believe is still just beginning. The rotation lower, after the February 2019 highs, setup the Momentum Base near April 24 – RIGHT ON TARGET. Now, the upside price advance that we’ve been predicting should launch Gold well above the $1400 price level appears to be setting up.
Our Adaptive Dynamic Learning price modeling system, as well as our Adaptive Fibonacci Price modeling system, have been key elements to unlocking these early calls. You can read more about our earlier Gold and Silver calls by reading this article: https://www.thetechnicaltraders.com/adl-predictions-for-price-of-gold/
The next leg higher for Gold will see a price peak near $1450 before another brief sideways/stalling pattern sets up. After that, our research suggests a rally will quickly drive Gold prices above $1550 (or much higher).
As we’ve been suggesting, Silver will likely lag behind Gold by about 20+ days. We believe Silver is going to see an incredible upside price move – even bigger than Gold in percentage terms. Our belief is that Silver will be trading above $26 to $28 per ounce – almost DOUBLE the recent low price level, when Gold will be trading just above $2000 per ounce. The reason for this is the relationship between the Gold/Silver/US Dollar pricing levels – called the Gold/Silver Ratio. The chart is below.
When the ratio is above 0.80, we consider this to be a “Moderate Peak” zone for Gold. Where the price of Gold (per ounce) represents more than 80 ounces of Silver. The ratio of the price of Gold to the price of Silver is a fairly common measure to determine when Silver is very undervalued compared to Gold. When the ratio typically falls above 0.80, then the price of Silver is very cheap compared to the price of Gold. When this ration move above 0.90, these levels are Extreme Peaks in the disparity of pricing between Gold and Silver. These are the areas where both Gold and Silver rally back to restore a ratio level closer to 0.60 or 0.65 (or lower).
This would indicate that the price of Silver will rally much faster than the price of Gold and in order for this ratio to move back to the 0.06 level, Silver would have to rally at a rate of 1.35:1 or 1.45:1 compared to Gold.
Custom Index – chart by TradingView
This Weekly Silver chart highlights the levels we are watching for the upside breakout in Silver to begin – $15.40 or higher and we believe the upside price move in Silver till accelerate well above $18 per ounce very quickly. Again, the move in Silver will likely lag behind Gold by at least 20+ days. So now if the time to buy Silver in physical form (or any form) as we prepare for this move. Once it starts, we can promise you that the rally will be impressive and quick.
Watch how Gold and Oil react over the next few weeks as Fear re-enters the global markets. Our belief is that Oil will fall while Gold initiates the first leg higher, towards $1400 to $1450 before stalling. Once this happens, we can be certain a new upside price advance is beginning in Gold and this could be a fairly strong indicator that the markets are weakening and there is increased global fear.
THE 40-YEAR ITCH: POPULISM AND POLARISATION THREAT...
U.S.-CHINA TRADE: CHINA VOWS A "FIGHT TO THE END" ...
BRAZIL AND COLOMBIA: RESPONSES TO THE VENEZUELAN C...
DONALD TRUMP HAS LET THE ISRAELI ANNEXATION GENIE ...
OUR LONG-ANTICIPATED GOLD MOMENTUM RALLY BEGINS / ...
DIGGING IN FOR A LONGER TRADE WAR / GEOPOLITICAL F...
IRAN´S INEVITABLE ULTIMATUM / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES...
THE FED WOULD STRUGGLE TO MATCH JAPAN´S BOND-MARKE...
LEADERSHIP: WHAT CEO´S CAN LEARN FROM ROMAN EMPERO...
EMERGING RISKS FOR EMERGING ECONOMIES / PROJECT SY...
HOW THE WORLD ECONOMY BECAME A CHINA PROPERTY PLAY...
THE GEOPOLITICS OF HUNGARY / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES
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A Lesson in Loyalty
By Grim on Saturday, November 07, 2015 17 comments
A Banner Day for Truth
Our would-be cultural overlords are having a field day.
One: "Politico Admits Fabricating A Hit Piece On Ben Carson."
There were at least five major problems with the story:
* The headline was completely false
* The subhed was also completely false
* The opening paragraph was false false false
* The substance of the piece was missing key exonerating information
* The article demonstrated confusion about service academy admissions and benefits
Two: "Student admits creating racist post that sparked Berkeley walkout."
A racist message posted to a computer at Berkeley High School set off a 2,000-student walkout and protest Thursday. A student at the school admitted to posting the message, which referred to the Ku Klux Klan, used derogatory language related to African Americans and threatened a “public lynching” on Dec. 9, officials said.
Three: "In reversal, Obama says he lived with uncle."
President Obama acknowledged Thursday that he lived with his Kenyan uncle for a brief period in the 1980s while preparing to attend Harvard Law School, contradicting a statement more than two years ago that the White House had no record of the two ever meeting.
Their relationship came into question Tuesday at the deportation hearing of the president’s uncle, Onyango Obama, in Boston immigration court. His uncle had lived in the United States illegally since the 1970s and revealed for the first time in testimony that his famous nephew had stayed at his Cambridge apartment for about three weeks. At the time, Onyango Obama was here illegally and fighting deportation.
By Grim on Saturday, November 07, 2015 1 comments
Another birthday video someone sent me on Facebook--this is the only reasonable purpose of Facebook, by the way:
By Texan99 on Saturday, November 07, 2015 0 comments
These things have been on the market for at least two years. How is it possible that I have never heard of them before?
This may be the "COOLEST" Birthday Candle I've ever seen! I found them here on Amazon too: http://amzn.to/1LM0Mbr
Posted by ISave "A 2 Z" on Sunday, September 14, 2014
By Texan99 on Saturday, November 07, 2015 10 comments
"Partners for Peace"
So apparently the Pentagon's new concept for the Taliban is still pretty new...
Two days before a devastating U.S. strike on a hospital in Afghanistan, a top aide to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked Doctors Without Borders if Taliban militants were “holed up” there or at the charity’s other facilities.
Carter Malkasian, a special advisor to Gen. Joseph Dunford, the highest ranking U.S. military officer, sent the query in an email that also inquired about the safety of the group’s personnel, according to Capt. Greg Hicks, a spokesman for Dunford.
Doctors Without Borders replied that the hospital staffers were “working at full capacity” and that the facility was “full of patients, including wounded Taliban combatants,” the medical aid group said in a report Thursday.
By Grim on Friday, November 06, 2015 0 comments
"Our officers make a living trying to stop violence, but surprise is not out of the question."
I mean, he did clarify that the harm they intend to cause is "economic," but that's quite a statement to come out of the Fraternal Order of Police.
According to an email I just got, as I seem to be on absolutely everyone's mailing lists these days:
Sen. Warren just announced a plan to fix that and expand Social Security. She's proposing the Seniors And Veterans Emergency (SAVE) Benefits Act, which would give 70 million Americans an emergency benefit increase of about $580 -- that's 3.9% for 2016, the same raise that the big CEOs got last year.
What on earth makes anyone think that we can afford to give 70 million people "the same raise" that "big CEOs" get?
Hillary for Prison 2016
The NDA she signed is now public. As of course it does, it specified her responsibility to include avoiding "negligent handling" and her personal responsibility to know whether or not the information she was handling was classified.
The language of her NDA suggests it was Clinton’s responsibility to ascertain whether information shared through her private email server was, in fact, classified.
“I understand that it is my responsibility to consult with appropriate management authorities in the Department … in order to ensure that I know whether information or material within my knowledge or control that I have reason to believe might be SCI,” the agreement says.
The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the NDA.
According to government security experts, the type of information that receives a TS/SCI designation is sensitive enough that most senior government officials would immediately recognize it as such.
“TS/SCI is very serious and specific information that jumps out at you and screams ‘classified,’” Larry Mrozinski, a former U.S. counterterrorism official, told the New York Post in August. “It’s hard to imagine that in her position she would fail to recognize the obvious.”
Additional emails on Clinton’s server contained information that was “born classified,” according to J. William Leonard, who directed the U.S. Information Security Oversight Office from 2002 to 2008.
Uh, Guys....
The US Department of Defence has said that it’s no longer conducting counter-terrorism operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan because it views the group as an important partner in its efforts for restoring peace in the war-ravaged country....
“We actually view the Taliban as being an important partner in a peaceful Afghan-led reconciliation process. We are not actively targeting the Taliban,” [Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis] added.
You know, we did reconciliation in Iraq, too. We didn't reconcile al Qaeda in Iraq with the government. We reconciled former members or allies of al Qaeda in Iraq or the Ba'ath party to the government, as a means of cementing the victory over al Qaeda in Iraq and the Ba'athists. There's a subtle but important difference.
A "Bit" Blunt?
Ran Baratz, who was tapped by Netanyahu as Israel's next "media czar," once criticized Obama for the president's response to the prime minister's planned speech before Congress against the Iran nuclear deal.
"Allow me to be a bit blunt, which is a break from my usual moderation," Baratz wrote. "This is what modern anti-Semitism in a liberal Western country looks like. And, of course, it comes with a great deal of tolerance and understanding for Islamic anti-Semitism. The tolerance and understanding is so great that [Obama] is willing to give it a nuclear bomb."
In his column for the Hebrew online outlet MIDA, Baratz wrote: "To Kerry's credit, it should be noted that there is no Miss America around who could say what he said any better. This is the time to wish the secretary of state good luck, and to count down the days with the hope that someone over there at the State Department will wake up and begin to see the world through the eyes of a person whose mental age exceeds 12."
I guess at least we know where he stands.
By Grim on Thursday, November 05, 2015 0 comments
BLM Affiliates Put Out A Policy Agenda
So, on the one hand I have been critical of the Black Lives Matters movement's essential strategy, to whit, that of breaking the law in order to gain attention for its agenda. I think that strategy is doomed to failure as a means of improving the problem set that it treats, as it obliges the police to take enforcement action against ever more people -- and the more aggressive the lawbreaking, the more aggressive the enforcement action is going to become in turn. You can't get to the place where the police learn to work with you if you're forcing them to either fail to do their duty or else to use force against you.
On the other hand, I'm sympathetic to a large part of their claims. Police militarization of equipment and training is a problem. It puts lives at risk needlessly by adopting a posture in which lethal force is an option early. The loss of the "peace officer" mentality that looks for solutions that regain and strengthen the common peace, in favor of a "law enforcement" mentality that merely acts to enforce the law, has damaged the police as much as it has damaged anyone. The use of the police as revenue collection agents, coupled with the multiplication of (increasingly trivial) offenses for which one can be fined, is harmful to the common peace and lawful order. It undermines public trust in the institution of the police, and that ends up also harming the police as well as the nation as a whole. Likewise, as the Waco situation shows (in a context in which race is a non-factor, as essentially everyone is white), genuinely independent review of police actions can be a helpful control against the impulse not to come clean when you make a serious mistake.
So, while I think they need a completely different strategy -- one of obeying the law scrupulously while pushing their agenda -- I'm open to hearing their policy ideas. An affiliated group has just released an agenda detailing several.
About half of them sound good to me, and the other half I think aren't so good. Broken windows policing is one I'm divided on. On the one hand, I'm not convinced it doesn't work, as demonstrated especially in once-dangerous urban areas in New York. I wonder if we couldn't use more of it in places like the south side of Chicago. On the other hand, it may be that there is a point of diminishing returns past which the policy should be allowed to slide -- a little -- in the interest of greater peace and trust between the police and the community at large.
I'm curious to hear thoughtful responses to it all.
By Grim on Thursday, November 05, 2015 17 comments
Bill of... "Rights"?
According to the Declaration of Independence, God endowed human beings with certain inalienable rights -- that is, rights that you cannot get rid of even of you should choose to do so. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as well as also property which was only omitted from the draft after substantial argument about what it meant for slavery. (What did "liberty" mean for slavery?)
According to a bunch of illegal immigrants called United We Stay, they have rights as well to free health care, free school, and free citizenship even though they broke the law in entering the country and remaining here. They also say they have a right to have us stop enforcing our laws by deporting them.
I'm a little fuzzy on the philosophical authority for the claim. I get the claim from God, or from natural rights, or from positive law justified by democratic participation in a polity via citizenship. This is a "human rights" claim, but surely not one anyone can take seriously -- otherwise, we should all have the right to move anywhere we want and be provided for by whoever happens to be there. Not only is that not workable, such a principle would rapidly destroy anywhere nice enough to justify moving to it.
It's what Kant would call a conflict of the will: just because enough of us live by the maxim, the good that maxim seeks to obtain is destroyed. One of his examples, as I recall, is theft: theft as a maxim destroys itself in just this way, as what the maxim to steal hopes to gain is property, but if enough people steal your property becomes worthless as you can't hang onto it long enough to use it. Such a maxim can't be justified simply because of this basic flaw in its internal logic.
Ought Implies Can
What do you mean, one ought not to be a corrupt official?
“It’s impossible, absolutely impossible,” argued defense lawyer Steven Molo, “for a member of the Assembly to . . . do the job that a person in the Assembly does and not have some sort of conflict of interest.
“That may make you uncomfortable,” he added, “but that is the system New York has chosen, and it is not a crime.”
The Post is not impressed with the defense. Well, actually, they are -- they're impressed with the gall it takes to forward it as a defense.
A Eulogy for a Hated Man
Ahmad Chalabi died this week of a heart attack. He is one of the most agreed-upon villains in DC circles. Democrats hate him for having fooled Clinton. Republicans hate him for having suckered W. In spite of his reputation as a con-man extraordinaire, however, Chalabi is a very plausible hero to millions of Shi'ite Iraqis: his tireless campaign to convince Washington of Saddam's WMD program is what brought the US to Iraq, and removed Saddam from their throats.
One of those writes in his memory.
Chalabi’s most revealing, and most cited, soliloquy from February 2004 goes: “We are heroes in error. As far as we’re concerned we’ve been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We’re ready to fall on our swords if he wants.” He improvised the “heroes in error” bit on the fly. The rest of the scripting was mine. He probably shouldn’t have read out a 27 year-old’s snarky comeback to drive the plot....
I broke with him in September 2004. I have never discussed the reasons for that break, neither in person nor in print. Chalabi’s very human and personal foibles put stress on our saint-disciple relationship. When I caught him lying to me, because he didn’t want to see himself through my newly-opened eyes (another very human thing), the break became inevitable. He often cited a line from the Quran, in the words of immortal saint al-Khidhir (Elijah, I guess) to Moses, which paraphrased into English goes something like, “Didn’t I tell you that you wouldn’t have the stomach for me?"
The rest of the eulogy is worth reading, if only better to understand what has passed before our eyes.
Commenting on Your Co-Workers' Appearance
You may have been misinformed that making a big deal about your co-workers' appearance is inappropriate. It turns out, it's absolutely key to your success at work.
At least, if your boss is Hillary Clinton. And you're unfailingly flattering.
Solutions for non-believers
The cool thing about markets is that they can solve problems even for people who are deeply suspicious of markets' supposedly cold indifference to altruism.
By Texan99 on Thursday, November 05, 2015 7 comments
13 Hours, Trailer 2
By Grim on Wednesday, November 04, 2015 3 comments
Gun Control Test Vote: VA Senate
Strike one.
You think they'll figure this out before it's too late?
Related news: gun sales back at record highs, six months running.
A Winner in Relativity v. Quanta?
An article describes the ongoing debate among physicists.
Shotgun Boogie
So, Ted Cruz went hunting, as candidates do in election years, and...
Staunch gun rights advocate Ted Cruz is here seen holding a shotgun while being interviewed by CNN. Can you see what he’s doing wrong? That’s right, he’s violating the first two rules of gun safety.
When you learn to shoot, apply for a hunting or carry license and any time you’re at a gun range, there’s four basic rules of gun safety that — and this is impressed on you very strongly — must be observed at all times:
1) Treat all guns as if they are loaded.
2) Never point a firearm at something you’re not willing to destroy.
3) Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
4) Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.
Properly observed, these rules are almost entirely capable of preventing accidental shootings.
Those four rules are good, but the first one is properly "Treat all guns as if they are loaded, until you have personally checked it right now to be sure it is unloaded." After all, you couldn't disassemble a firearm to clean it if you could never treat it as if it were unloaded. Cruz personally knows his firearm is unloaded because the breech is open and empty, as we can all plainly see in real time.
Likewise, the muzzle rule applies to firearms except when you have personally checked them right now to ensure they are unloaded. Otherwise, how could you transport one to wherever you were going to hunt? You couldn't drive your car with the thing stored in the trunk without the muzzle becoming pointed at things it shouldn't were it loaded.
Fortunately, in addition to the four rules of gun safety, there is another method that is "almost entirely capable of preventing accidental shootings," which is to ensure the firearm is not loaded. Without ammunition in it, a firearm is quite inert.
The most amusing thing about this to me is that the same story ran in 2008 about then-Governor Palin, who was photographed holding a shotgun with the breech open (in this case, not over her shoulder but under her arm). "Is that even the right way to hold a rifle?" demanded critics. "Can't you shoot your foot off like that?"
Turns out that you really can't. But hey, let's have a song.
The Length is Part of the Point
A poem on English pronunciation.
America in 2016, As Viewed from Classical Athens
Plato, in Laws III, talks about the two sorts of ruin that afflicted Persia and Athens. It strikes a familiar chord on both terms. How familiar does this sound, when thinking of the corruption of the Clintons or the endless regulation of the Obama faction?
We remarked that the Persians grew worse and worse. And we affirm the reason of this to have been, that they too much diminished the freedom of the people, and introduced too much of despotism, and so destroyed friendship and community of feeling. And when there is an end of these, no longer do the governors govern on behalf of their subjects or of the people, but on behalf of themselves; and if they think that they can gain ever so small an advantage for themselves, they devastate cities, and send fire and desolation among friendly races. And as they hate ruthlessly and horribly, so are they hated; and when they want the people to fight for them, they find no community of feeling or willingness to risk their lives on their behalf[.]
As this faction pursues further restriction on our ancient liberties, now on guns as earlier on freedom of speech, religious liberty, freedom of association, and politically-incorrect expression, they find there is no trust left among the people. Why can we not discuss 'common sense gun regulations'? Because no one can trust that such regulations are not a back door to confiscation. We are unable to reason together because of decades of bad faith.
Who will enforce these new laws in any case? Will the people they want to fight for them comply? Will the police, whom they have hated upon ruthlessly and horribly for more than a year? Will the military, which is drawn in plurality from the part of the country they hate most ruthlessly and horribly of all?
As for the right, or what passes for it among common Americans today, the situation is a wave of support for... a reality-TV judge.
[A]s time went on, the poets themselves introduced the reign of vulgar and lawless innovation.... And by composing such licentious works, and adding to them words as licentious, they have inspired the multitude with lawlessness and boldness, and made them fancy that they can judge for themselves about melody and song. And in this way the theatres from being mute have become vocal, as though they had understanding of good and bad in music and poetry; and instead of an aristocracy, an evil sort of theatrocracy has grown up. For if the democracy which judged had only consisted of educated persons, no fatal harm would have been done; but in music there first arose the universal conceit of omniscience and general lawlessness;-freedom came following afterwards, and men, fancying that they knew what they did not know, had no longer any fear, and the absence of fear begets shamelessness.
Donald Trump is a theatrocrat if ever there was one. His judgments are judgments of the sort Plato fixes his gaze upon here, and he has like the theatrocrat of old swayed the audience into believing that they can judge as well. Watching these shows, and rendering judgments as if they knew what they were talking about, is now the pastime of millions. I have seen only enough of these shows to know that everyone in the audience is boldly stating their opinion about which chef did best in the competition -- though they have never studied cooking, and never tasted the food.
They love Trump because he is bold in just this way: loudly, fearlessly, and in ignorance. This is the last power they sometimes feel they have, to judge as he does. They want to believe in it.
There is a real danger that he will win. There is a very powerful wind at his back. There is a despair eating the heart of middle aged Americans without college. When we see a demographic collapse brought on by suicide, alcohol and drugs, unheard of except among Russian men after the fall of the Soviet Union, we know we are talking about something much more powerful than a passing fancy. It is the pain of a people who have come to believe that their lives are worse than wasted, who are ashamed to live without work or on government aid, who are in pain from finding themselves useless and without a place or a point. They are not only hurt, but righteously angry.
This has been brought on by the pressures against this class of our fellow Americans brought by those who support massive immigration and globalization, either because they hoped to fundamentally change the nature of America, or because they sought campaign donations from corporations that benefit from cheaper labor. It is the fault of those who have ensured that all new jobs since the start of the recession have gone to immigrants. They have called down this whirlwind.
I do not distrust my fellow Americans, especially not the poor and downtrodden members of this class, who have suffered so much at the hands of those who dare to think themselves their betters. I feel a great loyalty to them, and am angry at how they have been betrayed by the government -- of both parties -- which owed them fellowship and loyalty. It is only that it is hard to think clearly in pain and anger, as I know too well myself.
By Grim on Tuesday, November 03, 2015 3 comments
From social media
By MikeD on Tuesday, November 03, 2015 5 comments
You May Find This Triggering
Project Veritas strikes again.
"Get Over It"
Hillary Clinton gives some advice to Africa.
It's not that different from the advice the President gave when he spoke in Kenya.
If you are an American, you should ask yourself: why are they giving you different advice?
Asking for her hand. A lesson.
So normally, I don't bother complaining about music or other elements of popular culture. Partly because it does no good, but mostly because the general solution is simple, change the station. But There is a song out there that annoys me. Less because it is bad (though that is also true) but mostly for the message it passes along to young men. You are welcome to give it a listen here, though I don't recommend it save to satisfy curiosity, but I will include the relevant lyrics below.
By MikeD on Tuesday, November 03, 2015 10 comments
Kant and Warning Labels
If I were crafting a warning label for Kant's works,* it would not read as this one does:
This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.
First of all, any parents who are reading Kant's critiques with their children deserve our robust congratulations and are in no need of further guidance.
Secondly, the thing you really need to be warned about with Kant is that he doesn't use words like anyone else you know. You're going to encounter a lot of words that you think you recognize from a lifetime of reading, yet when Kant uses them all together they are not going to make any sense. This is because he made up his own language. Even in German, the problem is serious according to friends fluent in that tongue; in translation, it is severe. Assume that any word over two or three syllables is a technical term that means something specific for Kant that it never means for anyone else, and that you need to find out just what that meaning is to understand what he's trying to tell you.
Those are my first and second thoughts. Open Culture comes up with its own:
First, we must point out Wilder Publications’ strange certainty that a hypothetical Kant of today would express his ideas in tolerant and liberal language. The supposition has the effect of patronizing the dead philosopher and of absolving him of any responsibility for his blind spots and prejudices, assuming that he meant well but was simply a blinkered and unfortunate “product” of his time.
But who’s to say that Kant didn’t damn well mean his comments that offend our sensibilities today, and wouldn’t still mean them now were he somehow resurrected and forced to update his major works?
Secondly, who is this edition for?
Homeschoolers, apparently. The assumption that parents will be reading this with their children suggests to me that homeschooling may be a much better form of education than anything else going.
* (I want credit for avoiding in the headline all the horrible puns suggested by this story: "I Kant Believe This Publisher's Gall" and the like.)
Einstein was right again.
Time and space, according to Einstein's theories of relativity, are woven together, forming a four-dimensional fabric called "space-time." The mass of Earth dimples this fabric, much like a heavy person sitting in the middle of a trampoline. Gravity, says Einstein, is simply the motion of objects following the curvaceous lines of the dimple. If Earth were stationary, that would be the end of the story. But Earth is not stationary. Our planet spins, and the spin should twist the dimple, slightly, pulling it around into a 4-dimensional swirl. This is what GP-B went to space in 2004 to check.
By Grim on Monday, November 02, 2015 2 comments
This Autumn, If It Were a Celtic Punk Song
Although without the clappy happy ending.
Or maybe
Still, my woes are my own danged fault. (Philosophy joke: What does the repentant solipsist say? It's all my fault!)
So, to happy endings ...
By Thomas Doubting on Monday, November 02, 2015 5 comments
When Google Translate Hates Your Language
Galicia celebrates a local delicacy.
President Obama: You Know, We Could Use More Criminals In Government
I mean, I would have thought there to be no shortage.
Well, you know how on job applications, there's sometimes a little box that asks whether or not you've been convicted of a crime? With the wave of a pen, Obama just ordered that box to be removed from applications for jobs within the federal government, saying, "We can't dismiss people out of hand simply because of a mistake they made in the past."
You really can't make this stuff up.
"Simply because of a mistake" is fair enough, as applied to certain offenses. One might have said, "We shall no longer discriminate against certain kinds of offenses for certain kinds of positions." You could do a double-blind sort of thing with Federal hiring -- they employ enough people to do it -- whereby the first would filter to ensure that the crimes were of the right type to be ignored, and forward the listings stripped of criminal history to the actual hiring committee.
But, no. Instead, we won't consider criminal history... in hiring for government jobs, which come with government power... and somehow this makes sense? Somehow this is a good idea we should all get behind?
A Political Philosophy Wrapped in a Rant
This piece is really about the DMV not shining in comparison with the free market -- a point against which none of us are likely to argue -- but it is framed in an interesting account of the state.
[B]anditry frequently degenerates into a protection racket, a relatively modest tax on criminal enterprises and non-criminal enterprises alike. Protection rackets have their own challenges: For one thing, you actually do have to provide some protection, mainly from other predators like you. Over the years, economic success and administrative demands eventually transform bands of roving bandits into bands of stationary bandits. One popular theory of the state — one that is pretty well-supported by the historical evidence in the European context — is that this is where governments come from: protection rackets that survive for a long enough period of time that they take on a patina of legitimacy. At some point, Romulus-and-Remus stories are invented to explain that the local Mafiosi have not only historical roots but divine sanction.
Cf. Aristotle's account:
The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants, and the members of it are called by Charondas 'companions of the cupboard,' and by Epimenides the Cretan, 'companions of the manger.' But when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, the first society to be formed is the village. And the most natural form of the village appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren, who are said to be suckled 'with the same milk.'...
When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.
I would say that there is a sense in which both are true for America, for example: the frontier was settled by families who came together in marriages and formed ever-stronger communities (Aristotle), with very limited support from a distant government that claimed authority and the right to tax (Williamson). The American Revolution is the elimination of the 'stationary bandits' by the Aristotelian states that had formed on the frontier. So we began in the right way, surely.
And yet here we are.
We need a better account, one that does not look for the evil as bred in the bone, but one that recognizes the evil as a corruption of what was once healthy. It won't lie in the traditional analyses of what went wrong with America -- not in slavery or racism, I mean, for America has proceeded against those evils as resolutely through its history as any diverse nation is likely to do. It is, rather, a turning away from the favoring of the small Aristotelian cells of natural government in favor of a stronger, alien state. It is, likewise, about the turning away from the natural producer of the smaller Aristotelian governments -- the family, and those brotherhoods of table and church that Aristotle describes later in the Politics:
It is clear then that a state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. These are conditions without which a state cannot exist; but all of them together do not constitute a state, which is a community of families and aggregations of families in well-being, for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life. Such a community can only be established among those who live in the same place and intermarry. Hence arise in cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices, amusements which draw men together. But these are created by friendship, for the will to live together is friendship. The end of the state is the good life, and these are the means towards it. And the state is the union of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by which we mean a happy and honorable life.
I suppose we might say that it is a turning away from the natural toward the artificial, but that wouldn't do for Aristotle: he thought it was the purpose of art to bring to fulfillment and perfection that which nature had, for whatever reason, left incomplete or imperfect.
Perhaps it is a good place to begin an inquiry, in any case. There are levels of government and forms of governance that, if it were all to disappear tomorrow, we families would move to come together and re-establish. These levels and forms are healthy. What more?
The Port of Amsterdam -- SAIL 2015
I got a note in the mail today from the Federal Government's Office of Personnel Management, letting me know that my security clearance information was among those stolen in the massive data breach we've read about. They've taken a page from Target -- the store, that favorite of Michelle Obama's -- by offering me three years of free identity theft protection by way of compensation.
Which is all well and good, but -- like the President's own pre-announced withdrawal timeline for his Afghanistan surge -- that only tells the Chinese how long they have to wait before going gangbusters with the stolen data. My personal interests aside, out of a simple concern with national security they ought to flag my data (and all our data that was stolen) forever, not for three years. Whoever stole this stuff knows everything there is to know about where I've lived and worked, has on file personal references from people who have been interviewed in support to the investigation, and so forth. You could obtain any kind of paperwork from the government, or for that matter from private banks, based on what's in that file.
Fair enough if the three years is a stopgap while they put something else in place to ensure that the stolen data can't be used by the hackers, although it's not clear what that "something" might be. Perhaps a marker that anyone affected must be handled on a different basis than past information, should they need new clearances (or loans).
Still, three years is not that long a time. The scale of this breach, targeting as it did those with security clearances, ought to merit a much more permanent and serious response. That's true even if the government only cares about its own security, and not at all about those of us who are personally compromised.
By Grim on Monday, November 02, 2015 13 comments
"Our officers make a living trying to stop violenc...
President Obama: You Know, We Could Use More Crim...
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Psychological Methods to Sell Should Be Destroyed, by Robert Freeman Wexler
Psychological Methods to Sell Should Be Destroyed
Robert Freeman Wexler
Spilt Milk Press: 2008
Psychological Methods... is the first collection / chapbook from Robert Freeman Wexler. It contains five previously published stories and story original to this collection. The stories were published in LCRW, Polyphony, The Third Alternative (renamed Black Static), and Full Unit Hookup.
The chapbook opens with the story "Suspension", a tale about a man who is and has "six foot six inches, four arms, and 320 pounds". Quatrain Brauner spends almost the entirety of the story flat on his back in the snow, stared at and occasionally jeered, this big freak of a man who is really just a normal guy, or would be if he could be. Strong start.
"Tales of the Golden Legend" is easily the best story of the chapbook. There are people in the world who can speak with bread. Literally. There's even a section narrated by bread. Simply awesome in every way. This is the sort of story I had hoped to find in the chapbook. There is probably nothing more you need to know about this story besides "talking bread".
Wexler began to lose me, however, with "Valley of the Falling Clouds". I suspect half my problem was character names of Moonsocket and Apple Jane and the other half is that I have no idea what happened in the story. My last problem is that I cannot possibly describe or analyze the story because I don't remotely have an idea what happened. That frustrates me even if it is a failing of mine as a reader.
Story four is "The Green Wall" and is the last good story in the chapbook. A guy working as an art dealer in Little Italy (Manhattan) during an Italian festival sees a video of a living, breathing jungle projected against the wall outside his apartment. The story follows this man as he goes about his day(s) and becomes more and more obsessed and interested in the green wall. It's a story of getting out of ones life and into something special, though "The Green Wall" takes a while get there.
"Indifference" is a story of, well, indifference. Brown, the story's lead, just doesn't seem to care about anything and perhaps as a result, neither did I.
The final story, "Sidewalk Factory: A Municipal Romance" is the sole original story to Psychological Methods and...well...is flat out weird. The story opens with "The new sidewalks of our city are to be molded from discarded felt hats." and progresses to tell a story of a strangely repressed society where the "Lord Mayor" makes the rules and with propagandist language declares the city is right and changes things. Sort of like a Big Brother Doublethink, though not nearly to that extent. That's the feel to the story. Except not as good. It's a frustrating story in that the lead character, unnamed, doesn't seem to possess any noticeable emotion or defining characteristic that makes me, as a reader, want to read about him. There is interesting stuff going on around the edges of the story, but the center does not hold.
So, as a whole, Psychological Methods to Sell Should Be Destroyed is not a great chapbook. There are three stories worth the time and three which are not. For $5, it's a good deal even though there is just as much disappointment as there is satisfaction. Besides, my tastes may not line up with everyone else's, so perhaps my disappointments will be somebody else's joy. Had I not received a review copy, I might have purchased this anyway (though not for a few months) and having received the review copy and read the chapbook, I can say that I wouldn't have been disappointed if I paid the $5. It's not a ringing endorsement, but Pyschological Methods is not a chapbook that gets that sort of endorsement (not from me). For the price, it's worth a chance. Perhaps that's enough.
Reading copy provided courtesy of John Klima / Spilt Milk Press.
Posted by Joe on Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Labels: John Klima, Psychological Methods to Sell Should be Destroyed, Robert Freeman Wexler
Ysabel...
Thoughts on World Fantasy Award Nominee: Collectio...
World Fantasy Award Nominee: The Servants
No Thoughts on World Fantasy Anthologies
World Fantasy Award Nominee: Fangland
I'm a winner!
Inside the Blogosphere: Battling It Out
Bitter Gold Hearts, by Glen Cook
Thoughts on 2008 World Fantasy Award Nominees: Sho...
Zoe's Tale, by John Scalzi
Liavek!
The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan
Forthcoming 2009: Quarter 1
Implied Spaces, by Walter Jon Williams
World Fantasy Award Nominee: The Gospel and the Kn...
Starship: Mercenary, by Mike Resnick
World Fantasy Award Nominee: Territory
some book club stuff
Camp Concentration, by Thomas M. Disch
Elizabeth Bear Week - fin
All the Windwracked Stars, by Elizabeth Bear
An Interview with Elizabeth Bear
Hell and Earth, by Elizabeth Bear
"Shoggoths in Bloom", by Elizabeth Bear
Ink and Steel, by Elizabeth Bear
re-reading The Wheel of Time
The Born Queen, by Greg Keyes
Psychological Methods to Sell Should Be Destroyed,...
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Adult Primary Myelodysplastic Syndrome: Experience from a Tertiary Care Center in Pakistan
Sadia Sultan
Syed Mohammed Irfan
Department of Hematology and Blood Bank, Liaquat National Hospital and Medical College, Karachi, Pakistan
Background: Primary myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is an acquired clonal disorder of myeloid progenitor cells, characterized by peripheral cytopenias in the presence of hypercellular marrow with dysplastic features. Our aim was to study the demographical and clinicopathological features of adult Pakistani patients with MDS at disease presentation. Materials and Methods: This single centre study was conducted at Liaquat National Hospital and Medical College, extending from January 2010 to December 2014. Data were retrieved from the patient archives. Results: Overall 45 patients were diagnosed at our institution with de novo MDS during the study period. There were 28 males and 17 females. Age ranged between 18 and 95 years with a mean age of 57.617.4 years and median of 64 years. The male to female ratio was 1.7:1. The main presenting complaints were generalized fatigue (60%), fever (33.3%), dyspnea (15.5%), bleeding (13.3%) and weight loss (11.1%). Examination was unremarkable in 42.2% of patients. Physical examination revealed pallor in 37.7%, followed by petechial and purpuric rashes in 20%. The commonest laboratory finding was anemia (hemoglobin in 41 (91.1%) patients. Out of these, 27 (60%) patients had normocytic anemia, followed by macrocytic (22.2%) and microcytic (8.8%). Conclusions: Primary MDS in Pakistani patients demonstrates a male preponderance. The proportion of anemic patients was high in our series with predominance of normocytic anemia. However, other clinico-hematological features appear comparable to published data.
Pages 1535-1537
Sultan, S., Irfan, S. (2016). Adult Primary Myelodysplastic Syndrome: Experience from a Tertiary Care Center in Pakistan. Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, 17(3), 1535-1537.
Sadia Sultan; Syed Mohammed Irfan. "Adult Primary Myelodysplastic Syndrome: Experience from a Tertiary Care Center in Pakistan". Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, 17, 3, 2016, 1535-1537.
Sultan, S., Irfan, S. (2016). 'Adult Primary Myelodysplastic Syndrome: Experience from a Tertiary Care Center in Pakistan', Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, 17(3), pp. 1535-1537.
Sultan, S., Irfan, S. Adult Primary Myelodysplastic Syndrome: Experience from a Tertiary Care Center in Pakistan. Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, 2016; 17(3): 1535-1537.
The 12th APOCP Regional Conference, 16-18 Nov. 2018, Chengdu , Sichuan, China. 2018-03-04
The 7th FIMSA Congress (FIMSA2018) in Bangkok, Thailand 2018-01-04
The 9th General Assembly and International Conference of Asian Pacific Organization for Cancer Prevention (APOCP-9) 2017-10-08
New quality assurance policy 2017-06-27
Journal's Metrics 2016-09-29
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RUDN Journal of Sociology
Vestnik Rossiiskogo universiteta druzhby narodov. Seriya: Sotsiologiya
20-й процентиль
Announcements 27.08.2019: Рады представить Вашему вниманию аналитическую статью о нашем журнале.
10.12.2018: RUDN JOURNAL of SOCIOLOGY в WoS.
24.07.2018: EBSCOhost
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17.08.2017: DOAJ
Keywords Serbia communication culture education family globalization identity information society migration modernization public opinion religion social management social structure socialization student youth students the youth value orientations values youth
Home > Archives > Vol 17, No 3 (2017) > NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES’ IMAGES: PERSISTENT STEREOTYPES OF THE RUSSIAN STUDENT YOUTH
NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES’ IMAGES: PERSISTENT STEREOTYPES OF THE RUSSIAN STUDENT YOUTH
Authors: Narbut N.P., Trotsuk I.V.
Issue: Vol 17, No 3 (2017)
Section: Surveys, experiments, case studies
URL: http://journals.rudn.ru/sociology/article/view/16806
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22363/2313-2272-2017-17-3-338-347
The article presents the results of the comparative study of the neighboring countries’ images in the perception of the Russian student youth. In the first part of the article, the authors emphasize the importance of public opinion as one of the key social institutions in the contemporary society though it is often manipulated by state and political organizations to ensure the public support of ambiguous decisions. There are two basic mechanisms to form social representations including the images of different countries in public opinion: spontaneous and purposeful (when officials and media use special techniques to create an image of either a dangerous enemy or the best geopolitical friend). Today in Russia the former seems to dominate for except the key geopolitical powers other countries seem to attract the state attention rather sporadically, which is supported by general political indifference, wide dissemination of information tech-nologies, and freedom of travels all over the world, etc. The second part of the article focuses on the methodological consequences of thus developing images in the Russian public opinion. The authors explain the thematic structure and techniques of the questionnaire developed for the study of the images of China, Kazakhstan and Serbia in the Russian student youth’ worldview, which were applied in the sociological survey of 2010-2011 in the project supported by the Russian Foundation for Humanities, and then again in 2016 for the comparative analysis. The last part of the article presents the results of these surveys in the comparative perspective and focuses on a few indicators to reconstruct the persistent stereotypic elements of the neighboring countries’ images in the student youth worldview though there are some changes that are difficult to interpret.
comparative study, (generalized) images of neighboring countries, (persistent) social stereotypes, China, Kazakhstan, Serbia, student youth, public opinion.
In the XX century, the public opinion repeatedly proved its decisive role in the domestic policy and was used by the state and political forces to mobilize people for protest or support actions in their interests. In the foreign policy, the role of public opinion is insignificant or only declaratively important as a ‘basis’ of ambiguous government decisions that allegedly meet the public expectations. Therefore, the dominant social stereotypes about neighboring countries are formed either spontaneously (for instance, as a result of mass tourism to the country that is not a geopolitical/economic/cultural partner of the state) or purposefully (when the state seeks public support of its decisions or actions in foreign policy, and strives to ensure a certain public perception of the situ- ation). In the latter case, the official political and media discourses use different techniques to create an image of either a dangerous enemy (to justify war aggression or economic sanctions) or, on the contrary, of the best geopolitical friend (to justify financial or other aid to some countries at the expense of taxpayers). It is believed that the purposeful formation of social representations is typical for democratic countries (primarily the United States) because their governments prefer legitimate actions and decisions, i.e. accepted and approved by public opinion [4]. Certainly, there is a reason though authoritarian regimes also rely on the purposeful formation of necessary social stereotypes and have many means to do it effectively. The things become more complicated regarding the images of neighboring countries for the type of mechanism used to influence the public opinion strongly depends on the interests of the state and current geopolitical situation. Thus, the state never ignores discursive-ideological work when it comes to its key international partners or its desirable image, i.e. the government prefers a purposeful influence on public opinion; while for all other countries beyond the state interests, the government allows and accepts the spontaneous formation of generalized images and social stereotypes. Unlike the Soviet period with the absolute dominance of the purposeful mechanism, the last decades of the Russian history demonstrate pros and cons of various combinations of purposeful and spontaneous mechanisms. Except the key geopolitical powers like China and the United States, other countries attract the state attention rather sporadically, that is why the spontaneous mechanism plays a leading role in shaping the images of neighboring countries in the Russian public opinion. Its decisive role is supported by the phenomenal in scale political indifference of population, wide dissemination of information technologies that allow different organizations and individuals (for example, travel agencies and popular bloggers) to promote their own perception and ‘images’ in social networks, and freedom of travels all over the world that generates tons of public photos of ‘exotic’ and famous elements of other countries social and natural landscapes. In other words, the (geo)political picture of the world in mass consciousness usually differs from the real situation in the international arena. Today’s world with its rapidly developing tourism and communication technologies increases the amount of information about other countries but deteriorates the quality of knowledge, thus, expanding the opportunities for dissemination of superficial, stereotyped, fantastic or mythologized ideas among both ordinary people and public politicians. Another important factor of the spontaneous mechanism dominance is that public opinion in the countries with a successful (either negative or positive) geopolitical positioning (considered the main players in the global political arena even despite economic problems or military campaigns) usually focus on internal affairs except under global crises or if the news contradict the traditional picture of the world (for instance, when the ministry of foreign affairs does not recommend its population to travel to their favorite resorts). Countries with no geopolitical role and with serious economic-social problems do not have resources to play image games and focus on internal affairs. However, they can use the purposeful mechanism to benefit from the imaginary external threat factor (some dangerous malicious power), i.e. to mobilize its population or to distract public attention from failures of the government. The above-described logic of forming the images of countries in the public opinion has predictable consequences. First, it is the mythologems that increasingly determine the public perception of the global geopolitical order as legitimate or wrong, which makes public opinion a subject of fluctuations after unexpected events, political decisions, or information campaigns that break previously as if infallible stereotyped image of the country and change it to the opposite. Secondly, we must admit that sociological studies ‘measure’ only stereotypes of the public consciousness determined by media and political manipulative technologies. Such measurements reveal a simplified core image of the country (consisting of different elements and taking into account both ‘objective’ geopolitical status of the country and its international relations in the past and present) and are necessary for assessing the current state of public opinion and its possible changes under different foreign policy scenarios. For instance, in the early 2000s, the Public Opinion Foundation started a ‘Geoproject’ as a series of surveys about the Russians’ perception of about 40 leading powers and other countries [4]. Already in 2000-2001 these surveys proved that the Russian public opinion is monolithic and focuses on geopolitical features when considers the leading world powers (for example, China is believed to be a gigantic country with a growing role in world politics and economics), while the images of small countries with insignificant geopolitical role are very diverse (for instance, the image of Greece is a bizarre mixture of historical and mythical facts supplemented by information about tourist locations and imported food products). This is only one example proving the importance of studying the images of different countries in the Russian public opinion; there is an impressive tradition of the sociological monitoring of the geopolitical picture of the world in public opinion. In 2010, the Sociology Chair of the RUDN University in cooperation with its Serbian, Chinese and Kazakhstan colleagues expanded the questionnaire of the comparative study of the student youth’s worldview in the capitals of four countries with a series of questions aimed to identify the images of neighboring countries in the younger generations perception (the additional block of questions was small and simple so as not to ‘overload’ the questionnaire, not to make the survey procedure too long, and to identify stereotyped images of neighboring countries in the non-sensitive way). In the questionnaire design we took into account that, first, political rhetoric and media selection and coverage of events inevitably form a certain stereotyped image of the country and of its typical representative in public opinion; secondly, once formed this image becomes a social stereotype that makes our everyday life easier and predictable in identifying unfamiliar objects. Thus, we relied on the traditional definition of the stereotype introduced by W. Lippmann - as a means of understanding and ‘mapping’ social world to make it comprehensible and convenient for personal and collective orientation. “The world that we have to deal with politically is out of reach, out of sight, out of mind. It has to be explored, reported, and imagined. Man is no Aristotelian god contemplating all existence at one glance. He is the creature of an evolution who can just about span a sufficient portion of reality to manage his survival, and snatch what on the scale of time are but a few moments of insight and happiness. Yet this same creature has invented ways of seeing what no naked eye could see, of hearing what no ear could hear, of weighing immense masses and infinitesimal ones, of counting and separating more items than he can individually remember. He is learning to see with his mind vast portions of the world that he could never see, touch, smell, hear, or remember. Gradually he makes for himself a trustworthy picture inside his head of the world beyond his reach” [5. P. 27]. In other words, until a person has a relevant personal experience (of participant observation) and makes efforts to gather information about the country, he lives in a (happy) captivity of stereotypes about the country and its typical representatives. However, if this captivity ensures him peace and confidence in the future, no personal experience will ever destroy his stereotypes. Moreover, even if stereotypes were shaken, there is still a ‘spiral of silence’: “People ...live in perpetual fear of isolating themselves and carefully observe their environment to see which opinions increase and which ones decrease. If they find that their views predominate or increase, then they express themselves freely in public; if they find that their views are losing supporters, then they become fearful, conceal their convictions in public and fall silent. Because the one group express themselves with self-confidence whereas the others remain silent, the former appear to be strong in public, the latter weaker than their numbers suggest. This encourages others to express themselves or to fall silent, and a spiral process comes into play” [10. P. 218-219]. In 2010-2011 we received interesting results [9; 12], and in 2016 we conducted another survey aimed at comparative analysis of two sets of data to prove the persistent stereotyped images of neighboring countries in the student youth worldview (we used similar samples of 1000 Moscow students from different universities representing only the educational profiles - social sciences and humanities, technical sciences, natural sciences). Certainly, we admit the limitations of such a comparison determined by the problems of comparative analysis. On the one hand, “the importance and utility of comparative research are as old as the discipline itself...; it is sociology itself, in so far as it ceases to be purely descriptive and aspires to account for facts”. On the other hand, “although comparative research flourishes within the discipline, persistent methodological problems remain” [7. P. 619]: ambiguous ‘status’ of the comparative research; unclear dividing line between ‘comparative studies’ and ‘cross-cultural research’; implicit character of comparison as a necessary attribute of sociological work not always mentioned in the title of projects; researchers’ implicit tendency to treat their culture as the norm and all others as variations, i.e. to use seemingly objective figures to support ethnocentric argumentation [11. P. 7]; ‘seeking and examining non-existing phenomena’ due to the imposed theoretical framework and techniques that are not relevant for other cultural values [1. P.171], etc. However, without comparative analysis one cannot claim the persistent character of stereotypes under study. Moreover, there is a long tradition of comparative studies in sociology, which proves that opinion polls are applicable for testing preformulated hypotheses [3] (such as the persistent character of the stereotyped images of neighboring countries) and ‘harmless’ for they are ‘ascertaining rather than evaluative’ [11. P.10] especially in different time points. There is a general belief that the more standardized technique we use, the more valid and reliable data we get. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with standardization per se, but “standardized instruments or indices are available for only a small number of variables” [2. P. 5] not including the stereotyped images of neighboring countries. First, we added a small thematic block on the perception of China to the questionnaire on student value orientations, because the image of this country is definitely more unambiguous in the Russian public opinion, compared to Kazakhstan and Serbia, due to its ‘rootedness’ in the Russian history, state discourse, political agenda and media rhetoric. It is obvious that the image of Serbia is less clear due to its small territory (and, therefore, insignificant geopolitical role), rare Serbian agenda in the Russian media, and lack of scientific and journalistic interest in Eastern and Central Europe in general not to mention the image of these countries in the Russian society. On the contrary, the images of China and the Chinese in Russia are a constant topic of research [8] though most works consider the regional dimension of China’s image as primarily important for Eastern Siberia and the Far East bordering the country [6]. The questionnaire on the image of China (and Kazakhstan) consisted of the following questions: a series of closed questions on the sources of information about China; an open question about three Chinese famous public figures; a request to choose 5 most relevant descriptions of the Chinese from the given 21 characteristics; a request to select from the list of countries three most positively evaluated; closed questions to assess the respondent’s desire to travel to China and his perception of the Russian- Chinese relations; a series of statements about China to express one’s consent or disagreement with; a closed question about the desire to learn Chinese. The questionnaire on the image of Serbia was modified in the following way (other questions remained unchanged): the series on the sources of information was shortened for Serbia is much less present in the Russian media; a question on associations with ‘Serbia’ and a request to assess one’s awareness of Serbia were added. Compared to the questionnaire on China there were also changes in the list of countries to select the most positively perceived from: China was in the list in all surveys, while Kazakhstan and Serbia were added only in their ‘own’ questionnaires. Another change was in the survey procedure: in 2001, we used three questionnaires; in 2016, we combined them, which, we hope, did not affect the results. Further, we compare the results of two surveys focusing on basic indicators for identifying the persistent elements of the countries’ images. Thus, the generalized image of China in the perception of the student youth is determined by mass media in both 2010 and 2016: primarily the respondents learn information about China in different media (84% and 88% respectively), watch Chinese movies (74% and 69%) and search for information in the Internet (57% and 80%). The growth of importance of the Internet hardly indicates the increase of interest in China, rather the increasingly significant role of the Internet itself. However, the number of students that visited China also increased - from 15% to 26%, while the share of respondents wishing to travel to China stayed the same - 40% and 37%. In 2010, the most famous Chinese public figures named by the Moscow students were Mao Zedong (71%), Confucius (33%), Hu Jintao and Jackie Chan (15% each). In 2016, the situation changed in numbers and the list of public figures. We identified two groups consisting of both political leaders and media persons: (1) Mao Zedong and Jackie Chan (about 30% each); (2) Confucius, Xi Jinping and Bruce Lee (in average 14% each), which proves a kind a diversification of students’ awareness of China that is no longer limited to the historical past. However, the stereotyped image of the typical Chinese has not changed much: a hard-working, disciplined patriot (these indicators grew), collectivist, familial, easily trained (this indicator also grew), honoring science and well-behaved (unambiguous and positive image) (Table 1). Table 1 In your opinion, which of the following characteristics correspond to the mentality and behavior of the Chinese? Characteristics (only the most frequent) 2010 2016 Hardworking 64% 70% Collectivist 56% 54% Patriot 50% 64% Disciplined 50% 68% Familial 41% 45% Easily trained 25% 43% Honoring science 22% 26% Wellbehaved 19% 21% The generalized image of China is also positive. The students believe that its global role increases (54% in 2010 and 78% in 2016, which is definitely the result of the objective situation and the students’ better awareness of it) due to the rapid economic growth surpassing the Russian rates (58% in 2010 and 64% in 2016, which also reflects the objective situation) and successful reforms (48% and 54% respectively); every fourth respondent in 2010 and every third in 2016 supposes that Russia should learn from China. However, there is still some ambiguity in the student youth perception of China: 20% (28% in 2010) believe that the rapid development of China threatens the Russian national security, while 75% (a tremendous growth compared to 44% in 2010, which can be interpreted as a significant improvement of the image of China) believe that the Russian- Chinese union will play an important role in the global geopolitical structure. The generalized image of Kazakhstan is also determined primarily by mass media (54% in 2011, 63% in 2016), and there is a tremendous increase in the number of respondents searching for information on Kazakhstan in the Internet - every third in 2011 and about 70% in 2016, which can be explained by the desire to become more aware of the globalizing world especially of the key partner of Russia among the former USSR states. Media is still as important source of information about Kazakhstan as one’s Kazakh friends, and the latter indicator even grew (from 52% in 2011 to 61% in 2016). There is still a striking awareness of Kazakhstan cultural ‘artifacts’ - films and songs: about a third in 2011 and 40% in 2016 claim to have learned about the country from its movies and songs. However, the majority of respondents have never been to Kazakhstan (about 90% in both surveys). In 2011, an absolute leader among the Kazakhstan public figures named by the students was the President Nursultan Nazarbayev (80%), while other well-known public figures were named by only 5-7%. Among them not only Abai (Kunanbaev) (7%) - a poet, philosopher, founder of the Kazakh written literature, but also Chingiz Aitmatov (5%) - a Kyrgyz writer, which proves the unclear students’ identification of the nation/country of key public figures of the Soviet and earlier periods. In 2016, Chingiz Aitmatov was named only by 1 respondent, while the President Nursultan Nazarbayev still heads the list (though only with 33%) followed by Abai (12%) and Roza Rynbaeva (5%) - a Soviet and Kazakh popular singer. The stereotyped image of the typical Kazakh has not changed over the last five years: he is considered a familial and hard-working patriot; every third respondent believes he is a disciplined and peaceful collectivist, every fourth - that he is freedomloving and honest, every fifth - that he is a well-behaved and easily trained romantic optimist. Thus, the image of the typical Kazakh is ‘blurred’ due to the excessive number of elements but definitely positive like the image of the country. Kazakhstan (and Belorussia) headed the list of the most positively perceived countries (by every second respondent) though we must remember that it was included in the list only in the survey on Kazakhstan; more than 80% (we are talking about two time moments) believe in the positive impact of relations with Kazakhstan on Russia. Although many respondents admit that they know little about Kazakhstan (60% in 2011 and 47% in 2016, i.e. students awareness increased, at least in self-estimates), about 40% believe that the Russian- Kazakhstan union will play an important role in the global geopolitical structure, obviously thanks to Russia for only 17% admit the increasing role of Kazakhstan in the world, only 20% - that it chose the successful path of reforms, and only 10% - that it develops rapidly and will quickly catch up with Russia. However, at the same time more that 60% disagree that Kazakhstan is a poor backward country and that it threatens the national security of Russia, i.e. the image of Kazakhstan is definitely positive though slightly ambiguous. Predictably, the stereotyped image of Serbia is also determined mainly by media (80% in 2011 and 70% in 2016; the youth increasingly prefers the Internet - 54% and 64% respectively). As with China, the number of respondents that visited Serbia increased significantly - from 11% in 2011 to 26% in 2016, which is probably due to similar languages, low costs and visa-free regime of travels to Serbia. The students estimate their level of awareness of Serbia as extremely low, which apparently corresponds to the real state of affairs, though the situation improved: in 2011, every third respondent did not know what kind of country Serbia is and where it is located (16% in 2016), 58% had only the most general idea about Serbia (68% in 2016), i.e. the students admit that their answers to the questions about Serbia represent the persistent stereotypes of the Russian public opinion about this country. The low awareness of Serbia determines the key associations with this country though there are some changes compared to the previous survey. In 2011, the respondents considered Serbia primarily from the geographical perspective - as a state in the Balkans; the second most frequent associations were ‘geopolitical’, reflecting official and media narratives - a country constantly involved in ethnic-political conflicts with former Yugoslav states, and a people close to the Russians by the common Slavic origin and Orthodox faith; the last group of associations (mentioned by almost every fifth respondent) included ‘geopolitical’ (most friendly to Russia in Europe, a very patriotic people) and tourist (a good place for vacations, beautiful nature) clich és. In 2016, the ‘rating’ of associations slightly changed: primarily it is considered a country with the people close to the Russians by the common Slavic origin and Orthodox fate; second dominant association is geographical (a country in the Balkans); the third group of associations (about every third respondent) consists of ‘geopolitical’ (complicated ethnicpolitical relations with former Yugoslav states, friendly to Russia) and geographical (beautiful nature) clich és; and about every fifth respondent mentions its constant political conflicts, a very patriotic people and tourist attractiveness (Table 2). Table 2 Students’ associations with Serbia Associations 2011 2016 A country in the Balkans 47% 44,3% A country with complicated ethnicpolitical relations with former Yugoslav states 33,7% 37,5% A people close to the Russians by the common Slavic origin and Orthodox faith 33,1% 53,4% A country constantly involved in political conflicts 31,1% 23,9% A country with beautiful nature 21,8% 32,4% The most friendly to Russia European country 18,7% 39,2% A nice tourist place 17,7% 20,5% A country with famous cultural traditions 15,2% 18,8% A very patriotic people 15% 22,2% A country with original cuisine 12,5% 13,1% Other 7% 1,7% Such political and ‘recreational’ accents in the perception of Serbia manifested also in the list of the famous Serbian public figures named by the Moscow students. In 2011, the leaders of the list were Slobodan Milošević - a Yugoslav and Serbian politician (8%), Boris Tadić - a politician and a President of Serbia from 2004 to 2012 (5%), Emir Kusturica - a filmmaker, actor and musician (4%), and Vojislav Koštunica (3%) - a politician. In 2016, this list changed but stayed mainly political: Emir Kusturica and Vasa Staić - a Yugoslav philosopher and public figure of the past (8% each); the second group (5-6% each) consists of Petar Ko čić (a Bosnian Serb writer and politician) and Slobodan Milošević; the third group (3-4% each) - of Nikola Tesla (a Serbian-American inventor and electrical engineer), Aleksandar Vu čić (a politician, now the President of Serbia), Tomislav Nikolić (a politician, a former President of Serbia), and Zoran Tošić and Dušan Tadić (football players). The stereotyped image of the typical Serb has not changed much: first, a patriot (more than 50% in both surveys), then a freedom-loving familial man (every third respondent), honest and hard-working, peaceful, well-behaved and disciplined realist (more than 20% each). There are some changes in this image in 2016 compared to 2010: less respondents mentioned that a typical Serb is collectivist (9% instead of 28%); at the same time more respondents describe him as warlike (33% against 22%) and faithful (25% against 18%), wild (16% against 10%) and optimistic (19% against 13%). Thus, the image is contradictory, which probably resembles both the low personal awareness of Serbia and its various estimates in the Russian official and media discourse. Nevertheless, the generalized image of Serbia is definitely positive for the student youth evaluate the relations of our countries as friendly (42% in 2011 and 62% in 2016), and the share of respondents that found it difficult to estimate Russian-Serbian relations declined (from 46% to 22%); the majority of students (about 75%) believe that the relations with Serbia are beneficial for Russia. The results of the sociological evaluation of the images of neighboring countries in the comparative time perspective are very difficult to interpret for we cannot be certain about the contextual determinants of the changes except for the influence of the official rhetoric, media discourse and objective reality. We are pretty sure that these are the key factors, which is obvious, but we cannot reconstruct reliable direct relationships between them and indicators’ variations. Certainly, we admit that our data are too sketchy, simplified and schematic, but any other comparative perspective or survey questionnaire for assessing the generalized images of neighboring countries would be even more criticized.
N P Narbut
RUDN University (Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia)
Email: narbut_np@rudn.university
Miklukho-Maklaya St., 6, Moscow, Russia, 117198
I V Trotsuk
Email: trotsuk_iv@rudn.university
Allardt E. Challenges for comparative social research. Acta Sociologica. 1990;33(183).
Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik J.H.P. Harmonisation of demographic and socio-economic variables in crossnational survey research. Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique. 2008;98 (5).
Khizrieva A.G., de Munck V.C., Bondarenko D.M. The Moscow School of quantitative crosscultural research. Cross-Cultural Research. 2003;37(5).
Kolosov V. ‘Nizkaja’ i ‘vysokaja’ geopolitika [‘Low’ and ‘high’ geopolitics]. http://bd.fom.ru/ report/map/oz02061904 (In Russ.).
Lippmann W. Obshhestvennoe mnenie [Public Opinion]. Per. s angl. T.V. Barchunovoj. Moscow; 2004 (In Russ.).
Lukin A.V. Medved' nabljudaet za drakonom. Obraz Kitaja v Rossii v XVII-XXI vekah [The Bear Watches the Dragon. The Image of China in Russia in XVII-XXI Centuries]. Moscow; 2007 (In Russ.).
Mills M., van de Bunt G.G., de Bruijn J. Comparative research: Persistent problems and promising solutions. International Sociology. 2006;21.
Mjasnikov V.S. Ob obraze Kitaja v Rossii [The image of China in Russia]. http://magazeta.com/ columns//glevfedorov/2007/06/10/myasnikov (In Russ.).
Narbut N.P., Trotsuk I.V. Obrazy stran-sosedej v vosprijatii studencheskoj molodezhi (po rezul'tatam sociologicheskih issledovanij) [Images of neighboring countries in the perception of students (results of sociological studies)]. RUDN Journal of Sociology. 2011;4 (In Russ.).
Noelle-Nuemann E. Obshhestvennoe mnenie. Otkrytie spirali molchanija [The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion]. Moscow; 1996 (In Russ.).
Scheuch E.K. Society as context in cross-cultural comparisons. Social Science Information. 1967;6(7).
Trotsuk I.V. Obraz Serbii v rossijskom obshhestve: rezul'taty oprosa moskovskogo studenchestva [The image of Serbia in Russian society: Results of the Moscow students survey]. RUDN Journal of Sociology. 2012;3 (In Russ.).
Abstract - 1299
PDF (English) - 116
Copyright (c) 2017 Narbut N.P., Trotsuk I.V.
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Indianz.Com > December 5, 2005
Get the Story: ON THE BORDER: For the Tohono O'odham, the U.S.-Mexican border is a recent and difficult development. (The San Francisco Chronicle 12/3) $p Related Stories:Brother of O'odham chair arrested for drugs (09/27) Tohono O'odham Nation can't stop...
McCain expects 'lots' of indictments in Abramoff case (December 5, 2005)
ABRAMOFF SCANDAL • Washington Post Blog: The Fix: How the Abramoff Scandal Helps McCain Comment: "From the interview I heard, McCain was not forthcoming. As Chairman of Indian Affairs, he has dragged his feet in this investigation." Comment: "I worked...
Leech Lake community battles wave of violence (December 5, 2005)
Residents of a community on the Leech Lake Ojibwe Reservation met last week to discuss a rising tide of violence, substance abuse and general lawlessness in Cass Lake. Leech Lake Band Chairman George Goggleye has declared war on the scourge....
Column: Menominee girl wanted to grow up fast (December 5, 2005)
"She was a girl who once brought an injured sparrow to school and stuck it sweetly inside her locker -- next to the gang signs. A girl who brought a sick kitten to a doctor, but who also was...
Blogger draws interest for postings on Churchill (December 5, 2005)
An Internet blogger is keeping the heat on controversial University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill. Jim Paine runs PirateBallerina [Link]. On more than one occasion, he has posted information before it made the local news media. He is highly critical...
Makah Nation displays whale skeleton at museum (December 5, 2005)
The Makah Nation of Washington has put the skeleton of the whale killed in 1999 on display at the tribal museum. Students from Neah Bay High School cleaned and catalogued 600 pounds of bones. The 30-foot skeleton now hangs...
Fort Belknap chair testifies at sentencing hearing (December 5, 2005)
Julia Doney, the chairwoman of the Fort Belknap Indian Community in Montana, testified on Friday in the sentencing hearing of a tribal member who killed a deputy sheriff who was also a tribal member. Laurence D. Jackson Jr, 28, has...
Dakota families accuse school district of discrimination (December 5, 2005)
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of 14 Native American families who say the Winner School District in South Dakota is sending their kids from the school house to the jail house. The families say...
Mashpee lobbyists met with Dorgan several times (December 5, 2005)
LOBBYING PROBE November 17, 2005, Hearing:Video | Exhibits November 2, 2005, Hearing:Video | Exhibits | Witness List / Testimony Lobbyists working for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe of Massachusetts met several times with Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) in 2003 in...
Scanlon had private jet, described as generous (December 5, 2005)
Michael P.S. Scanlon was a "generous friend" to lifeguards in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and once ferried them to a lifesaving competition aboard his private jet. Scanlon, who went by "Sean" on the beach, worked on and off as a...
Leech Lake woman returns home to run for office (December 5, 2005)
Irene Folstrom, a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, is seeking to become the first female American Indian legislator in Minnesota. Folstrom, 30, returned to the Leech Lake Reservation after working for the National Congress of American...
Lawmaker accuses tribes of not paying taxes (December 5, 2005)
A Colorado state lawmaker has accused the Southern Ute Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe of not paying state taxes. Rep. Mark Larson, a Republican, wrote a letter to Gov. Bill Owens (R) last month. He said the tribes...
Staffer for Sen. Burns went to work for Abramoff (December 5, 2005)
A former staffer for Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Montana) went to work for disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and may have swayed his ex-boss on issues affecting Abramoff clients. Shawn Vasell, pictured at right, worked for Burns as his staff director for...
Connecticut tribes vow to fight for recognition (December 5, 2005)
Leaders of two Connecticut tribes say they will continue to fight for federal recognition. The Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation and the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation were denied recognition on October 12. The Bureau of Indian Affairs said the tribe's failed to...
Iowa Senator linked to Abramoff investigation (December 5, 2005)
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) wrote letters on behalf of one faction of the Meskwaki Tribe of Iowa with the help of one of Jack Abramoff's associates, the Associated Press reports. Harkin wrote the Interior Department and the National Indian Gaming...
Dorgan questioned as Abramoff probe continues (December 5, 2005)
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota), the vice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, is the latest lawmaker to be linked to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Dorgan met with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe of Massachusetts and later agreed to insert...
Jodi Rave: Black Indians struggle for acceptance (December 5, 2005)
"Radmilla Cody grew up in a Navajo world, butchering sheep, raising goats and speaking Dine. Yet many in her tribe - and her family - never accepted her. Her maternal uncle called her a black pig. Neighborhood kids taunted her...
House Resources to hold hearing on Cobell (December 5, 2005)
The House Resources Committee will hold a hearing on legislation to settle the Cobell v. Norton trust fund lawsuit and institute reforms at the Interior Department. The "Legislative Hearing on the Indian Trust Reform Act of 2005," takes place at...
Mark Trahant: America's numbers don't add up (December 5, 2005)
"Last week the government reported that the Gross Domestic Product grew at a healthy rate. The most recent measure of output of "goods and services produced by labor and property" increased at an annual rate of 4.3 percent, according to...
Ute Tribe reports lead in search for missing man (December 5, 2005)
The Ute Tribe of Utah said it has a lead in the search for man who has been missing since November 25. Charles Reed Chapoose went missing on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation when his truck apparently broke down....
Former Cheyenne-Arapaho official pleads guilty (December 5, 2005)
The former chairman of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma pleaded guilty on Friday to misusing tribal funds. James Wayne Pedro Sr. admitted to embezzling nearly $200,000 in funds from the tribe's Lucky Star casino. He used the money to finance...
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College Football HoF, Heisman Trophy Winner, NFL, usfl
Rozier, Mike
Cards: ProSet HH 1991, Score 1989, ProSet 1989
Sent: 4/3 Received: 4/19 (16 days)
There were some incredible Nebraska teams over the years, and Mike Rozier was one of those immense talents coming out of college that was a surefire pick. The 1983 Heisman Trophy winner, he’d go pro in 1984- but throw the NFL for a loop jumping to the USFL and be signed by the Pittsburgh Maulers. He’d amass 792 yards and 3 touchdowns on 223 carries his rookie season. Tempted to jump back to the NFL, Rozier would resign and play for the Jacksonville Bulls in 1985 crushing opponents for 1361 yards on 320 carries. He’d also chock in 12 touchdowns. With the USFL crumbling and his rights relinquished to the Baltimore Stars, Rozier would be drafted in the supplemental draft by the Houston Oilers of the NFL with the second overall pick in 1984. The Oilers would finish buying out his contract and he’d make the jump to the NFL.
After his rookie season where he played fullback, Rozier would play runningback for the rest of his career from 1986 on out. A great mixture of power and speed, injuries quickly limited Mike’s production in the NFL in an age where arthroscopic knee surgeries were not necessarily a given to rehabilitate players. Rozier would go to the ProBowl in 1987 (957 yards), and 1988 (1002 yards). By 1989 the team was utilizing a runningback by committee approach with Lorenzo White, Alonzo Highsmith, and Allen Pinkett alongside Rozier, but with the departure of head coach Jerry Glanville, Mike would be cut by the Oilers in 1990 after 3 games. He reunited immediately with Glanville who was now in Atlanta and put up 675 yards in 13 games. Seeking a new contract after the season for roughly $1 million, Rozier briefly toyed with the idea of signing with the WLAF’s Birmingham Fire, but with comparatively low salaries- it probably never really entered into a serious negotiation. Mike would get his wish however and resign with the Falcons playing in 11 games and finishing out with 361 yards, but after arthoscopic knee surgery in January of that year he’d soon after announce his retirement.
After football, Mike moved back to New Jersey where he was born. Unfortunately in 1995, he was shot in his hometown of Camden where he suffered internal injuries to his liver. In 2003, he was brought back to Nebraska for a team reunion, and in 2005 Mike was inducted into the Camden sports Hall of Fame and the New Jersey Hall of Fame. Finally, in 2006 Mike Rozier was inducted into the College Football HoF.
G/Gs 92/59 Rush 1159 Yds 4462 Avg 3.8 Td 30 lg 67 |
Rec 90 Yds 715 Avg 7.9 Td 1 lg 52
Atlanta Falconsbaltimore starscollege football HoF 2006heisman trophy winner 1983Houston Oilersjacksonville bullsmike rozierpittsburgh maulersproset 1989proset HH 1991score 1989
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Tag Archives: ttm autographs
NFL, WLAF
Esiason, Norman “Boomer”
Cards: Score 1990 Hot Gun, Action Packed Rookies 1992.
Acquired: TTM 2011, C/o CBS Sports. TTM 2017, C/o The Esiason Foundation*
Sent: 5/23/2011 Received: 8/4/2012 (423 days) STAMPS
Sent: 12/20/2017 Received: 1/8/2018 (18 days)
* Donation included
So here’s an infamous example of an autopen or stamp. A really underwhelming ‘success’ from the Cincinnati Bengals’ greatest quarterback since Ken Anderson, I wrote to Boomer Esiason C/o CBS Sports in 2011. 423 days later I got these two ‘autographs’ back. It was obvious that they were facsimiles. I sat on this post for 6 years or so, annoyed that he stamped my cards and that he made me wait over a year to get them back. To further the insult, many fans were getting these obvious stamps and accepting them as legitimate. Then I started to see a slow trickle in of Boomers and had a good feeling that they were for real. Finally at the end of 2017 I shot these two out with a small donation and waited. At long last I can remove those black eye stamps from the collection. For points and purposes, I have included the fakes in this post so that they can be identified easily. Note the thin pen and consistent weight. The facsimiles even both match from card to card, down to the dot on the ‘i’. So painful to look at…
I have been really impressed with how far Boomer has come as a broadcaster since retiring, and after the fervor erupted over him as a Monday Night Football commentator, Esiason was ousted and retreated to in studio work and radio where he has really honed his skills. He technically began his commentating career along with Warren Moon and Dan Marino as color analysts for WLAF games on USA Network back in 1991.
A rarity in NFL drafts, no quarterback came off the board during the first round of the 1984 draft. Boomer Esiason would be the first, with the 38th pick of round 2. A very strong draft, Wilber Marshall, Dean Steinkuhler, Irving Fryar, Keith Millard, Carl Banks, Greg Bell, and Bill Maas, were among the recognizable names taken before Esiason. It is safe to say that just with these players alone, the 1984 draft helped form the backbone in depth and classic names through the early 1990s. The pretty boy with golden hair, Boomer was a prolific passer for the quarterback manufacturing school, the University of Maryland. While there he’d set 17 school records, and is considered by many to be the greatest and most recognizable Terrapin of all time. (The Washington Federals of the competing USFL drafted Boomer as well, but could not mount an offer that surpassed the Bengals.) With a mouth that always found the microphone, Boomer quickly established himself as a presence in the locker room as Ken Anderson entered his twilight years with the franchise. He was my arch nemesis in the classic AFC Central, and always put up big numbers and games against the Oilers. Ironically in his rookie season he started his first game against the Oilers, in which he guided Cincinnati to a 13-3 victory over Houston. It was head coach Sam Wyche’s first year, and he and Esiason’s fates would be tied at the hip to each other during their time in Cincinnati. With Wyche, a former quarterback himself and an apostle of the Bill Walsh West Coast System, Boomer provided the new blood to reinvigorate the sagging Bengals franchise. Esiason became the face of the franchise as the team gave him playmakers in the shape of Anthony Munoz, James Brooks, Tim McGee, Eddie Brown, and Rodney Holman. With a lightning delivery and a devestating understanding of the innovative no-huddle offense (that Buffalo later employed full-time after witnessing the effectiveness of Esiason under center,) the Bengals quickly climbed the ranks of the AFC during the last days of the most brutal division in all of football. In 1986 he guided the Bengals to a 10-6 record throwing for a shade under 4,000 yards, and 24 touchdowns. 1988 saw the final ascension of the Bengals to Super Bowl XXIII, where they lost to the 49ers in the last final minutes of play. It was Boomer’s most prolific season as a pro, with a 97.4 quarterback rating and he was named the NFL MVP.
By 1991 free agency, sacks, and injuries began to catch up to the Bengals. Esiason posted a 3-11 record as a starter and combined with new management, Sam Wyche was fired at the conclusion of the season. New ownership felt new blood was needed and rookie head coach David Shula (son of Dolphins head coach Don Shula) was brought on board to handle the team. Immediately he decided to fix the offense by letting many of the team’s playmakers go, and drafted David Klingler to be the heir apparent to Boomer. The writing was clearly on the wall for Esiason, and after another mediocre year behind the Bengals patchwork line and bland new offense, he was unceremoniously traded to the New York Jets in 1993 for a third round pick.
As the starting quarterback for the Jets, he was able to give the offense a certain level of credibility over the next 3 tumultuous seasons under 3 different head coaches. Holding firm he posted an 84.5, 77.3, and a 71.3 quarterback rating over those seasons with the team. Despite having more touchdowns to interceptions in each of those seasons, the Jets slumped, and Esiason signed with the Cardinals, playing there one season in 1996. In a game during that season over the Redskins he’d throw for 522 yards in a game, the third most in NFL history. 1997 proved to be Boomer’s final season, as he indeed proved you can return home, and came back to the Bengals. It was a great ending for him, coming in as a backup to Jeff Blake. After Blake succumbed to injury, and the franchise was sitting at a woeful 3-8, Esiason came in leading the charge, posting a 4-1 record over the next 5 games, and a 106.9 QB rating. He’d retire after the season, and is considered the most prolific left handed quarterback in NFL history.
In addition to his broadcasting and radio duties, Esiason spends much of his time with charity, and the Boomer Esiason Foundation, helping with research into Cystic Fibrosis. You can visit his website at http://www.boomeresiason.com/index.htm.
G/Gs 187/173 Att 5205 Comp 2969 Yds 37920 Td 247 Int 184 Rat 81.1 |
Rush 447 Yds 1598 Avg 3.6 Td 7 Lg 24
action packed 1992 rookiesArizona Cardinalsautopenboomer esiasoncincinnati bengalsNew York JetsNFL MVP 1988norman esiasonscore 1990 hot gunstampttm autographsttm football autograph
NFL, University of Texas
Talbert, Diron ‘Talby’
Card: Topps 1977, University of Texas Upper Deck 2011, NFL Alumni Card
Sent: 6/23 Received: 8/6 (44 days)
Diron joined the family line at the University of Texas playing defensive tackle for the Longhorns from 1964 to 1966. He was the youngest of the 3 brothers to play at Texas and was an All-SWC selection in 1964, and a All-American Candidate in 1966.
He’d be selected by both the Los Angeles Rams (NFL) and the San Diego Chargers (AFL) in their competitive drafts that year. Talbert elected to sign with George Allen’s Los Angeles Rams. After losing virtually his entire rookie season to a knee injury, Diron recovered for the next season and played both defensive tackle and end in 1968, and nailed down the starting defensive line position by 1969. He honed his trade playing along Merlin Olsen and Deacon Jones, recording 16 sacks in one season, and learning the double head slap move from Jones.
In 1971, Diron was reunited with George Allen, who put together a multi-player deal in order to pry Talbert off of the Rams. Diron immediately became a fixture on the Redskins defensive line and was named a co-defensive captain alongside Chris Hanburger. Diron wrecked havoc on opposing offensive lines for the next 10 seasons averaging over 7 sacks a season, and scoring 12.5 sacks in 1976. Diron earned All Pro Honors in 1973 and Pro Bowl Honors in 1974. In 1975, Diron sacked Craig Morton of the Giants a single game record 4 times. His timing joining the Redskins coincided with George Allen firing up the rivalry between the Redskins and Cowboys. Diron had an especially bitter feud with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, airing their differences in the media, carrying the body language onto the field, and then taking it out on each other on the field. Diron in the end, outlasted all of the other members of the Over the Hill Gang, despite a nagging knee injury.
While Diron has not been inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he’s considered one of the 70 Greatest Redskins of All-Time. Adjusted for modern day numbers, Diron ranks top 5 all time from the defensive tackle position in sacks. He ran a successful investment firm after retirement. He is also a outspoken member of the NFL Alumni Association. Talbert is a solid TTM signer. He signed the two cards for me and added in his Alumni card as well.
G/GS 186/157 TAC N/a SAC N/a FUM 10
INT 0 YDS 0 AVG -.- TD 0 LG -.-
70 greatest redskinsdiron talbertlos angeles ramsplayers who should be in the HoFtopps 1977ttm autographsttm football autographut ud 2011Washington Redskins
Robinson, Eugene “Orca”
Cards: ProSet 1989, ProSet 1990
Sent: 1/29 Received: 2/13
Eugene Robinson goes down as one of the finest free agent finds in Seattle Seahawk history. Going undrafted out of Colgate in 1985, Robinson arrived in Seattle as a cornerback where he just hung on for dear life learning the ropes from guys like Dave Brown, Kenny Easley, and Paul Moyer. He gained a variety of nicknames from Grange, to Orca- a name given to him because his voice rose in octaves when he’d call plays in the secondary. By the time Robinson left the Seahawks in 1996, it was thought he had lost a step, so Seattle traded him to the Packers in exchange for Matt LaBounty. He finished his career in Seattle as the franchise’s all time leader in tackles, and second in interceptions.
He provided the Packers with a veteran presence in their secondary and led the team with 8 picks en route to a 35-21 thumping of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI. The team returned to the big game the following year, but the Packers lost to the Broncos, thanks in part to John Elway‘s Herculean effort.
Eugene joined the Atlanta Falcons for the 1998 season. To be frank, I thought it was a cash grab. I mean he went to the Falcons- a team that had posted a losing record in 8 of the last 10 seasons. There was no way this team was… And then they did. Eugene after years of futility with the Seahawks went to a Super Bowl for a 3rd straight year, and earned his 4th Pro Bowl nomination AND second career AP nomination. Atlanta lost 34-19, and the Falcons returned to anonymity the following year (1999)- Eugene’s last with the team. Finally Eugene suited up for one final year with the Panthers in 2000, retiring after the season.
Eugene was a highly decorated player with gaudy statistics from his time in the NFL. He was also honored as the Bart Starr Man of the Year in 1998 for his charitable activities. He is vastly underrated in fan circles and should be honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. If not for an embarrassing event on the eve of his Super Bowl appearance with the Falcons, Eugene would probably warrant more consideration by the selection committee.
Eugene has stayed busy since then as a football coach, morning show personality, and Panthers color commentator. He signed these two absolutely picture perfect ProSet cards for me in no time flat.
G/GS 250/232 TAC 1250 SAC 7.5 FUM 15
INT 57 YDS 762 AVG 13.3 TD 1 LG 49
Atlanta Falconsbest free agent signees by seahawksCarolina Pantherseugene robinsongreen bay packersplayers who should be in the HoFproset 1989proset 1990Seattle Seahawksseattle seahawks 35th anniversary teamttm autographsttm football autograph
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Christopher Lance Cairns, ONZM (born 13 June 1970) is a former New Zealand cricketer and former ODI captain, who played for the Black Caps as an all-rounder. Cairns finished his Test career with a batting average of 33.53 and a bowling average of 29.40. In 2000, he was named as one of five Wisden Cricketers of the Year.
He is son of former New Zealand cricketer Lance Cairns. He starred in both the One-day and Test New Zealand teams, as well as the Canterbury New Zealand domestic championship team. After his playing career Cairns went on to become a commentator with Sky Sport New Zealand.
His sister Louise was killed at Rolleston in an August 1993 train accident; in September 2008 he completed a 1,001 km (622 mi) walk promoting rail safety awareness.
Cairns is married to Melanie Croser, an Australian who works for the sports marketing group Octagon in Sydney. It is his third marriage. Cairns lives in Canberra and will start playing for the local club North Canberra Gungahlin Eagles in the 2011/12 season. In his first he scored 141 off 66 balls, including 13 sixes. During this knock his last 90 runs came off 27 balls.
Domestic career
Cairns also played for Northland in the Hawke Cup. He has joined the Indian Cricket League, and was the captain of the Chandigarh Lions till 2008. He is currently playing for Nottinghamshire in the English Twenty20 cup competition.
Cairns batting
Cairns was a destructive batsman who could hit sixes straight down the ground and in his earlier days was an intelligent fast-medium bowler. Since then, persistent injuries have forced him to drop his pace and rely more on his hard-to-read slower ball.
With the bat, Cairns has been the author of some of New Zealand cricket’s most memorable innings, including his unbeaten 102 to win the final of the 2000 ICC KnockOut Trophy for New Zealand against India in Kenya, and his 158 from just 172 balls in a Test against South Africa in 2004. Cairns knocked Shane Warne out of Australia’s bowling attack during a 2000 test in Wellington when he launched several sixes out of the Basin Reserve and onto the adjacent street. Cairns formerly held the world record for most sixes in Tests (87, since surpassed by Adam Gilchrist), and for a time held the New Zealand record for fastest century in ODIs (75 balls, currently owned by Corey Anderson with 36 balls).
ICC KnockOut Trophy
Cairns was also the part of the victorius New Zealand campaign during the 2000 ICC KnockOut Trophy where they beat India in the final to lift their only title in major ICC global event. He played his part in the final and helped the Kiwis side, by scoring a match winning knock of 102*. Finally New Zealand went onto win the final and registered the highest ever chase in an ICC Champions Trophy final (265).He also went onto become the first player to score a century in an ICC Champions Trophy final(was previously called as ICC Knockout Trophy) in a winning cause.He became only the third player to score a century in a Champions Trophy final after Philo Wallace and Sourav Ganguly.
Cairns’ career-best bowling performance in Tests was 7/27 against the West Indies in 1999, and he is New Zealand’s fourth highest wicket taker in Tests, after Richard Hadlee, Daniel Vettori and Chris Martin.
He is also one of only eight players to have reached the all-rounder’s double of 200 wickets and 3000 runs. Out of these seven players, Cairns reached the double 2nd fastest (58 Test) behind Ian Botham. In ODIs, Cairns came close to another double of 200 wickets and 5000 runs. Cairns finished his ODI career on 4950 runs, just 50 short. Cairns Test batting average at number seven (44.02) is the 5th best average for that position of all time.
The New Zealand Herald journalist, Richard Boock said about Cairns: “It’s not a scientific measure of course, but if Cairns’ body had held together long enough for him to have played 100 Tests, his figures extrapolate out to something like 5334 runs and 351 wickets – very similar to those of Botham.” He went on to say “He was, and should be remembered as, one of the game’s best all-rounders.”
During the Lord’s Test against England, he bowled England wicket-keeper Chris Read for zero. Read was ducking to the ball, what he thought was a beamer from Chris Cairns but was a well-disguised slower ball.
Cairns also played in the World Cricket Tsunami Appeal ODI, at the MCG. Cairns played for the ICC World XI and scored 69 off 47 balls before being stumped by Kumar Sangakkara off the bowling of Muttiah Muralitharan. During his innings, Cairns put a 91 run partnership on with captain, Ricky Ponting. With the ball, Cairns picked up 1-37 off 6 overs.
Injuries plagued Cairns throughout his career. There remains some debate over his statistics and how they reflected his ability. In Cairns career he played 62 Test and missed a further 55 due to injury. Sidharth Monga writing in 2009 that Cairns’ career returns “were a poor justification of his prodigious talent.”
Cairns bowling for the Canterbury Wizards in 2006
Cairns retired from the New Zealand Test team in 2004. On 22 January 2006, Cairns announced his retirement from ODIs in a press conference. A Twenty20 match against the West Indies on 16 February 2006 was his last game representing New Zealand. He was also part of the ICC World XI that played in the World Cricket Tsunami Appeal matches.
The New Zealand Herald compared his retirement to those of Michael Jordan and Bjrn Borg on 15 February 2006. Cairns also left the door open for a comeback, but said “I don’t think I could ever be tempted back”.
In Cairns’ final game, he bowled four overs for 24 and no wicket and scored a nine-ball duck, before being bowled by Chris Gayle. He also missed the stumps in both attempts during the bowl off. Cricinfo describe his final international as “an unfitting farewell” and that “he deserved better”.
Alleged match fixing
In December 2013, Cairns was the subject of allegations in an ICC investigation into match-fixing. He is alleged to have attempted to manipulate games in India when he was captain of the Chandigarh Lions in the short lived Indian Cricket League. Cairns has rejected these claims.
Former New Zealand cricketer Lou Vincent, an admitted match fixer, has said that Cairns had approached him about fixing matches. New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum also told the Anti Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) of the International Cricket Council that Cairns made a match fixing approach to him. Cairns insists that he has never fixed a match, saying Vincent wanted to “mitigate his sins by blaming others” and taking issue with McCullum having waited three years before approaching the ICC.
In March 2012 Cairns successfully sued former Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi for libel, after Modi posted on Twitter in 2010 that Cairns had been involved in match-fixing during 2008. He won costs and damages. On 12 September 2014, the Metropolitan Police announced that they would charge Cairns with perjury stemming from the Modi libel trial. He was acquitted of charges of perjury and perverting the course of justice on November 30, 2015.
In the column Runs, * indicates being not out.
The column title Match refers to the Match Number of his career.
Chris Cairns’s Test Centuries
City/Country
1 120 16 Zimbabwe Auckland, New Zealand Eden Park 1996 Drawn
2 126 35 India Hamilton, New Zealand Seddon Park 1999 Drawn
3 109 46 Australia Wellington, New Zealand Basin Reserve 2000 Lost
4 124 49 Zimbabwe Harare, Zimbabwe Harare Sports Club 2000 Won
5 158 58 South Africa Auckland, New Zealand Eden Park 2004 Won
One Day International Centuries
Chris Cairns’s One Day International Centuries
1 103 32 India Pune, India Nehru Stadium 1995 Lost
2 115 100 India Christchurch, New Zealand AMI Stadium 1999 Won
3 102* 130 India Nairobi, Kenya Gymkhana Club Ground 2000 Won
4 102* 141 South Africa Brisbane, Australia Brisbane Cricket Ground 2002 Won
His third century helped New Zealand to win their maiden title in an ICC award. So far this title remains the only victory for New Zealand in an ODI tournament involving teams more than 2.
Test 5-wicket hauls
Chris Cairns’s Test 5-wicket hauls
1 5/75 2 Sri Lanka Auckland, New Zealand Eden Park 1991 Drawn
2 6/52 4 England Auckland, New Zealand Eden Park 1992 Lost
3 5/137 18 Pakistan Rawalpindi, Pakistan Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium 1996 Lost
4 5/50 24 Zimbabwe Harare, Zimbabwe Harare Sports Club 1997 Drawn
5 5/62 33 Sri Lanka Colombo, Sri Lanka Sinhalese Sports Club 1998 Lost
6 6/77 37 England London, England Lord’s 1999 Won
7 5/31 39 England London, England Kennington Oval 1999 Won
8 7/27 43 West Indies Hamilton, New Zealand Seddon Park 1999 Won
9 5/44 44 West Indies Wellington, New Zealand Basin Reserve 1999 Won
10 5/31 48 Zimbabwe Bulawayo, Zimbabwe Queens Sports Club 2000 Won
11 5/146 50 Australia Brisbane, Australia Brisbane Cricket Ground 2001 Drawn
12 7/53 53 Bangladesh Hamilton, New Zealand Seddon Park 2001 Won
13 5/79 62 England Nottingham, England, United Kingdom Trent Bridge 2004 Lost
Test 10-Wicket Hauls
Chris Cairns’s Test 10-Wicket Hauls
1 10/100 43 West Indies Hamilton, New Zealand Seddon Park 1999 Won
One Day International 5-Wicket Hauls
Chris Cairns’s One Day International 5-Wicket Hauls
1 5/42 83 Australia Napier, New Zealand McLean Park 1998 Won
One Day International Cricket
Man of the Match Awards
S No
1 India Nehru Stadium, Pune 24 November 1995 103 (87 balls: 104, 46) ; 10-1-37-3 India won by 5 wickets.
2 Sri Lanka Sharjah Cricket Stadium, Sharjah 7 November 1996 71 (91 balls: 14, 46) ; 9.1-0-39-2, 1 Ct. New Zealand won by 29 runs.
3 Sri Lanka Basin Reserve, Wellington 27 March 1997 56 (78 balls: 74) ; DNB New Zealand won by 69 runs.
4 Zimbabwe Harare Sports Club, Harare 5 October 1997 71 (78 balls: 94, 16) ; 7-1-26-1 New Zealand won by 83 runs.
5 India AMI Stadium, Christchurch 19 January 1999 115 (80 balls: 74, 76) ; 6-0-48-1 New Zealand won by 70 runs.
6 India Nehru Stadium, Guwahati 14 November 1999 80 (114 balls: 44, 36) ; 5-1-14-1 New Zealand won by 48 runs.
7 India Gymkhana Club Ground, Nairobi 15 October 2000 10-2-40-0 ; 102* (113 balls: 84, 26) New Zealand won 2000 ICC KnockOut Trophy.
8 South Africa Brisbane Cricket Ground, Brisbane 19 January 2002 10-0-44-2, 1 Ct. ; 102* (99 balls: 94, 36) New Zealand won by 4 wickets.
9 Bangladesh MA Aziz Stadium, Chittagong 2 November 2004 74 (83 balls: 14, 56) ; 4-2-5-0 New Zealand won by 138 runs.
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PDF2 PDF |Add To My Favorites | Version: 09/04/18 - Enrolled 08/20/18 - Amended Assembly 01/03/18 - Amended Assembly 06/14/17 - Amended Assembly 04/26/17 - Amended Senate 03/20/17 - Amended Senate 02/14/17 - Introduced
SB-354 Special education: individualized education programs: translation services.(2017-2018)
Section 56026.3 of the Education Code is amended to read:
56026.3.
“Local educational agency” means a school district, a county office of education, a nonprofit charter school participating as a member of a special education local plan area, or a special education local plan area.
Section 56028 of the Education Code is amended to read:
(a) “Parent” means any of the following:
(1) A biological or adoptive parent of a child.
(2) A foster parent if the authority of the biological or adoptive parents to make educational decisions on the child’s behalf specifically has been limited by court order in accordance with Section 300.30(b)(1) or (2) of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
(3) A guardian generally authorized to act as the child’s parent.
(3) (4) A guardian generally authorized to act as the child’s parent, or authorized to person authorized to make educational decisions for the child, including a responsible adult appointed for the child in accordance with Sections 361 and 726 of the Welfare and Institutions Code. Code or one who is otherwise the educational rights holder for the child.
(4) (5) An individual acting in the place of a biological or adoptive parent, including a grandparent, stepparent, or other relative, with whom the child lives, or an individual who is legally responsible for the child’s welfare.
(5) (6) A surrogate parent who has been appointed pursuant to Section 7579.5 or 7579.6 of the Government Code, and in accordance with Section 300.519 of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations and Section 1439(a)(5) of Title 20 of the United States Code.
(7) A conservator of a child.
(b) (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), the biological or adoptive parent, when attempting to act as the parent under this part and when more than one party is qualified under subdivision (a) to act as a parent, shall be presumed to be the parent for purposes of this section unless the biological or adoptive parent does not have legal authority to make educational decisions for the child.
(2) If a judicial decree or order identifies a specific person or persons under paragraphs (1) to (4), (7), inclusive, of subdivision (a) to act as the “parent” of a child or to make educational decisions on behalf of a child, then that person or persons shall be determined to be the “parent” for purposes of this part, Article 1 (commencing with Section 48200) of Chapter 2 of Part 27 of Division 4 of Title 2, and Chapter 26.5 (commencing with Section 7570) of Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code, and Sections 361 and 726 of the Welfare and Institutions Code.
(c) “Parent” does not include the state or any political subdivision of government.
(d) “Parent” does not include a nonpublic, nonsectarian school or agency under contract with a local educational agency for the provision of special education or designated instruction and services for a child.
(e) “Parent or guardian,” as used in this part, means “parent” as defined in this section.
The primary timelines affecting special education programs are as follows:
(a) A proposed assessment plan shall be developed within 15 calendar days of referral for assessment, not counting calendar days between the pupil’s regular school sessions or terms or calendar days of school vacation in excess of five schooldays, from the date of receipt of the referral, unless the parent or guardian agrees in writing to an extension, pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 56321.
(b) A parent or guardian shall have at least 15 calendar days from the receipt of the proposed assessment plan to arrive at a decision, provide consent or refuse to provide consent for an assessment pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 56321.
(c) Once a child has been referred for an initial assessment to determine whether the child is an individual with exceptional needs and to determine the educational needs of the child, these determinations shall be made, and an individualized education program team meeting shall occur within 60 days of receiving parental consent for the assessment, pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 56302.1, except as specified in subdivision (b) of that section, and pursuant to Section 56344.
(d) The individualized education program team shall review the pupil’s individualized education program periodically, but not less frequently than annually, pursuant to subdivision (d) of Section 56341.1.
(e) A parent or guardian shall be notified of the individualized education program team meeting early enough to ensure an opportunity to attend, pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 56341.5. In the case of an individual with exceptional needs who is 16 years of age or younger, if appropriate, the meeting notice shall indicate that a purpose of the meeting will be the consideration of the postsecondary goals and transition services for the individual with exceptional needs, and the meeting notice described in this subdivision shall indicate that the individual with exceptional needs is invited to attend, pursuant to subdivision (e) of Section 56341.5.
(f) (1) An individualized education program required as a result of an assessment of a pupil shall be developed within a total time not to exceed 60 calendar days, not counting days between the pupil’s regular school sessions, terms, or days of school vacation in excess of five schooldays, from the date of receipt of the parent’s or guardian’s written consent for assessment, unless the parent or guardian agrees in writing to an extension, pursuant to Section 56344.
(2) A meeting to develop an initial individualized education program for the pupil shall be conducted within 30 days of a determination that the child needs special education and related services pursuant to Section 300.323(c)(1) of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations and in accordance with Section 56344.
(g) (1) Beginning not later than the first individualized education program to be in effect when the pupil is 16 years of age, or younger if determined appropriate by the individualized education program team, and updated annually thereafter, the individualized education program shall include appropriate measurable postsecondary goals and transition services needed to assist the pupil in reaching those goals, pursuant to paragraph (8) of subdivision (a) of Section 56345.
(2) The individualized education program for pupils in grades 7 to 12, inclusive, shall include any alternative means and modes necessary for the pupil to complete the district’s prescribed course of study and to meet or exceed proficiency standards for graduation, pursuant to paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) of Section 56345.
(3) Beginning not later than one year before the pupil reaches 18 years of age, the individualized education program shall contain a statement that the pupil has been informed of the pupil’s rights under this part, if any, that will transfer to the pupil upon reaching 18 years of age, pursuant to Section 56041.5, subdivision (g) of Section 56345, and Section 300.520 of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
(h) Beginning at the age of 16 years of age or younger, and annually thereafter, a statement of needed transition services shall be included in the pupil’s individualized education program, pursuant to Section 56345.1 and Section 1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(VIII) of Title 20 of the United States Code.
(i) A pupil’s individualized education program shall be implemented as soon as possible following the individualized education program team meeting, pursuant to Section 300.323(c)(2) of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations and in accordance with Section 56344.
(j) An individualized education program team shall meet at least annually to review a pupil’s progress, the individualized education program, including whether the annual goals for the pupil are being achieved, the appropriateness of the placement, and to make any necessary revisions, pursuant to subdivision (d) of Section 56343. The local educational agency shall maintain procedures to ensure that the individualized education program team reviews the pupil’s individualized education program periodically, but not less frequently than annually, to determine whether the annual goals for the pupil are being achieved, and revises the individualized education program as appropriate to address, among other matters, the provisions specified in subdivision (d) of Section 56341.1, pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 56380.
(k) A reassessment of a pupil shall occur not more frequently than once a year, unless the parent and the local educational agency agree otherwise in writing, and shall occur at least once every three years, unless the parent and the local educational agency agree, in writing, that a reassessment is unnecessary, pursuant to Section 56381, and in accordance with Section 1414(a)(2) of Title 20 of the United States Code.
(l) A meeting of an individualized education program team requested by a parent or guardian to review an individualized education program pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 56343 shall be held within 30 calendar days, not counting days between the pupil’s regular school sessions, terms, or days of school vacation in excess of five schooldays, from the date of receipt of the parent’s or guardian’s written request, pursuant to Section 56343.5.
(m) If an individual with exceptional needs transfers from district to district within the state, the following are applicable pursuant to Section 56325:
(1) If the child has an individualized education program and transfers into a district from a district not operating programs under the same local plan in which he or she was last enrolled in a special education program within the same academic year, the local educational agency shall provide the pupil with a free appropriate public education, including services comparable to those described in the previously approved individualized education program, in consultation with the parents or guardians, a parent, for a period not to exceed 30 days, by which time the local educational agency shall adopt the previously approved individualized education program or shall develop, adopt, and implement a new individualized education program that is consistent with federal and state law, pursuant to paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) of Section 56325.
(2) If the child has an individualized education program and transfers into a district from a district operating programs under the same special education local plan area of the district in which he or she was last enrolled in a special education program within the same academic year, the new district shall continue, without delay, to provide services comparable to those described in the existing approved individualized education program, unless the parent and the local educational agency agree to develop, adopt, and implement a new individualized education program that is consistent with state and federal law, pursuant to paragraph (2) of subdivision (a) of Section 56325.
(3) If the child has an individualized education program and transfers from an educational agency located outside the state to a district within the state within the same academic year, the local educational agency shall provide the pupil with a free appropriate public education, including services comparable to those described in the previously approved individualized education program, in consultation with the parents or guardians, a parent, until the local educational agency conducts an assessment as specified in paragraph (3) of subdivision (a) of Section 56325.
(4) In order to facilitate the transition for an individual with exceptional needs described in paragraphs (1) to (3), inclusive, the new school in which the pupil enrolls shall take reasonable steps to promptly obtain the pupil’s records, as specified, pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 56325.
(n) The parent or guardian shall have the right and opportunity to examine all school records of the child and to receive complete copies within five business days after a request is made by the parent or guardian, either orally or in writing, and before any meeting regarding an individualized education program of his or her child or any hearing or resolution session pursuant to Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 56500), in accordance with Section 56504 and Chapter 6.5 (commencing with Section 49060) of Part 27.
(o) Upon receipt of a request from a local educational agency where an individual with exceptional needs has enrolled, a former educational agency shall send the pupil’s special education records, or a copy of those records, to the new local educational agency within five working days, pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 3024 of Title 5 of the California Code of Regulations.
(p) The department shall do all of the following:
(1) Have a time limit of 60 calendar days after a complaint is filed with the state educational agency to investigate the complaint.
(2) Give the complainant the opportunity to submit additional information about the allegations in the complaint.
(3) Review all relevant information and make an independent determination as to whether there is a violation of a requirement of this part or Part B of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1400 et seq.).
(4) Issue a written decision pursuant to Section 300.152(a)(5) of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
(q) A prehearing mediation conference shall be scheduled within 15 calendar days of receipt by the Superintendent of the request for mediation, and shall be completed within 30 calendar days after the request for mediation, unless both parties to the prehearing mediation conference agree to extend the time for completing the mediation, pursuant to Section 56500.3.
(r) Any request for a due process hearing arising from subdivision (a) of Section 56501 shall be filed within two years from the date the party initiating the request knew or had reason to know of facts underlying the basis for the request, except that this timeline shall not apply to a parent if the parent was prevented from requesting the due process hearing, pursuant to subdivision (l) of Section 56505.
(s) The Superintendent shall ensure that, within 45 calendar days after receipt of a written due process hearing request, the hearing is immediately commenced and completed, including any mediation requested at any point during the hearing process, and a final administrative decision is rendered, pursuant to subdivision (f) of Section 56502.
(t) If either party to a due process hearing intends to be represented by an attorney in the due process hearing, notice of that intent shall be given to the other party at least 10 calendar days before the hearing, pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 56507.
(u) Any party to a due process hearing shall have the right to be informed by the other parties to the hearing, at least 10 calendar days before the hearing, as to what those parties believe are the issues to be decided at the hearing and their proposed resolution of those issues, pursuant to paragraph (6) of subdivision (e) of Section 56505.
(v) Any party to a due process hearing shall have the right to receive from other parties to the hearing, at least five business days before the hearing, a copy of all documents, including all assessments completed and not completed by that date, and a list of all witnesses and their general area of testimony that the parties intend to present at the hearing, pursuant to paragraph (7) of subdivision (e) of Section 56505.
(w) An appeal of a due process hearing decision shall be made within 90 calendar days of receipt of the hearing decision, pursuant to subdivision (k) of Section 56505.
(x) A complaint filed with the department shall allege a violation of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1400 et seq.) or a provision of this part that occurred not more than one year before the date that the complaint is received by the department, pursuant to Section 56500.2 and Section 300.153(c) of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
(y) The timeline for the production of translated copies of special education-related documents shall be as specified in Section 56348.
(a) Each A local educational agency convening a meeting of the individualized education program team shall take steps to ensure that no less than one of the parents or guardians of the individual with exceptional needs are is present at each individualized education program meeting or are is afforded the opportunity to participate.
(b) Parents or guardians A parent shall be notified of the individualized education program meeting early enough to ensure an opportunity to attend.
(c) The individualized education program meeting shall be scheduled at a mutually agreed-upon time and place. The notice of the meeting under subdivision (b) shall indicate the purpose, time, and location of the meeting and who shall be in attendance. Parents or guardians A parent also shall be informed in the notice of the right, pursuant to Section 300.322(b)(1)(ii) of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations, to bring other people to the meeting who have knowledge or special expertise regarding the individual with exceptional needs, and inform the parents shall be informed of subdivision (i) of Section 56341 relating to the participation of the infants and toddlers with disabilities service coordinator under Subchapter III (commencing with Section 1431) of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1400 et seq.) at the initial individualized education program team meeting for a child previously served under the Subchapter III program.
(d) As part of the participation of an individual with exceptional needs in the development of an individualized education program, as required by federal law, the individual with exceptional needs shall be allowed to provide confidential input to any representative of his or her individualized education program team.
(e) For an individual with exceptional needs, beginning no later than the effective date of the individualized education program in effect when the individual reaches the age of 16 years, 16 years of age, or younger if determined appropriate by the individualized education program team, the meeting notice also shall indicate that a purpose of the meeting will be the consideration of the postsecondary goals and transition services for the individual, pursuant to Section 56345.1 and Section 1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(VIII) of Title 20 of the United States Code, and the meeting notice shall indicate that the individual with exceptional needs is invited to attend. If the pupil does not attend the individualized education program team meeting, the local educational agency shall take steps to ensure that the preferences and interests of the pupil are considered in accordance with Section 300.321(b)(2) of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
(f) The local educational agency, to the extent appropriate, with the consent of the parents or the individual with exceptional needs who has reached the age of majority, and in accordance with Section 300.321(b)(3) of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations, shall invite a representative of any participating agency that is likely to be responsible for providing or paying for transition services.
(g) Pursuant to Section 300.322(c) of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations, if no parent or guardian can attend the meeting, the local educational agency shall use other methods to ensure parent or guardian participation, including through the use of individual or conference telephone calls, and consistent with Section 300.328 of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the parent or guardian and the local educational agency may agree to use alternative means of meeting participation.
(h) A meeting may be conducted without a parent or guardian in attendance if the local educational agency is unable to convince the parent or guardian that he or she should attend. In this event, the local educational agency shall maintain a record of its attempts to arrange a mutually agreed-upon time and place, such as:
(1) Detailed records of telephone calls made or attempted and the results of those calls.
(2) Copies of correspondence sent to the parents or guardians parent and any responses received.
(3) Detailed records of visits made to the home or place of employment of the parent or guardian and the results of those visits.
(i) The local educational agency shall take any action necessary to ensure that the parent or guardian understands the proceedings at a meeting, including during the planning process for the individualized education program, including during the individualized education program team meeting. The action required pursuant to this subdivision shall include, as applicable, communicating in the parent’s native language, as defined in Section 300.29 of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations, or in another mode of communication used by the parent, arranging for an interpreter for parents or guardians a parent with deafness or whose native language is a language other than English. English, providing translation services as required pursuant to Section 56348, and providing alternative communication services as required pursuant to Article 9.5 (commencing with Section 11135) of Chapter 1 of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code and its implementing regulations.
(j) The local educational agency shall give the parent or guardian a copy of the individualized education program, at no cost to the parent or guardian. parent, and as specified in Section 56348, if applicable.
Section 56348 is added to the Education Code, to read:
(a) (1) For purposes of this part, a local educational agency shall, upon the parent’s request, translate the following documents in the native language of the parent, or in another mode of communication used by the parent, as follows:
(A) The pupil’s completed individualized education program, as described in Section 56345, and any revisions to the pupil’s individualized education program.
(B) Any evaluation, assessment, or progress data used to determine eligibility or to develop the individualized education program that is discussed at an individualized education program team meeting.
(2) (A) For a parent whose native language is one of the eight most commonly spoken languages, excluding English, in a local educational agency, as determined by the department and reported through DataQuest or any successor system, the documents specified in subparagraph (A) of paragraph (1) shall be translated within 30 calendar days of the individualized education program team meeting, or within 30 calendar days of a later request by the parent. Nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to abridge any right granted to a parent under state or federal law, including the right to give or withhold consent, as defined in Section 56021.1 and as specified in Section 56346, to part or all of the individualized education program.
(B) If the list of the eight most commonly spoken languages in a local educational agency includes an “other” category of multiple non-English languages, that category shall not be included in the top eight most commonly spoken languages for purposes of subparagraph (A).
(b) The documents required to be translated pursuant to this section and Section 3040 of Title 5 of the California Code of Regulations, or any successor regulation, shall be translated by a qualified translator.
(c) The department shall revise its notice of procedural safeguards, in English and in the primary languages for which the department has developed translated versions, to inform parents of their right to request the translation of documents as required by this section.
(d) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:
(1) “Native language” has the same meaning as specified in Section 300.29 of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
(2) “Qualified translator” means a translator who is proficient in and literate in English and the non-English language to be used, and has the ability to communicate terms and ideas between the English language and the non-English language to be used, considering regional language variations, and has knowledge of basic translator practices, including, but not limited to, privacy, neutrality, accuracy, completeness, and transparency.
(e) Nothing in this section is intended to affect any other state or federal law requirement regarding the translation of education-related documents, including, but not limited to, the right to alternative communication services provided for in Article 9.5 (commencing with Section 11135) of Chapter 1 of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code and its implementing regulations.
If the Commission on State Mandates determines that this act contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement to local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made pursuant to Part 7 (commencing with Section 17500) of Division 4 of Title 2 of the Government Code.
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Home Your Family Women's Health
Another Climate Change Threat: More 'Flesh-Eating' Bacteria?
TUESDAY, June 18, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- A flesh-eating bacteria has migrated into the Delaware Bay between Delaware and New Jersey, drawn north by the warmer waters of climate change, doctors say.
Five cases of infection with Vibrio vulnificus occurred in 2017 and 2018 along the Delaware Bay, compared to one infection with the devastating bacteria in the eight years prior, researchers said.
The infections resulted in one death and multiple rounds of surgery to save the other patients. One had all his limbs removed at the elbows and knees due to severe bacterial infection, said Dr. Katherine Doktor, an infectious disease specialist at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, N.J.
"In order to stop the infection, the person needs antibiotics and they need to be taken to the OR [operating room] quickly so any infected tissue can be removed, so it doesn't spread further," she said.
But Doktor added that the bacteria tends to strike hardest at people with pre-existing health problems like liver disease, diabetes, kidney failure or a compromised immune system.
"Just going to the beach or going to the bay is not going to make you sick," she said. "These people usually have a cut and the infected water gets into the cut, or they eat raw seafood that's infected."
Vibrio bacteria cause an estimated 80,000 illnesses and 100 deaths in the United States each year, with most infections in May through October when water temperatures are warm, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One in five people with this type of infection die, sometimes within days of becoming ill, the CDC warns.
Because the bacteria thrive in warmer, salty water, it's usually found mostly in southern waters, Doktor said.
But cases of Vibrio infection began showing up in emergency rooms along the Delaware Bay a few years back, Doktor and her colleagues reported June 18 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Four of the cases involved middle-aged or older men who had been crabbing in the bay or eating crabs taken from the bay, the doctors said. The fifth case involved a man who worked at a seafood restaurant in New Jersey.
Wound infections affecting a person's limbs occur through breaks in the skin, while eating tainted seafood can cause intestinal and bloodstream infections, the researchers said. Large blood blisters start popping up at sites where skin cells are dying off, Doktor explained.
"On average, people need to be taken back to the OR two to four times to remove any tissue that has died," she said.
It's not just in the United States that Vibrio is migrating northward, Doktor said. In Europe, infections with the bacteria have extended as far north as Norway.
Dr. Amesh Adalja is a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in Baltimore. He said, "Vibrio vulnificus infections contracted in the Delaware Bay, an area not known to be endemic for the bacteria, should serve as an important reminder that infectious diseases can expand from their traditional areas so long as the environment is hospitable to them." Adalja was not involved with the new report.
"If certain bodies of water have had temperature changes that allow Vibrio vulnificus to flourish in a new region, it will be important that clinicians have heightened awareness of this serious, and sometimes fatal, infection in order to diagnose and treat it appropriately," Adalja added.
Doktor advised that shellfish lovers should exercise caution when having a seafood meal, especially if they have a health condition that compromises their body's ability to stave off infection.
"Some people, when they shuck the crabs, they use gloves," she said. "I would protect your skin by wearing gloves."
You might want to think twice about hitting the raw bar, too.
"As an infectious disease physician, I don't think people should be eating raw seafood," Doktor said. "But if you don't have any of these risk factors, the chance of infection is much, much lower."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about Vibrio infection.
SOURCES: Katherine Doktor, M.D., infectious disease specialist, Cooper University Hospital, Camden, N.J.; Amesh Adalja, M.D., senior scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Baltimore; June 18, 2019, Annals of Internal Medicine, online
Bacterial Skin Infections
Bacterial Skin Infections in Children
Endoscopic Endonasal Surgery
Lumbar Disk Replacement
Brain Tumors: Surgery
Brain Tumors: Treatment Introduction
Ammonium Lactate topical lotion
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CCF Locations
Schools' Area
About the CCF
The tradition of cadet units in schools goes back over 150 years to 1860. In 1948, the Combined Cadet Force was formed, covering cadets from all three Services.
Roles & Ranks
Brigades and Regional Point of Command (RPOC)
Activities -- Adventurous training -- Marksmanship -- Drill -- Expeditions -- DofE Award -- Vocational qualifications -- Fieldcraft -- Music -- First Aid Sections -- The Royal Air Force -- The Royal Navy ---- Royal Navy Resources -- The Army Roles & Ranks Brigades and Regional Point of Command (RPOC) History Governance -- CCFA -- CCFA Board -- CCFA Insurance -- CCFA Membership Contact Social impact
The tradition of cadet units in schools goes back over 150 years to the 1850s. In 1948, the Combined Cadet Force was formed, covering cadets from all three Services.
In 1859, the idea of cadet units in schools was developed by the Secretary of State for War, Jonathan Peel - who wrote to public schools and universities, inviting them to form units of the Volunteer Corps. Several schools took up the idea, and the first Cadet Corps in a school was formed in 1860 at Rossall School. Other units formed soon after at Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Hurstpierpoint and Felsted School - although Felsted School's armed drill contingent pre-dated the 1859 letter from the War Office.
These early units were focused on Army activities, and were usually associated with Rifle Volunteer Battalions for Home Defence, with cadets wearing the uniforms of their parent volunteer battalions. The Corps evolved over time, focusing on Officer Training - and during the World War I and II, many of the young men who served in the units went on to serve their country in the Armed Forces.
After World War II, the structure of the Armed Forces changed, including the cadet units in school, which became the Combined Cadet Force in 1948 - incorporating sections from all of the Armed Forces, the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army and Royal Air Force. Over the following decades, the focus of the group moved away from being a recruitment pathway in to the Armed Forces, the number of CCFs in state schools slowly grew - and for the first time girls were allowed to join.
Today the Combined Cadet Force contingents are very different to those early groups of young people. Although they are still based on the ethos of the Armed Forces - their focus is on helping young people to develop and reach their full potential by providing challenging, active, adventurous and fun activities.
Find out more about the CCF
Website by Electric Putty
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Home Investor relations Company hierarchy Kazimierz Przełomski
Kazimierz Przełomski is a graduate of the University of London, where he earned a master’s degree in economics, and has completed postgraduate studies (major of development economics) at the University of North London. He has completed numerous domestic and foreign trainings, among others on project financing, financial management, financial accounting (IFRS / IFRS), strategic management, implementation and operation of a company on the Stock Exchange.
In 1990, Kazimierz Przełomski joined KPMG in London in the department of strategic services. From 1992 to early 2000 he worked in the London branch of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) specializing in financing and implementation of infrastructure projects. Projects implemented in the EBRD included mainly Poland, Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, the Baltic States, Georgia and Ukraine.
Since 2000, Kazimierz Przełomski worked in Poland as CFO for listed companies: Stalexport SA (2000-2001) as a member of the Management Board and Chief Financial Officer, Ciech SA (2002-2008) as Chief Financial Officer and Member of the Board, Selena FM SA (2009-2015) as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In the role of Chief Financial Officer he was responsible for creating financial strategies and ongoing financial management of companies and capital groups. He undertook a number of projects aimed at increasing the company’s value, among others preparation and conduct of the IPO process in Ciech SA and implementation of the acquisition program and integration program of the newly acquired companies. In the Selena Group he participated in the implementation of the Group international development strategy in the process of acquiring new entities, entering new markets and product development.
Kazimierz Przełomski has industry experience in heavy industry – steel, mining and chemical industries, railway, road and harbour infrastructure, chemistry of construction materials, automotive parts, investment banking, strategic and transaction consulting. Kazimierz Przełomski joined the Zetkama Group in the role of CFO on 1 July 2015.
Kazimierz Przełomski is not engaged in any activities competitive to the MANGATA HOLDING SA as a partner in a private partnership, general partnership or as a member of the body of a company, does not participate in any other competitive legal person as a member of its body, and is not entered in the Register of Insolvent Debtors kept pursuant to the National Court Register Act.
EOGM 05.11.2019
Rules OGM
Stock quote information
History of share operations
Public offering 2016
The first public offering 2005
Issue Prospectus
Information on the share issue sponsor
Rules of the general meeting of shareholders
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Home > Product News and Recalls > Latest Talc-Asbestos Case Adds $300 Million to J&J’s Losses
Latest Talc-Asbestos Case Adds $300 Million to J&J’s Losses
Posted June 18, 2019 in Product News and Recalls
The losses continue to pile up for the world’s largest healthcare goods manufacturer and a company that has staked its image and reputation on trustworthiness, wholesomeness, and products you can feel good about bringing home to your family. A New York jury, however, has peeled away yet another layer of that image and found the company responsible for a woman’s development of mesothelioma.
According to the jury, Donna Olson developed the cancer because of the asbestos found in Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder. Olson and her husband had already been awarded $25 million in compensatory damages, however, the jury found punitive damages to be warranted in addition to the compensatory award. While the amount of punitive damages will likely be reduced on appeal, the loss is another in a line of cases where juries have decided that even in the face of strong – almost defiant – denials from J&J representatives, the company’s talc products not only contain asbestos but Johnson & Johnson actively worked to conceal that fact from regulators and the general public.
The company has launched a major PR campaign after Reuters published a bombshell investigative report that showed, among other things, that Johnson & Johnson executives had known for decades that the talc they were mining contained asbestos fibers. In fact, there was solid evidence indicating that the amount of asbestos in the talc was “rather high” at times. And, this evidence was present across multiple lab tests.
It may come as a surprise then that even in the midst of the PR campaign and after internal J&J documents were published by Reuters, Johnson & Johnson continues to completely deny the presence of asbestos in its talc. Shortly after the Olson award verdict was handed down, the corporation issued a statement in which it reiterated its all-too-familiar commitment to the defense of its product. “This trial suffered significant legal and evidentiary errors which Johnson & Johnson believes will warrant a reversal on appeal,” the company said. “Decades of tests by independent experts and academic institutions repeatedly confirm that Johnson’s Baby Powder does not contain asbestos or cause cancer.”
Johnson & Johnson Talc Asbestos Case Ends in Mistrial
Talc Ovarian Cancer Claims Lead to Asbestos Settlement
Jury Rules J&J Talc Responsible for CA Woman’s Mesothelioma
Ground-shaking Verdict Reached in J&J Talc Cancer Lawsuit
Tags: asbestos, baby powder, donna olson, Johnson & Johnson, johnson and johnson, mesothelioma, talc, talc powder, talcum powder
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New fine system needs work
Sept 20,2019
The ruling Democratic Party (DP) and Ministry of Justice are mulling a relative penalty system of imposing fines in proportion to violators’ wealth or business conditions. Justice Minister Cho Kuk proposed the idea ahead of a confirmation hearing earlier this month. He seems to believe that the current penalty system imposing a fixed amount of fines regardless of offenders’ wealth can be “cruel and crippling to common citizens, but its effect on wealthy people is minimal.” The belief also had been shared by President Moon Jae-in during his presidential campaign.
But questions are being raised about why the radical move must take place at a sensitive time when the prosecution’s investigation on Cho’s family is picking up. The idea behind the so-called day-fine is to have offenders of different socioeconomic status committing the same crime pay the same portion of their wealth instead of the same absolute amount of money. Under the system, a judge determines fines per day based on the convicted individual’s financial status and the severity of the crime. For instance, Germany has a range of fines from 1 to 30,000 euros ($33,125), France from 1 to 1,000 euros, Austria 4 to 5,000 euros, and Switzerland 30 to 3,000 Swiss francs ($3,000).
The ministry plans to gauge opinions from various corners to design a day-fine system that fits Korean conditions. The move is nothing new. It was proposed in 1986 and has been sought for since then. A similar bill is pending at the National Assembly. Critics point to the imbalance on the façade if people are fined differently for the same crime. It also raises questions about the effectiveness of the penalty aimed at de-incentivizing to prevent the repetition of wrongdoings if fines are too light. The sentencing could also be lengthened for accurate determination of the offender’s wealth. Salary earners whose pay is transparent could also be disadvantaged vis-a-vis the self-employed whose incomes are not as clear.
The court’s administrative office pointed out that if wealth becomes a major factor behind sentencing, it could go against the principle of criminal liability.
The party and government have paid too little thought on the long-mooted issue. The British revoked the relative fining system after the sentencing on one offender with 64 pounds and the other 640 pounds in a case involving mutual assault caused controversy. Korea should take a more discreet approach as society is already touchy and resentful over the issue of unfairness.
JoongAng Ilbo, Sept. 19, Page 30
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Jackson Comes To London
In a surprising volte face, despite health concerns (alleged earlier in the week by his lawyer), Michael Jackson has agreed to come to London to give evidence at the high court where he is being sued for $7m by Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
Jackson's lawyer, Robert Englehart, told the court that Jackson's doctors have given him the all-clear to travel this weekend.
Jackson will appear on Monday.
Labels: debt, high court, London, michael jackson, Prince Abdullah, sued
Seemingly, according to Michael Jackson's legal team, he is too sick to travel to the UK to appear at the High Court wrt the $7M allegedly owed by Jackson to Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
Jackson wants to be able to give testimony via video link.
Sheikh Abdulla's lawyer, Bankim Thanki, is a tad cynical about the severity of Jackson's illness. He noted that if the alleged diagnosis is positive, it could be treated with a bandage.
Quote on Billboard:
"It's not the first time a sick note has been presented by Mr Jackson."
The question over whether Jackson appears or not will be answered tomorrow.
The case continues.
Shiekh Claims He Wrote Songs
Bankim Thanki QC, lawyer for Sheikh Abdulla (who is suing Michael Jackson for $7M), spoke int eh High Court yesterday.
"The idea was to create a new recording label to kickstart his musical career.
The idea was to relaunch his career from a base far away from his well-publicised criminal trial."
Mr Thanki claimed that Sheikh Abdulla wrote a song that Jackson recorded the day after his trial ended in California in 2005.
The sheikh wanted to release it as a charity single to help victims of the Boxing Day tsunami the previous year.
Jackson is expected to give evidence via videolink from Los Angeles.
The case continues and is expected to last 12 days.
Labels: debt, high court, London, los angeles, michael jackson, Prince Abdullah, sued
Jackson Faces Court Case
Another day, another court case!
Michael Jackson is being sued for $7M in the High Court in London today by Sheikh Abdulla Bin Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa, son of the King of Bahrain.
The $7M claim relates to allegations that Jackson reneged on a record deal made in 2005, when Jackson stayed in Bahrain.
The sheikh claims that the proceeds of the project were to be used to repay money he had loaned Jackson.
Jackson claims that the payments were "gifts", and that the project was never finalised.
It is unlikely that fans of Jackson will glimpse him in the High Court, the nature of such cases is that a settlement may well be agreed outwith court.
Labels: debt, high court, michael jackson, money, Prince Abdullah, sued
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In re PHC, Inc. Shareholder Litigation
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit
IN RE: PHC, INC. SHAREHOLDER LITIGATION
BRUCE A. SHEAR, Defendant, Appellant/Cross-Appellee. MAZ PARTNERS LP, on behalf of itself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, Appellee/Cross-Appellant,
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. Patti B. Saris, U.S. District Judge]
James H. Hulme, with whom Matthew Wright, Nadia A. Patel, Arent Fox LLP, Richard M. Zielinski, Leonard H. Freiman, and Goulston & Storrs, were on brief, for defendant.
Chet B. Waldman, with whom Jeffrey W. Chambers, Patricia I. Avery, Adam J. Blander, Wolf Popper LLP, Norman Berman, Nathaniel L. Orenstein, and Berman Tabacco were on brief, for plaintiff.
Before Torruella, Selya and Lynch, Circuit Judges.
SELYA, CIRCUIT JUDGE.
The briefs in this case read like a law school examination covering a curriculum that ranges from corporate law to the law of equitable remedies. The questions presented are intricate, entangled, and in some instances novel. The most important of them implicate Massachusetts law and include whether a non-majority shareholder who also serves as a director can, under certain circumstances, be deemed a controlling shareholder; what effect, if any, shareholder ratification may have with respect to a self-interested transaction; and whether - in the absence of economic loss - equitable disgorgement can be ordered as a remedy for a breach of fiduciary duty. Concluding, as we do, that the able district judge handled the profusion of issues appropriately, we leave the parties where we found them, affirming both the district court's multi-million-dollar disgorgement order in favor of the plaintiff class and the jury's take-nothing verdict in the favor of the defendant. The tale follows.
We limn the facts and travel of the case, reserving some details for our subsequent discussions of specific issues. For efficiency's sake, we assume the reader's familiarity with our opinion regarding an earlier phase of this litigation. See In re PHC, Inc. S'holder Litig. (MAZ I), 762 F.3d 138 (1st Cir. 2014).
Until the fall of 2011, PHC, Inc. (PHC) functioned as a publicly traded corporation focusing on behavioral healthcare. Defendant Bruce A. Shear was a co-founder of PHC, serving as its board chairman and chief executive officer. The company was organized under the laws of Massachusetts, and its capital structure featured two classes of stock: Class A shares and Class B shares. Class A shares were publicly traded and were entitled to one vote per share. Those shares, collectively, had the right to elect two out of six board members. Class B shares were not publicly traded and were entitled to five votes per share. Those shares, collectively, had the right to elect the remaining four board members. At the times relevant hereto, Shear held approximately 8% of the Class A shares and approximately 93% of the Class B shares. Given the proportion of Class B shares owned by Shear, he had the power, practically speaking, to name a majority of the board of directors (four out of six board members).
After PHC's stock price remained relatively flat for a protracted period of time, the PHC board grew restless and began to mull a variety of strategic transactions designed to enhance shareholder equity. To this end, Shear initiated discussions about a possible merger with Acadia Healthcare, Inc. (Acadia) in early 2011. Based on conversations with Shear - who was acting as the de facto lead negotiator on behalf of PHC - Acadia's chief executive officer transmitted a letter of intent, dated March 22, 2011, to the PHC board. The letter delineated the material terms of a proposed merger.
The merger proposal contemplated that Acadia would be the surviving company. PHC shareholders would own 22.5% of the merged entity and Acadia shareholders would own the remainder. To achieve this ratio, holders of both Class A and Class B shares of PHC would receive one-quarter share of the stock of the merged entity in exchange for each PHC share, and the difference between the two classes of PHC stock would evaporate. In order to compensate Class B shareholders for relinquishing their enhanced voting rights, they would receive an additional $5, 000, 000 as a premium. Shear's ownership of approximately 93% of the Class B shares put him in line to receive most of this premium - roughly $4, 700, 000.
The letter of intent spelled out a variety of other salient features of the proposed transaction (including Acadia's plan to pay a special dividend to its own shareholders so as to achieve the desired equity split). Under another provision of the letter of intent, Shear would get to select two directors of the merged entity - and those two directors would be the PHC shareholders' sole designees to the new Acadia board. Finally, the letter of intent contained a prohibition against shopping Acadia's offer to other potential merger partners and specified that a termination fee would be payable if PHC backed out of the merger.
Following receipt of Acadia's letter of intent, Shear asked William Grieco (a PHC director) to serve as the PHC shareholders' principal merger negotiator. Despite naming Grieco as the point man, Shear continued to play a leading role in negotiations. Shear's choice of Grieco was not mere happenstance. The two men had enjoyed a lengthy professional relationship, and Shear had previously named Grieco to the PHC board. Moreover, Shear had arranged that, once the merger was consummated, he and Grieco would be the two PHC designees on the new Acadia board.
As part of his new role as principal negotiator, Grieco assumed responsibility for selecting a financial advisor to analyze the merger and to handle stockholder communications. To that end, the PHC board retained Stout Risius Ross, Inc. (SRR) - a firm that proceeded to evaluate the proposed merger and provide a fairness opinion. SRR reported that the aggregate consideration offered to Class A and Class B shareholders, as a combined group, was fair. Separately, it concluded that the consideration offered to the Class A shareholders was fair. SRR was not asked to analyze (and did not analyze) whether the $5, 000, 000 Class B premium was fair to the Class A shareholders. The PHC board considered the transaction in light of SRR's truncated fairness opinion and voted - with Shear abstaining - to recommend the proposed merger to PHC's shareholders. None of the five directors who voted for this recommendation owned any Class B shares.
On May 23, 2011, Acadia and PHC signed a merger agreement, contingent upon shareholder approval. In anticipation of a shareholder vote, PHC disseminated a proxy statement chronicling the details of the anticipated merger. Among other things, the proxy statement disclosed the $5, 000, 000 premium to be paid to the Class B shareholders, noting that Shear would receive the bulk of that payment. It also disclosed that the PHC board had opted not to form an independent committee to evaluate the merger proposal. Finally, it disclosed that Shear and Grieco would serve as directors of Acadia following the merger. SRR's fairness opinion was distributed to the shareholders along with the proxy statement.
For the merger to be approved, at least a two-thirds majority of Class A shares, a two-thirds majority of Class B shares, and a two-thirds majority of Class A and Class B shares combined had to vote in favor. On October 26, 2011, PHC shareholders approved the merger: 88.7% of the Class A shares and 99.9% of the Class B shares voted in the affirmative. MAZ Partners LP (MAZ), the owner of over 100, 000 Class A shares, voted its shares against the proposed merger. On November 1, the merger was consummated, resulting in the conversion of all PHC stock into Acadia stock. The market reacted favorably to the merger: Acadia stock began a long upward climb. The per-share price of Acadia stock rose from $8 at the time of the merger to over $80 in less than four years. MAZ did not stay aboard but, rather, sold all of its Acadia stock in January of 2012 (at a profit).
Well before the merger took effect, MAZ repaired to a Massachusetts state court and sued the PHC directors, seeking to block the merger. Invoking diversity jurisdiction, the defendants removed the action to the federal district court. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332(a), 1441(b). MAZ was unsuccessful in attempting to halt the transaction: the district court refused to enjoin the merger. Nevertheless, MAZ continued to press its breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims, seeking both a remedy at law (money damages) and equitable relief.
In due course, the district court (O'Toole, J.) granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants. MAZ appealed and succeeded in snatching a partial victory from the jaws of defeat: it persuaded a panel of this court to vacate the summary judgment. See MAZ I, 762 F.3d at 145. On remand, the case was reassigned to Chief Judge Saris. See D. Mass. R. 40.1(k). After some further skirmishing, the district court certified a class of former Class A shareholders who had voted against the merger, abstained from voting, or failed to vote. MAZ was designated as the class representative and alleged that the PHC directors, jointly and severally, had breached their fiduciary duties by orchestrating the merger transaction through an unfair process and, of particular pertinence here, by facilitating the payment of the (allegedly inflated) $5, 000, 000 premium to the Class B shareholders.
The legal claims were tried to a jury (the parties reserving the resolution of the equitable claims). During the course of the trial, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) decided International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local No. 129 Benefit Fund v. Tucci, 70 N.E.3d 918 (Mass. 2017). Premised on their reading of this decision, the defendants moved for judgment as a matter of law, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a), arguing, inter alia, that MAZ should have brought its claims derivatively. The district court granted this motion in part and entered judgment in favor of all the directors save Shear. As to the latter, the court refused to enter judgment as a matter of law, ruling that there was a jury question as to whether Shear was a controlling shareholder and, thus, came within one of the Tucci exceptions. Accordingly, the court submitted the case to the jury on the legal claims asserted against Shear.
The jury made a series of special findings. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 49. It found, inter alia, that Shear controlled the board's decision to enter into the merger and that the process undertaken to negotiate the merger was not entirely fair to the Class A shareholders. The jury went on to find, though, that the proof was insufficient to establish that the Class A shareholders had suffered any economic loss. Predicated on this finding, the jury determined that the plaintiff class was not entitled to money damages and returned a take-nothing verdict.
After the jury returned its verdict, MAZ (on behalf of the plaintiff class) moved for equitable relief. Specifically, MAZ sought disgorgement of the Class B premium based largely on the jury's findings that Shear was not only a director but also a controlling shareholder, that he therefore owed the shareholders a fiduciary duty, and that he had breached that duty by arranging the merger through a process that was not entirely fair to the Class A shareholders. Following a hearing, the district court agreed with MAZ, adopted the relevant jury findings, ruled that Shear had breached his fiduciary duty, and determined that the class was entitled to equitable relief. See MAZ Partners LP v. Shear (MAZ II), 265 F.Supp.3d 109, 118-21 (D. Mass. 2017).
Concluding that disgorgement was an available and appropriate equitable remedy, the court proceeded to make a series of calculations. First, it determined that $1, 820, 000 of the $5, 000, 000 Class B premium represented fair compensation for the enhanced voting rights carried by the Class B shares. See id. at 119. The remainder of the Class B premium ($3, 180, 000), the court stated, was unjustified. See id. Next, the court determined that - based on Shear's percentage ownership of the Class B shares - "Shear's pro rata portion of the unjustified portion of the Class B premium" was "93.22% of $3.18 million, or $2, 964, 396." Id. at 120. Finally, the court ordered that Shear disgorge this amount, and it awarded those funds to the plaintiff class, together with interest. See id.
On a parallel track, MAZ challenged the jury verdict and moved for a new trial with respect to the class's legal claims. In support, MAZ contended that the district court had permitted the introduction of unduly prejudicial evidence during the trial. The district court denied this motion. See id. at 121-22. These timely appeals ensued: Shear appeals the disgorgement order, and MAZ appeals the denial of its motion for a new trial.
II. SHEAR'S APPEAL
Shear attacks the disgorgement order on several fronts. His threshold argument is that MAZ's suit is infirm because it should have been brought derivatively, not directly. Next, he argues that the district court applied the wrong standards in adjudicating MAZ's claim. Finally, he argues that the disgorgement order was beyond the district court's authority and, even if it was not, comprised an abuse of discretion. We deal with these arguments sequentially.[1]
A. Direct and Derivative Actions.
The first skirmish centers on Shear's asseveration that this suit should have been brought derivatively, not directly. The distinction is critically important: shareholders can bring a direct claim for their own benefit, but a derivative claim belongs to the corporation. See Tucci, 70 N.E.3d at 923. This distinction holds even though the law "permits an individual shareholder to bring 'suit to enforce a corporate cause of action against officers, directors, and third parties'" in the form of a derivative action. Kamen v. Kemper Fin. Servs., Inc., 500 U.S. 90, 95 (1991) (emphasis omitted) (quoting Ross v. Bernhard, 396 U.S. 531, 534 (1970)). Derivative suits are subject to special procedural guardrails designed to balance the legitimate exercise of business judgment by corporate decisionmakers, on the one hand, with the oversight function of corporate shareholders, on the other hand. A claim that is brought directly when it should have been brought derivatively is not a claim at all and, hence, is subject to dismissal. See Tucci, 70 N.E.3d at 927.
In diversity jurisdiction, state law supplies the substantive rules of decision. See Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938). Questions of corporate law - including whether a claim is properly classified as derivative or direct - are generally substantive and, thus, governed by state law. See Gasperini v. Ctr. for Humanities, 518 U.S. 415, 427 (1996); Kamen, 500 U.S. at 99. Consistent with PHC's status as a Massachusetts corporation, the parties agree that Massachusetts law controls in this case.
The starting point for our inquiry is, of course, Tucci. There, the SJC clearly articulated, for the first time, the framework for determining which causes of action must be brought derivatively and which can be brought directly.[2] The crux of the inquiry is "whether the harm [that shareholders] claim to have suffered resulted from a breach of duty owed directly to them, or whether the harm claimed was derivative of a breach of duty owed to the corporation." Tucci, 70 N.E.3d at 923. Because a director's fiduciary duties are generally owed only to the corporation, any suit to enforce those duties ordinarily must be brought as a derivative action. See id. at 925-27.
We say "ordinarily" because the Tucci court identified at least two situations in which a director's fiduciary duties are owed to shareholders and can be enforced directly, rather than derivatively. The first of these exceptions involves close corporations, see id. at 926, and is plainly inapposite (PHC stock, after all, was publicly traded, and PHC can by no stretch of even the most lively imagination be considered a close corporation).
The second exception hits closer to home: it involves situations in which a "controlling shareholder who also is a director proposes and implements a self-interested transaction that is to the detriment of minority shareholders." Id. The case at hand requires us to explore the parameters of this exception and decide whether Shear fits within it.
To begin, Shear does not contest the self-interested nature of the corporate transaction that gave rise to the Class B premium. Nor can he gainsay that the jury made a special finding of detriment: the merger was not entirely fair to the Class A shareholders. The question, then, reduces to whether the district court supportably determined that Shear possessed a sufficient degree of control to be considered a controlling shareholder.[3]
Answering this question requires us to delve into matters of first impression: Tucci did not elaborate on the attributes that are necessary to distinguish a controlling shareholder from a non-controlling shareholder. Faced with terra incognito, we must "endeavor to predict how [the state's highest] court would likely decide the question." Butler v. Balolia, 736 F.3d 609, 612-13 (1st Cir. 2013). We are mindful that, when making such an informed prophecy, "[a] federal court should consult the types of sources that the state's highest court would be apt to consult, including analogous opinions of that court, decisions of lower courts in the state, precedents and trends in other jurisdictions, learned treatises, and considerations of sound public policy." Id. at 613.
At the outset, we reject out of hand Shear's insistence upon a bright-line rule that only majority shareholders can be controlling shareholders under Massachusetts law. He offers little to support such a proposition. And while Shear is correct that the SJC sometimes uses terminology reminiscent of the majority shareholder/minority shareholder dichotomy, it has done so only in the abstract or in cases in which those terms accurately describe the relationship between the relevant parties. See, e.g., Tucci, 70 N.E.3d at 923-27; Coggins v. New England Patriots Football Club, Inc., 492 N.E.2d 1112, 1119 (Mass. 1986). The SJC has given no meaningful indication that the employment of such language was meant to be a guiding principle for determining "controller" status in the mine-run of future cases.
A contrary hypothesis is more compelling. The SJC's use of the adjective "controlling" to modify "shareholder" strongly suggests a desire to encompass a category of shareholders broader than majority shareholders. If "controlling shareholder" meant no more than "majority shareholder," there would be no reason at all for the SJC to resort to the "controlling shareholder" parlance. Cf. United States v. Thomas, 429 F.3d 282, 286 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (explaining that a court's obvious choice to use one phrase over ...
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Return to "Currency Wars, or Why You Should Care About the Global Struggle Over the Value of Money"
A 2010 violent protest against austerity measures in Greece, which has been unable re-inflate its economy by devaluing its currency as a member of the euro zone
Source: http://underclassrising.net/
A poster for the 1896 Bryan-Sewall U.S. presidential campaign advocating silver and gold for the country's currency
A sign shows currency exchange rates at an office in Turkey
Source: Yusuf Atalan
Comments: Copyright 2011 Yusuf Atalan. All rights reserved.
An 1896 cartoon depicting William Jennings Bryan's declaration that mankind would not be 'crucified on a cross of gold'
An American gold certificate from the 1920s
Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega, who claimed that an 'international currency war' had broken out
Source: Agencia Brasil
China's currency, the renminbi
Currency from Virginia, issued during the American Revolutionary War
Exchanging Turkish lira for dollars at an exchange office in Turkey
German hyperinflation after World War I
Source: Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 102-00238
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (left) and U.S. Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner at a 2009 G7 meeting
Source: IMF
Leaders at the G20 Summit in Seoul, where the United States unsuccessfully sought to pressure China on the the value of its currency (November 2010)
Source: Presidencia de la Nacion Argentina
The book cover of Ron Paul's book advocating an end to the U.S. Federal Reserve
Source: Hachette Book Group
The Federal Reserve, Washington, D.C.
Source: Wikimedia Commons/Dan Smith
The Mount Washington Hotel, where the Bretton Woods agreement establishing a “new international monetary order” based on the U.S. dollar was signed in 1944
Source: Sven Klippel
The symbol for Europe's shared currency, the Euro, in front of the European Central Bank, Frankfurt, Germany
The U.S. dollar, which has enjoyed the 'exorbitant privilege' of being the world's default currency
Source: Marco Calderon
Comments: Copyright 2010 Marco Calderon. All rights reserved.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
William McKinley's 1900 presidential campaign advocating the gold standard
World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who recently sparked controversy by seeming to call for a modified gold standard
Should Age Matter? How 65 Came to Be Old and Old Came to Be Ill
American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century
by Kevin Phillips
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Iso 3166-1:la
Title: Iso 3166-1:la
Subject: List of postal codes, List of tz database time zones
This article is about the country. For other uses, see Laos (disambiguation).
ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ
Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao
Flag Emblem
Motto: ສັນຕິພາບ ເອກະລາດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ເອກະພາບ ວັດທະນາຖາວອນ
"Peace, independence, democracy, unity and prosperity"
Anthem: File:National Anthem of Laos.ogg
and largest city Vientiane
17°58′N 102°36′E / 17.967°N 102.600°E / 17.967; 102.600
Official scripts
Lao script
Ethnic groups (2005)
55% Lao
11% Khmu
8% Hmong
26% othersa
Demonym
Marxist–Leninist single-party state[b]
- President Choummaly Sayasone
- Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong
- General Secretary
(Party) Choummaly Sayasone
- President of the
National Assembly Pany Yathotu
- President of
Construction Sisavath Keobounphanh
Independence from France
- Autonomy 19 July 1949
- Declared 22 October 1953
- Total 236,800 km2 (84th)
91,428.991 sq mi
- Water (%) 2
- 2012 estimate 6,500,000[1] (104th)
- 1995 census 4,574,848
- Density 26.7/km2 (177th)
69.2/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2012 estimate
- Total $19.158 billion[2]
- Per capita $3,004[2]
GDP (nominal) 2012 estimate
- Total $9.269 billion[2]
Gini (2008) 36.7[3]
HDI (2013) 0.543[4]
Kip (LAK)
(UTC+7)
a. Including over 100 smaller ethnic groups.
You may need rendering support to display the Lao text in this article correctly.
Laos ((
Laos traces its history to the kingdom of Lan Xang, which existed from the 14th to the 18th century when it split into three separate kingdoms. In 1893, it became a French protectorate, with the three kingdoms, Luang Phrabang, Vientiane and Champasak, uniting to form what is now known as Laos. It briefly gained independence in 1945 after Japanese occupation, but returned to French rule until it was granted autonomy in 1949. Laos became independent in 1953, with a constitutional monarchy under Sisavang Vong. Shortly after independence, a long civil war ended the monarchy, when the Communist Pathet Lao movement came to power in 1975.
Laos is a single-party socialist republic. It espouses Marxism and is governed by a single party communist politburo dominated by military generals. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Vietnam People's Army continue to have significant influence in Laos. The capital city is Vientiane. Other large cities include Luang Prabang, Savannakhet, and Pakse. The official language is Lao. Laos is a multi-ethnic country with the politically and culturally dominant Lao people making up approximately 60% of the population, mostly in the lowlands. Various Mon-Khmer groups, the Hmong, and other indigenous hill tribes, accounting for 40% of the population, live in the foothills and mountains. Laos' "strategy for development is based on generating electricity from its rivers and selling the power to its neighbors", namely Thailand, China, and Vietnam.[9] Its economy is accelerating rapidly with the demands for its metals.[10] It is a member of the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), East Asia Summit and La Francophonie. Laos applied for membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1997, and on 2 February 2013, it was granted full membership.[11]
2.1 Prehistory
2.2 Lan Xang
2.3 French Laos
2.4 Independence
3.1 Administrative divisions
3.2 Environmental problems
4.1 Infrastructure
4.3 Hmong conflict
4.4 Human rights
5.1 Tourism
6.1 Ethnicity
6.1.1 Lao Loum (lowland people)
6.1.2 Lao Theung (midland people)
6.1.3 Lao Soung (highland people)
6.1.4 Leaders of ethnic minorities in Laos
In the Lao language, the country's name is "Muang Lao" (ເມືອງລາວ) or "Pathet Lao" (ປະເທດລາວ), both of which literally mean "Lao Country".[12] The French, who united the three separate Lao kingdoms in French Indochina in 1893, named the country as the plural of the dominant and most common ethnic group (in French, the final "s" at the end of a word is usually silent, thus it would be also be pronounced "Lao").[13]
Main article: History of Laos
In 2009 an ancient skull was recovered from a cave in the Annamite Mountains in northern Laos; the skull is at least 46,000 years old, making it the oldest modern human fossil found to date in Southeast Asia.[14] Archaeological evidence suggests agriculturist society developed during the 4th millennium BC. Burial jars and other kinds of sepulchers suggest a complex society in which bronze objects appeared around 1500 BC, and iron tools were known from 700 BC. The proto-historic period is characterized by contact with Chinese and Indian civilizations. From the fourth to the eighth century, communities along the Mekong River began to form into townships called muang.[15]
Lan Xang
Main article: Lan Xang
Laos traces its history to the kingdom of Lan Xang (Million Elephants), founded in the 14th century, by a Lao prince Fa Ngum, who with 10,000 Khmer troops, took over Vientiane. Ngum was descended from a long line of Lao kings, tracing back to Khoun Boulom. He made Theravada Buddhism the state religion and Lan Xang prospered. Within 20 years of its formation, the kingdom expanded eastward to Champa and along the Annamite mountains in Vietnam. His ministers, unable to tolerate his ruthlessness, forced him into exile to the present-day Thai province of Nan in 1373,[16] where he died. Fa Ngum's eldest son, Oun Heuan, came to the throne under the name Samsenthai and reigned for 43 years. During his reign, Lan Xang became an important trade centre. After his death in 1421, Lan Xang collapsed into warring factions for the next 100 years.
In 1520, Photisarath came to the throne and moved the capital from Luang Prabang to Vientiane to avoid a Burmese invasion. Setthathirat became king in 1548, after his father was killed, and ordered the construction of what would become the symbol of Laos, That Luang. Setthathirat disappeared in the mountains on his way back from a military expedition into Cambodia and Lan Xang began to rapidly decline. It was not until 1637, when Sourigna Vongsa ascended the throne, that Lan Xang would further expand its frontiers. His reign is often regarded as Laos's golden age. When he died, leaving Lan Xang without an heir, the kingdom divided into three principalities. Between 1763 and 1769, Burmese armies overran northern Laos and annexed Luang Phrabang, while Champasak eventually came under Siamese suzerainty.
Chao Anouvong was installed as a vassal king of Vientiane by the Siamese. He encouraged a renaissance of Lao fine arts and literature and improved relations with Luang Phrabang. Under Vietnamese pressure, he rebelled against the Siamese. The rebellion failed and Vientiane was ransacked.[17] Anouvong was taken to Bangkok as a prisoner, where he died.
A Siamese military campaign in Laos in 1876 was described by a British observer as having been "transformed into slave-hunting raids on a large scale".[18]
French Laos
In the late 19th century, Luang Prabang was ransacked by the Chinese Black Flag Army.[19] France rescued King Oun Kham and added Luang Phrabang to the 'Protectorate' of French Indochina. Shortly after, the Kingdom of Champasak and the territory of Vientiane were also added to the protectorate. King Sisavang Vong of Luang Phrabang became ruler of a unified Laos and Vientiane once again became the capital. Laos never had any importance for France[20] other than as a buffer state between British-influenced Thailand and the more economically important Annam and Tonkin. During their rule, the French introduced the corvee, a system that forced every male Lao to contribute 10 days of manual labour per year to the colonial government. Laos produced tin, rubber, and coffee, but never accounted for more than 1% of French Indochina's exports. By 1940, only 600 French citizens lived in Laos.[21]
Following a brief Japanese occupation during World War II, the country declared its independence on 12 October 1945, but the French under Charles de Gaulle re-asserted control. In 1950 Laos was granted semi-autonomy as an "associated state" within the French Union. France remained in de facto control until 22 October 1953, when Laos gained full independence as a constitutional monarchy.
Main articles: Kingdom of Laos and Laotian Civil War
In 1955, the U.S. Department of Defense created a special Programs Evaluation Office to replace French support of the Royal Lao Army against the communist Pathet Lao as part of the U.S. containment policy.
In 1960, amidst a series of rebellions, fighting broke out between the Royal Lao Army and the Pathet Lao. A second Provisional Government of National Unity formed by Prince Souvanna Phouma in 1962 proved to be unsuccessful, and the situation steadily deteriorated into large scale civil war between the Royal Laotian government and the Pathet Lao. The Pathet Lao were backed militarily by the NVA and Vietcong.
Laos was also dragged into the Vietnam War since parts of Laos were invaded and occupied by North Vietnam for use as a supply route for its war against the South. In response, the United States initiated a bombing campaign against the North Vietnamese positions, supported regular and irregular anticommunist forces in Laos and supported South Vietnamese incursions into Laos.
In 1968 the North Vietnamese Army launched a multi-division attack to help the Pathet Lao to fight the Royal Lao Army. The attack resulted in the army largely demobilizing, leaving the conflict to irregular forces raised by the United States and Thailand.
Massive aerial bombardment against Pathet Lao and invading NVA communist forces was carried out by the United States to prevent the collapse of Laos' central government, the Royal Kingdom of Laos, and to prevent the use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to attack U.S. forces in South Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam. As of 2008, Laos is the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in the world. An average of one B-52 bomb-load was dropped on Laos every eight minutes, 24-hours-a-day, between 1964 and 1973.[22] Due to the particularly heavily impact of cluster bombs during this war, Laos was a strong advocate of the Convention on Cluster Munitions to ban the weapons and assist victims, and hosted the First Meeting of States Parties to the convention in November 2010.[23]
In 1975 the Pathet Lao, along with the Vietnam People's Army and backed by the Soviet Union, overthrew the royalist Lao government, forcing King Savang Vatthana to abdicate on 2 December 1975. He later died in captivity. Between 20,000 and 70,000 Laotians died during the Civil War.[24][25][26][27]
On 2 December 1975, after taking control of the country, the Pathet Lao government under Kaysone Phomvihane renamed the country as the Lao People's Democratic Republic and signed agreements giving Vietnam the right to station armed forces and to appoint advisers to assist in overseeing the country. Laos was requested in 1979 by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to end relations with the People's Republic of China, leading to isolation in trade by China, the United States, and other countries.
The conflict between Hmong rebels and the Vietnam People's Army of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), as well as the SRV-backed Pathet Lao continued in various pockets in key areas of Laos, including in Saysaboune Closed Military Zone (Xaisamboune Closed Military Zone near Vientiane Province and Xieng Khouang Province. The government of Laos has been accused of committing genocide, human rights and religious freedom violations against the Hmong in collaboration with the Vietnamese army,[28][29][30] with up to 100,000 killed out of a population of 400,000.[31][32] From 1975 to 1996, the United States resettled some 250,000 Lao refugees from Thailand, including 130,000 Hmong.[33] (See: Indochina refugee crisis)
Main article: Geography of Laos
Laos is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia, and it lies mostly between latitudes 14° and 23°N (a small area is south of 14°), and longitudes 100° and 108°E. Its thickly forested landscape consists mostly of rugged mountains, the highest of which is Phou Bia at 2,818 metres (9,245 ft), with some plains and plateaus. The Mekong River forms a large part of the western boundary with Thailand, whereas the mountains of the Annamite Range form most of the eastern border with Vietnam and the Luang Prabang Range the northwestern border with the Thai highlands. There are two plateaux, the Xiangkhoang in the north and the Bolaven Plateau at the southern end. The climate is tropical and influenced by the monsoon pattern.[34]
There is a distinct rainy season from May to November, followed by a dry season from December to April. Local tradition holds that there are three seasons (rainy, cold and hot) as the latter two months of the climatologically defined dry season are noticeably hotter than the earlier four months. The capital and largest city of Laos is Vientiane and other major cities include Luang Prabang, Savannakhet, and Pakse.
In 1993 the Laos government set aside 21% of the nation's land area for habitat conservation preservation.[35] The country is one of four in the opium poppy growing region known as the "Golden Triangle". According to the October 2007 UNODC fact book Opium Poppy Cultivation in South East Asia, the poppy cultivation area was 15 square kilometres (5.8 sq mi), down from 18 square kilometres (6.9 sq mi) in 2006.
Laos can be considered to consist of three geographical areas: north, central, and south.[36]
Main articles: Provinces of Laos and Districts of Laos
Laos is divided into 16 provinces (khoueng) and one prefecture (kampheng nakhon) which includes the capital city Vientiane (Nakhon Louang Viangchan). Provinces are further divided into districts (muang) and then villages (ban). An 'urban' village is essentially a town.[36]
1 Attapeu Attapeu (Samakkhixay District) 10,320 114,300
2 Bokeo Ban Houayxay (Houayxay District) 6,196 149,700
3 Bolikhamsai Paksan (Paksane District) 14,863 214,900
4 Champasak Pakse (Pakse District) 15,415 575,600
5 Hua Phan Xam Neua (Xamneua District) 16,500 322,200
6 Khammouane Thakhek (Thakhek District) 16,315 358,800
7 Luang Namtha Luang Namtha (Namtha District) 9,325 150,100
8 Luang Prabang Luang Prabang (Louangprabang District) 16,875 408,800
9 Oudomxay Muang Xay (Xay District) 15,370 275,300
10 Phongsali Phongsali (Phongsaly District) 16,270 199,900
11 Sayabouly Sayabouly (Xayabury District) 16,389 382,200
12 Salavan Salavan (Salavan District) 10,691 336,600
13 Savannakhet Savannakhet (Khanthabouly District) 21,774 721,500
14 Sekong Sekong (Lamarm District) 7,665 83,600
15 Vientiane Capi. Vientiane City 3,920 726,000
16 Vientiane Prov. Phonhong (Phonhong District) 15,927 373,700
17 Xieng Khouang Phonsavan (Pek District) 15,880 229,521
A clickable map of Laos exhibiting its provinces and prefecture.
Laos is increasingly suffering from environmental problems, with deforestation a particularly significant issue,[37] as expanding commercial exploitation of the forests, plans for additional hydroelectric facilities, foreign demand for wild animals and nonwood forest products for food and traditional medicines, and a growing population all create increasing pressure.
The United Nations Development Programme warns that: "Protecting the environment and sustainable use of natural resources in Lao PDR is vital for poverty reduction and economic growth."[38]
In April 2011, The Independent newspaper reported that Laos had started work on the controversial Xayaburi Dam on the Mekong River without getting formal approval. Environmentalists say the dam will adversely affect 60 million people and Cambodia and Vietnam—concerned about the flow of water further downstream—are officially opposed to the project. The Mekong River Commission, a regional intergovernmental body designed to promote the "sustainable management" of the river, famed for its giant catfish, carried out a study that warned if Xayaburi and subsequent schemes went ahead, it would "fundamentally undermine the abundance, productivity and diversity of the Mekong fish resources".[39] Neighbouring Vietnam warned that the dam would harm the Mekong Delta, which is the home to nearly 20 million people and supplies around 50% of Vietnam's rice output and over 70% of both its seafood and fruit outputs.[40]
Milton Osborne, Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy who has written widely on the Mekong, warns: "The future scenario is of the Mekong ceasing to be a bounteous source of fish and guarantor of agricultural richness, with the great river below China becoming little more than a series of unproductive lakes." [41]
Illegal logging is also a major problem. Environmental groups estimate that 500,000 cubic metres (18,000,000 cu ft) of logs find their way from Laos to Vietnam every year, with most of the furniture eventually exported to western countries.[42]
A 1992 government survey indicated that forests occupied about 48% of Laos' land area. Forest coverage decreased to 41% in a 2002 survey. Lao authorities have said that, in reality, forest coverage might be no more than 35% because of various development projects such as dams, on top of the losses to illegal logging.[43]
Main articles: Politics of Laos and Foreign relations of Laos
The Lao People's Democratic Republic, along with China, Cuba, and Vietnam, is one of the world's four remaining socialist states that officially identify as "communist". The only legal political party is the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP). The head of state is President Choummaly Sayasone, who is also the General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party. The head of government is Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong, who is also a senior member of the Politburo. Government policies are determined by the party through the all-powerful eleven-member Politburo of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and the 61-member Central Committee of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party. Important government decisions are vetted by the Council of Ministers. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam maintains significant influence over the Politburo of Laos and the one-party communist state apparatus and military.
Laos's first, French-written and monarchical constitution was promulgated on 11 May 1947, and declared Laos to be an independent state within the French Union. The revised constitution of 11 May 1957 omitted reference to the French Union, though close educational, health and technical ties with the former colonial power persisted. The 1957 document was abrogated on 3 December 1975, when a communist People's Republic was proclaimed. A new constitution was adopted in 1991 and enshrined a "leading role" for the LPRP. In 1990, deputy minister for science & technology Thongsouk Saysangkhi resigned from the government and party, calling for political reform. He died in captivity in 1998.[44]
In 1992 elections were held for a new 85-seat National Assembly with members, nominated by the one-party communist government, elected by secret ballot to five-year terms. The elections were widely disputed and questioned by Laotian and Hmong opposition and dissident groups abroad and in Laos and Thailand. This National Assembly, which essentially acts as a rubber stamp for the LPRP, approves all new laws, although the executive branch retains authority to issue binding decrees. The most recent elections took place in April 2011. The assembly was expanded to 99 members in 1997, to 115 members in 2006 and finally to 132 members during the 2011 elections.
Main articles: Transport in Laos and Telecommunications in Laos
The main international airports are Vientiane's Wattay International Airport and Luang Prabang International Airport with Pakse International Airport also having a few international flights. The national airline is Lao Airlines. Other carriers serving the country include Bangkok Airways, Vietnam Airlines, AirAsia, Thai Airways International, and China Eastern Airlines.
Much of the country lacks adequate infrastructure. Laos has no railways, except a short link to connect Vientiane with Thailand over the Thai–Lao Friendship Bridge. A short portage railway, the Don Det – Don Khon narrow gauge railway was built by the French in Champasak Province but has been closed since the 1940s. In the late 1920s, work began on the Thakhek–Tan Ap railway that would have run between Thakhek, Khammouane Province and Tân Ấp Railway Station, Quảng Bình Province, Vietnam through the Mụ Giạ Pass. However, the scheme was aborted in the 1930s. The major roads connecting the major urban centres, in particular Route 13, have been significantly upgraded in recent years, but villages far from major roads can be reached only through unpaved roads that may not be accessible year-round.
There is limited external and internal telecommunication, but mobile phones have become widespread in urban centres. In many rural areas electricity is at least partly available. Songthaews (pick-up trucks with benches) are used in the country for long-distance and local public transport.
Laos has made particularly noteworthy progress increasing access to sanitation and has already met its 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target.[45] Laos' predominantly rural (68%, source: Department of Statistics, Ministry of Planning and Investment, 2009) population makes investing in sanitation difficult. In 1990 only 8% of the rural population had access to improved sanitation.[45] Access rose rapidly from 10% in 1995 to 38% in 2008. Between 1995 and 2008 approximately 1,232,900 more people had access to improved sanitation in rural areas.[45] Laos' progress is notable in comparison to similar developing countries.[45] This success is in part due to small-scale independent providers emerging in a spontaneous manner or having been promoted by public authorities. Laotian authorities have recently developed an innovative regulatory framework for Public-Private partnership contracts signed with small enterprises, in parallel with more conventional regulation of State-owned water enterprises.[46]
Main article: Lao People's Army
The Lao People's Armed Forces (LPAF) is small, poorly funded, and ineffectively resourced; its mission focus is border and internal security, primarily in countering ethnic Hmong insurgent and opposition groups; with the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and the government, the Lao People's Army (LPA) is the third pillar of state machinery and, as such, is expected to suppress political and civil unrest and similar national emergencies. The LPA also has upgraded skills to respond to avian influenza outbreaks; there is no perceived external threat to the state and the LPA maintains strong ties with the neighbouring Vietnamese military (2008).
The army of 130,000 is equipped with 25 main battle tanks. The army marine section, equipped with 16 patrol crafts, has 600 personnel. The air force, with 3,500 personnel, is equipped with anti-aircraft missiles and 24 combat aircraft. Militia self-defence forces number approximately 100,000 organized for local defence. The small arms used by the army include the Soviet AKM assault rifle, PKM machine gun, Makarov PM pistol, and RPD light machine gun.
From its founding, until the present, the LPA receives significant support, training, advisers, troop support and assistance from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Vietnam People's Army.
Hmong conflict
The government of Laos has been accused of committing human rights violations and genocide against that country’s Hmong ethnic minority.[29]
Some Hmong groups fought as CIA-backed units on the Royalist side in the Laos civil war. After the Pathet Lao took over the country in 1975, the conflict continued in isolated pockets. In 1977, a communist newspaper promised the party would hunt down the “American collaborators” and their families “to the last root”.[47]
As many as 200,000 Hmong went into exile in Thailand, with many ending up in the USA. A number of Hmong fighters hid out in mountains in Xiangkhouang Province for many years, with a remnant emerging from the jungle in 2003.[47]
In 1989, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with the support of the United States government, instituted the Comprehensive Plan of Action, a programme to stem the tide of Indochinese refugees from Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Under the plan, the status of the refugees was to be evaluated through a screening process. Recognized asylum seekers were to be given resettlement opportunities, while the remaining refugees were to be repatriated under guarantee of safety.
After talks with the UNHCR and the Thai government, Laos agreed to repatriate the 60,000 Lao refugees living in Thailand, including several thousand Hmong people. Very few of the Lao refugees, however, were willing to return voluntarily.[48] Pressure to resettle the refugees grew as the Thai government worked to close its remaining refugee camps. While some Hmong people returned to Laos voluntarily, with development assistance from UNHCR, allegations of forced repatriation surfaced.[49] Of those Hmong who did return to Laos, some quickly escaped back to Thailand, describing discrimination and brutal treatment at the hands of Lao authorities.[50]
In 1993, Vue Mai, a former Hmong soldier who had been recruited by the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok to return to Laos as proof of the repatriation programme's success, disappeared in Vientiane. According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees, he was arrested by Lao security forces and was never seen again.
Following the Vue Mai incident, debate over the Hmong's planned repatriation to Laos intensified greatly, especially in the United States, where it drew strong opposition from many American conservatives and some human rights advocates. In a 23 October 1995 National Review article, Michael Johns, the former Heritage Foundation foreign policy expert and Republican White House aide, labelled the Hmong's repatriation a Clinton administration "betrayal", describing the Hmong as a people "who have spilled their blood in defense of American geopolitical interests."[51] Debate on the issue escalated quickly. In an effort to halt the planned repatriation, the Republican-led U.S. Senate and House of Representatives both appropriated funds for the remaining Thailand-based Hmong to be immediately resettled in the United States; Clinton, however, responded by promising a veto of the legislation.
In their opposition of the repatriation plans, both Democrat and Republican Members of Congress also challenged the Clinton administration's position that the Laotian government was not systematically violating Hmong human rights. U.S. Representative Steve Gunderson (R-WI), for instance, told a Hmong gathering: "I do not enjoy standing up and saying to my government that you are not telling the truth, but if that is necessary to defend truth and justice, I will do that."[51] Republicans also called several Congressional hearings on alleged persecution of the Hmong in Laos in an apparent attempt to generate further support for their opposition to the Hmong's repatriation to Laos. Democratic Congressman Bruce Vento, Senator Paul Wellstone, Dana Rohrabacher and others also raised concerns.
Although some accusations of forced repatriation were denied,[52] thousands of Hmong people refused to return to Laos. In 1996 as the deadline for the closure of Thai refugee camps approached, and under mounting political pressure, the United States agreed to resettle Hmong refugees who passed a new screening process.[53] Around 5,000 Hmong people who were not resettled at the time of the camp closures sought asylum at Wat Tham Krabok, a Buddhist monastery in central Thailand where more than 10,000 Hmong refugees had already been living. The Thai government attempted to repatriate these refugees, but the Wat Tham Krabok Hmong refused to leave and the Lao government refused to accept them, claiming they were involved in the illegal drug trade and were of non-Lao origin.[54]
Following threats of forcible removal by the Thai government, the United States, in a significant victory for the Hmong, agreed to accept 15,000 of the refugees in 2003.[55] Several thousand Hmong people, fearing forced repatriation to Laos if they were not accepted for resettlement in the United States, fled the camp to live elsewhere within Thailand where a sizable Hmong population has been present since the 19th century.[56]
In 2004 and 2005, thousands of Hmong fled from the jungles of Laos to a temporary refugee camp in the Thai province of Phetchabun.[57] These Hmong refugees, many of whom are descendants of the former-CIA Secret Army and their relatives, claim that they have been attacked by both the Lao and Vietnamese military forces operating inside Laos as recently as June 2006. The refugees claim that attacks against them have continued almost unabated since the war officially ended in 1975, and have become more intense in recent years.
Lending further support to earlier claims that the government of Laos was persecuting the Hmong, filmmaker Rebecca Sommer documented first-hand accounts in her documentary, Hunted Like Animals,[58] and in a comprehensive report which includes summaries of claims made by the refugees and was submitted to the UN in May 2006.[59]
The European Union,[60] UNHCHR, and international groups have since spoken out about the forced repatriation.[60][61][62][63] The Thai foreign ministry has said that it will halt deportation of Hmong refugees held in Detention Centres Nong Khai, while talks are underway to resettle them in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States.[64]
For the time being, countries willing to resettle the refugees are hindered to proceed with immigration and settlement procedures because the Thai administration does not grant them access to the refugees. Plans to resettle additional Hmong refugees in the United States have been complicated by provisions of President George W. Bush's Patriot Act and Real ID Act, under which Hmong veterans of the Secret War, who fought on the side of the United States, are classified as terrorists because of their historical involvement in armed conflict.
On 27 December 2009, the New York Times reported that the Thai military was preparing to forcibly return 4,000 Hmong asylum seekers to Laos by the end of the year:[65] the BBC later reported that repatriations had started.[66] Both United States and United Nations officials have protested this action. Outside government representatives have not been allowed to interview this group over the last three years. Médecins Sans Frontières has refused to assist the Hmong refugees because of what they have called "increasingly restrictive measures" taken by the Thai military.[67] The Thai military jammed all cellular phone reception and disallowed any foreign journalists from the Hmong camps.[66]
Main article: Human rights in Laos
The Constitution that was promulgated in 1991 and amended in 2003 contains most key safeguards for human rights. For example, Article 8 makes it clear that Laos is a multiethnic state and is committed to equality between ethnic groups. The Constitution also has provisions for gender equality and freedom of religion, for freedom of speech, press and assembly. On 25 September 2009, Laos ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, nine years after signing the treaty. The stated policy objectives of both the Lao government and international donors remain focused toward achieving sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction.[68][69] The government of Laos, however, frequently does not abide by its own constitution and the rule of law, since the judiciary and judges are appointed by the communist party in Laos, and there is no independent judicial branch. Human rights violations remain serious according to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The Centre for Public Policy Analysis and other independent human rights organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
However, Amnesty International has raised concerns about the ratification record of the Laos Government on human rights standards and its lack of cooperation with the UN human rights mechanisms and legislative measures which impact negatively on human rights. It has also raised concerns in relation to freedom of expression, poor prison conditions, restrictions on freedom of religions, protection of refugees and asylum-seekers and the death penalty.[70]
In October 1999, 30 young people were arrested for attempting to display posters calling for peaceful economic, political and social change in Laos. Five of them were arrested and subsequently sentenced to up to 10 years imprisonment on charges of treason. One has since died due to his treatment by prison guards, while one has been released. The surviving three men should have been released by October 2009, but their whereabouts remains unknown.[70]
Laos and Vietnamese (SRV) troops were reported to have raped and killed four Christian Hmong women in Xieng Khouang province in 2011, according to the US and Southeast-based non-governmental public policy research organization The Centre for Public Policy Analysis. CPPA also said other Christian and independent Buddhist and animist believers were being persecuted.[71][72]
The Centre for Public Policy Analysis, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the Lao Veterans of America, Inc. and other non-governmental organizations (NGO)s have reported egregious human rights violations, religious persecution, the arrest and imprisonment of political and religious dissidents as well as extrajudicial killings, in Laos by government military and security forces.[28] Human rights advocates including Vang Pobzeb, Kerry and Kay Danes and others have also raised concerns about human rights violations, torture, the arrest and detention of political prisoners as well as the detention of foreign prisoners in Laos including at the infamous Phonthong Prison in Vientiane. Concerns have also been raised about the high-profile abduction of Laotian civic activist Sombath Somphone in Laos by Lao security forces and police in December 2012.
Main article: Economy of Laos
The Lao economy depends heavily on investment and trade with its neighbours, Thailand, Vietnam, and, especially in the north, China. Pakxe has also experienced growth based on cross-border trade with Thailand and Vietnam. In 2011, the Lao Securities Exchange began trading. In 2012, the government initiated the creation of the Laos Trade Portal, a website incorporating all information traders need to import and export goods into the country.
Subsistence agriculture still accounts for half of the GDP and provides 80% of employment. Only 4.01% of the country is arable land, and a mere 0.34% used as permanent crop land,[73] the lowest percentage in the Greater Mekong Subregion.[74] Rice dominates agriculture, with about 80% of the arable land area used for growing rice.[75] Approximately 77% of Lao farm households are self-sufficient in rice.[76]
Through the development, release and widespread adoption of improved rice varieties, and through economic reforms, production has increased by an annual rate of 5% between 1990 and 2005,[77] and Lao PDR achieved a net balance of rice imports and exports for the first time in 1999.[78] Lao PDR may have the greatest number of rice varieties in the Greater Mekong Subregion. Since 1995 the Lao government has been working with the International Rice Research Institute of the Philippines to collect seed samples of each of the thousands of rice varieties found in Laos.[79]
The economy receives development aid from the IMF, ADB, and other international sources; and also foreign direct investment for development of the society, industry, hydropower and mining (most notably of copper and gold). Tourism is the fastest-growing industry in the country. Economic development in Laos has been hampered by brain drain, with a skilled emigration rate of 37.4% in 2000.[80]
Laos is rich in mineral resources and imports petroleum and gas. Metallurgy is an important industry, and the government hopes to attract foreign investment to develop the substantial deposits of coal, gold, bauxite, tin, copper, and other valuable metals. In addition, the country's plentiful water resources and mountainous terrain enable it to produce and export large quantities of hydroelectric energy. Of the potential capacity of approximately 18,000 megawatts, around 8,000 megawatts have been committed for exporting to Thailand and Vietnam.[81]
The country's most widely recognised product may well be Beerlao which is exported to a number of countries including neighbours Cambodia and Vietnam. It is produced by the Lao Brewery Company.
Main article: Tourism in Laos
The tourism sector has grown rapidly, from 80,000 international visitors in 1990, to 1.876 million in 2010.[82] Tourism is expected to contribute US$679.1 million to gross national product in 2010, rising to US$1.5857 billion by 2020. In 2010, one in every 10.9 jobs was in the tourism sector. Export earnings from international visitors and tourism goods are expected to generate 15.5% of total exports or US$270.3 million in 2010, growing in nominal terms to US$484.2 million (12.5% of total) in 2020.[83]
Laos has become popular with tourists for its relaxed style of living and for retaining elements of the "original Asia" lost elsewhere. The official tourism slogan is "Simply Beautiful". The main attractions for tourists include Buddhist culture and colonial architecture in Luang Prabang; gastronomy and ancient temples in the capital of Vientiane; backpacking in Muang Ngoi Neua and Vang Vieng; ancient and modern culture and history in The Plain of Jars region (main article: Phonsavan); Laos Civil War history in Sam Neua; trekking and visiting hill tribes in a number of areas including Phongsaly and Luang Namtha; spotting tigers and other wildlife in Nam Et-Phou Louey; caves and waterfalls near Thakhek; relaxation, the Irrawaddy dolphin and Khone Phapheng Falls at Si Phan Don or, as they are known in English, the Four Thousand Islands; Wat Phu, an ancient Khmer temple complex; and the Bolaven Plateau for waterfalls and coffee.
Luang Prabang and Wat Phu are both UNESCO World Heritage sites, with the Plain of Jars expected to join them once more work to clear UXO has been completed. Major festivals include Laos New Year which is celebrated around 13–15 April and involves a water festival similar but more subdued than that of Thailand and other South-East Asian countries.
The Lao National Tourism Administration, related government agencies and the private sector are working together to realise the vision put forth in the country's National Ecotourism Strategy and Action Plan. This includes decreasing the environmental and cultural impact of tourism; increasing awareness in the importance of ethnic groups and biological diversity; providing a source of income to conserve, sustain and manage the Lao protected area network and cultural heritage sites; and emphasising the need for tourism zoning and management plans for sites that will be developed as FruitFriends is a non-profit organisation promoting tourism through immersion programmes and this with minimal impact on environment and culture.
Laos is known for its silk and local handicraft product, both of which are on display in Luang Prabang's night market, among other places. Another speciality is mulberry tea.
Main article: Demographics of Laos
The term "Laotian" does not necessarily refer to the Lao language, ethnic Lao people, language or customs, but is a political term that also includes the non-ethnic Lao groups within Laos and identifies them as "Laotian" because of their political citizenship. Laos has the youngest population of any country in Asia with a median age of 21.6 years.
Laos' population was estimated at 6.5 million in 2012, dispersed unevenly across the country. Most people live in valleys of the Mekong River and its tributaries. Vientiane prefecture, the capital and largest city, had about 740,010 residents in 2008. The country's population density was 27/km2.[1]
Main article: Lao people
The people of Laos are often considered by their altitudinal distribution (lowlands, midlands and highlands) as this approximates ethnic groups.
Lao Loum (lowland people)
60% of the country's people are ethnic Lao, the principal lowland inhabitants and the politically and culturally dominant group. The Lao belong to the Tai linguistic group who began migrating southward from China in the first millennium AD. 10% belong to other "lowland" groups, which together with the Lao people make up the Lao Loum.
Lao Theung (midland people)
In the central and southern mountains, Mon-Khmer tribes, known as Lao Theung or mid-slope Laotians, predominate. Other terms are Khmu, Khamu (Kammu) or Kha as the Lao Loum refer to them as indicating their Austroasiatic origins. However the latter is considered pejorative, meaning 'slave'. They were the indigenous inhabitants of northern Laos. Some Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai minorities remain, particularly in the towns, but many left after independence in the late 1940s, many of whom relocated either to Vietnam, Hong Kong, or to France. Lao Theung constitute about 30% of the population.[85]
Lao Soung (highland people)
Hill people and minority cultures of Laos such as the Hmong, Yao (Mien), Dao, Shan, and several Tibeto-Burman speaking peoples have lived in isolated regions of Laos for many years. Mountain/hill tribes of mixed ethno/cultural-linguistic heritage are found in northern Laos which include the Lua and Khmu people who are indigenous to Laos. Today, the Lua people are considered endangered. Collectively, they are known as Lao Soung or highland Laotians. Lao Soung account for only about 10% of the population.[86]
Leaders of ethnic minorities in Laos
Ong Keo
Ong Kommandam
Pa Chay Vue
The official and dominant language is Lao, a tonal language of the Tai linguistic group. However only slightly more than half of the population can speak Lao, the remainder speaking various ethnic minority languages, particularly in rural areas. The written language is based on Khmer writing script. Languages like Khmu and Hmong are spoken by minorities, particularly in the midland and highland areas.
French is still commonly used in government and commerce and over a third of Laos' students are educated through the medium of French with French being compulsory for all other students. Throughout the country signage is bilingual in Laotian and French, with French being predominant. English, the language of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has become increasingly studied in recent years.[87]
Main article: Health in Laos
Male life expectancy at birth was at 60.85 and female life expectancy was at 64.76 in 2012.[88] Healthy life expectancy was at 54 in 2007.[89] In 2008, 43% of the population did not have access to an improved water resource, by 2010 this had been reduced to 33% of the population.[88] Government expenditure on health is at about 4% of the GDP.[89] Its amount was at US$ 18 (PPP) in 2006.[89]
Main article: Religion in Laos
Of the people of Laos 67% are Theravada Buddhist, 1.5% are Christian, and 31.5% are other or unspecified according to the 2005 census.[88] Buddhism has long been one of the most important social forces in Laos.
Theravada Buddhism coexists peacefully with the spirit worship and animism practiced among the mountain tribes.
Main article: Education in Laos
The adult literacy rate exceeds two thirds.[90] The male literacy rate exceeds the female literacy rate.[89] In 2004 the net primary enrolment rate was at 84%.[89] The National University of Laos is the Laos state's public university. The total literacy rate is 73% (2010 estimate).
Main article: Culture of Laos
Theravada Buddhism is a dominant influence in Lao culture. It is reflected throughout the country from language to the temple and in art, literature, performing arts, etc. Many elements of Lao culture predate Buddhism, however. For example, Laotian music is dominated by its national instrument, the khaen, a type of bamboo pipe that has prehistoric origins. The khaen traditionally accompanied the singer in lam, the dominant style of folk music. Among the various lam styles, the lam saravane is probably the most popular.
Sticky Rice is a characteristic staple food and has cultural and religious significance to the Lao people. Sticky rice is generally preferred over jasmine rice, and sticky rice cultivation and production is thought to have originated in Laos. There are many traditions and rituals associated with rice production in different environments, and among many ethnic groups. For example, Khammu farmers in Luang Prabang plant the rice variety Khao Kam in small quantities near the hut in memory of dead parents, or at the edge of the rice field to indicate that parents are still alive.[91]
Sinh is a traditional garment worn by Laotian women in daily life. It is a hand-woven silk skirt which can identify the woman who wears it in a variety of ways. In particular, it can indicate which region the wearer is from.
Polygamy is officially a crime in Laos, though the penalty is minor. The constitution and Family Code bars the legal recognition of polygamous marriages, stipulating that monogamy is to be the principal way to contract a marriage in the country. Polygamy, however, is still customary among some Hmong people.[92]
All newspapers are published by the government, including two foreign language papers: the English-language daily Vientiane Times and the French-language weekly Le Rénovateur. Additionally, the Khao San Pathet Lao, the country's official news agency, publishes English and French versions of its eponymous paper. Laos currently has nine daily newspapers, 90 magazines, 43 radio stations, and 32 TV stations operating throughout the country.[93] As of 2011, Nhân Dân (The People) and the Xinhua News Agency are the only foreign media organisations permitted to open offices in Laos—both opened bureaus in Vientiane in 2011.[94]
The Lao government heavily controls all media channels in order to prevent critique of its actions. Lao citizens who have criticized the government have been subjected to enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and torture.[95][96] Internet cafes are now common in the major urban centres and are especially popular with the younger generation.
Australian filmmaker Kim Mordount's first feature film was made in Laos and features a Laotian cast speaking their native language. Entitled The Rocket, the film appeared at the 2013 Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) and won three awards at the Berlin International Film Festival: Best First Feature, the Amnesty International Film Prize and the Crystal Bear for Best Film in the Generation Kplus program. Mordount had previously made a documentary entitled Bomb Harvest that featured Laos children who collect bomb metal.[97]
The martial art of Muay Lao, the national sport, is a form of kickboxing similar to other styles of Southeast Asia such as Thai Muay Thai, Burmese Lethwei, Malaysian Tomoi, and Cambodian Pradal Serey.
Football in Laos has grown up to be the most popular sport for Lao people. The Lao League is now the professional league for association football clubs in Laos. Since the start of the League Lao Army FC (8 Titles) has been the most successful club with the highest championship wins.
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Liverpool target £215m PSG ace Kylian Mbappe as Real Madrid eye Mohamed Salah transfer
Posted Friday, November 08, 2019 by Express.co.uk
Mohamed Salah could head to Real Madrid if Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp lands Kylian Mbappe from Paris Saint-Germain.
Liverpool are set to step up their transfer pursuit of Paris Saint-Germain forward Kylian Mbappe in a move which could see Mohamed Salah head to Real Madrid, according to reports in Spain.
The Reds are said to have made Mbappe a top transfer target as they look to become the best team in world football, with reports linking them to a sensational £215million (€250m) deal.
El Desmarque have reported that although Zinedine Zidane is desperate to bring Mbappe to Spain after seeing him impress in Ligue 1 for both Monaco and PSG, Liverpool will provide stern opposition.
The report suggests that Klopp’s bosses could offer the astronomical fee to fend off interest from the European giants, with Salah now named as an alternative for Real.
The report goes on to suggest that Liverpool could offer the 20-year-old, who is apparently keen to leave France to reach his peak, wages of more than £34m (€40m) a year, which would better Lionel Messi’s pay packet at Barcelona.
That move would lead to one of the current trio of Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane being benched, and the Egyptian has been linked with a move to Real due to his supposedly ‘bad’ relationship with Klopp.
Zidane is under pressure already at the Bernabeu having rejoined the club in March, but is still likely to be backed in the transfer market.
Real president Florentino Perez is said to be 'attentive' of Salah's situation and could strike if Liverpool manage to land Mbappe, who hinted before the current season that he wanted a find a new challenge, despite his club having no intention of selling up.
Kylian Mbappe could be the subject of a mammoth Liverpool bid (Image: GETTY)
Kylian Mbappe has hinted that he wants to find a new challenge (Image: GETTY)
"I think I'm reaching the first or second turning point in my career," he said in May.
"Maybe it's time to have more responsibility, which could be at PSG with great pleasure or maybe somewhere else with a new project.
"This was my fourth season in this league and I've had a lot of exciting experiences. First, I was with Monaco and we managed to win the title and then I joined a totally different project in Paris where I've managed to adapt from the first year.
"There have been some disappointments, but that's part of football and we managed to solve things in order to win the title."
Jurgen Klopp and Zinedine Zidane could be on a collision course over Kylian Mbappe (Image: GETTY)
The striker has won two league titles with the Parisians after helping Monaco to the top back in 2017, and has now scored 79 goals in 104 Ligue 1 outings.
PSG sporting director Leonardo was even forced to hit back at the player being regular linked to Real after the win over Club Brugge this week, and warned them to stay away.
"It's annoying," he said of Zidane's claim that a move will be up to the player himself.
"This isn't the time to speak about dreams and all of that. It has to stop. Mbappe is very important for us and this isn't the moment to destabilise him."
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Wednesday, November 10, 1999 Published at 15:54 GMT
Jason's heroic endeavour
David Jason takes on the role of World War One hero Captain Frank Beck
By BBC News Online's Rebecca Thomas
Only Fools and Horses star David Jason is returning to BBC TV but this time as a hero of World War One.
Jason plays Captain Frank Beck in BBC One's powerful drama for Remembrance Sunday, All the King's Men.
The film, which boasts a star-studded line-up including Dame Maggie Smith, shatters eight decades of myth surrounding the "vanished battalion" of King George V's Sandringham estate.
Dame Maggie Smith plays Queen Alexandra in an all-star cast
Even for the award-winning Jason, the chance to star in such a major piece of work - and set the record straight - was an opportunity not to be missed.
"Although there have been many stories about the World War One, none compares with this heart-breaking story of the Sandringham Company.
"They were the King's own regiment. The Sandringham community was like an extended family. It was a story that needed to be told," Jason explains.
David Jason says the story of the Sandringhams just had to be told
His character Beck was the ageing land agent at Sandringham - the Norfolk estate of the king - whose "rag-bag of servants, grooms and gardeners" were transformed into a "superb fighting force".
On 12 August 1915, as captain of the fifth battalion of the Norfolk Regiment, Beck led his green young soldiers across the arid expanse of the Suvla Plain in Gallipoli - straight into a wall of enemy Turkish fire.
Beck's regiment walked into a fierce and fatal battle
Suddenly, the men were embraced by an ethereal yellow mist. Eyewitnesses talked of the cloud carrying the men heavenward to safety. But whatever occurred, the Sandringhams were never seen again.
Now, after 80 years of romanticism, All the King's Men reveals that the fate of the men was ugly and cruel. So much so, that for reasons of national pride and morale, the truth was kept hidden.
But enthralling though the events of All the King's Men undoubtedly are, Jason stresses that the underlying tale of loyalty and courage is what truly makes the drama of the piece.
"It is so important to remind ourselves that people gave their lives in tragic circumstances so that we could all be here today.
"I think that telling a story like this can only serve to say that when these terrible things happen it is ordinary people and families that are affected. Ordinary people make heroes - they are not just born with an H on their heads," he says.
Beck insisted in going to war to support his men
The epitome of this heroism is undoubtedly Beck. Despite the pleas of the king, for whom he was a particular favourite, Beck refuses to let the men he has nurtured go to war without him.
Assuming the role of a man of such integrity was, says Jason, a huge honour. But he admits he felt burdened by the task he had taken on.
"I have always played characters that are invented and have been able to fiddle about with them because they have existed in my imagination. Frank Beck, on the other hand, is a real character, the first one that I have played.
David Jason says playing Beck was harrowing
"The responsibility to the character, to the family and to everyone concerned at Sandringham was really heavy at times. I found it daunting - but daunting in a good way," he explains.
The whole of the Sandringham community were close to the royals
Jason also confesses that the Beck family were tentative about his suitability for the role - one that is so far removed from his best known characters. But by the end of a lunch with Beck's grandson, Edward Hunter, Jason had gained their blessing.
"As we were leaving, Edward said 'Well, when I first heard you were going to play this part I thought absolutely not - there was no way you could possibly do it. But now I have met you, I think you can'," Jason recalls.
The seven-week shooting schedule - much of it in the 100 degree heat of southern Spain which doubled for Turkey - left 57-year-old Jason "knackered".
The three-year battle, of all involved in the production, to bring the findings of writer and former policeman Nigel McCrery to the screen has been an additional strain.
The soldiers were unprepared for the intolerable conditions
Emotionally too, he says he is too bruised to want to take on a new part - let alone in a comedy - for some time. But he is adamant that the legacy of his hard work has made it worthwhile.
"I am a very great pacifist which is one of the reasons why I wanted to do this. But when you make something like this you are trying to get home that if you have to send blokes to war, make sure they are looked after.
"It was particularly obvious in the 14-18 war that nobody was serviced well - on any side. But I am always consistent in that there should be other ways and sometimes you have to stand up and be counted."
All the King's Men goes out on Sunday 14 November on BBC One at 21.00 GMT as the first of three programmes in the series A Century of Conflict.
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Defying Obama, Many in Congress Press to Arm Ukraine: The Senate has included provisions in its military policy bill to arm Ukraine with antiarmor systems, mortars, grenade launchers and ammunition to aid in its fight against Russian-backed separatists. It would also prevent the administration from spending more than one half of $300 million in aid for Ukraine unless 20 percent is earmarked for offensive weapons. The House has passed a similar measure. So far, the Obama administration has refused to provide lethal aid, fearing that it would only escalate the bloodshed and give President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a pretext for further incursions.
Defying Obama, Many in Congress Press to Arm Ukraine
WASHINGTON — With the peace process stalled and violence escalating in Ukraine, a bipartisan coalition in Congress is defying President Obama and European allies by pressing the administration to provide weapons to the embattled nation.
The Senate has included provisions in its military policy bill to arm Ukraine with antiarmor systems, mortars, grenade launchers and ammunition to aid in its fight against Russian-backed separatists. It would also prevent the administration from spending more than one half of $300 million in aid for Ukraine unless 20 percent is earmarked for offensive weapons. The House has passed a similar measure.
So far, the Obama administration has refused to provide lethal aid, fearing that it would only escalate the bloodshed and give President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a pretext for further incursions.
The push by lawmakers to arm Ukraine’s beleaguered armed forces threatens to open a rift between the United States and key allies, especially Germany and France, at a time when the Obama administration has been working to demonstrate unified support for extending European economic sanctions against Russia that are scheduled to expire at the end of July.
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has championed the effort to send arms to Ukraine for more than a year, dismissed the fears that it would worsen the conflict and unravel the international coalition.
Citing the attacks on Ukraine as “one of the most shameful and dishonorable acts I have seen in my life,” Mr. McCain said in an interview that the response so far to Russia’s aggression had been insufficient. “They are not asking for a single boot on the ground,” he said on the Senate floor Thursday, adding, “I am a bit taken aback by the vociferous opposition” to weapons help.
Earlier this week, the Ukrainian prime minister, Anseniy P. Yatsenyuk, met with lawmakers in Washington to make the case for military and financial aid, and was met with sympathy.
“There has been a strong bipartisan well of support for quite some time for providing lethal support,” said Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California. “We have offered Russia all kinds of exit ramps and they were clearly not interested in taking them.”
But in the latest sign of the reluctance by the White House, Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, gave a speech on Thursday in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in which she excoriated Russia but did not mention sending offensive weapons as a possibility.
Instead, she focused on combating the Russian misinformation campaign, praising the Ukrainians for undertaking a government overhaul and warning only vaguely of a tougher stance by the United States.
In Kiev on Thursday, a Ukrainian military spokesman reported that three soldiers had been killed in attacks by Russian-backed separatists, and at least 13 were wounded in the latest fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk. Officials from the self-declared, pro-Russian separatist republics said that two of their soldiers had been killed and at least two more wounded in attacks by the Ukrainian military.
While the United States has been providing nonlethal assistance, and American military instructorshave begun training Ukrainian troops in western Ukraine, President Petro O. Poroshenko has also made clear he would welcome more help in the form of weapons, as he seeks to build up his country’s military to face down the threat from Russia.
“We have an effective form of cooperation, but not with lethal weapons, with the United States, Canada, U.K.,” Mr. Poroshenko said in an interview in his office last week. “We are very satisfied with the current level of cooperation but we would be happy if the level of this cooperation would be increased.”
The bipartisan pressure developing on Capitol Hill, however, comes at an awkward time. Mr. Putin in recent days has repeatedly blamed the Ukrainian government for continuing cease-fire violations,while calling on the United States and its European allies to pressure Kiev to fully put the peace accord in place.
That has set the stage for a pitched debate between lawmakers and the White House that could well undermine Mr. Obama’s repeated assertion that the United States sees no military solution to the conflict in Ukraine.
“I have never seen a more aggressive and emotional debate than I have on this question,” said Matthew Rojansky, the director of the Kennan Institute in Washington and expert on Russia and Ukraine. Mr. Rojansky said the debate is “reminiscent of that when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.”
Reflecting the view of many experts, Mr. Rojansky added, “There are valid arguments on both sides but you don’t get to walk this back. Once we have done this we become a belligerent party in a proxy war with Russia, the only country on earth that can destroy the United States. That’s why this is a big deal.”
In his confirmation hearing in March, Ashton B. Carter, the secretary of defense, told senators that he would consider increased military assistance to Ukraine, including the sale of lethal arms, reflecting the views of some other senior administration officials.
If Congress moves forward with restrictions on the money allocated for Ukraine, a standoff with the White House could also conceivably block much-needed nonlethal aid.
Lawmakers who oppose sending weapons to Ukraine note that Washington could never send enough hardware for Ukraine to defeat Russian-backed forces militarily. And it is not clear that the Ukrainian military is sufficiently trained to make proper use of American weapons without substantial assistance by American military personnel, or that the weapons would not end up in enemy hands.
There also are internal debates even within Ukraine over the wisdom of America stepping in and giving Mr. Putin a propaganda weapon.
“If you’re playing chess with Russia you have to think two moves ahead,” said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who is among those lawmakers skeptical of providing arms. “I am afraid this could provoke a major East-West confrontation.”
Julia Osmolovskaya, the managing partner of the Institute of Negotiation Skills, a mediation group in Kiev, said Ukrainians were divided over the potential benefits of receiving weapons from the United States and the inherent risk of stoking further violence, and also perplexed by Washington’s mixed messages.
“There is a bit of frustration, I’m afraid, in Ukrainian society,” Ms. Osmolovskaya said in an interview. “We have some support in the Congress for giving Ukraine more military assistance, then your president takes a more ambiguous position.”
Defying Obama, Many in Congress Press to Arm Ukraineby JENNIFER STEINHAUER and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
NYT > World
The Senate has included provisions in its military policy bill to arm Ukraine with antiarmor systems, mortars, grenade launchers and ammunition to aid in its fight against Russian-backed separatists.
Armenians, Yazidi, Roma in Turkey's diverse new parliament - DAWN.com
World - Google News
Armenians, Yazidi, Roma in Turkey's diverse new parliament
ANKARA: The new Turkish parliament will show greater diversity than before, with three Armenians elected from three different parties and also representatives from other minority ethnic or religious backgrounds. Their presence is a hugely important step in ...
Elected autocrats help the media learn its placeReuters Blogs (blog)
Turkey's Party Chiefs Jockey Before Talks on New GovernmentWall Street Journal
In Post-Election Scramble, Turkey Puts IS Fight on HoldVoice of America
Christian Science Monitor- Daily Times-The Nation
U.S. Prepares Plan to Send Hundreds More Trainers to Iraq
WSJ.Com: World News
President Barack Obama is poised to send hundreds more American military advisers into the heart of the Islamic State stronghold northwest of Baghdad to help devise a counterattack to drive the Sunni extremists on the defensive.
Islamic State Rule Transforms Mosul
Iraq’s second-largest city has never looked so good thanks to strict laws enforced by Islamic State. But beneath the veneer, residents live in fear.
Russia to Maintain Sanctions Against the West
Russia will keep sanctions against the West in place and may even expand the penalties if the political tensions of the Cold War nature deepen, officials said.
France Says Evidence Suggests Russians Hacked Broadcaster
French investigators suspect a group of Russian hackers posing as Islamic State militants were behind an April attack that crippled a French-language TV broadcaster.
Ukraine Warns Bailout Could Be Derailed
Ukraine’s leadership warned Wednesday that the likelihood of prolonged conflict against Russian-backed separatists and deadlocked creditor negotiations threaten to derail the West’s $40 billion bailout program.
Iran Backs Taliban With Cash and Arms
Tehran has quietly increased its supply of weapons, ammunition and funding to the Taliban, and is now recruiting and training its fighters, posing a new threat to Afghanistan’s fragile security.
U.S. Considers Opening Network of Bases in Iraq
The Obama administration is considering opening a network of new bases in Iraq like the hub being established west of Baghdad, the nation’s top military officer said Thursday.
Barack Obama approves additional troops for fight against Isis in Iraq, says White House - video by Guardian Staff
World News + Video | The Guardian
The White House confirms on Wednesday that US president Barack Obama has authorised up to 450 additional military personnel to be deployed to Iraq's eastern Anbar province. The reinforcements will bring the number of US military forces in the country to 3,550. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, adds that the new troops will be providing Iraqi forces with advice, assistance and equipment, but will not serve in a combat role Continue reading...
US Weighing More Military Bases in Iraq to Fight ISIS, Top General Says - New York Times
US Weighing More Military Bases in Iraq to Fight ISIS, Top General Says
NAPLES, Italy — The United States is considering establishing a new network of American military bases in Iraq to aid in the fight against the Islamic State, senior military and administration officials said Thursday, potentially deepening American involvement ...
US considering more military bases in Iraq - top generalDaily Mail
US weighs more military bases in IraqPress TV
Gen. Dempsey says new US military base in Iraq could be model in battle ...Fox News
all 81 news articles »
Pentagon Calls for China to End Island-Building, Seeks More Military Contact by webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter met a top Chinese general on Thursday and repeated a U.S. call for a halt to land reclamation in the South China Sea while stressing that the Pentagon remained committed to expanding military contacts with China. In the meeting with General Fan Changlong, a deputy head of China's powerful Central Military Commission, Carter stressed his commitment to developing "a sustained and substantive U.S.-China military-to-military relationship," the...
US Overtakes Saudi Arabia as World's Largest Oil Producerby webdesk@voanews.com (Mil Arcega)
The United States is now the world’s largest oil producer. A report by the BP Energy Company credits the “shale revolution” for a surge in American oil and natural gas production that has helped the U.S. “leapfrog” ahead of the world’s top energy producers. Others say that while boosting oil production is easy, learning how to use less of it is hard. VOA's Mil Arcega reports.
US Deploys 450 Additional Troops to Advise Iraqi Forcesby VOAvideo
VOAvideo's YouTube Videos
From: VOAvideo
The Obama administration has announced it will send 450 additional U.S. troops to Iraq to train, assist and advise local forces in their fight against the Islamic State militant group. The announcement comes as Iraqi troops try to regain control of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. VOA correspondent Aru Pande reports.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/united-states-additional-troops-advise-iraqi-forces/2816770.html
IS Recruiters Target Central Asia by VOAvideo
Central Asia has become an increasing source of foreign fighters for radical militant groups operating in the Middle East, notably Islamic State. The group's aggressive recruiting targets vulnerable young men in countries with declining economic prospects and repressive governments. Zlatica Hoke reports on what motivates people to join the radical Islamists and what can be done to stop them.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/2816815.html
US Overtakes Saudi Arabia as World's Largest Oil Producerby VOAvideo
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/united-states-world-largest-oil-producer/2818797.html
Hackers nabbed data on every federal employee, union claims - Fox News
Hackers nabbed data on every federal employee, union claims
A major cyberattack on U.S. federal personnel data was far graver than the Obama administration has acknowledged, with hackers obtaining information on every federal employee, the president of a government workers union claimed Thursday. In a letter to ...
Social Security Numbers Of Every Federal Employee Stolen In Data Breach ...Huffington Post
Union Believes Data Breach Was Worse Than DisclosedWall Street Journal
Federal Union Says OPM Data Breach Hit Every Single Federal EmployeeForbes
PCWorld-Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog)-Bloomberg
Can the U.S. Military Train the Iraqi Army to Victory Over ISIS?by Mark Thompson
The U.S. military likes to say that when it comes to war, the enemy gets a vote. President Obama made that clear Wednesday as he continued to retool his strategy to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria. The biggest tweak to U.S. policy was his decision to boost the 3,180 U.S. trainers and advisers in Iraq by as many as 450 additional troops.
The White House has made it clear U.S. troops will be limited to advising and training Iraqi forces and will not be sent into combat against ISIS. “To improve the capabilities and effectiveness of partners on the ground, the President authorized the deployment of up to 450 additional U.S. military personnel to train, advise, and assist Iraqi Security Forces at Taqaddum military base in eastern Anbar province,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement. But some on Capitol Hill were not impressed by Obama’s reinforcements. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, a senior member of the armed services committee, called them a “knee-jerk reaction” to recent poor showings by the Iraqi army, rather than a “long-term strategy.”
In many ways, this assignment is déjà vu for the U.S. military. They were ordered into Iraq in the wake of the U.S.-mandated dissolution of the Iraqi army following the 2003 invasion, and told to build a new one from scratch. After all U.S. forces left in 2011, the Iraqi army basically fell apart because of the cronyism and corruption that took place under Nouri al-Malaki, Iraq’s prime minister from 2006 to 2014. Over the past several months they’ve begun anew, training more than 9,000 Iraqi troops, with 3,000 more in the pipeline.
Those sectarian splits caused by Malaki’s government sapped the Iraqi forces “will to fight” to save Ramadi from being overrun by ISIS last month, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said. While training can give troops the skills needed to prevail on the battlefield, training can’t teach will. Nonetheless, U.S. troops who trained Iraqi forces the first time around say Iraqi forces, given decent leadership, are good fighters. They’ve shared their experiences with Army interviewers. The resulting oral histories offer guidance to those U.S. trainers in, or soon headed for, Iraq.
In the initial rebuilding of the Iraqi army, many units suffered from a Saddam Hussein hangover, where the traditional top-down and centralized command structure stifled innovation and initiative. While the passage of time has eased that problem, Iraqi forces remain hampered by their inability to support their forward forces with the intelligence and logistical support that makes for an effective fighting force. That’s less critical for their ISIS foes, whose terror tactics sow fear across wide swaths of Iraq with only hit-and-run attacks.
U.S. officers who trained Iraqi troops the first time around learned they had to adjust their expectations. “As Americans, we tend to look at things through American goggles, but when you’re over there you have to take off those American goggles and put on the Iraqi goggles,” Army Major Dave Karsen explained following his 2006 training tour. “Once you do that it was like, `Oh, you guys are doing fine by Iraqi standards.’ Put those American goggles back on and it’s like, `You guys are 50 years in the weeds. You guys are operating at a 1918 U.S. capability compared to now.’ It’s just a totally different mindset.”
The key lesson for U.S. trainers was that Iraqi troops are trainable. “When an IED event happened, their first reaction early on was what is referred to as the ‘Iraq death blossom,’ where everybody starts shooting in every direction,” Major Matt Schreiber said of his training stint. “That poses a lot of problems for a number of reasons.” But the Iraqis shaped up with training: “If an IED blew up or detonated, despite the damage and the casualties it caused, we were confident that our Iraq army soldiers would respond they way that they were trained.”
“My personal experience with the Iraqis under fire is that they are very brave and they’re not afraid to fight,” Major William Taylor said. “You tend to find that they’re willing to take risks and do things that American soldiers would never do.” He recalled Iraqi soldiers who found an improvised explosive device and watching one of them “poking the IED with a stick.” Such bravery—or foolhardiness—could be wasted without good leadership. But, he added, “when they had good leaders, they would fight very hard.”
Iraqi leadership often left something to be desired. One brigade commander “would conduct an operation if he could get the local media or the national media to come down and videotape him,” Major Mark Fisher said. But he canceled two operations “at the last minute … because the media told him that they could not make it out today, which is a poor reason for canceling an operation.”
Besieged By ISIS by Mackenzie Yang
The people of Deir ez-Zor are surrounded—and scared. Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria already control about 40% of this city in Syria’s eastern desert and have encircled the rest of the town in a siege that began in December. Residents told a Western photographer who visited the city in May that they are familiar with the track record of the extremist Islamist group surrounding them: many have seen films of ISIS beheading and crucifying people it considers opponents and criminals, and they’ve heard the stories about the theocratic tyranny ISIS imposes on the areas it controls in Syria and Iraq. …
U.S. Adapts ‘Lily Pad’ Strategy to Defeat ISIS in Iraqby Mark Thompson
The top U.S. military officer likened the expanding American footprint in Iraq Thursday to “lily pads” that will sprout across the pond known as Anbar Province, where the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria seized the capital last month.
“Our campaign is built on establishing these ‘lily pads’ that allow us to encourage the Iraqi security forces forward,” Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters during a visit in Italy. “As they go forward, they may exceed the reach of the particular lily pad”—leading to the creation of new ones.
While the strategy may be a new one since the U.S. pulled its forces out of Iraq in 2011, it has been done before. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, similar campaigns were carried out, often called “oil spot” or “ink blot” strategies.
Retired Army lieutenant colonel Andrew Krepinevich popularized the oil-spot notion in a 2005 article in Foreign Affairs, during the darkest days of the U.S.-led alliance in Iraq. “Since the U.S. and Iraqi armies cannot guarantee security to all of Iraq simultaneously, they should start by focusing on certain key areas and then, over time, broadening the effort—hence the image of an expanding oil spot,” wrote Krepinevich, who heads the non-profit Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Military scholar Max Boot advocated using what he called the “‘spreading inkblot’ strategy” in and around Baghdad in 2007.
It makes sense to establish protected bases in potentially-hostile terrain that can be linked to safer rear areas by air and roads. Each lily pad (or oil spot, or ink blot) gets bigger if its troops succeed in expanding the secure zones around them. Military momentum can lead to the creation of additional lily pads. Ultimately, they all expand until the entire region is free of enemy forces and secure.
Wednesday’s announcement boosts the number of U.S. bases in Iraq to five. “We’re looking all the time to see if additional sites might be necessary,” Dempsey said, although he said the two now in Anbar would probably suffice for that province. “I could foresee one in the corridor that runs from Baghdad to Tikrit to Kirkuk over into Mosul,” he added.
Dempsey detailed the evolving U.S. strategy the day after the White House said it would send up to 450 trainers and advisers to a base near Ramadi in eastern Anbar, within easy range of ISIS attacks. President Obama has pledged to keep U.S. troops out of combat with ISIS, even though allowing small numbers to embed with Iraqi forces to call in U.S. air strikes would make them more effective. The additional forces would push the U.S. troop total in Iraq to 3,550. Any decision to plant additional lily pads could require more U.S. troops in Iraq. U.S. troop strength in the 2003-2011 Iraq war peaked at 158,000 in 2008.
Adding U.S. troops to the Taqaddum military base is significant, Dempsey added, because “it gives us access to another Iraqi division and extends their reach into al Anbar province and gives us access to more tribes.” The U.S. is eager to enlist the Sunni tribes in Anbar in the fight against ISIS, whose members are Sunni. Sending the largely Shi’ite forces in Iraq’s national army to battle Sunnis in the Sunni heartland could inflame sectarian tensions.
Of course, lily pads don’t always thrive. In Afghanistan, they’ve shrunk in recent years. John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, warned two years ago that danger was spreading across the country and limiting the places his inspectors could visit to do their jobs. “U.S. officials have told us that it is often difficult for program and contracting staff to visit reconstruction sites in Afghanistan,” he said in October 2013. “U.S. military officials have told us that they will provide civilian access only to areas within a one-hour round trip of an advanced medical facility.”
The Afghan lily pads have continued to shrivel. “Americans can only really travel safely in Kabul, and for most part no travel outside of green zone in Kabul,” one U.S. official said Thursday, speaking of travel in and around the Afghan capital. “Helicopters are needed to travel less than a mile from the embassy to airport.”
The Most Evil Quotes From Bilderberg Insidersby The European Union Times
If you want to know the evils lurking within the Bilderberg Group, look no further than the following quotes from Bilderberg insiders and those who’ve studied the secretive cabal:
“The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care & reproductive health services, we could LOWER that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.” ― Bill Gates, TED conference presentation
“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order [referring to the 1991 L.A. Riots]. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond [i.e., an “extraterrestrial” invasion], whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.” – Dr. Henry Kissinger, 1992 Bilderberg Meeting at Evians, France.
“Bilderberg pulls the strings of every government and intelligence agency in the Western world.” ― James Morcan, The Ninth Orphan
“If the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) raises the hackles of the conspiracy theorists, the Bilderberg meetings must induce apocalyptic visions of omnipotent international bankers plotting with unscrupulous government officials to impose cunning schemes on an ignorant and unsuspecting world.” – David Rockefeller, Memoirs
“Bilderberg’s modus operandi reinforced in his mind the complexity of the global hierarchy. He didn’t know if Omega controlled the Bilderberg Group or vice versa, but the situation reminded him that no matter how much anyone thought they knew about the New World Order elite, there were always higher levels in the plethora of secret societies and shadow organizations that ruled the planet.” ― James Morcan, The Ninth Orphan
“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years … It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.” – David Rockefeller, 1991 Bilderberg Meeting at Baden, Germany (a meeting also attended by Bill Clinton)
“If elitist groups like Bohemian Club, the CFR and the Bilderberg Group select and groom candidates to become Presidents of the US then isn’t it safe to assume they also dictate certain policies once their alumni are in the White House?” ― Lance Morcan, The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy
“Nine had heard whisperings that the secretive Bilderberg Group was effectively the World Government, undermining democracy by influencing everything from nations’ political leaders to the venue for the next war. He recalled persistent rumors and confirmed media reports that the Bilderberg Group had such luminaries as Barack Obama, Prince Charles, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair, Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Bush Sr. and George W. Bush. Other Bilderberg members sprung forth from Nine’s memory bank. They included the founders and CEOs of various multinational corporations like Facebook, BP, Google, Shell and Amazon, as well as almost every major financial institution on the planet.” ― James Morcan, The Ninth Orphan
“We are not going to achieve a new world order without paying for it in blood as well as in words and money.” – Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Foreign Affairs (July/August 1995)
“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” – David Rockfeller, Memoirs.
· · · · ·
Americans support military force against Russia if necessaryby The European Union Times
Ukrainian soldiers take part in exercises near the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk, in the Lugansk region on March 27, 2015.
A majority of people in the United States are supporting a military strike against Russia in response to an attack by Moscow on a NATO country, according to a new survey.
The poll conducted by the Pew Research Center showed Wednesday that 56 percent of Americans back a military response.
The result is in sharp contrast with the European countries as people in Germany, Italy and France do not support war on Russia.
In Germany, 58 percent of the respondents said they are against the use of military force. People in France and Italy oppose the idea 53 and 51 percent respectively.
After the US, 53 percent of the public in Canada are in favor of a military response.
“Many allied countries are reluctant to uphold Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which requires NATO members to defend an ally with armed force if necessary,” the survey said.
The survey also indicated that people in NATO countries view Russia as the culprit in the deadly Ukraine conflict.
The US accuses Russia of destabilizing Ukraine by supporting pro-Russian forces in the eastern regions. The Kremlin, however, denies the allegations.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Ukraine crisis was deliberately manufactured by “unprofessional actions” of the West.
“I believe that this crisis was created deliberately and it is the result of our partner’s unprofessional actions,” Putin said.
“I would like to emphasize once more: this was not our choice, we did not seek it, we are simply forced to respond to what is happening,” he added.
US encircling Russia with bioweapons labs, covertly spreads them by The European Union Times
The US is obstructing international efforts to eradicate biological weapons, seeking to involve other nations covertly in research on weaponized diseases, Moscow charged. America’s record of handling bioweapons is poor.
The accusations of mishandling biological weapons voiced by the Russian Foreign Ministry refer to a recent report that the US military shipped live anthrax by mistake. Last week, the Pentagon admitted sending samples of the highly dangerous disease to at least 51 labs in 17 US states and three foreign countries.
The delivery “posed a high risk of outbreak that threatened not only the US population, but also other countries, including Canada and Australia. Of great concern is the shipment of bacteria to a US military facility in a third country, the Osan Air Base in South Korea,” the Russian ministry said in a statement.
It added that an anthrax outbreak incident occurred in 2001, which also involved a US military lab.
For Russia such incidents are of particular concern, because one of its neighbors, Georgia, hosts a research facility for high-level biohazard agents. The Richard G. Lugar Center for Public and Animal Health Research near Tbilisi is an undercover American bioweapons lab, a branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Russia believes.
“American and Georgian authorities are trying to cover up the real nature of this US military unit, which studies highly dangerous infectious diseases. The Pentagon is trying to establish similar covert medico-biological facilities in other countries [in Russia’s neighborhood],” the Russian ministry said.
Moscow says the US is de facto derailing international efforts under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), a 1972 international treaty aimed at eradicating bioweapons worldwide.
“The US administration is obviously not interested in strengthening this convention. It’s known that in 2001 the US unilaterally torpedoed multilateral talks in Geneva to work on a verification mechanism for the BWTC and have since obstructed their restart. Decades of international effort to strengthen the convention were derailed,” the statement said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry’s indictment comes amid a wider list of accusations against the US over what Moscow sees as American violations of various international agreements dealing with weapons control, non-proliferation and disarmament.
The statement came in response to a US annual report on the issue, which accused Russia of various wrongdoings. Moscow considers such reports “megaphone diplomacy.” Such tactics aren’t aimed at resolving any differences, but instead support America’s pretense to be the ultimate judge of other nation’s behavior, the ministry said.
Europe tries to compete with China's influence in Latin America
Reuters: World News
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Unable to match China's offer of $250 billion in investment in Latin America, the EU sought ways on Thursday to avoid being marginalized in the region, offering new trade deals, visa-free travel and deeper ties.
Iranian court upholds jail term for son of ex-president Rafsanjani: IRNA
ANKARA (Reuters) - An Iranian appeals court upheld the jail sentence of Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, son of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, on corruption and security charges, state news agency IRNA quoted a judiciary official as saying on Thursday.
Pentagon repeats call for China to end island building, seeks more military contact
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter met a top Chinese general on Thursday and repeated a U.S. call for a halt to land reclamation in the South China Sea while stressing that the Pentagon remained committed to expanding military contacts with China.
Family: Body Of Tariq Aziz Missing In Iraq
The body of Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's former top aide who died last week in prison in Iraq, reportedly went missing on June 11 while en route to Jordan for burial.
Son Of Iranian Ex-President Rafsanjani To Be Jailed For Ten Years
An appeal court in Iran has upheld a 10-year jail sentence against Mehdi Hashemi, the son of Iran's ex-President Hashemi Rafsanjani, following his conviction on corruption and security crimes, a judiciary spokesman said on June 10.
Russian Charged With Spying In U.S. Asks Court To Dismiss Case
A Russian citizen who worked in Manhattan as a banker asked a federal judge June 11 to toss out charges that he participated in a Cold War-style Russian spy ring.
U.S. House Rejects Move To Force Vote On Waging War Against Islamic State
The U.S. House of Representatives June 11 rejected a measure to force lawmakers to vote by the end of March on providing the president with war powers to fight the Islamic State.
World Briefing: Saudi Arabia: Blogger’s Allies Rebuffedby RICK GLADSTONE
Saudi Arabia rejected foreign criticism of the flogging punishment of Raif Badawi, a blogger who has come to symbolize the kingdom’s oppressive restraints on free speech.
AP Top News at 9:50 p.m. EDT
TheUnion Local.Com | TheUnion.Com
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Louisiana's attorney general is insisting on a third trial for the last of the "Angola Three," calling the prison activist who spent decades in solitary confinement after the killing of a guard in 1972 "the most dangerous person on the planet." A federal judge ruled this week that Albert Woodfox must be freed immediately, saying the state has never proved - and never will - that he was responsible for the stabbing death of Brent Miller 43 years ago.
10 Things to Know for FridayYour daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Friday: 1. WHAT HACKERS STOLE FROM US GOVERNMENT COMPUTERS
Union: Hackers have personnel data on every federal employeeWASHINGTON (AP) - Hackers stole personnel data and Social Security numbers for every federal employee, a government worker union said Thursday, asserting that the cyber theft of U.S. employee information was more damaging than the Obama administration has acknowledged. Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor that the December hack into Office of Personnel Management data was carried out by "the Chinese" without specifying whether he meant the Chinese government or individuals. Reid is one of eight lawmakers briefed on the most secret intelligence information. U.S. officials have declined to publicly blame China, which has denied involvement.
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) - Months before James Holmes opened fire in a Colorado movie theater, his ex-girlfriend said she urged him talk to his therapist after he mentioned having thoughts about killing people, thoughts that to her "seemed very philosophical" and not a concrete threat. Gargi Datta also testified Thursday that during their relationship, Holmes showed no interest in guns, including when they visited an outdoor store that sold weapons. She did not know about his meticulous plans for the July 20, 2012, attack or the arsenal he assembled.
Judge: Enough evidence to charge police in black boy's deathCLEVELAND (AP) - A judge said Thursday that enough evidence exists to charge two white policemen in the fatal shooting of a 12-year-old black boy who was holding a pellet gun, a largely symbolic ruling because he can't compel prosecutors to charge them. Municipal Court Judge Ronald Adrine ruled there's probable cause to charge rookie officer Timothy Loehmann with murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide or dereliction of duty in the November shooting death of Tamir Rice. And he ruled there's evidence to charge Loehmann's partner, Frank Garmback, with reckless homicide or dereliction of duty.
Body of American killed fighting IS handed over to familyBEIRUT (AP) - The body of an American who died fighting with Kurdish forces against the Islamic State group in Syria was handed over on Thursday to his family at a Turkish border crossing, a Kurdish official said. Hundreds of people turned up in the Kurdish town of Kobani to bid farewell to Keith Broomfield before his body was handed over to family at the Mursitpinar gate, said Idriss Naasan.
Parents going viral with ugly hair cut videos shaming kidsNEW YORK (AP) - Russell Fredrick's middle son was 12 when he wouldn't quit playing around in class and ignoring his homework, so the barber did what he does best. He picked up his clippers and cut off his fade. But it wasn't just any cut. It was a complete shave intended as a form of discipline when other tactics like taking away gadgets failed to work.
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What has Louisiana got on the last of the Angola Three?NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Louisiana's attorney general is insisting on a third trial for the last of the "Angola Three," calling the prison activist who spent decades in solitary after the killing of a guard in 1972 "the most dangerous person on the planet." A federal judge ruled this week that Albert Woodfox must be freed immediately, because the state has never proved - and never will - that he was responsible for the stabbing death of Brent Miller 43 years ago.
Slain guard's widow: Stop prosecution of Angola 3 inmateNEW ORLEANS (AP) - The widow of a prison guard slain 43 years ago at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola wants the state to drop its effort to launch a third trial of a Black Panther activist long accused in the killing. Teenie Rogers says in a statement released Thursday that she has spent years "looking at the evidence" and "soul-searching," and is convinced that Albert Woodfox was framed.
The Latest on prison escape: Search dogs caught scent3:55 p.m. (EDT) Gov. Andrew Cuomo says bloodhounds caught the scent of two escaped killers, leading searchers to a rural area a few miles from an upstate New York prison.
Investigators believe prison employee was in on escape plotDANNEMORA, N.Y. (AP) - Investigators believe a female prison employee had agreed to be the getaway driver in last weekend's escape by two killers but never showed up, a person close to the case told The Associated Press on Thursday. The manhunt, meanwhile, dragged into a sixth day with a renewed burst of activity by searchers in the woods close to the prison after bloodhounds were said to have picked up the convicts' scent. And Gov. Andrew Cuomo said investigators are also "talking to several people who may have facilitated the escape."
Theater shooter's ex asked him to see therapistCENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) - Months before James Holmes opened fire in a Colorado movie theater, his ex-girlfriend said she urged him talk to his therapist after he mentioned having thoughts about killing people, but his thoughts "seemed very philosophical" and not a concrete threat. Gargi Datta also testified Thursday that during their relationship, Holmes showed no interest in guns, including when they visited an outdoor store that sold weapons, and that she did not know about his meticulous plans for the July 20, 2012 attack or the arsenal he assembled.
NAPLES, Italy (AP) - The Pentagon's top general said Thursday the U.S. military's reach could extend even further into Iraq if the anti-Islamic State campaign gains momentum, and he held out the possibility of eventually recommending to President Barack Obama that U.S. troops take on the riskier role of calling in airstrikes. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the White House's announcement Wednesday that up to 450 more U.S. troops would be sent to Iraq to invigorate its flagging campaign against the Islamic State is a natural extension of U.S. assistance. He said the support hub the troops will set up will not produce instant results but may serve as a model to be replicated elsewhere in Iraq, possibly requiring even more U.S. troops.
PARIS (AP) - Fearing he was going blind, the co-pilot who slammed a Germanwings jet into the Alps took sick days at work, upped his dosage of an antidepressant, and reached out to doctors, but they didn't tell his employer they thought he was unfit to fly because of German privacy laws, a French prosecutor said Thursday. Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin presented new details of his criminal investigation into the case after meeting in Paris with many grieving relatives of the 150 people who died on the Germanwings flight co-piloted by Andreas Lubitz.
Judge rules there's evidence to charge Cleveland officersCLEVELAND (AP) - A judge said Thursday that enough evidence exists to charge two white policemen in the fatal shooting of a 12-year-old black boy who was holding a pellet gun outside a recreation center, a largely symbolic ruling because he can't compel prosecutors to charge them. Municipal Court Judge Ronald Adrine ruled there's probable cause to charge rookie officer Timothy Loehmann with murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide or dereliction of duty in the November shooting death of Tamir Rice. And he ruled there's evidence to charge Loehmann's partner, Frank Garmback, with reckless homicide or dereliction of duty.
Union-backed Dems make final push to kill Obama's trade billWASHINGTON (AP) - Union-backed Democrats launched a last-ditch effort Thursday to scuttle President Barack Obama's trade agenda by sacrificing a favored program of their own that retrains workers displaced by international trade. The retraining program is linked to the Democrats' real target: legislation to help Obama advance multi-nation trade agreements. In hopes of bringing down the whole package, which they say imperils jobs at home, numerous House Democrats said they would vote Friday against the retraining measure.
The Latest on prison escape: Officials link worker, getaway11:30 a.m. (EDT) A person close to the investigation says authorities believe a New York prison employee was supposed to be the getaway driver for two escaped killers but didn't show up.
Prosecutor: Germanwings co-pilot feared going blindPARIS (AP) - The co-pilot who crashed a Germanwings jet into the Alps feared that he was losing his eyesight, and some of the many doctors he consulted felt he was unfit to fly, a French prosecutor said Thursday. The doctors didn't report their concerns to Andreas Lubitz's employers, however, because of German patient privacy laws, Marseille Prosecutor Brice Robin told reporters in Paris.
GOP, Obama on same side as trade bill heads for close voteWASHINGTON (AP) - The House plunged into a divisive debate over trade legislation on Thursday, a controversy so thick that President Barack Obama conferred on strategy with Republican Speaker John Boehner and drew a public rebuttal in the House from a Democratic foe of the measure. With a showdown vote expected on Friday, Boehner declined to predict the fate of White House-backed legislation to allow Obama to complete global trade deals that Congress could approve or reject but not change. The bill also would renew a program of aid, due to expire soon, for workers who lose their jobs as a result of global trade.
Murdoch's sons to become CEO, co-chair at 21st Century FoxNEW YORK (AP) - Rupert Murdoch is preparing to hand over the CEO job at Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. to his son, James, while his other son, Lachlan, will become executive co-chairman, according to a person with direct knowledge with the matter. Murdoch, 84, one of the world's most powerful media magnates, will become executive chairman and remain deeply involved in the company, while his sons are to run the business in a partnership, the person said.
Ornette Coleman, jazz visionary, dead at 85NEW YORK (AP) - Jazz legend Ornette Coleman, the visionary saxophonist who pioneered "free jazz" and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007, has died. Publicist Ken Weinstein says Coleman died on Thursday at 1 a.m. in Manhattan. He was 85.
Prolific British actor Christopher Lee dies at age 93LONDON (AP) - Christopher Lee, an actor who brought dramatic gravitas and aristocratic bearing to screen villains from Dracula to the wicked wizard Saruman in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, has died at age 93. Lee appeared in more than 250 movies, taking on memorable roles such as the James Bond enemy Scaramanga and the evil Count Dooku in two "Star Wars" prequels.
AP images of Vietnam War make homecoming in exhibit
Madam gets 10 years after buttocks-enhancement deathPHILADELPHIA (AP) - A former madam who performed illegal "body sculpting" was sentenced Thursday to 10 to 20 years in prison after the death of a dancer whose heart stopped after nearly half a gallon of silicone was injected into her buttocks. Padge-Victoria Windslowe told jurors during her spring murder trial that clients call her "the Michelangelo of buttocks injections." But prosecutors say she had no medical training and used deadly products on vulnerable women, including fellow members of the transgender community who wanted curves.
AP PHOTOS: Martial law has anti-mine protesters back at workCOCACHACRA, Peru (AP) - A respite imposed by martial law after nearly two months of violent anti-mining protests has sent farmers in a fertile coastal valley of southern Peru back to their fields. Most say they would be more than happy to sacrifice the current crop if it means preventing Mexico's biggest mining company from going ahead with a copper extraction project that farmers fear will contaminate the Tambo Valley.
AP Top News at 9:17 a.m. EDT
General: New US hub in Iraq could be modelNAPLES, Italy (AP) - The new U.S. military hub setting up in Iraq's western desert could be a model for more such train-and-advise operations - and with it likely more U.S. troops - designed to help Iraq defeat the Islamic State, the top-ranking American general said Thursday. "Sure, we're looking all the time at whether there might be additional sites necessary," Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him to Naples, Italy, where he is meeting with U.S. commanders.
Search for escaped killers enters Day 6, expands outside NYDANNEMORA, N.Y. (AP) - Authorities searching for two escaped killers who have been on the loose for the better part of a week acknowledged being in the dark about their whereabouts or doings, even as the hunt for the men expanded past state borders. At a news conference outside the maximum-security prison on Wednesday, New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico said, "I have no information on where they are or what they're doing, to be honest with you."
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea's central bank lowered its key interest rate to a historic low on Thursday, responding to a slump in exports and the prospect the economy will be hurt by the outbreak of the deadly MERS virus. Officials insist that the disease, which has killed 10 people, has peaked. Bank of Korea policymakers cut the policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 1.5 percent, the second rate cut this year. In March, the bank lowered the key rate and downgraded its growth forecast for Asia's fourth-largest economy as exports continued to slump.
AP images of Vietnam War exhibited in country for 1st timeHANOI, Vietnam (AP) - They were the images that communicated the horrors of war in ways words could not. They were so much more than just photographs, Vietnam's president said on Thursday, recalling black-and-white images he said he will never forget from the war that ended 40 years ago: A Buddhist monk consumed by flames in a fiery suicide. A screaming Vietnamese child running down a road naked, as her skin burns from a napalm attack.
AP PHOTOS: In Iran, female motocross racer jumps barriersBARAGHAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian motocross rider Behnaz Shafiei's passion for hurdling over dirt hills has led her to leap cultural and legal barriers in Iran, where women are banned from riding motorcycles in public. "When two days pass and I do not ride my motorcycle, I get really ill. Even the thought of not having a motorcycle someday gives me an awful feeling," Shafiei said on the outskirts of Iran's capital, Tehran. "Sometimes, I think to myself, `How did people in the past live without a motorbike?' Is life without a motorcycle possible?"
Official admits: 'No information' on escaped killersDANNEMORA, N.Y. (AP) - Authorities searching for two escaped killers who have been on the loose for the better part of a week acknowledged being in the dark about their whereabouts or doings, even as the hunt for the men expanded past state borders into Vermont. At a news conference outside the maximum-security prison on Wednesday, New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico said, "I have no information on where they are or what they're doing, to be honest with you."
California water wasters beware: #DroughtShaming on the riseLOS ANGELES (AP) - Pssst. Ready to water that beautiful lush lawn of yours? The one that's the envy of the entire neighborhood. If you live in Southern California you'd better wait until after midnight. Preferably on a cloudy, new-moon night during a power outage when it's so dark even night-vision goggles won't give away your position. Otherwise you could wind up the star of the latest drought-shaming video posted on YouTube or Twitter.
SKorea cuts key rate as MERS emerges as threat to recoverySEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea's central bank lowered its key interest rate to a historic low on Thursday, responding to a slump in exports and the prospect that the outbreak of the deadly MERS virus could slow the economy. Bank of Korea policymakers cut the policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 1.5 percent, the second rate cut this year. In March, the bank lowered the key rate and downgraded its growth forecast for Asia's fourth-largest economy as exports continued to slump.
Lawyer: Officer didn't target black teens at Texas poolDALLAS (AP) - A white Texas police officer was not targeting minorities when he wrestled a black teenage girl to the ground and brandished his gun outside a pool party, his lawyer said, but rather was fraught with emotion after responding earlier to two suicide calls. As activists demanded Wednesday that prosecutors charge former officer David Eric Casebolt, his attorney Jane Bishkin said Casebolt apologizes for his treatment of the girl and to others offended by his actions Friday at a community pool in the Dallas suburb of McKinney.
Theater shooter's ex: 'I didn't see a future with him'CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) - Their first date was a horror film festival and they grew closer after that, sharing nights together at home watching movies or playing board games with friends. But a former girlfriend of Colorado theater shooter James Holmes didn't want anything more than a casual relationship, she testified in his death penalty trial. She broke it off.
Paul Ryan's step-by-step future starts with tradeWASHINGTON (AP) - First, give presidents the power to strike trade deals. Then overturn President Barack Obama's health care law, overhaul the tax code and rework the nation's welfare system. And someday? Perhaps a run for president. Call it the New Ryan Plan, a map not just to changes in the nation's fiscal policy, but to Paul Ryan's future. It steers the nine-term Republican congressman and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee into the thicket of policy fights. The path likely takes him to a familiar decision point - whether to run for president. The 45-year-old Ryan says he might take that step, someday.
Educated Ukrainians flee east Ukraine for new lives in KievKIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Alesya Bolot worked for a contemporary arts foundation that converted an abandoned factory into a mecca for young and bright people with daring ideas. Vibrant and cosmopolitan, the 27-year-old would not look out of place in a gallery in New York. She was at the forefront of the avant-garde arts scene in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk when a pro-Russian insurgency took over and upended her life. When a rebel-controlled local television station portrayed creative people like her as the enemy, she decided it was time to flee.
AP PHOTOS: In Iran, woman motocross racer jumps barriersBARAGHAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian motocross rider Behnaz Shafiei's passion for hurdling over dirt hills has led her to leap cultural and legal barriers in Iran, where women are banned from riding motorcycles in public. "When two days pass and I do not ride my motorcycle, I get really ill. Even the thought of not having a motorcycle some day gives me an awful feeling," Shafiei said on the outskirts of Iran's capital, Tehran. "Sometimes, I think to myself, `How did people in the past live without a motorbike?' Is life without a motorcycle possible?"
Lawyer: Prior calls took 'emotional toll' on Texas officerDALLAS (AP) - A Texas police officer had answered back-to-back suicide calls and was fraught with emotion when he responded to a report of a fight at a pool party where he wrestled a black teenage girl to the ground, his lawyer said Wednesday, hours after activists called for prosecutors to charge him. Attorney Jane Bishkin said David Eric Casebolt, known to friends and family as Eric, apologizes for his treatment of the girl and to others offended by his actions Friday at a community pool in the Dallas suburb of McKinney.
Theater shooter's ex: 'He liked me more than I liked him'CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) - A former girlfriend of Colorado theater shooter James Holmes testified Wednesday in his death penalty trial that they went to a horror film festival on their first date and she broke things off a few months later because he wanted more than a casual relationship. In brief questioning before court adjourned, Gargi Datta said she met Holmes in 2011 at the graduate school they attended outside Denver. She described him as a bright but shy neuroscience graduate student at the time.
Pew: White-Native American adults largest multiracial groupWASHINGTON (AP) - Non-Hispanic whites with American Indian ancestry make up a full half of the current population of mixed-race Americans but are among the least likely to say that they are multiracial, according to a study released Thursday. This population is also the more likely to be Republican-leaning and conservative than the rest of the multiracial population, finds the study by the Pew Research Center. But they may someday be eclipsed by other multiracial Americans, with the majority of mixed-race babies born in 2013 being either biracial white and black or biracial white and Asian.
Carrie Underwood cleans house at CMT Music AwardsThe CMT Music Awards should be renamed the Carrie Music Television Awards. Carrie Underwood cleaned house at the country awards show Wednesday with three wins, including video of the year for "Something In the Water," and she even gave a shout-out to her 3-month-old son.
AP PHOTOS: Martial law has anti-mine protesters back at workCOCACHACRA, Peru (AP) - A respite imposed by martial law after nearly two months of violent anti-mining protests has allowed farmers in a fertile coastal valley of southern Peru to get back to the crops they were neglecting. Most say they are more than happy to sacrifice the current crop if it means preventing Mexico's biggest mining company from going ahead with a copper extraction project that farmers fear will contaminate the Tambo Valley.
Blackhawks edge Tampa Bay 2-1, even Stanley Cup Final 2-2CHICAGO (AP) - Brandon Saad drove the net and had the puck poked away by Andrei Vasilevskiy. When he somehow found it again, Saad gave it a desperate backhand whack that just happened to send it right between Vasilevskiy's moving pads. Saad refused much credit for his tiebreaking goal in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final. He knows that a few fortunate bounces have been the only differences in four games between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Tampa Bay Lightning, who seem determined to take this championship series down to a fantastic finish.
OVERNIGHT CYBERSECURITY: Up to 14 million exposed in federal hack
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 8:24 PM
Welcome to OVERNIGHT CYBERSECURITY, your daily rundown of the biggest news in the world of hacking and data privacy. We're here to connect the dots as leaders in government, policy and industry wrap their arms around cyberthreats. What lies ahead for Congress, the administration and the latest company under siege? Whether you're a consumer, a techie or a D.C. lifer, we're here to give you ...
THE BIG STORIES:
--KA-BOOM: The massive hack of federal government data may have compromised the personal information on 9 million to 14 million people, far more than was initially believed. Multiple sources on Capitol Hill, within the federal workforce and around Washington have estimated that the final tally of people affected by the hack could easily eclipse the 4 million reported by the Obama administration. Already, the theft of data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is the largest data breach ever at the federal government. With an increase in the scope of the attack -- which officials, speaking privately, have traced back to China -- the Obama administration's response will face further scrutiny and more questions about the state of the nation's digital security. To read our full piece, click here.
--YOU AIN'T GOIN' NOWHERE:
Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked Republicans from linking a cybersecurity amendment to a defense bill. The upper chamber fell four votes shy of the 60 votes needed to move forward with attaching the anti-hacking measure to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). While six Democrats broke with the party line to support limiting debate, three Republicans joined the Democrats in opposition. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) withdrew the amendment after the vote, making the path forward for the amendment unclear. While the cyber measure itself, known as the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), isn't controversial, the maneuver to attach it to the NDAA irked Democrats. Democrats want the chance to offer privacy-enhancing amendments to CISA, which they would not be able to do if the language became an NDAA add-on. To read our full piece, click
. To read about Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) berating the Democrats after the vote, click
--RAND WATCH: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who boosted the profile of his presidential campaign by breaking with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) during the recent fight over surveillance reform, sided with the Democrats in voting to block the amendment.
UPDATE ON CYBER POLICY:
--AND SO WE BEAT ON: House lawmakers voted to further rein in the nation's spies on Thursday, in a signal that legislators aren't yet done reforming surveillance law.
A bipartisan amendment to add new limits to the National Security Agency (NSA) passed 255-174, slightly more than a week after President Obama signed legislation ending the agency's bulk collection of Americans' phone records.
While the move appears largely symbolic, given the overwhelming opposition to further spy reforms from leadership in the Senate, it nonetheless makes clear that a significant bloc of lawmakers aren't settling with that first batch of reforms, called the USA Freedom Act. To read our full piece, click here.
A LIGHTER CLICK:
--YOU WOULD, TOO. A 23-year-old Virginia man, upon discovering he had been robbed of about 300 "Magic: The Gathering" playing cards worth roughly $8,000:
"I went in the house, cracked open a beer, had a few sips and promptly started screaming expletives as I waited for the police to arrive," he told The Washington Post. "I'd been collecting these cards since I was a kid and over the years they've only increased in value. I was horrified."
Read on, at The Washington Post.
WHO'S IN THE SPOTLIGHT:
--THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, which announced Thursday a new round of steps to better protect against identity theft and fraud before the 2016 tax filing season.
The measures are an effort to reassure taxpayers following a data breach that exposed 100,000 taxpayers' data.
The IRS said it has agreed to collaborate with tax preparation firms and state officials to boost the authentication process before giving out refunds and taxpayer data. The group will also swap more data on potential tax fraud. To read our full piece, click here.
Links from our blog, The Hill, and around the Web.
The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced a $51.1 billion bill Thursday fund the Commerce and Justice Departments for fiscal 2016. (The Hill)
Facial recognition technology is already being deployed to let brick-and-mortar stores scan the face of every shopper. (The Washington Post)
A hacker dumped a database containing what appear to be around 23,000 email addresses of US government workers on a dark web hacking forum on Thursday. (Motherboard)
Why credit monitoring fails to address the real threat facing hacked feds. (NextGov)
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U.S. Weighing More Military Bases in Iraq to Fight ISIS, Top General Says
NAPLES, Italy — The United States is considering establishing a new network of American military bases in Iraq to aid in the fight against the Islamic State, senior military and administration officials said Thursday, potentially deepening American involvement in the country amid setbacks for Iraqi forces on the battlefield.
Speaking to reporters aboard his plane during a trip to Italy, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, described a possible future campaign entailing the establishment of what he called “lily pads” — American military bases around the country from which trainers would work with Iraqi security forces and local tribesmen in the fight against the Islamic State.
General Dempsey’s framework was confirmed by senior Obama administration officials, and comes after an earlier decision this week to send 450 trainers to establish a new military base to help Iraqi forces retake the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province. The general said that base could be the model for a new network of American training bases in other parts of the country.
“You could see one in the corridor from Baghdad to Tikrit to Kirkuk to Mosul,” General Dempsey said. Such sites, he said, could require troops in addition to the 3,550 that the president has authorized so far in the latest Iraq campaign, although he said later some of the troops at the new bases could come from forces already in Iraq.
For President Obama, who spent much of his first term orchestrating the total withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq and for the past year has publicly resisted making major troop commitments there, establishing new American bases within Iraq would be another step toward deeper entanglement in the country.
Further, the creation of persistent American-staffed bases in the Iraqi countryside would give the Islamic State obvious new targets, allowing it to expand its fight directly against American forces — a possibility the group’s propaganda operation has publicly reveled in.
Military officials acknowledge that the more Americans troops there are on the ground in Iraq, the greater the incentive for Islamic State militants to attack them.
There is already precedent: In February, eight suicide bombers who Defense Department officials said were with the Islamic State managed to get into an air base west of Baghdad where hundreds of American Marines were training Iraqi counterparts. Though officials said the bombers were killed almost immediately by Iraqi forces, the assault was a reminder that even circumscribed training missions create a risk for American casualties.
One Obama administration official, who would discuss the issue only on the condition of anonymity, called General Dempsey’s description “entirely consistent” with the president’s strategy in Iraq, but noted that Iraqi officials would have to sign off.
“If there is a request from the Iraqi government and the president’s military advisers recommend additional venues to further the train, advice and assist mission, the president would certainly consider that,” the official said.
The model for a potential new network of American bases in Iraq is already being built: at Taqqadum, an Iraqi base near the town of Habbaniya in eastern Anbar. The American troops being sent are to set up the hub primarily to advise and assist Iraqi forces and to engage and reach out to Sunni tribes in Anbar, officials said. One focus for the Americans will be to try to accelerate the integration of Sunni fighters into the Iraqi Army, which is dominated by Shiites.
While retaking the city of Ramadi, which fell to the Islamic State last month, is the goal of the training hub at Taqqadum, General Dempsey indicated that that effort may be months away. While declining to put a timetable on when the battle to retake Ramadi will begin, he said that it would take several weeks for the initial command and control center at Taqqadum to be set up.
“Timetables are fragile,” General Dempsey said. “They are dependent on so many different factors.”
For the Pentagon, the timetable issue has been a tense one, as the United States Central Command and the Iraqi government have clashed in the past about the pace of efforts by the Iraqi security forces to retake areas captured by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Some of President Obama’s statements about the American strategy to confront ISIS and its effectiveness.
An official from Central Command told reporters in February that an assault to capture Mosul, which fell to the Islamic State a year ago, was planned for this spring. But some Iraqi officials bridled at that, and plans to mount an offensive on the city have been delayed indefinitely. The fall of Ramadi, about 70 miles from Baghdad, put that city higher on the priority list.
Mr. Obama has been loath to commit a large number of American ground troops to Iraq. Administration officials say that it is up to the Iraqi government to lead the way in reclaiming its territory and cities from the extremists, and that the Shiite-dominated government can do so only by being more inclusive toward the country’s Sunni minority.
General Dempsey said the United States was still hoping the Iraqi government would find a way to engage Sunnis to beat back the Islamic State, but he also talked of what he called a “Plan B” in case that never happens.
“We have not given up on the possibility that the Iraqi government could absolutely be whole,” he said, but added that “the game changers are going to have to come from the Iraqi government itself.”
“If we reach a point where we don’t think those game changers are successful, then we will have to look for other avenues to maintain pressure on ISIL, and we will have to look at other partners,” he said.
General Dempsey said that he did not envision another military base in Anbar, but that Pentagon planners were already looking at more northern areas for additional sites.
The Obama administration is hoping that reaching out to Sunnis will reduce the Iraqi military’s reliance on Shiite militias to take back territory lost to the Islamic State.
To that end, the Americans will be sending arms and equipment — including AK-47s and communications equipment — directly to Taqqadum. The supplies are to be transferred to Iraqi Army units, who are then supposed to give them to Sunni fighters. United States military officials said American soldiers would be there to ensure the transfer to Sunni fighters.
Officials said the Iraqi Security Forces were expected to do the bulk of the work to retake Ramadi once that campaign gets going. But once the city is reclaimed, it will probably be the Sunni fighters who will have to hold them.
“What the tribes are going to provide is not only thickening of the ranks of those fighting ISIL, but at some point the I.S.F. will want to protect” the cities that have been liberated, General Dempsey said. “The responsibility of defending the cities that are liberated — that will fall to the local tribes.
Sending More Troops to Iraq
It’s hard not to draw parallels between the Obama administration’s decision to deploy 450 troops to Iraq’s Anbar Province and the effort to empower Sunni fighters during the 2007 troop surge that became known as the “Awakening.” And it’s hard not to be skeptical that the latest move, which appears to be a micro version of the old one, will change Iraq’s dysfunctional politics any more than its predecessor.
The escalation of the American military effort in Iraq comes after a jarring setback in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, which fell to the Islamic State last month. Expelling the group from the city is seen as an urgent priority because it lies just 70 miles from Baghdad. The city is also symbolically powerful for American veterans because it was among the deadliest battlefields in the war that began with the American invasion in 2003.
The tactic could be effective in the short run. The Americans will try to vet and train Sunni Arab tribesmen to fight in concert with conventional units of the beleaguered Iraqi Army. In the past, American troops have played an essential trust-building role when they’ve sought to get Iraqi factions that are suspicious of each other to work together.
But any victories will be short-term as long as the Shiite-dominated political elite in Baghdad continues to disenfranchise Sunnis at every turn. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a Shiite politician, is far less overtly sectarian than his predecessor, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. But he is just one of many power brokers in the capital, where influence continues to be wielded primarily by Shiite leaders with access to cash and the loyalty of militias.
During the troop surge of 2007, which included roughly 30,000 troops, American commanders argued that empowering Sunni tribesmen, and beating back insurgent groups, would give politicians in Baghdad breathing room to govern more inclusively. But they have consistently demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to do that.
The new troops will bring the American force in Iraq to 3,550. With each increase, the United States is being dragged more deeply into a war that lawmakers have been unwilling to authorize formally. And each step makes Congress’s irresponsibility more outrageous.
Analysts question whether Conservative government’s talk about joining NATO rapid reaction force is election posturing
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What Did You Think of 'America's Most Musical Family' Episode 11: Finals, Part 2? | Nickelodeon Fan Poll
What did you think of the eleventh episode of Nickelodeon's brand new music competition series America's Most Musical Family? Vote in the poll and sound off in the comments below!
What Did You Think of 'America's Most Musical Family' Episode 11?
In America's Most Musical Family episode 11, "Finals, Part 2", five family bands perform, but only four will move on to the next round, featuring special guest mentor Pete Wentz! (#110)
Who was your favorite family band in America's Most Musical Family episode 11? Vote in the poll here!: http://nickalive.blogspot.com/2020/01/who-was-your-favorite-family-band-in_11.html
America’s Most Musical Family is a one-of-a-kind music competition series that will see 30 talented and diverse family bands performing in all genres take center stage in front of celebrity judges Grammy Award-winning global superstar Ciara, digital media sensation David Dobrik, pop icon and Broadway star Debbie Gibson and show host, singer and television personality Nick Lachey to compete for a recording contract with Republic Records and the chance to win a $250,000 cash prize in partnership with Capri Sun 100% Juice. Bands taking part range from a father/daughter duo, sibling groups and a 12-member multigenerational brass ensemble. The bands will battle it out over the course of 12 hour-long episodes and one half-hour special.
Follow America’s Most Musical Family: nickammf.com | Instagram | YouTube | Audition for Season 2 | #AMMF
More Nick: Comedian/Writer Adam Conover Tapped to Host Nickelodeon's 'The Crystal Maze', Premiering Friday, Jan. 24, at 7:00 p.m. (ET/PT)!
Follow NickALive! on Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, via RSS, on Instagram, and/or Facebook for the latest Nickelodeon and America's Most Musical Family News and Highlights!
Labels: America's Most Musical Family, Nickelodeon Fan Polls, Nickelodeon News, Nickelodeon Reality Shows, Nickelodeon Shows, Nickelodeon USA
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Law on High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine came into force
Some provisions of the document will come into force only from the day of the beginning of the work of the Anti-Corruption Court
KYIV (QHA) -
The law "On the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court" came into force on June 14. The document was published on June 13 in the publication "Voice of Ukraine".
Part of the document - "Final and transitional provisions" - will come into force only from the day of the beginning of the work of the Anti-Corruption Court in Ukraine.
The High Anti-Corruption Court will consider crimes under investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). At the same time, the damage caused as a result of the corruption crime must exceed by 500 times the size of the subsistence minimum for able-bodied people amounting to 881 thousand hryvnia.
Reportedly, the parliament of Ukraine had considered over 1000 amendments to the bill on the Anti-Corruption Court.
Earlier, the Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groisman said he would resign, if an Anti-Corruption Court is not created in the country.
Ukraine Anti-Corruption Court law
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Klimkin: Lavrov admitted that exchange of prisoners is not political problem
Priority of business in matters of sanctions may turn disaster for EU – Tuka
Putin commented on return of Crimea to Ukraine
Lutsenko: 47 people are under the gun of Russian special services
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What: All Issues : Aid to Less Advantaged People, at Home & Abroad : The Unemployed : H.R. 2673. Fiscal 2004 Omnibus Appropriations/Vote on Final Passage of an Omnibus Spending Bill to Fund the Operation of Government in 2004. (2003 house Roll Call 676)
H.R. 2673. Fiscal 2004 Omnibus Appropriations/Vote on Final Passage of an Omnibus Spending Bill to Fund the Operation of Government in 2004.
house Roll Call 676 Dec 08, 2003
In a series of four procedural votes which were held prior to this vote, Republican leaders were able to circumvent House rules and pave the way for passage of the omnibus appropriations bill on the same day that it was reported out of committee (see Roll Call Votes 672, 673, 674, and 675). Each year, Congress must pass and the president must sign into law thirteen appropriations bills either separately or in the form of an omnibus bill in order to fund the operation of government. If all thirteen spending bills are not adopted by October 1, the end of the fiscal year, then the areas of government which failed to receive funding for the upcoming year shut down, a situation which occurred in 1995 when the Republican-controlled Congress and President Clinton failed to come to agreement on spending issues. Omnibus appropriations bills, which have increased in usage in recent years, bundle two or more of the thirteen individual appropriations bills into a single measure. Given their often enormous size and complexity, lawmakers readily admit that omnibus bills are not the ideal vehicle for debating budgetary issues. Nonetheless, if Congress appears unable to complete action on all thirteen spending bills by the end of the congressional session, then House leaders often rely on the omnibus method in order to expedite passage of those bills. Generally, lawmakers are less willing to oppose an omnibus bill based on specific policy or funding objections because omnibus legislation raises the stakes of budgetary policy-making (witness the public outcry in 1995 after the partial government shutdown). The subject of this vote was final passage of the 2004 omnibus appropriations bill, a bill which bundled seven uncompleted appropriations bills into one enormous spending package. Specifically, the omnibus bill included appropriations for the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs (more than seven federal departments are listed here because some appropriations bills, such as the Transportation and Treasury Department appropriations bill, include funding for more than one department). Progressives voted against the omnibus bill and argued that the Republicans' procedural tactics on the omnibus bill were in violation of the rules of the House and the rights of minority Democrats (see also House vote 590 for other examples of what Democrats have characterized as strong-arm, or even unlawful, tactics by the Republican leadership). Progressives protested that holding House floor debate on the omnibus bill on the same day that it was reported from the Rules Committee provided them with an insufficient amount of time to read the bill and understand its contents. Progressives also voiced specific policy objections to the seven appropriations bills which were lumped together into the omnibus legislation. While those objections are far too numerous to detail here, a sampling of complaints include the failure to extend unemployment benefits to the millions of out-of-work Americans, the inclusion of administration-supported rules to deny overtime pay to certain classes of white-collar workers, provisions to allow greater media concentration, and language to privatize some government jobs. Conservatives voted in favor of the omnibus bill and argued that the end of the congressional session justified their efforts to complete action on appropriations legislation. On a vote of 242-176, the 2004 omnibus spending bill was adopted and the measure was signed into law on January 23, 2004 and a partial government shutdown was narrowly avoided.
AID TO LESS ADVANTAGED PEOPLE, AT HOME & ABROAD — The Unemployed
GOVERNMENT CHECKS ON CORPORATE POWER — Broadcast Media
LABOR RIGHTS — Rights of Individuals in the Workplace
LABOR RIGHTS — Rights of Public Employees
MAKING GOVERNMENT WORK FOR EVERYONE, NOT JUST THE RICH OR POWERFUL — Protecting Rights of Congressional Minorities
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"We all gotta eat"
The Patriots' offer essentially would guarantee Law $15.6 million over the next two years ($6.6 million bonus, salaries of $4 million this year and $5 million next year), according to the Globe. His current contract calls for him to earn $16.9 million over the next two seasons.
"I would be a fool to take less than what I already make," Law told the newspaper. "So you're telling me, if I make $17 million over the next two years, if I'm a Patriot, I'm going to accept $15.6 million? That's a pay cut. I said it a thousand times, I'm not taking no pay cut...."
St Louis Star Ball - tonight and all weekend
It's still worthwhile even though *I* won't be competing there this year... Everything you need to know to get there and enjoy some of the best amateur and professional dancing ever is right here.
The event is managed every year by the Just Dancing studio in Manchester, MO just west of St. Louis. If you want to get started with dancing and you're around StL, that's the place to go, from the greenest beginner to the national level.
It's about time!
That most Politically Correct of devices, the condom, is threatened with exposure::
"WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is considering requiring warning labels on condom packages noting that the contraceptive devices do not protect users from all sexually transmitted diseases, a Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) official said Thursday.
Most recent studies indicate condoms do not safeguard against human papillomavirus, or HPV, a little-known but widespread sexually transmitted disease that, untreated, can cause genital warts or cervical cancer. "
The FDA "has developed a regulatory plan to provider condom users with a consistent labeling message and the protection they should expect from condom use," said Dr. Daniel G. Schultz, director of the agency's Office of Device Evaluation.
The agency "is preparing new guidance on condom labeling to address these issues," Schultz told members of a House Government Reform subcommittee.
The FDA has considered warning labels since 2000, when President Clinton (news - web sites) directed the agency to re-examine whether information included in packages accurately reflected condom effectiveness in preventing all sexually transmitted diseases, including HPV.
But some lawmakers feared that such labels could turn people away from using condoms, thereby increasing the risk of contracting diseases such as AIDS (news - web sites), chlamydia and gonorrhea.
"Anything that undermines the effectiveness of condoms for these uses will have serious public health consequences," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. "Are condoms perfect? Of course not. But reality requires us not to make a public health strategy against protection, but rather to ask a key question: compared to what?"
Some lawmakers "insist that abstinence-only education is the solution to teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases because abstinence works each time," Waxman said. "Well, the evidence, however, indicates that abstinence-only education works rarely, if at all."
Responded Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va.: "This is not about social ideology, or religious ideology. It's about informing women. ... And truly, the only way to be protected is abstinence. That's not ideology — it's fact."
The White House wants to double, to $270 million, federal spending on education programs to convince young people that abstinence is the only certain way to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. But an independent report for the government two years ago indicated that no reliable evidence exists that abstinence programs work.
More than 2 million American women are infected with HPV each year, said Dr. Ed Thompson, deputy director for public health services at the Centers for Disease Control. Ten thousand women are diagnosed annually with cervical cancer, claiming 4,000 lives, Thompson said.
Of course there's the usual ridiculous statement about abstinence programs. Read this sneer-quoted double-talk to see how far backwards some of these creeps will bend to try to convince us that abstinence fails the same way a condom does.
Kerry voters? Count on it.
Yep, I even stole the title from local boy Rodger Schultz. I can't figure out which one is dumber - the drug pushing asthmatic or the 100% minority owned firm that wasn't 51% minority owned.
I never read this in my high school history
From The Washington Times: "An American historian says that more than a million Europeans were enslaved by North African slave traders between 1530 and 1780, a time of vigorous Mediterranean and Atlantic coastal piracy.
The number of white European slaves is only a fraction of the trade that brought 10 million to 12 million black African slaves to the Americas over a 400-year period, historian Robert Davis says, but his research shows the slave trade was more widespread than commonly assumed. The impact on Europe's white population was significant."
It’s thought that nearly a billion and a half people around the world don’t have access to safe drinking water. People often walk for miles every day to find it, which can take hours. That’s why the task of getting water has been considered a difficult, tiresome job.
But that’s changing in South Africa. The World’s Amy Costello visited a place where getting water has actually become fun.
Kids run in a circle and push a merry-go-round faster and faster. Those who are seated on the ride, get dizzy from the speed...laughing and giddy from the force of gravity.
These kids are having so much fun, they don’t seem to realize they’re working. Then again, that’s the idea behind the Play-Pump…a merry-go-round with a mission.
....The World Bank recently recognized the Play Pump in a worldwide competition and provided 160,000 dollars to install forty more Play-Pumps around South Africa. The World Bank’s Michael Kubzanksky says that of the 450 projects funded by the competition, the Play-Pump’s one of the best.
...There are plans to put the Play-Pump into other African countries. It may come as no surprise to parents…but Field says the energy created by kids turning a merry-go-round generates enough power to supply a village of 3000 people with clean drinking water.
Each pump costs about seven thousand dollars to install.
But if they could get married...
Drudge linked to something under a headline like "Rise in syphilis tied to Internet", so I dug a little deeper. Incidentally, in the following, "MSM" means "men having sex with men":: "Among 151 MSM interviewed, nearly 45 percent reported meeting sex partners online, and roughly one fifth of those men had no other contact information for the partner besides an e-mail address."Yep, it's the Internet's fault alright. And back when, as documented in "And the Band Played On", men would lie in bathhouses, nude with their butts in the air waiting for a stranger to sodomize them, that must have been because of Ronald Reagan's views on AIDS.
Well, maybe the chat rooms should be shut down, eh? Oh, you could chase them off AOL, but they'd be back elsewhere, and with even less supervision.
But if you did successfully shut down chat rooms, it would be just as it was in San Francisco some years ago with bathhouses. When some gay groups recognized that they were the nuclei for the spread of AIDS and lobbied to shut them down, there was mass outrage. I don't know if they're back open now or not, but they're irrelevant - sluts are sluts.
Are all gays like that? No. But it would be nice to hear them disavowed once in a while, especially when some of them want us to take the idea of gay marriage seriously.
But if she had gone hunting with them, that would have been different
Another high court justice faces questions on ethics: "WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has lent her name and presence to a lecture series co-sponsored by the liberal NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, an advocacy group that often argues before the court in support of women's rights that the justice embraces."
Atrios for President!
Why not? - how much worse can he be than John Kerry? It's harder to tell the difference every day, and then Kerry described his Republican critics as "the most crooked ... lying group I've ever seen." Perhaps it's just a coincidence that he had just been speaking with Howard Dean.
And in the same article Kerry is proposing "deeper tax cuts for the middle class than proposed by President Bush". I can't wait to see this.
She's still alive!
Yes, Susanna finally posted something. I'll just link to the top of the blog, because it's the only thing showing right now anyway.
That's also the page where her PayPal and Amazon tipjars are (hint hint).
But you still can't post comments over there. If you can't contain yourself you can leave them here and I'll see to it that she gets them. We need to remind her that since she's been slacking on blogging, President Bush's numbers have been going down.
Real Starship Troopers?
They haven't caught up with Robert Heinlein's classic yet, but Robotic Legs Could Produce Super Troops
Should we hold him to it?
You might have heard about a hockey player whose neck was broken in two places recently. Colby Cosh is absolutely, positively certain Bertuzzi was just following orders - he wrote "I hope the Canucks still think they're getting good value for money with the universally-hated Marc Crawford behind the bench; I'll eat Rosie O'Donnell's thong if that sadist didn't order Bertuzzi to jump Moore."
Ear prints?
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Criminals are used to trying to avoid leaving fingerprints at a crime scene. But now British scientists have developed a computerized system that allows them to identify ear prints just as easily.
Privacy in Retreat?
Drudge linked to this William Safire column lamenting loss of privacy in the wake of 9/11.
But it turns out that he was only working himself up to fussing about attempted research into abortions by the Justice Department. Why, the sanctity of medical records might be violated!
If in fact the Justice Department was trying to assemble a list of abortion recipients for some sort of harassment, then I say hang the creeps. But that's not what's going on here - their stated purpose is to see if partial birth abortions are medically necessary. And the radical pro-abortion crowd can't stand this, because they know very well that it will expose partial-birth abortions as being medically unnecessary and irrelevant to the health of the mother.
What's really going on here is that politics have trumped science again.
The gallstone and the spleen
Much-abused Attorney General John Ashcroft is having his gallbladder removed today.
This reminds me of an old item from the Corner. I'm sure some lefty will be reusing it in one form or another.
Protein Wisdom is back!
I don't care if you just followed Reynolds' link - go back anyway. Tomorrow too. And the next....
Marketing whizzes
Last night Jay Leno showed some headlines featuring "Outhouse Springs" bottled water. Of course I had to look it up on the web.
Yep, it's for real:
This brand of bottled water was dreamed up by an advertising agency that wanted to gauge how effective outdoor billboard ads could be. So they put 40 billboards advertising the fictitious Outhouse Springs Water up around Charleston, South Carolina. The billboards sported slogans such as "It's #1, not #2!" People definitely noticed the ads and actually started asking for the stuff at retailers. Demand became so intense that the ad agency eventually made a deal with a bottled-water company to produce a limited run of Outhouse Springs Water. It's on sale now at Piggly Wiggly's in Charleston.
More here. The Leno gag suggests that the stuff is still out there.
On a somewhat related note, I've heard that there is a unique cheer at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. "Let's Go Peay!"
Virginia Postrel says:
This sort of indirect genetic evidence for human evolution is going to pile up until it resembles the overwhelming geological case against believing the earth is a few thousand years old.
Maybe so. But to say so is an act of faith.
Is there a competing scientific theory (ie that does not involve creation of humans as they are) for how human brains got to be the way they are? Not that I know of. But that is not the same as saying the current theory is correct. It might be telling us more about the ingenuity of the practitioners in the field in creating alternative explanations.
....you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows....
Kevin McGehee notes how certain elements have attempted to overthrow much of American traditional culture.
Just how long do imperial judges and liberal attack lawyers think we'll stand for this nonsense?
Martha Stern?
Martha Stewart was found guilty of several charges on Friday. She has been a big donor to Democrats. So how long will it take for someone to claim that the Administration is behind her troubles?
Maybe if she hurries she'll be able to tell her side on the Howard Stern show before he's taken off the air. You know, last I knew they were both unattached...
But if she had gone hunting with them, that would ...
Virginia Postrel says:This sort of indirect geneti...
....you don't need a weatherman to know which way ...
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You are here: Home » Media Centre » News » 2019 » First NZDF Contingent Departs to Support Australian Fires
First NZDF Contingent Departs to Support Australian Fires
The first of three Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) NH90 helicopters and its crew departed for Nowra, New South Wales today to support the Australian Defence Force (ADF) efforts in tackling the Australian fires.
The contingent left from RNZAF Base Ohakea and was transported via a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) C-17 aircraft.
Two further RNZAF NH90s and crew will depart for Australia over the next two days. A contingent of New Zealand Army Combat Engineers and a command element will also deploy to Australia via a RNZAF C-130 Hercules aircraft to support the ADF efforts.
The RAAF will be capturing imagery of the unloading of the first NH90 in Australia later this evening. Imagery will be shared via the New Zealand Defence Force Facebook page, which media are welcome to use.
This page was last reviewed on 6 January 2020.
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© 2001 Studio Ghibli - NDDTM / courtesy of GKids
August 21–25, 2019
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Hayao Miyazaki's wondrous fantasy adventure is a dazzling masterpiece from one of the most celebrated filmmakers in the history of animation. Chihiro's family is moving to a new house, but when they stop on the way to explore an abandoned village, her parents undergo a mysterious transformation and Chihiro is whisked into a world of fantastic spirits ruled over by the sorceress Yubaba. Overflowing with imaginative creatures and thrilling storytelling, Spirited Away became a worldwide smash hit, and is one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time. Recommended for ages 9+
Screens in Japanese (with English subtitles) on August 25.
Wednesday, August 21, 12:00 p.m. Museum of the Moving Image - Redstone Theater Screening
Thursday, August 22, 12:00 p.m. Museum of the Moving Image - Redstone Theater Screening
Friday, August 23, 12:00 p.m. Museum of the Moving Image - Redstone Theater Screening
Saturday, August 24, 11:30 a.m. Museum of the Moving Image - Redstone Theater Screening
Spirited Away (in Japanese)
Sunday, August 25, 11:30 a.m. Museum of the Moving Image - Redstone Theater
Summer Matinees: Fantastic Worlds
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Plum Blossom Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine
Home | About Dr. Hobbs | Integrative Medicine | Traditional Chinese Medicine | Services | Links | FAQs | Referrals | Contact Us
Q: Will acupuncture or other tradtional Chinese medicine (TCM) approaches help me?
A: TCM is widely accepted and has been shown to be effective for many medical conditions. There are certain conditions, of course, which are best treated using modern, western medicine. There are also many conditions for which a combined approach is most helpful. Then there are conditions for which acupuncture and other TCM therapies have an advantage over western medicine. Dr. Hobbs will be happy to discuss your situation with you and, if you like, to confer with your primary care physician to assess the likelihood of your being helped by acupuncture and/or other TCM therapies.
Q: Is acupuncture safe?
A: Acupuncture is a minimally invasive procedure that is remarkably safe. The needles are sterilized, used only once and then carefully discarded. Great care is employed during insertion to prevent infection or other complications.
Q: Is acupuncture painful?
A: The needles used for acupuncture are very tiny and in most cases there is little or no discomfort associated with insertion. After the needles are placed, they are manipulated for a few seconds to produce a phenomenon called de qi (pronounced "da chee") or arrival of qi. De qi is signalled by a very brief sensation at the needling site and sometimes along the path of the meridian. This response is a good indication that the needle is doing its job. The feeling of de qi usually lasts only a few seconds and is associated with minimal discomfort. Many patients, once they have experienced acupuncture, actually look forward to the sensation of de qi because they recognize its significance.
Q: What are the benefits of acupuncture and other TCM therapies?
A: Foremost is that the methods used are safe, natural (relying upon the body's inherent ability to heal itself) and holistic. Add to that the fact that many millions of people over a period of literally thousands of years have been helped by this ancient approach to healing and that in many instances patients for whom western medicine has not worked have been healed by traditional Chinese medicine.
Q: What are the advantages of an integrative approach?
A: Integrative medicine honors the spirit-mind-body connection. By uniting western medicine with other healing traditions, such as traditional Chinese medicine, the patient is more likely to get the help they need in all spheres and to find that specific resonance which leads to peace, harmony and wellness.
Q: Does my insurance cover acupuncture?
A; Many but not all insurances do cover acupuncture services. Please check with your carrier to know for certain. We are happy to provide all the necessary information for you to submit claims.
Q: Are there payment plans?
A: Yes, we accept Visa and Mastercard. We also will make arrangements for financial hardship.
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Miss Universe Philippines Catriona Gray
PHOTO: AFP Catriona Gray of the Philippines receiving her Miss Universe 2018 crown from last year's winner, Demi. (CNN) - Catriona Gray from the Philippines claimed the Miss Universe crown for 2018 on Monday, beating contestants from 93 other countries. Miss Philippines, Catriona Gray, was crowned the 2018 Miss Universe winner. India's Nehal Chudasama failed to make it to the Top 20. Earning the win after opening up about her life, rocking a unique dress for the evening gown competition and. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray is crowned Miss Universe during the final round of the Miss Universe pageant in Bangkok, Thailand, December 17, 2018. Catriona Gray takes her turn on stage during the Miss Universe preliminary competition in Bangkok, Thailand. The Philippines’ Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home country. She beat out 93 other contestants including Miss South Africa Tamaryn Green, who was the runner-up, and second runner-up Miss Venezuela Sthefany Gutierrez. The 2018 MISS UNIVERSE Competition will air LIVE Sunday, December 16th at 7pm ET on FOX from Bangkok, Thailand. I'm gonna send a flood gonna drown them out. It was the ethnicity of the winner, Catriona Gray of the Philippines While many Filipinos cheered her win – the country’s fourth victory in 67 years of the pageant – others felt she simply. The Philippines' Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition held in Bangkok on Monday, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. An Account made to support Catriona Gray for Miss Universe 2018 From World to Universe #MissUniverse2018 #Philippines. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray is crowned Miss Universe. MANILA, Philippines - Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray recounted on Tuesday walked down memory lane and recalled the day her dream came true — being crowned as the 2018 Binibining Pilipinas. Credit: Fox/Getty Images Catriona Gray from the Philippines claimed the Miss Universe crown for 2018 on Monday, beating contestants from 93 other countries. Get latest News Information, Articles on Miss Philippines Catriona Gray Updated on April 30, 2019 11:52 with exclusive Pictures, photos & videos on Miss Philippines Catriona Gray at Latestly. The Philippines’ Catriona Gray has been named Miss Universe 2018 in Bangkok, beating contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. Absolutely beautiful and smart, 24-year-old Gray wore a sparkling red dress she said is inspired by a volcano in the Philippines as she was handed the crown to the delight of a roaring crowd that generally favored Southeast Asian contestants. Gray, who is the fourth Filipina to win the coveted crown. AUGUST 5, 2019 by NAMITA NAYYAR (WF TEAM) NAMITA NAYYAR: In one of your Pageant questions, you said "I will dedicate my voice and essence to carry that torch and to set charitable causes alight, such as my personal advocacy, the Paraiso Bright Beginnings Project. Catriona Gray of the Philippines smiles after being crowned the new Miss Universe 2018 on December 17, 2018 in Bangkok. The Philippines, South Africa and Venezuela reached the. The Philippines’ Catriona Gray takes her turn on stage during the Miss Universe preliminary competition in Bangkok, Thailand. Put a crown on it! Miss Philippines Catriona Gray won the title of Miss Universe 2018 on Sunday night in Bangkok, Thailand. Miss Philippines, Catriona Gray, crowned Miss Universe December 17, 2018 KQRadio Entertainment 0 LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/AFP/Getty Images (BANGKOK) — Miss Philippines, Catriona Gray, has been crowned the new Miss Universe. She won the competition and was crowned by the former Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters. The Southeast Asian country now has the fourth-highest number of winners in the world. That’s all nothing to be excited. Congratulations are in order for the new Miss Universe, Miss Philippines Catriona Gray. BANGKOK (AP) — The Philippines' Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition held in Bangkok on Monday, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. Maraming salamat po. Catriona Gray from the Philippines claimed the Miss Universe crown for 2018 on Monday, beating contestants from 93 other countries. Filipina-Australian television host Catriona Gray has become Miss Universe 2018, beating 93 contestants in the beauty pageant held in Thailand. Miss Universe 2018 Highlights December 16 17 2018 Bangkok Thailand Philippines Catriona Gray Full Performances South Africa Tamaryn Green Venezuela Sthefany Gutierrez Miss Universe 2015 - Pia. Miss Philippines-Universe Catriona Gray announced on her Instagram account yesterday that she’ll be walking on NYFW’s runway on Sept. #ABSCBNLifestyleInspo Catriona Gray: The (Rocky) Road To The 'Miss Universe' Crown Jul 09, 2018 12:00 PM. Miss Philippines, Catriona Gray has been crowned the winner of Miss Universe for the year 2018. BANGKOK (AP) — Catriona Gray of the Philippines was named winner of the Miss Universe 2018 competition in the Thai capital Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries to claim the prize. Catriona Gray of the Philippines, left, reacts as she is crowned the new Miss Universe 2018 by Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters during the final round of the 67th Miss Universe competition. BANGKOK — The representative of the Philippines won this year's Miss Universe contest Monday in Bangkok. (Photo by LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA / AFP). We can not wait to receive our new sparkly dress! Due in 2020 No filter/apps used in this. First runner-up is Miss South Africa and the new Miss Universe is Miss Philippines. During last night's Miss Universe 2018 Preliminary Competition, a collective gasp was heard when footage of Philippine bet Catriona Gray's performance made its way online. A consistent fan favorite, Gray is the fourth Miss Universe from the Philippines, after Gloria Diaz (1969), Margie Moran (1973), and Pia Wurtzbach (2015). Miss South Africa Tamaryn Inexperienced was the primary runner-up and Miss Venezuela Sthefany Gutiérrez was the second runner-up. Credit: AP Celebrations were especially buoyant in Oas town in the. Here are some hot photos of Catriona that are reason enough to justify her Miss Universe 2018 title win. She was crowned the winner of the beauty contest on Monday beating 93 other contestants from different other countries. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray won Miss Universe 2018. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe) BANGKOK (AP) — The Philippines’ Catriona Gray was. She represented Philippines at the contest and battled out 93 other delegates in the contest to claim the title of Miss Universe. Catriona Gray of Philippines reacts as she is crowned the new Miss Universe 2018 by Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray was crowned Miss Universe 2018 late Sunday in Bangkok, Thailand, after defeating 93 other candidates from different countries. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray was crowned Miss Universe 2018 in the just-concluded beauty pageant in Bangkok, Thailand Monday. Catriona Gray - Philippines' Full Performance @ Miss Universe 2018 john emil yumol. Catriona Gray of the Philippines, left, reacts with joy as she is crowned the Miss Universe 2018 by Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters during the final round of the 67th Miss Universe. South Africa’s Tamaryn Green and Venezuela’s Sthefany Guterrez secured the first runner-up and second runner-up spots, India’s Nehal Chudasama failed to make it to the Top 20. Catriona Gray;Miss Universe. Catriona Gray's life forever changed in December 2018 when she was crowned Miss. The latest Tweets from Catriona Gray (@catrionaelisa). For others, it is an opportunity that comes along by happenstance. It was Singson not Marquez-Araneta who accompanied Gray back from Thailand to the Philippines. She represented the Philippines in the Miss World 2016 pageant and placed as a Top 5 Finalist. Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray wearing the Mikimoto phoenix crown, priced at $250,000 (around P13. There's a new Miss Universe in town! Miss Philippines Catriona Gray was crowned the winner of the 2018 Miss Universe pageant, which was held Sunday in Bangkok, Thailand. BANGKOK, Dec. Catriona Eliza Gray hails from Albay, Bicol in the Philippines. MANILA, Philippines - Before crowning this year's Miss Universe Philippines, Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray shared a few emotional words with the audience during her final walk. — Miss Universe (@MissUniverse) December 17, 2018 Miss Philippines Catriona Gray earned the coveted title, and was brought to tears by the exciting victory, which saw her take on the title held by the outgoing Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters, who represented South Africa when she won last December. (CNN) - Catriona Gray from the Philippines claimed the Miss Universe crown for 2018 on Monday, beating contestants from 93 other countries. Catriona Gray, Miss Philippines, was named the 2018 Miss Universe Sunday night. It is Catriona Gray (above), who was born in Cairns, Australia to an Australian father and a Filipina mother from Albay, 450 km. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray is crowned Miss Universe. com We look forward to a great year with our newly crowned Miss Universe Catriona Gray. The moment Miss Philippines Catriona Gray was crowned Miss Universe 2018, she was filled with gratitude for her country and her fans. Gray was hailed as Miss Universe 2018 during the coronation held at the Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday. The 24-year-old Filipina-Australian has become the. Catriona Gray wants to be next Miss Universe Philippines. The 24-year-old Australia native beat out 93 contestants on Sunday night to take the title. Gray represented the Philippines in the 2016 Miss World beauty contest held in Maryland, USA where she finished in the Top 5. Catriona Gray of the Philippines reacts as she is crowned the new Miss Universe 2018 by Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray for the Miss Universe 2018 Crown, Beckley. BANGKOK, Dec. Gray revealed on her Instagram that she will be one of the candidates for this year’s Binibining Pilipinas pageant. Gray joins Gloria Diaz, Margie Moran, and Pia Wurtzbach, who held the title in 1969, 1973, and 2015, respectively. Negotiations collapsed after Chinese refuses to broadcast the pageant live, due to large time difference between China and United States. Catriona Gray from the Philippines claimed the Miss Universe crown for 2018 on Monday, beating contestants from 93 other countries. Catriona Gray, in her stunning red gown and with the Mikimoto crown on her head, is our new Miss Universe Photo by Bruce Casanova for Binibining Pilipinas Catriona Gray delivered a performance for the books to bag the Philippines’ fourth Miss Universe crown in a glitzy coronation night at the Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand on Monday. The Southeast Asian country now has the fourth-highest number of winners in the world. CAIRNS woman Catriona Gray has beaten the largest pool of competitors to date to take out the title of Miss Universe 2018. Miss Universe 2018 winner Catriona Gray has voiced her support for medical marijuana in her home country of the Philippines. BANGKOK — The Philippines’ Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition held in Bangkok on Monday, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. Si Catriona Elisa Magnayon Gray (ipinanganak noong ika-6 ng Enero, 1994) ay isang Pilipina-Australyanang modelo, aktres, mang-aawit, visual artist, at beauty pageant titleholder na noon ay nakoronahan bilang Miss Universe 2018. The Filipino-Australian beauty queen took to Instagram on Monday to give a glimpse of one of her looks in the shoot. Gray was hailed as Miss Universe 2018 during the coronation held at the Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday. Gray joins Gloria Diaz, Margie Moran, and Pia Wurtzbach, who held the title in 1969, 1973, and 2015, respectively. THE Philippines' Catriona Gray was crowned Miss Universe 2018, the country's fourth crown in almost five decades. Miss World Philippines 2016 is the 6th edition of Miss World Philippines Pageant held on 2 October 2016 in the Manila Hotel Tent City, Manila. It wasn't a picture perfect smile, choice of swimsuit or even a view on world peace that proved controversial in the judging of Miss Universe 2018. To the disappointment of the Venezuelan and South African candidates, who also made it to the Top 3, 24-year-old Catriona managed to charm the judging panel, which this year for the first time boasted an all-female lineup. Tagged: Catriona Gray, Miss South Africa 2019, Miss Universe 2018. Miss Universe 2018. BANGKOK (AP) — The Philippines' Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. A crowd favorite since she arrived in Thailand, the 24-year-old Gray became the fourth Miss Universe from the Philippines after Gloria Diaz (1969), Margie Moran (1973), and Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach (2015). Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters, of South Africa, right, crowns new Miss Universe Catriona Gray, of Philippines, during the final of 67th Miss Universe competition in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, Dec. Catriona Gray has brought pride to the Philippines by bagging the crown in the recently concluded Miss Universe 2018 held in Bangkok, Thailand, December 17. Other contenders include Jane Teoh of Malaysia, Maëva Coucke of France, Sthefany Gutierrez of Venezuela, and Angeline Flor Pua - the Filipina-Chinese beauty queen representing Belgium. The Philippines’ Catriona Gray has been named Miss Universe 2018 in Bangkok, beating contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray was crowned Miss Universe 2018 late Sunday in Bangkok, Thailand, after defeating 93 other candidates from different countries. CAIRNS woman Catriona Gray has beaten the largest pool of competitors to date to take out the title of Miss Universe 2018. Accessibility Help. BANGKOK (AP) — The Philippines' Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray is crowned Miss Universe during the final round of the Miss Universe pageant in Bangkok, Thailand, December 17, 2018. (CNN) -- Catriona Gray from the Philippines claimed the Miss Universe crown for 2018 on Monday, beating contestants from 93 other countries. Mar 25, 2019- Explore bymadhay's board "Catriona Gray" on Pinterest. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray for the Miss Universe 2018 Crown, Beckley. She recently was announced as Miss Universe 2018, who was 2016 Miss World Philippines before. Runaway favorite Catriona Gray won this year’s Miss Universe-Philippines crown during the grand coronation night of the 55th edition of the Binibining Pilipinas beauty pageant held Sunday, March. Catriona is the fourth Filipina to win the title, following Gloria Diaz who won in 1969, Margarita Moran in 1973, and Pia Wurtzbach in 2015. The 2018 MISS UNIVERSE Competition will air LIVE Sunday, December 16th at 7pm ET on FOX from Bangkok, Thailand. Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray On Winning The Title & Chasing Her Dreams. The Philippines’ Catriona Gray is Miss Universe 2018. The renowned beauty pageant was held in Bangkok, Thailand, December 17, Monday. Catriona Gray of the Philippines, left, reacts as she is crowned the new Miss Universe 2018 by Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters during the final round of the 67th Miss Universe competition. Miss South Africa Tamaryn Green was the first runner-up and Miss Venezuela Sthefany Gutiérrez was the. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray waves after being crowned Miss Universe during the final round of the Miss Universe pageant in Bangkok, Thailand, December 17, 2018. 8k Likes, 23k Comments - Miss Universe (@missuniverse) on Instagram: "Miss Universe 2018 is PHILIPPINES! 🇵🇭 #MissUniverse @catriona_gray". Miss Philippines Catriona Gray, 24, was crowned the 2018 Miss Universe at IMPACT Muang Thong Thani in Thailand. Catriona Gray, in her stunning red gown and with the Mikimoto crown on her head, is our new Miss Universe Photo by Bruce Casanova for Binibining Pilipinas Catriona Gray delivered a performance for the books to bag the Philippines’ fourth Miss Universe crown in a glitzy coronation night at the Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand on Monday. She recently was announced as Miss Universe 2018, who was 2016 Miss World Philippines before. Ganados succeeded Catriona Gray, who won as Miss Universe 2018 in Bangkok, Thailand. Catriona Gray of the Philippines wins the 67th Miss Universe pageant. The Southeast Asian country now has the fourth-highest number of winners in the world. Early Years Maria Catriona Elisa Magnayon Gray, is a Filipino-Australian television host, singer, and model. Before joining the Miss Universe contest, Gray joined another global contest in 2017, Miss World, where she landed at the top 5. Image: Facebook/Miss Universe As of writing, the organization has yet to reveal Gray. Catriona Gray of Philippines was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding December 17, Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. The competition aired live on Fox Sunday night from Bangkok, Thailand. Miss Universe 2018 Miss Philippines Catriona Gray is crowned Miss Universe during the final round of the Miss Universe pageant in Bangkok, Thailand, December 17, 2018. Romualdez, US State Department Undersecretary for Management Brian Bulatao, and Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray toast to the longstanding friendship between the Philippines and the United States at the Diplomatic Reception commemorating the. The 24-year-old stunner was crowned Monday past midnight at the Binibining Pilipinas 2018 coronation night held at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City. PHOTO: REUTERS. AllSortaVideos 1,393,631 views. " This is how Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray described herself after she was asked to address the claims of some Australians that she is "Miss Australia. PHOTO: REUTERS. 7m Followers, 751 Following, 1,700 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Catriona Gray (@catriona_gray). (READ: Philippines' Catriona Gray is Miss Universe 2018) The 24-year-old Catriona bested 93 other candidates from all over the world, standing out for her signature "lava" walk, and answering a. She is the fourth Filipina to win the pageant. Miss World Philippines 2016 is the 6th edition of Miss World Philippines Pageant held on 2 October 2016 in the Manila Hotel Tent City, Manila. Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray - Duration: 15:45. Catriona Gray of the Philippines, left, reacts as she is crowned the new Miss Universe 2018 by Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters during the final round of the 67th Miss Universe competition in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, Dec. The entire Philippines has been waiting for Catriona Gray's evening gown at Miss Universe 2018, and girl did not disappoint with this look!She wore a stunning, lava-inspired evening gown designed by Mak Tumang and the same iconic ear cuff she wore at the Binibining Pilipinas 2018 competition designed by Tessera Jewelry!. Gallery: Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray. Gray is the fourth woman from the Philippines to win the Miss Universe title. Gray wore a sparkling red dress she said was inspired by a volcano in the Philippines as she was. But that's not the only interesting thing about our bet to this year's pageant. The 24-year-old Filipina-Australian pipped South African Demi Leigh Nel-Peters for the top spot, becoming the fourth Filipina to bring home the coveted title. 17 in Bangkok, Thailand As the new Miss Universe, Ms. “Through every portion of the pageant I just really had. MANILA, Philippines - Before crowning this year's Miss Universe Philippines, Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray shared a few emotional words with the audience during her final walk. | Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty Images. Catriona Gray was crowned Miss Universe 2018 last December, and what set the internet on fire was the stunning sparkly crimson-red evening gown with a sexy thigh-high slit by Filipino wedding dress designer Mak Tumang she wore during the competition. It was Singson not Marquez-Araneta who accompanied Gray back from Thailand to the Philippines. Catriona Gray yesterday met Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat about plans to promote Philippine tourist destinations, arts and culture even as she continues her reign as Miss Universe and Good News Pilipinas was there to cover the event. Pageant-mad Philippines ecstatic over Catriona Gray's Miss Universe win Since 2010, contestants from the Philippines have never been out of the Miss Universe top ten. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe). The show was hosted by five-time Emmy Award. The 24-year-old stunner was crowned Monday past midnight at the Binibining Pilipinas 2018 coronation night held at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City. Catriona Gray - a Manila-based television host, singer and model - of the Philippines has been named the winner of the Miss Universe pageant. The 24-year-old from Bicol had …. Miss Universe Catriona Gray visits Philippine Band of Mercy Medical Facility to offer support to the children at the hospital. Celebrations were. Catriona thus delivered on her wish as she brings home the Miss Universe crown for the Philippines this Christmas season. Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters of South Africa crowned her successor Catriona Gray of the Philippines by the end of the event. Reigning Miss Universe Catriona Gray will make her first ever visit to the UAE on September 19, Gulf News tabloid! can exclusively reveal. Catriona Gray is the fourth Filipino to win the Miss Universe. Miss Universe 2018. The Grand Parade will take the fourth Filipina Miss Universe to the streets of Manila and Makati on Feb. The 24-year-old Filipina-Australian has become the. Catriona Gray – Question and Answer Performance #BbPilipinas2018 Posted on March 19, 2018 by Admin // 1 Comment Crowd favorite Catriona Gray nailed the question and answer round of Binibining Pilipinas 2018 on Sunday, March 18, at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. Miss Universe 2018 in Photos: Catriona Gray of Philippines Crowned Getty Images Share Every year a new young woman is crowned Miss Universe and we finally have a new winner. MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines' Catriona Gray is Miss Universe 2018. The kawaraban community on Reddit. Catriona Gray is Miss Universe Philippines 2018 The strongest and most popular candidate proved to be most worthy of the top title, indeed. Gloria Diaz was the first Filipina to bring home the title in. BANGKOK (AP) — The Philippines’ Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. She work so hard to her charitable events. India’s Nehal Chudasama failed to make it to the Top 20. You are buying a different serial number. Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray's Winning Gowns & Prizes! By Blair Villanueva 7:30:00 PM Today marks another milestone for many Filipinos worldwide as we celebrate the winning of our beloved queen Ms. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray for the Miss Universe 2018 Crown, Beckley, West Virginia. Discover (and save!) your own Pins on Pinterest. MANILA, Philippines – Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray donned a jumpsuit terno for her grand homecoming parade in Metro Manila on Thursday. Catriona Gray of the Philippines was named winner of the Miss Universe 2018 competition in the Thai capital Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries to claim the prize. Bangkok — The Philippines' Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home country. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe). Catriona Gray of the Philippines, left, reacts as she is crowned the new Miss Universe 2018 by Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters during the final round of the 67th Miss Universe competition. “Inspired ako sa mga tao e. Before she even competed in the Miss World 2016 pageant and Miss Universe 2018, Catriona Gray also joined the Little Miss Philippines 1999 pageant in Sydney, Australia. “Feeling a mix of emotions shooting my final photo shoot for Miss Universe today! So exc. BEST MISS UNIVERSE OF ALL TIME [ CATRIONA GRAY 2018] All Q&A, All Her Scenes Plus Off-Stage Dancing - Duration: 28:15. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray (L) and Miss South Africa Tamaryn Green (R) react as they wait for the announcement of the winner during the Miss Universe 2018 beauty pageant at Impact Arena in. Gray will return to the Smart Araneta Coliseum where her journey to the Miss Universe crown began when she became a Binibining Pilipinas queen. Catriona Gray's Lava Gown At Miss Universe 2018 Is Everything! Catriona Gray Just Slayed Again With A 'Slow-Mo Turn' At Miss Universe 2018. Catriona Gray guns for Philippines' 4th Miss Universe crown posted December 08, 2018 at 06:10 pm by Eton B. Miss Universe Catriona Gray Question and Answer Miss Philippines Catriona Gray just won the Miss Universe 2018 Crown and here is the winning question and answer: Question : What is the most important lesson you've learned in your life, and how would you apply it to your time as the Miss Universe?. 21 hours ago · MANILA – Catriona Gray admitted “feeling a mix of emotions” during her final photo shoot as reigning Miss Universe. First runner-up is Miss South Africa and the new Miss Universe is Miss Philippines. Miss Phillipines wins Miss Universe 2018. The beauty pageant was held in Bangkok, Thailand. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray waves after being crowned Miss Universe during the final round of the Miss Universe pageant in Bangkok, Thailand, 17 December, 2018. Gray was hailed as Miss Universe 2018 during the coronation held at the Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday. The Philippines’ newly-crowned Miss Universe Catriona Gray remarked that there is “beauty” in poverty in the interview section of the pageant which was held in Manila, Philippines this year. — Miss Universe (@MissUniverse) December 17, 2018 Miss Philippines Catriona Gray earned the coveted title, and was brought to tears by the exciting victory, which saw her take on the title held by the outgoing Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters, who represented South Africa when she won last December. Gray, 24, was an early favorite this year and is the fourth Filipino Miss. But that's not the only interesting thing about our bet to this year's pageant. In an Instagram post on Saturday, Gray flaunted her skirt. NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 11: Miss Philippines Catriona Gray, who was crowned Miss Universe, 2018 attends Bibhu Mohapatra fall 2019 runway show during (NYFW) New York Fashion Week held Spring Studios Gallery II located at 6 St Johns Lane, New York, NY on February 11, 2019 in New York City. Joey de Leon celebrates Little Miss Philippines-turned-Miss Universe Catriona Gray. MANILA - Miss Universe 2018 candidates continue to show their love for the Philippines' Catriona Gray, who was proclaimed winner of the international pageant held early this week. 👸🏻 😍 💖 🎥 Kerwin Santos | XPedition Magazine #CatrionaGray #MissUniverse2018 #MissUniverse2019 #MissUniverse #powerhousePH. The 24-year-old. She came back to announce that Miss Universe 2019 will be held here in Manila. BANGKOK (AP) — The Philippines’ Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition held in Bangkok on Monday, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. 17 in Bangkok, Thailand As the new Miss Universe, Ms. As the Philippines has some of the world's strictest drug laws Miss Universe Catriona Gray is taking a stance for medical marijuana patient rights. The 24-year-old Australia native beat out 93 contestants on Sunday night to take the title. MANILA, Philippines — After a safari adventure and tasks for Miss South Africa, Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray returned to the Philippines for new endorsements and her duties as Miss Universe. Why Philippines Is Special: Miss Universe Catriona Gray Said What? - Duration: 23:04. Miss Philippines has been crowned Miss Universe 2018! Here are 5 things you should know about Catriona Gray. Catriona Gray of the Philippines, left, reacts with joy as she is crowned the Miss Universe 2018 by Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters during the final round of the 67th Miss Universe. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 17) — She might have not ruled the "World," but Catriona Gray has conquered the "Universe. Jan 14, 2019- Explore meecobenavidez's board "Miss Universe 2010 - 2019", followed by 405 people on Pinterest. The 24-year-old from Bicol had represented the. Image: Facebook/Miss Universe As of writing, the organization has yet to reveal Gray. Catriona, 24, is the fourth Filipina to bag the Miss Universe Crown, following Pia Wurtzbach in 2015, Margie Moran in 1973, and Gloria Diaz in 1969. The 24-year-old Filipina-Australian pipped South African Demi. Gallery: Sherri Hill Lookbook. On the other hand, Miss South Africa Tamaryn Green is the first runner-up and Miss Venezuela Sthefany Gutierrez is the second runner-up. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray for the Miss Universe 2018 Crown, Beckley, West Virginia. Catriona Gray from the Philippines claimed the Miss Universe crown for 2018 on Monday (Dec 17), beating contestants from 93 other countries. Catriona Gray is more than ready to conquer the Miss Universe 2018 stage and claim her crown as she dazzled in a dress inspired by the fated jewel to grace the winner's head. The Philippines’ Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home country. The 24-year-old Filipina-Australian has become the fourth. BANGKOK (AP) — The Philippines' Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. MANILA, Philippines - On Sunday, March 18, Catriona Gray won the title of Miss Universe Philippines 2018 before a big crowd at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. For the pageant's preliminary evening gown portion, the 24-year old looked like a rising phoenix in her Mak Tumang gown with. Gray made it to the Top 5 with with Puerto Rico, Vietnam, Philippines, South Africa and Venezuela. 14 comments on “ Miss Universe Catriona Gray on Miss Teen USA 2019 ” scorg on April 30, 2019 at 13:50 said: If this edition of Miss Teen USA is any indication of things to come at MUO contests, the final Q&A focused on political and social issues. MANILA, Philippines — All eyes were on Catriona Gray when she made her first walk as the Miss Universe 2018. Miss Universe 2017, Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters of South Africa crowned her at the event. Catriona Gray of the Philippines, left, reacts as she is crowned the new Miss Universe 2018 by Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters during the final round of the 67th Miss Universe competition. Before Miss South Africa was crowned Miss Universe in 2017, Pia Wurtzbach of the Philippines was the reigning Miss Universe. The 24-year-old Filipino beauty beat out contestants from 93 other contestants in a live event that aired on Fox Sunday. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray was crowned Miss Universe 2018 in the just-concluded beauty pageant in Bangkok, Thailand Monday. Catriona is the fourth Filipina to win the title, following Gloria Diaz who won in 1969, Margarita Moran in 1973, and Pia Wurtzbach in 2015. It was always written in the stars for reigning Miss Universe Catriona Gray. Gray joins Gloria Diaz, Margie Moran, and Pia Wurtzbach, who held the title in 1969, 1973, and 2015, respectively. MANILA - Miss Universe 2018 candidates continue to show their love for the Philippines' Catriona Gray, who was proclaimed winner of the international pageant held early this week. Catriona Gray thankful to win Miss Universe Philippines. While many Filipinos cheered her win - the country's fourth victory in 67 years of. The Philippines’ Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home country. The beauty pageant was held in Bangkok, Thailand. Catriona Gray's life forever changed in December 2018 when she was crowned Miss. Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray is the sexiest woman alive on the cover of the latest issue of Esquire Philippines. International pageants are a big deal in the Philippines. India's Nehal Chudasama failed to make it to the Top 20. BANGKOK (AP) — The Philippines' Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition held in Bangkok on Monday, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. Feb 1, 2019- Explore piacoladapie's board "Catriona Gray" on Pinterest. A post shared by Catriona Gray (@catriona_gray) on Dec 3, 2018 at 7:39pm PST Louis Pangilinan and Mia Arcenas For the Miss Universe welcome dinner, Catriona wore a violet cocktail dress by Louis. The 24-year-old Filipina-Australian pipped South African Demi Leigh Nel-Peters for the top spot, becoming the fourth Filipina to bring home the coveted title. Catriona Gray, the newly-crowned Miss Universe Philippines 2018, has been an avid traveler ever since her youth, and it’s probably because of her lineage. Catriona Gray, former Miss World-Philippines, was judged Miss Universe Philippines on Sunday’s Binibining Pilipinas grand coronation night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City. Catriona Gray's life forever changed in December 2018 when she was crowned Miss. There's a new Miss Universe in town! Miss Philippines Catriona Gray was crowned the winner of the 2018 Miss Universe pageant, which was held Sunday in Bangkok, Thailand. You Probably Missed the Hidden Inspiration Behind Miss Philippines' Vibrant Red Gown. Catriona Gray from the Philippines claimed the Miss Universe crown for 2018 on Monday, beating contestants from 93 other countries. The Southeast Asian country now has the fourth-highest number of winners in the world. Gray wore a sparkling red dress she said was inspired by a volcano in the Philippines as she was handed the crown to the delight of a. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray Crowned Miss Universe 2018! • After a three-hour competition, Miss Philippines earned the coveted title. Gray also worked in a tribute to the Mayon volcano of the Philippines with her sparkling crimson gown designed to resemble the swirling red and orange lava that flows down the cone-shaped volcano’s. December 2018 DaisyB 0 Comments Catriona Gray, Miss Universe 2018, Philippines Miss Catriona Gray makes history by being the fourth Filipina to win the title as Miss Universe. Miss Universi, Catriona Gray, do t'i bashkohet përpjekjeve për ngirtje të fondeve për shpëtimin dhe përmirësimin e jetëve të nënave dhe fëmijëve në Kosovë duke iu bashkuar mbrëmjes bamirëse 'Meet Us Halfway' në Yale Club të Nju Jork-ut me datë 10 October, 2019. BANGKOK (AP) — The Philippines' Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition held in Bangkok on Monday, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. And Miss Universe 2018 is Catriona Gray! Catriona bested 93 other contestants in the competition, which was held in Bangkok, Thailand. BANGKOK — The Philippines’ Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home country. Gray wore a. Miss Philippines Catriona Gray was crowned Miss Universe 2018 in the just-concluded beauty pageant in Bangkok, Thailand Monday. See more ideas about Miss universe philippines, Celebrities:__cat__ and Grey fashion. Manila, Philippines. Prior to the coronation ceremonies Gray has been showcasing Filipino heritage-infused-fashion since she arrived in Thailand weeks ago, winning the hearts and support of Filipinos worldwide. On the other hand, Miss South Africa Tamaryn Green is the first runner-up and Miss Venezuela Sthefany Gutierrez is the second runner-up. Before joining the Miss Universe contest, Gray joined another global contest in 2017, Miss World, where she landed at the top 5. 20th Feb, 2019. Catriona Gray from the Philippines claimed the Miss Universe crown for 2018 on Monday, beating contestants from 93 other countries. Expandable stand to watch videos, take group photos, FaceTime, and Skype handsfree. Together with Binibinis Samantha Bernardo, Vickie Rushton, Michelle Gumabao, Jehza Huelar, Angelica Alita and Kapamilya star Maymay Entrata, the past Miss Universe queens of the Philippines walked the stage all clad in Catriona’s signature red for a Catriona Gray-inspired fashion show, under the symphony of Talahib Pilipino’s Music. The Philippines' Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home country. Before Miss South Africa was crowned Miss Universe in 2017, Pia Wurtzbach of the Philippines was the reigning Miss Universe. The 24-year-old has become the fourth Filipina to bring home the title at this year. Absolutely beautiful and smart, 24-year-old Gray wore a sparkling red dress she said is inspired by a volcano in the Philippines as she was handed the crown to the delight of a roaring crowd that generally favored Southeast Asian contestants. Catriona Gray is an advocate, creative, fashion commercial model and singer based in the beautiful islands of the Philippines, recently crowned Miss Universe, Philippines 2018. Fashion-savvy Filipinos noticed Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray wearing the “Three Stars and the Sun” gold ear cuff that she wore when she won the title of Binibining Pilipinas. This is the fourth crown won by a candidate from the Philippines in the history of the popular international beauty pageant. Catriona Gray of the Philippines, left, reacts with joy as she is crowned the Miss Universe 2018 by Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters during the final round of the 67th Miss Universe. This year, she's representing the Philippines again in Miss Universe 2018. CATRIONA GRAY became the fourth Filipina to win the Miss Universe crown as she was adjudged Miss Universe 2018 during the pageant's coronation night on Dec. The Philippines’ Catriona Gray has been named Miss Universe 2018 in Bangkok, beating contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. Miss South Africa Tamaryn Green was the first runner-up and Miss Venezuela Sthefany Gutiérrez was the. Now she is considered one of the most stunning in the universe. From Valerie Weigmann to. MANILA, Philippines — A day before she crowns the new Miss Universe Philippines, reigning Miss Universe Catriona Gray shared on Saturday, June 8, photos and videos documenting the preparations. She is the reigning Miss Universe, the fourth titleholder for the Philippines, and the woman who invented the famous "lava walk. The entire Philippines has been waiting for Catriona Gray's evening gown at Miss Universe 2018, and girl did not disappoint with this look!She wore a stunning, lava-inspired evening gown designed by Mak Tumang and the same iconic ear cuff she wore at the Binibining Pilipinas 2018 competition designed by Tessera Jewelry!. Netizens shared several funny posts about the recently crowned Miss Universe Philippines 2018 Catriona Gray. The annual beauty pageant was. Expandable stand to watch videos, take group photos, FaceTime, and Skype handsfree. Miss Universe Catriona Gray visits Philippine Band of Mercy Medical Facility to offer support to the children at the hospital. Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray's national costume is now in Cebu for public viewing. Cat totally killed it with her "slow-motion" walk in the swimsuit portion and stunned in a Mak Tumang piece for the evening gown competition. Catriona Gray of the Philippines was named winner of the Miss Universe 2018 competition in the Thai capital Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries to claim the prize. Shipped carefully in protected/padded envelope from USA via USPS First Class Package. Gallery: Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray. Reigning Miss Universe Catriona Gray will make her first ever visit to the UAE on September 19, Gulf News tabloid! can exclusively reveal. Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray is the sexiest woman alive on the cover of the latest issue of Esquire Philippines. Born in Queensland, Australia, to a Scottish father and Filipina mother, Gray is the fourth beauty queen from the Philippines to be crowned Miss Universe. The beauty pageant was held in Bangkok, Thailand. Philippines. It can be recalled. #MissUniverseThailand2019. The 24-year old Miss Philippines Catriona Gray was crowned Miss Universe 2018 on December 17, 2018 amidst much rejoicing! The final round of the 67 th Miss Universe competition held in Bangkok announced Gray as winner out of 93 contestants. Twenty four years later, just days before her 25th birthday, she was crowned as the new Miss Universe. The most recent time was in 2015 when Pia Wurtzbach won the title. Miss South Africa Tamaryn. Gray truly made the entire Philippines proud when she sashayed on the global stage and showcased the genuine qualities defining a Filipina beauty: confidence, grace, intelligence and strength in the face of tough challenges," he said in a statement from the presidential palace. While the 24. The 24-year-old beat Miss South Africa Tamaryn Green to take the title. The social-media favorite won the crown Sunday night. Prior to the coronation ceremonies Gray has been showcasing Filipino heritage-infused-fashion since she arrived in Thailand weeks ago, winning the hearts and support of Filipinos worldwide. Subscribe to TIME Get closer to the world of entertainment and celebrity news as TIME gives you access and insig. (CNN) - Catriona Gray from the Philippines claimed the Miss Universe crown for 2018 on Monday, beating contestants from 93 other countries. Gray wore a sparkling red dress she said was inspired by a volcano in the Philippines as she was handed the crown to the delight of a roaring crowd that generally. BANGKOK (AP) — The Philippines' Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation. In the grand show, Miss Philippines, Catriona Gray received the crown of the winner of the Miss Universe Pageant. Catriona Gray is Miss Universe Philippines 2018 The strongest and most popular candidate proved to be most worthy of the top title, indeed. (CNN) - Catriona Gray from the Philippines claimed the Miss Universe crown for 2018 on Monday, beating contestants from 93 other countries. 89,567 likes · 148 talking about this. It is Catriona Gray (above), who was born in Cairns, Australia to an Australian father and a Filipina mother from Albay, 450 km. See scan for better description. Get exclusive videos, photos, bios and stats on all of the contestants. Oct 10, 2019- Explore malurullan's board "Catriona Gray, Miss Philippines" on Pinterest. Ninety-four stunning and accomplished women from countries all around the world gathered to compete for the 67th annual Miss Universe title. Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray promotes Philippines fashion in New York City. A new Miss Universe has been crowned! Miss Philippines Catriona Gray won the crown for 2018. The latest Tweets from Catriona Gray (@CatrionaGray12). ← Miss Universe Catriona Gray for San Mig Light Miss Universe Catriona Gray: Courtesy Calls → 22 comments on “ Miss Universe Catriona Gray and her interview with CNN Philippines ”. The 24-year-old Filipina-Australian has become the fourth. This year, she's representing the Philippines again in Miss Universe 2018. You are buying a different serial number. She born on 6 January 1994 in Cairns, Australia and her height is 5 feet's and 10 inches (1.
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Dr Prakash Patel
The pursuit of meaningful innovation and disruption in health care – One Physician Executive's Perspective
About Dr Patel
Lift Off!: The Launch of the prakashpatelmd.com Blog
In Search of the Super ACL: How Medicine Is Making Up for Slow Human Evolution
When I injured my ACL in high school (quite some time ago), it ended my aspiring college baseball dreams and beyond; but it began a lifelong medical interest in my injury. It was the seed of a theory around the ACL that I began cultivating in college, medical school and in my orthopedic training, and now as the head of a surgical implant management company that knows about knee surgeries. The fact is that the ACL is poorly designed to support the 21st Century human, and instead of waiting for natural human evolution it’s fascinating to see how medicine is stepping up to deliver a super ACL.
My theory is based on the fact that ACL (which stands for the Anterior Cruciate Ligament) injuries and repairs have been increasing at astounding rates across all age demographics, but especially in younger populations. Overall, there are approximately 400,000 reconstructive surgeries on ACLs per year. Moreover, consider knee implant increases (often from long standing issues stemming from prior ligament injuries) from 2000 to 2010 among 18- to 44-year-olds at 113%, 45 to 64 at 213%, 65 to 84 at 97%, and 85 and over at 89%. And costs have increased dramatically along with volume. The aggregate cost for knee surgeries is projected to show a 10-year increase of 450% to $41 billion by 2015.
The ACL is the primary stabilizer and the smallest of four main ligaments in the knee. Granted it doesn’t perform a life-sustaining bodily function, but it powers lifestyle-sustaining full mobility in high-demand twisting force movements such as in sports, and even in day-to-day living. For instance, you know it if the ACL is not doing its job because it can feel as if the knee will give way at any moment (particularly on stairs).
One-directional sports such as swimming, biking and running put less strain on the ACL. But sports that involve sudden lateral and vertical movements where players can take unexpected hits, such as football, basketball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, and volleyball, to name a few, demand what I call a super ACL. And as baby boomers continue their active lifestyles into their sixties and well beyond, they are simply wearing out body parts and requiring replacements.
All of this leads me to conclude that the ACL is poorly designed to support the 21st Century human. Perhaps thousands of years from now, humankind will look back on this era in human development and realize that the ACL was at an intersection where human evolution was bridged by medical science.
Many centuries into the future the ACL may evolve into a super-structure within the knee that lets us pivot harder, jump higher and take unexpected hits in stride. Or more likely that human modern day “deficiencies” like the ACL will be augmented in different ways, internally and externally, before injuries to suit the physical demands of certain activities. Today, however, it’s clear that the ACL is not keeping up with us humans and our ever-growing list of activities that start younger and go well into our senior years. Looking at our active lifestyles through the long lens of human evolution where it’s just been mere decades of change in lifestyle, it’s no wonder the ACL is falling behind.
That wouldn’t be a first for the 21st century human body. For example, that small pouch attached to the large intestine called the appendix no longer aids in digestion, and the one in 20 people who have it removed don’t miss it. Our mouths typically aren’t big enough anymore to accommodate wisdom teeth, so they’re not missed either. And our coccyx used to be where our tails protruded, but we haven’t missed our tails for quite some time now.
As usual, science and medicine are coming to the rescue where natural biological forces can’t keep pace with the demands of human progress. In general, we’ve seen significant innovative breakthroughs over the past five years.
As the Smithsonian Magazine recently reported, “In addition to prosthetic limbs, which are more versatile and user-friendly than ever before, researchers have developed functioning prototypes of artificial organs that can take the place of one’s spleen, pancreas or lungs. And an experimental implant that wires the brain to a computer holds the promise of giving quadriplegics control over artificial limbs.” The Smithsonian article highlighted the work of a team that rebuilt more than 50% of the human body, causing many thought leaders to ask how much of the human body can be replaced and still be considered human. One thing is clear: we have never been so replaceable.
What this means is that we’re going to continue to see medical science stepping in to bridge the gap between the fast-paced demands of the 21st century human body and the glacial pace of human evolution.
These positive advancements are all the more reason why we need to ensure that treatments are effective, affordable and really do provide the improved quality of life that 21st century humans demand. That means effective preventive, non surgical and surgical management across all patient touch points is essential, including coordination that motivates teamwork among the patient, trainers, doctors, treatment facility, payors and device manufacturers. It’s by taking a coordinated approach that we can apply best practices, achieve best outcomes, hold down costs, learn and improve for the benefit of patients.
In other words, as medical science continues to boggle the imagination with positive advancements that bridge the gap between our modern lifestyle demands and our physical shortcomings, we also need to take a thoughtful approach to the prevention and delivery system so that our society and our economy can afford these amazing advancements, and more people can avail themselves of “Super ACLs” and other super body parts today and into the future.
Swimming influence on your health
Becker’s Hospital Review Article
Consumer Reports Publishes Hospital Rating Systems for Patients
AMQ Upgrades Partners in Focus Portal
© 2020 Dr Prakash Patel
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PRIDE Industries Earns ML100 Award for Manufacturing Leadership
ROSEVILLE, February 27, 2012 – PRIDE Industries, a social enterprise providing first-rate manufacturing and service solutions to business and government, announced today that it has been selected as a winner in the 2012 Manufacturing Leadership 100 Awards. PRIDE was selected by Manufacturing Executive, the global community for manufacturing leadership, and was recognized in the Game-Changing Technologies category.
As a nonprofit organization, PRIDE Industries fulfills its social mission of creating jobs for people with disabilities through its own business services and by partnering with others in the community. PRIDE’s services include electronics and medical device contract manufacturing, as well as a comprehensive range of contract packaging, fulfillment, and supply chain solutions. PRIDE’s customers range from Fortune 10+ companies to prototype developers. The company tailors its solutions to the unique needs of each customer, creating efficiencies and cost-savings as a single-source provider of flexible, scalable services.
PRIDE was recognized for an integration solution of divergent systems which had scaled rapidly with the organization’s growth but lacked a cohesive interface. To streamline processes, ensure accuracy, and reduce operational costs, PRIDE implemented an Infor EAM LN solution to open lines of communication between Infor ERP and EAM systems. Automating processes previously done manually increased operational visibility and allowed decision-makers to identify and solve problems in real time. Integrating ERP and EAM systems supported PRIDE’s overall strategies of enabling faster, easier data access for users including employees with disabilities, and decreasing internal expenses to control service costs to customers. Ensuring that applications work seamlessly together helps PRIDE Industries maintain and enhance its competitive position in the marketplace.
“As a social enterprise maintaining the highest standards of quality, efficiency and service are imperative,” said John Vaughan, PRIDE Industries CIO and SVP Manufacturing and Logistics. “This ML100 award is a direct result of our efforts to ensure rigorous processes and procedures that deliver maximum results for our customers, and drive a 100% manufacturing survey response rate of customers confirming that they would use or refer PRIDE Industries again.”
PRIDE Industries was selected as an ML100 winner by a panel of distinguished judges from among hundreds of nominations. The ML100 Awards will be officially presented May 2 in conjunction with the annual Manufacturing Leadership Summit at The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, FL.
PRIDE Industries is a nonprofit organization meeting the manufacturing, supply chain, logistics and facilities service needs of business and government nationwide while creating meaningful jobs for people with disabilities. Operating in 11 states and the nation’s capital, PRIDE employs more than 4,500 individuals, including more than 2,500 people with disabilities. Headquartered in Roseville, CA, PRIDE ranks as the fourth largest manufacturing and service company in the greater Sacramento region.
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JOHN CALE & TERRY RILEY Church Of Anthrax (Columbia)
This is an American vinyl reissue of the former Velvet Undergrounder’s collaboration with the avant garde composer Riley, probably most famed for his album "A Rainbow In Curved Air". Five tracks, most of them longggg instrumentals, one with vocals by one Adam Miller, "Church Of Anthrax" comes across as a mad scramble of "Tubular Bells" overdubbing frenzy and "Hot Rats" scripted improvisation, swerving between honky-tonk piano hoe-downs and seriously brutal free-form saxophone exploration. Fabulous.
JOHN CALE AND VICTOR BOCKRIS What's Welsh For Zen - The Autobiography Of John Cale (Bloomsbury)
"What's Welsh For Zen" is an object lesson in how to make a book appeal on a visual level as well as a purely literary one: between its cardboard covers the words - printed in a modish typeface - rattle roughshod over and around pictures or cascade down the page at points requiring extra emphasis. It's almost like a complete multimedia event compressed onto paper, with Cale's narrative broken up at salient points by the viewpoints of other key characters in the story, or underlined by lyrics or even cartoons. All credit to the designer Dave McKean, who created this ergonomic feast: I've never read a book that looked like this before, and with any luck it will start a new trend in the staid old world of publishing.
But then again, I've never read a book that read like this before. "What's Welsh For Zen" is the frequently amazing tale of how a child prodigy from the valleys, the son of a miner and a teacher, plugged into New York's avant garde classical music scene before cofounding (and later being sacked from) the most influential American rock group ever. Cale is measured on the subject of his old sparring partner, one Louis Firbank, with fulsome praise for Reed's genius but less explicit concerning the frictions that effectively halted their creative partnership, although certain incidents are recalled with a venom and intricacy that probably means little to anyone except the two protagonists themselves.
More interesting - since much of this ground has already been adequately tilled over by Victor Bockris in his definitive tome on the Velvet Underground, "Up-Tight" - is the discussion of Cale's later work, including his oft-praised but little-heard series of solo albums, collaborations with Eno (who at one point attacked Cale with a stick during the making of their "Wrong Way Up" album) and Lou Reed ("Songs For Drella" is featured in some depth), the shaky VU reunion and a selective trawl through his production work (The Stooges and Patti Smith are mentioned; the Happy Mondays are not). There's also the usual detailing of rock star sex/drugs/drink excess, which in Cale's case maybe actually adds to, rather than subtracts from, the resonance of the tale in question. After all, given the lyrical content of much of "The Velvet Underground & Nico" it pretty much comes with the territory.
If you're as fascinated by the music of John Cale as I am, or simply interested in what makes one of rock's great lost (commercially, rather than critically) talents tick, "What's Welsh For Zen" is thoroughly recommended reading - especially if you were lucky enough to nab a copy signed by the great man himself, like what I did!
JOHN CALE TRIO Cardiff St David's Hall, 16 January 1999
This was possibly the first concert I’ve attended that was designed to promote a book rather than an album (that book being Cale’s autobiography, "What’s Welsh For Zen?", my copy of which had been signed by the great man himself earlier in the day). Consequently there was an air of reading room reverence about this gig, accentuated by the sparseness of the stage décor – a few chairs, a grand piano and sundry other instruments scattered around; certainly nothing that you could call a ‘set’. Which may be a common occurrence in these post-prog days, but even the most punk of bands manage to fill the stage up with something, even if it’s just racks of equipment. Here there was bordering on nada.
Which of course counted for nothing when Cale arrived, fashionably late, accompanied by his American backing musicians Mark Deffenbaugh and Lance Doss, who between them added tonal colour with, among other instruments, a banjo, mandolin, jew’s harp, harmonica, lap steel, guitar and flute, Cale himself flitting between the piano and guitar. The first three songs were adaptations of Dylan Thomas poems, the opener using a cacophonous sequenced drum track that Cale summoned up from a little silver box of trickery parked by his piano – something of a rollercoaster lurch into the unknown, as his piano playing and singing seemingly collided off and bounced randomly over the metronomic drum patterns. He quickly segued into the more familiar territories of "On A Wedding Anniversary" and "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", which set the tone for the rest of the evening: sterling acoustic and semi-acoustic trawls through his rich back catalogue, with performances that, as with 1992’s "Fragments Of A Rainy Season" live album, impress by showing how consistently fresh and inventive his songs are in this stripped down context, when the original studio versions are, by comparison, hamstrung by the production trickery and trends of the times, (Who could have thought, for example, that something musical and tuneful could emerge from the aural wreckage of the "Music For A New Society" album?)
So he played "Child’s Christmas In Wales", complete with a terrific harmonica solo from Mark Deffenbaugh (one of the night’s rare displays of dexterity: most of the songs were pruned back to their barest rhythmic elements and dispensed with in three minutes or under – no endless widdly-widdly guitar soloing here!), "Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend" complete with the anticipated piano abuse at its close, Cale managing to conjure up with his left hand the same kind of bass thuddery that normally closes Massive Attack gigs (the piano is a percussion instrument, remember!), a sparkling "Ship Of Fools", a resigned and heartfelt "You Know More Than I Know", his gothic horror deconstruction of "Heartbreak Hotel", an angular "Ballad Of Cable Hogue", Cale reduced to whispering and spitting the words whilst seemingly slashing chords out of his guitar, "Cordoba", whose fractured lyrics of espionage were revealed to be hacked together from some Spanish/English phrase books he found at Brian Eno’s house, and closed with his ethereal cover of Leonard Cohen’s "Hallelujah", the version the late, great Jeff Buckley took as the template for his own reading.
You could gripe at the fact that he was barely on stage for seventy minutes. You might feel cheated if you’d actually believed some of the ridiculous pre-show hype I’d seen, along the lines of "John Cale will be playing his own material and Velvet Underground hits" (Velvet Underground hits? Such as?!) But you would be missing the point entirely. Tonight John Cale held an entire auditorium in rapt attention using only piano, guitar, voice, a duo of understated but supremely accomplished multi-instrumentalists and nearly thirty years’ worth of one of rock’s great lost back catalogues. See his show (or at least try to hear "Fragments Of A Rainy Season", which is as fine an approximation to it as you’re likely to get unless he releases a live album from this tour), buy his book, marvel at the eloquence and articulacy of his muse. An amazing performance from the returning local hero.
JOHN CALE Fragments Of A Rainy Season (Hannibal)
As I strongly hinted in my review of the great man’s Cardiff concert, the kernel of his current live show is contained within this terrific CD, recorded in France (I think) in 1992. Hear one man perform open-heart surgery armed only with a battered, percussive piano and an acoustic guitar, with assistance from deftly selected highlights from one of rock’s most consistently wonderful (and almost completely ignored) back catalogues. Here lie definitive performances of Cale originals such as "Paris 1919", "Fear", "Ship Of Fools" and an especially divine "(I Keep A) Close Watch" ("This is a love song, so hold onto someone you love" says Cale in his introduction), a selection of surprisingly affecting and effective settings of Dylan Thomas texts and a smattering of cover versions (his legendary re-interpretation of "Heartbreak Hotel" and Leonard Cohen’s "Hallelujah") that succeed in improving immeasurably on the originals. If you’re a curious Velvet Underground enthusiast wondering how best to make sense of John Cale’s frighteningly diverse solo career, start here. The only caveat I would offer is that backtracking through his studio work could be a baffling and frustrating experience, as these freshly-minted readings don’t show the original recordings, hamstrung as many of them are with faddish contemporary production and arrangements, in a particularly complimentary light.
JOHN CALE HoboSapiens (EMI)
"HoboSapiens", Cale's first song album since 1996's apparently underwhelming "Walking On Locusts", begins with that modern marvel, the hidden track but, as with the similar inducement on the recent Luke Haines and The Auteurs collection, the game is given away in the packaging's small print. Perched somewhere between "Thoughtless Kind" and The Velvet Underground's "Coyote", "Set Me Free" mixes up that rusty old viola drone and sound effects of children playing with layer upon layer of shiny modern rock music, and it's great. It immediately vindicates the superficially strange choice of co-producer, Nick Franglen of ambient specialists Lemon Jelly, before the album proper even begins.
Products of prolonged ProTools trickery, most of these songs are built on luxuriant, shimmering music, over which Cale discourses with fierce intelligence on the kind of topics that are far beyond the conventional remit of popular music - you'd need an encyclopaedia to hand to decode "HoboSapiens" thoroughly, although it's no less enjoyable if you don't - or builds bizarre snapshots of nightmarish Burroughsian underworlds.
"Reading My Mind" is a cautionary tale in which an Italian test drive of an AC Cobra ends in a disaster recreated by a "Living For The City"-style playlette. "Look For Horizon" is built on a foggy jazz drum loop and Cale's own mournful electric viola, sounding like a pretty good approximation of the sun setting over a palm court orchestra at the end of the empire. The driest of wits is at work behind "Archimedes" ("The car antenna's gone missing/It's out there somewhere cruising the streets"), and "Twilight Zone" is a buzzing cacophony given perhaps unintentional comic value by Cale's stentorian enunciation of slogans such as "Kick out the jams" and "Bring out your dead" over the fade. "Bicycle" is slightly unnerving to begin with, seeming unusually fluffy and flip for a Cale track, but it grows on the listener. Built on a borrowed Eno drum loop, and featuring the Prof's daughters Irial and Darla on giggling, it's the one song on "HoboSapiens" that emphatically would not be sound better when played live, perhaps testifying to its essential non-songness. Despite the excellent efforts of all involved, I can't quite shake the concern that these songs might in future find themselves hampered by the trendsettingly now production: sure, they sound great at the moment, but in twenty or thirty years will they sound as heavy-handed as Cale albums like "Helen Of Troy", for example, do now? I can almost hear the kind of savage mistreatment Cale could mete out to a song such as "Things" armed with just an acoustic guitar, and it walks all over the two very fine versions presented here.
That quibbling, trivial point aside, for now and the immediate future "HoboSabiens" is fabulously dense, tightly woven, intelligent modern rock music, and shouldn't that make it compulsory listening for people like us?
JOHN CALE 5 Tracks (EMI)
Presented as a prequel to last year's mesmerising "HoboSapiens" long player, these five songs could have easily been submerged in that elegant, eloquent album to form a 75 minute masterpiece. They're blessed with the same Pro Tools-inspired mesh of synthetic instrumentation, and the familiar unsettling soundscapes that trip from lullaby to hurricane and back in the space of a stanza. Nevertheless, there's something typically bold and cantankerous about Cale's decision to release them separately as this brief and inexpensive mini album.
"Waiting For Blonde" finds an elliptical 9/11 tribute amongst New York's subway panhandlers, whilst the mysterious, brooding "Chums Of Dumpty (We All Are)" breaks for a palm court PR piece. The pick of this small but perfectly formed crop for me is "Wilderness Approaching": apparently from the film "Paris", it finds Cale in his most authoritative voice accompanied by the synthesised jangle of an out-of-tune pub piano. "Leave the lights on in the front room and the door unlocked/You want them to see all that you've got", he advises sternly, which must make the Welshman a controversial figure at Neighbourhood Watch meetings.
If you bought and enjoyed "HoboSapiens", buy and enjoy this as well. If you didn't, it's the perfect low-maintenance introduction to the 2003-model John Cale.
JOHN CALE Coal Exchange, Cardiff 21 November 2009
Billed somewhat grandiosely (and nonsensically) as “When Past and Future Collide”, this rare home country appearance by the former Velvet Undergrounder is advertised as including a complete performance of his classic 1973 album “Paris 1919”. Well, still experiencing lingering bitterness at the “Astral Weeks” gig that wasn’t, just down the road from the newly reopened Coal Exchange at the Millennium Centre, I’ll believe it when I hear it. The venue’s bizarre policy of combining unreserved seating and opening the doors at 19:00 for a show that, I learn on arrival, won’t be starting until 20:45, means that I’ll be waiting for a while yet.
Given the excellence of Cale’s solo or near-solo shows (as anybody who’s heard his one-man live album “Fragments Of A Rainy Season” will hopefully concur) I’d be happy to hear him hammer out “Paris 1919” alone on acoustic guitar and piano. It’s a surprise, then, to see so many music stands arrayed on the Coal Exchange’s tiny stage, and when the musicians eventually file in I lose track as the headcount tops 20. There are string players crowded everywhere, a brass sectionette, a conductor, a drummer hidden away at the back, a bassist, guitarist and Cale himself, stationed almost centre-stage behind a keyboard. He helpfully explains the format of the evening – basically “Paris 1919”, an interval, more music, another interval and, finally, more music.
True to his word, the ensemble launch into “Child’s Christmas In Wales”, and inevitably it’s creamily gorgeous. The mini-orchestra plays unamplified, as far as I can tell, so the electricity is inevitably dialled down to balance them, meaning that everything, Cale’s vocals especially, can be heard, rather than disappearing into a fog of reverberation. Nitpicking, I might complain that the presence of the strings on every song - admittedly understandable in an “If you’ve got ‘em, flaunt ‘em” kinda fashion – seems to flatten the dynamics of the album, almost like ladling golden syrup over an entire meal. The record’s most haunting moment, “Antarctica Starts Here”, is sapped by the way Cale now actually sings the lyrics, rather than whispering them in haunting and mysterious fashion. And pedants will blanche at the way the album’s sole out-and-out rocker, “Macbeth”, is relocated from the end of side one to the close of side two. Even so, it’s an amazing performance, especially considering that Cale appears to have convened and rehearsed this huge group of musicians for just this single show in this small, sold-out venue.
After a break, the core electric quartet return and wail through some material that I presume to be from Cale’s latest studio work, “BlackAcetate”, as yet unheard by me. They’re fine but not remarkable, congruent with the shoulder-shrugging reviews that led me to avoid that album. He’s soon back on more familiar territory, though, playing “Amsterdam”, from his solo debut “Vintage Violence”, arranged as a wash of electronica reminiscent of the “HoboSapiens” album, and then “Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend”, replete with the expected and anticipated crashing, bloodcurdling conclusion. Off again and on again, the orchestra return for a very fine “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” and “Hedda Gabler”, a curious obscurity to end the evening with that proves Cale has in no way sacrificed his ability to confound expectations to the cosy glow of nostalgia
Lou Reed, John Cale & Nico
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The Peace Mantra
Peace in my Heart
Peace in this Place
Peace in our Land
And throughout the World
(The Peace Mantra)
A very warm welcome to the Peace Mantra Foundation (which was formerly called the UK Peace Foundation). We have created this website so as to provide a freeresource of inspiration and encouragement for all who are interested in cultivating peace.
This website is being retained as an archive, and will be updated only very rarely. For regular updates please go to The Peace Mantra Foundation Facebook page at www.facebook.com/groups/1534015406881688/
Our approach to peace is encapsulated in the Peace Mantra, which is displayed at the top of this page. We believe that each one of us has the ability and the responsibility to cultivate peace within ourselves and our communities, and then to radiate it out into the environment, nation, and the whole world. We believe that this 'inside-out' approach makes it much more likely that lasting peace can be maintained. However, this approach is no soft option as it calls for a good deal of patience and perseverance.
Carmen from the Netherlands writes: 'I started my day with the peace mantra today and I intend to do so every day from now on. I'm so happy I found out about the foundation, because saying the mantra makes me feel like I can contribute to a positive vibe in this world of turmoil. If lots and lots of people join in, it is bound to do at least some good.'
We have no merchandise to sell, as our Peace Mantra postcards are free to all who wish to receive them.If youwish to make a donation,as some people kindly do, you can findfurther details on the Contact Us page.
You are welcome toprint off any of the website material, but if sharing it with others, we ask you out of courtesy to acknowledge where it has come from.
Please scroll down to find the following items:
What is the Peace Mantra Foundation?
The significance of the Foundation's logo
We are helping two Syrian families at the moment
Other things we have been doing over the years
We welcome an exchange of experiences and ideas
We area non-commercial organisation, free of any political or spiritual bias. Our purpose is to support and encourage all who desire peace, and who want to help bring it into being.
We believe that all of us can take practical measures, however small, to cultivate peace within ourselves, and spread it out into our communities, into our land, and throughout the world.
Our 'inside-out' approach to peace is reflected in the Peace Mantra, which isdisplayed at the top of this page. It contains the realisation that peace begins with each one of us; we cannot expect others to pursue peace unless we are prepared to set our own house in order. You can read more about the mantra by clicking on the following buttons to the left of this page: The Peace Mantra, Peace in my Heart, Peace in this Place, Peace in our Land, and Peace in our World.
Our logo has beencreated by Pharic. It reflects the twin aspects of the Mantra: the journey within (spiral) and the radiating outwards (like flower petals or sun-rays):-
For the past two years or so we have been doing all we can to support two Syrian families who have had to abandon their homes and possessions and flee the country, owing to the civil war. The support we have been able to give has been a mixture of financial help, empathic listening, offering encouragement, and heartfelt prayer. Some of the help has come from generous donations made by various people, including family members and friends, either via the Peace Mantra Foundation, or to Barrie and myself personally to pass on.
This support has really helped to make a positive difference, but we are ever mindful of the fact that there are literally millions of other people who are in similar need of help.
Since our formation six years ago, we have been
- offering a series of support sessions for those who are new to meditation
- creating and distributing freely a series of four Peace Mantra postcards (the latest design came out in 2013)
-writing to a number of UK politicians and world leaders, encouraging them to continue and deepen their commitment towards peace
-making donations to various organisations helping to bring together communities torn apart by war or conflict
- holding a number of activities - such as a sponsored walk and a peace vigil- to help raise public awareness of peace
- setting up a peace meditation and discussion group (this is not meeting at present)
-forming links with a number of organisations and individuals who are helping to bring about peace
-creating and maintaining this website, with much valued professional help from Pharic, and with suggestions and contributions from many parts of the world.
We realise that everyone has their own 'take' on how to establish and maintain peace, and that much can be gained through mutual sharing and dialogue. So please let us knowby emailing peacemantrafoundation@outlook.com or via the Contact Us page if
- you would like to give any constructive feedback about this website
- you have any peace writings, peace 'news', quotations, or recommended books or practices you would like to share
- you would like to receive some Peace Mantra postcards (these are free)
- you would like to discuss any issues about meditation
- you would like to recommend a link (please bear in mind our policy is to forge links only with not-for-profit organisations whichare politically and spiritually unbiased)
If the above link does not automatically open your email client, please copythe email addresspeacemantrafoundation@outlook.com and paste it into another window.
You can find out more by clicking the buttons on the left. Many of the pages are updated regularly; in particular it is worth keeping a close watch on the Latest News page.
Thank you for your interest; we hope you will leave this site feeling inspired, encouragedand'enabled'.
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The World Bank announced that Serbia has advanced on the latest Doing Business list for four places, from 47th to 43rd place for ease of doing business.
"If we look at Serbia and compare it with an ideal business environment, the number of points in Serbia has increased from 72.87 in Doing Business 2017 to 73.13 in Doing Business 2018," said Stephen Ndegwa, World Bank Country Manager in Serbia.
„This means that in the last year Serbia improved its business regulations as captured by the Doing Business indicators in absolute terms—the country is narrowing the gap with countries that have the best business environment – Ndegwa said, as announced by the World Bank.“
According to the report, period 2016/17 Serbia had facilitated the establishment of business entities, reduced administrative fees for authentication of signatures and increased the efficiency of the register, reducing the time required for business registration, improving the reliability of the cadastre system by applying a geographic information system, facilitating the implementation of the contract by adopting a new law on enforcement that extends and refines for the responsibilities of the executor and the jurisdiction of the courts during the enforcement proceedings.
When it comes to obtaining building permits, Serbia is ranked 10th.
„ Over the past 15 years, Serbia has made significant progress in several Doing Business areas and implemented a total of 28 reforms, mainly in the area of Registering Property (with 6 reforms), Starting a Business and Resolving Insolvency (5 each).The number of reforms in Serbia over the past 15 years compare well with the global per-country average of 17 and ECA average of 28– said Thomas Lubeck, IFC Regional Manager for Central and Southeast Europe.
„As a result, starting a new business in Serbia now takes only 5.5 days compared to 56 days 15 years ago, which is 3 days less than the average across OECD high-income economies .The time to resolve a commercial dispute through a local first-instance court in Serbia has also been significantly reduced over the past 15 years .Now it takes 635 days compared to 1028 days in 2003. “
It is stated, in this report, that Serbia underperforms in the area of Getting Electricity. It takes 125 days to connect to the electricity grid, much more than the average of 79 days across OECD high-income economies.
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Celine Dion – 'Courage World Tour' Sep 20 @ 7:30PM | Videotron Centre | Quebec City
More Concerts In Quebec City
Céline Dion's Mother, Thérèse Tanguay-Dion (a.k.a. "Maman Dion"), Dies at 92
Thérèse Tanguay-Dion, the mother of Céline Dion, passed away yesterday (January 16) after battling a number of health issues. She was 92. ...
Céline Dion Postpones More Montreal Concerts Due to Illness
Céline Dion has now postponed the remaining Montreal concerts on her "Courage World Tour." The shows — set to take place on Friday (Octob...
Céline Dion Postpones Multiple Montreal Concerts
Céline Dion has just called off multiple Montreal dates on her "Courage World Tour," postponing a series of four concerts in the city due to...
Céline Dion Is Apparently Becoming a Big Fan of the Cure
Céline Dion was recently introduced to the Cure, and she seems to like what she heard. The Quebec-born global superstar is about to kick...
Céline Dion Is Living Her Best Haute Couture Life at Paris Fashion Week
Céline Dion is currently soaking up the spotlight in Paris, as Paris Fashion Week's Haute Couture week continues. The Canadian singer ha...
Céline Dion Is All EDM Now, and Here's Her New Song to Prove It
Céline Dion has been making a lot of changes recently, leaving her long-standing Las Vegas residency behind and gearing up for her new studi...
Céline Dion Just Gave the Greatest "Carpool Karaoke" Performance of All Time
Canadian diva and queen of the Las Vegas residency, Céline Dion is the latest artist to appear on The Late Late Show with James Corden segme...
Céline Dion Brings the "Courage World Tour" to Canada
Céline Dion has announced a sprawling North American trek called the "Courage World Tour," and it will be making several stops in Canada....
A Céline Dion Biopic Is in the Works
Céline Dion's storied career will be the topic of an upcoming film called The Power of Love. According to Variety, the $23 million USD p...
Céline Dion and Chance the Rapper Pull R. Kelly Collaborations from Streaming Services
Céline Dion is the latest star to publicly denounce R. Kelly in the wake of the disturbing Lifetime docu-series Surviving R. Kelly and pull...
Céline Dion's Gender-Neutral Clothing Line for Kids Accused of Being "Demonic"
Céline Dion recently unveiled her gender-neutral children's clothing line CELINUNUNU with a super bizarre ad, but some people are upset by m...
Céline Dion Gets Taken Down by Hospital Security in Ad for Her Gender-Neutral Kids' Clothing Line
Céline Dion has released a gender-neutral children's clothing line designed to "inspire your children to be free and find their own individu...
More Céline Dion
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What is the role of the lawyer in non-contentious Singapore probate matters?
enwo3
Occasionally, there are disputes over Singapore wills, and certain beneficiaries may choose to challenge the will in a contested probate. However, for the most part, most Singaporean probate matters tend to be uncontested.
Find out the difference between non-contentious and contentious probate matters.
In uncontested probate cases, Singapore probate lawyers are usually only instructed to extract the grant of probate or letters of administration for their clients. More often than not, the clients (executors or administrators as the case may be) will carry out the distribution of the estate on their own.
Sometimes, the lawyer or law firm may provide trust and executorship services. However, most law firms do not generally assist in the distribution of the estate, except in rare situations where the estate is exceptionally large and complex.
Many lawyers and law firms tend to shun this sort of work due to the high potential liability and low profitability.
When a will isn’t involved, the Singapore lawyer usually takes instructions from the family member(s) who will eventually become the administrator(s).
Lastly, it should also be noted that the role of a Singapore probate and letters of administration lawyer is to help take the fear and confusion out of the probate process for you during a stressful period of time.
If you'd like to hire an affordable, vetted Singapore lawyer to draft a will, apply for grants of probate or letters of administration, get in touch with us here.
How to Apply for a Grant of Letters of…
How to Apply for a Grant of Probate in…
Finding a Lawyer to Reseal a Malaysia…
What is a Caveat and What does a…
Can you Apply for a Grant of Probate…
Copyright © 2016 - 2019 · www.singaporeprobate.com · All Rights Reserved
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Design concepts released for public space at Whole Foods development
Submitted by Jeff on Tue, 2016/09/27 - 4:59pm
The developer, S.J. Collins, unveiled sketch at a meeting on Sept. 19 and shared it with Decaturish. The space is being called a “Residential Park.” The current proposal includes an amphitheater and a bike rack.
A spokesperson for the company said these designs are still in the process of being updated. “This is obviously not a ‘set-in-stone, never to be changed’ plan, but it is the general plan moving forward. They’ve taken what they’ve heard from the community and interpreted that through these [renderings],” she said.
The DeKalb County Planning Commission recently approved zoning applications for the project, which will be located at North Decatur Road and Church Street. A special land use permit would allow for a bank with a drive-through. The developer has dropped a request for a restaurant with a catering drive through. North Decatur Square will also have 200 to 300 apartment units.
A certain percentage of those units will be “workforce housing” geared to lower income residents – like teachers, police officers and firefighters – who might not otherwise be able to afford to live in the area. S.J. Collins did receive $1.8 million in tax breaks from the Decide DeKalb Development Authority to support the project. Most of the taxes abated will be property taxes, according to a fiscal impact analysis of the project.
The shopping center is expected to be open by spring of 2018.
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During the third set of ordinary and extraordinary general assembly meetings Egyptian group for multipurpose terminals
Lieutenant General Engineer / Kamel Al-wazir :
•The company will establish, exploit and manage the multi-purpose station on the berths from 55 to 62 in Alexandria port and the areas, squares and adjacent lands.
•55 berth 55 project is one of the most important projects that the ministry of transport is undertaking in the field of maritime transport.
Minister of transport lieutenant general / Kamel Al-wazir presided over the ordinary and extraordinary general assembly meeting of the Egyptian group for multi-purpose stations, in the presence of General / Osama Rabie, Chairman of Suez Canal Authority and chairman and board members,
Leaders of the ministries of transport and business sector, Suez Canal authority and holding company for maritime and land transport,
The ordinary general assembly approved the minutes of the meeting of the constituent assembly of the company held on 11/10/2018 and adopted the decisions of the minister of transport no. 451 and no. 660 of 2019 regarding the restructuring of the board of directors and the appointment of the chairman of the board of directors (Major General Bahri / Abdel Qader Darwish).
It was also approved to amend some articles of the company's articles of association so as to contribute to the achievement of the company's objectives more and more thoroughly during the extraordinary general assembly and the articles approved to amend article no. 3, which became stipulated after the amendment that the purpose of establishing the company is based on the establishment and exploitation management of a multi-purpose terminal on berths from 55 to 62 in Alexandria port and its adjacent lands and yards, as well as container terminals, silos for storing and storing grain, loading and unloading, storage and warehousing services, and managing multi-purpose stations in different ports inside Egypt and outside, carrying out customs clearance works for the company or for the benefit of others and the work of the shipping agency except for the services of transporting tourists as well as carrying out construction projects of infrastructure and marine ports of various inside and outside the Arab republic of Egypt for the company or for the benefit of others.
Engineer / Kamel Al-wazir stressed that the project of establishing berth 55 in Alexandria port is one of the most important projects that the ministry of transport is establishing in the field of maritime transport. Alexandria port is one of the most important Egyptian ports, where most of the exports and imports are carried out.
He pointed out that this project will increase the classification of the port of Alexandria, which will have a significant positive impact on the maritime transport system, pointing out that the establishment of the station will be on an area of 560 thousand meters along the berths of 2480 m.4/11/2019
The strait of Alexandria and ElDekheila opened after meteorological condition improvements
Reda ElGhandour – the formal speaker of Alexandria Port Authority Said that Ship & Cargoes Traffic Department decided on Friday 25th of October noon at 2 O'clock pm to open the strait after the meteorological conditions slightly improved, wind speed and waves height and visibility degree reached acceptable rates which allows ships to and from the port.
Concerned port's departments immediately started entering ships at the outer anchor according to berthing priority.
Captain / Tarek Shahin - The Chairman of A.P.A instructed all departments to be careful and committed to Occupational Safety and Health terms to maintain possessions and souls, ships, trucks and cargoes exiting and entering the port safely.
The Regularity of stevedoring operation in Alex. and ElDekheila Ports although raining
The status of Strait
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Saturday, May 13 1:00pm
Free and open to the general public
This event is co-presented with Villa Maria College. Squeaky Wheel’s events are made possible with generous support by the Arts Council of the Southern Finger Lakes, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, Erie County Arts & Cultural Funding, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, individual members, businesses, and supporters. Squeaky Wheel is pending certification from Working Artists for the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) for 2017.
Villa Maria College Film & Animation Screening
Still from The Perfect Day by Vincent Czapla
@ Squeaky Wheel
We are excited to present the work of junior and senior animations students in Villa Maria College’s BFA in Animation Program in our microcinema this spring. The program includes short animated films created by the students, with the guidance of the faculty, from initial storyboard, to animation, to final edit. Also included in the screening, will be a few notable shorts from our new BFA in Digital Filmmaking program, which launched in the fall of 2016. Including work by Vincent Czapla, Christopher Harper, Kevin Fan, Ginette Melendez, Tiyame Gomillion, among others.
Following the screening the show continues at Buffalo Arts Studio (Tri-Main Center 2495 Main Street, Suite 500), from 5-8pm, where 22 additional juniors and seniors will be displaying their work in more specialized fields, such as 3D digital modeling, character design, motion graphics, and character animation.
Villa Maria College’s Animation program is ground in the fundamentals of animation and fine art. See where your talent can take you.
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TurkeyUnited StatesChinaNigeriaIndiaEgyptRussiaGermanyUnited KingdomSaudi ArabiaUnited Arab EmiratesBrazilFranceIranItalyMoroccoPakistanSenegalUkraineGreeceAlgeriaSpainIsraelNetherlandsCanadaIraqPalestinian TerritoryGeorgiaTunisiaJordanLibyaLebanonRomaniaBulgariaPolandKuwaitBangladeshMalaysiaJapanSerbiaYemenSouth KoreaVietnamGhanaAlbaniaAustraliaBelgiumHong KongQatarAzerbaijanSingaporeTaiwanSwedenThailandIrelandNorth MacedoniaUgandaSwitzerlandTogoHungaryPortugalArmeniaSouth AfricaIndonesiaBahrainPhilippinesCzechiaOmanBosnia and HerzegovinaUzbekistanCameroonAustriaSyriaMoldovaDenmarkMauritiusLithuaniaMaltaBeninKenyaCroatiaCote d'IvoireNorwayEthiopiaLatviaArgentinaKazakhstanBelarusSlovakiaFinlandChileColombiaSloveniaSri LankaMexicoAfghanistanCyprusPeruTurkmenistanMaldivesVenezuelaEstoniaNew ZealandSudanEcuadorMongoliaMauritaniaTajikistanCosta RicaBurkina FasoNepalSomaliaDjiboutiTanzaniaCambodiaMaliReunionMadagascarKyrgyzstanGuineaMontenegroKosovoSeychellesDominican RepublicDemocratic Republic of the CongoGabonRepublic of the CongoLuxembourgAngolaUruguaySierra LeoneTrinidad and TobagoPanamaBurmaSurinamePuerto RicoThe GambiaMozambiqueRwandaSao Tome and PrincipeChadJamaicaAntigua and BarbudaNigerBruneiZimbabweParaguaySaint LuciaEl SalvadorGuatemalaGuyanaBotswanaIcelandNicaraguaBarbadosLiberiaHondurasMayotteCuracaoZambiaNew CaledoniaCubaHaitiBoliviaFaroe IslandsFijiSouth SudanFrench PolynesiaEritreaCabo VerdeThe BahamasGuadeloupeMartiniqueTimor-LesteIsle of ManPapua New GuineaGibraltarAndorraDominicaCayman IslandsSan MarinoBurundiLaosSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesMacauBelizeSolomon IslandsBhutanGuinea-BissauKiribatiEquatorial GuineaJersey
India Population: 1,296,834,042
2,797 VISITORS FROM HERE!
The Indus Valley civilization, one of the world's oldest, flourished during the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C. and extended into northwestern India. Aryan tribes from the northwest infiltrated the Indian subcontinent about 1500 B.C.; their merger with the earlier Dravidian inhabitants created the classical Indian culture. The Maurya Empire of the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. - which reached its zenith under ASHOKA - united much of South Asia. The Golden Age ushered in by the Gupta dynasty (4th to 6th centuries A.D.) saw a flowering of Indian science, art, and culture. Islam spread across the subcontinent over a period of 700 years. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Turks and Afghans invaded India and established the Delhi Sultanate. In the early 16th century, the Emperor BABUR established the Mughal Dynasty, which ruled India for more than three centuries. European explorers began establishing footholds in India during the 16th century. By the 19th century, Great Britain had become the dominant political power on the subcontinent and India was seen as the "Jewel in the Crown" of the British Empire. The British Indian Army played a vital role in both World Wars. Years of nonviolent resistance to British rule, led by Mohandas GANDHI and Jawaharlal NEHRU, eventually resulted in Indian independence in 1947. Large-scale communal violence took place before and after the subcontinent partition into two separate states - India and Pakistan. The neighboring countries have fought three wars since independence, the last of which was in 1971 and resulted in East Pakistan becoming the separate nation of Bangladesh. India's nuclear weapons tests in 1998 emboldened Pakistan to conduct its own tests that same year. In November 2008, terrorists originating from Pakistan conducted a series of coordinated attacks in Mumbai, India's financial capital. India faces pressing problems such as environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and widespread corruption; however, economic growth following the launch of economic reforms in 1991, a massive youthful population, and a strategic geographic location are contributing to India's emergence as a regional and global power.
Dominates South Asian subcontinent; near important Indian Ocean trade routes; Kanchenjunga, third tallest mountain in the world, lies on the border with Nepal
Location: Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Burma and Pakistan
Geographic coordinates: 20 00 N, 77 00 E
Size comparison: slightly more than one-third the size of the US
Land Boundaries: total: 13,888 km border countries (6): Bangladesh 4142 km, Bhutan 659 km, Burma 1468 km, China 2659 km, Nepal 1770 km, Pakistan 3190 km
continental shelf: 200 nm or to the edge of the continental margin
Climate: varies from tropical monsoon in south to temperate in north
Terrain: upland plain (Deccan Plateau) in south, flat to rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts in west, Himalayas in north
Natural resources: coal (fourth-largest reserves in the world), antimony, iron ore, lead, manganese, mica, bauxite, rare earth elements, titanium ore, chromite, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum, limestone, arable land
Natural hazards: droughts; flash floods, as well as widespread and destructive flooding from monsoonal rains; severe thunderstorms; earthquakes volcanism: Barren Island (354 m) in the Andaman Sea has been active in recent years
Current Environment Issues: deforestation; soil erosion; overgrazing; desertification; air pollution from industrial effluents and vehicle emissions; water pollution from raw sewage and runoff of agricultural pesticides; tap water is not potable throughout the country; huge and growing population is overstraining natural resources; preservation and quality of forests; biodiversity loss
International Environment Agreements: party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, Whaling
Nationality: noun: Indian(s)
adjective: Indian
Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3% (2000)
Languages: Hindi 43.6%, Bengali 8%, Marathi 6.9%, Telugu 6.7%, Tamil 5.7%, Gujarati 4.6%, Urdu 4.2%, Kannada 3.6%, Odia 3.1%, Malayalam 2.9%, Punjabi 2.7%, Assamese 1.3%, Maithili 1.1%, other 5.6% (2011 est.) note: English enjoys the status of subsidiary official language but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; there are 22 other officially recognized languages: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language
Religions: Hindu 79.8%, Muslim 14.2%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.7%, other and unspecified 2% (2011 est.)
Population: 1,296,834,042 (July 2018 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: 26.98% (male 185,736,879 /female 164,194,080)
15-24 years: 17.79% (male 122,573,662 /female 108,109,968)
55-64 years: 7.6% (male 49,334,703 /female 49,197,817)
65 years and over: 6.39% (male 39,184,523 /female 43,654,994) (2018 est.)
youth dependency ratio: 43.6 (2015 est.)
elderly dependency ratio: 8.6 (2015 est.)
potential support ratio: 11.7 (2015 est.)
Population growth rate: 1.14% (2018 est.)
Net migration rate: 0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2018 est.)
Urbanization: urban population: 34% of total population (2018)
Major urban areas - population: 28.514 million NEW DELHI (capital)
19.98 million Mumbai
14.681 million Kolkata
11.44 million Bangalore
10.456 million Chennai
9.482 million Hyderabad (2018)
Maternal mortality rate: 174 deaths/100,000 live births (2015 est.)
female: 39.1 deaths/1,000 live births (2018 est.)
urban: 62.6% of population (2015 est.)
rural: 28.5% of population (2015 est.)
total: 39.6% of population (2015 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: 0.2% (2017 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: 2.1 million (2017 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths: 69,000 (2017 est.)
Obesity - adult prevalence rate: 3.9% (2016)
Children under the age of 5 years underweight: 36.3% (2015)
Education expenditures: 3.8% of GDP (2013)
female: 60.6% (2015 est.)
Unemployment, youth ages 15-24: total: 10.1% male: 9.5% female: 12% (2012 est.)
Country name: conventional long form: Republic of India
conventional short form: India
local long form: Republic of India/Bharatiya Ganarajya
local short form: India/Bharat
etymology: the English name derives from the Indus River; the Indian name "Bharat" may derive from the "Bharatas" tribe mentioned in the Vedas of the second millennium B.C.; the name is also associated with Emperor Bharata, the legendary conqueror of all of India
Government type: federal parliamentary republic
Capital: name: New Delhi
time difference: UTC+5.5 (10.5 hours ahead of Washington, DC, during Standard Time)
etymology: the city's name is associated with various myths and legends; the original name for the city may have been Dhilli or Dhillika; alternatively, the name could be a corruption of the Hindustani words "dehleez" or "dehali" - both terms meaning "threshold" or "gateway" - and indicative of the city as a gateway to the Gangetic Plain; after the British decided to move the capital of their Indian Empire from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911, they created a new governmental district south of the latter designated as New Delhi; the new capital was not formally inaugurated until 1931
Administrative divisions: 29 states and 7 union territories*; Andaman and Nicobar Islands*, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh*, Chhattisgarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli*, Daman and Diu*, Delhi*, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep*, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Puducherry*, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal
note: although its status is that of a union territory, the official name of Delhi is National Capital Territory of Delhi
Independence: 15 August 1947 (from the UK)
National holiday: Republic Day, 26 January (1950)
Constitution: history: previous 1935 (preindependence); latest draft completed 4 November 1949, adopted 26 November 1949, effective 26 January 1950 amendments: proposed by either the Council of States or the House of the People; passage requires majority participation of the total membership in each house and at least two-thirds majority of voting members of each house, followed by assent of the president of India; proposed amendments to the constitutional amendment procedures also must be ratified by at least one-half of the India state legislatures before presidential assent; amended many times, last in 2019 (2019)
Legal system: common law system based on the English model; separate personal law codes apply to Muslims, Christians, and Hindus; judicial review of legislative acts
Executive branch: chief of state: President Ram Nath KOVIND (since 25 July 2017); Vice President M. Venkaiah NAIDU (since 11 August 2017)
head of government: Prime Minister Narendra MODI (since 26 May 2014)
cabinet: Union Council of Ministers recommended by the prime minister, appointed by the president elections/appointments: president indirectly elected by an electoral college consisting of elected members of both houses of Parliament for a 5-year term (no term limits); election last held on 17 July 2017 (next to be held in July 2022); vice president indirectly elected by an electoral college consisting of elected members of both houses of Parliament for a 5-year term (no term limits); election last held on 5 August 2017 (next to be held in August 2022); following legislative elections, the prime minister is elected by Lok Sabha members of the majority party
election results: Ram Nath KOVIND elected president; percent of electoral college vote - Ram Nath KOVIND (BJP) 65.7% Meira KUMAR (INC) 34.3%; M. Venkaiah NAIDU elected vice president; electoral college vote - M. Venkaiah NAIDU (BJP) 516, Gopalkrishna GANDHI (independent) 244
Legislative branch: description: bicameral Parliament or Sansad consists of: Council of States or Rajya Sabha (245 seats; 233 members indirectly elected by state and territorial assemblies by proportional representation vote and 12 members appointed by the president; members serve 6-year terms) House of the People or Lok Sabha (545 seats; 543 members directly elected in single-seat constituencies by simple majority vote and 2 appointed by the president; members serve 5-year terms)
elections: Council of States - last held by state and territorial assemblies at various dates in 2018 House of the People - last held April-May 2014 in 9 phases; (next to be held in 7 phases 11 April to 19 May 2019)
election results: Council of States - percent of vote by party - NA; seats by party - NA; composition - men 218, women 27, percent of women 11% House of the People - percent of vote by party - BJP 31%, INC 19.3%, AITC 3.8%, SP 3.4%, AIADMK 3.3%, CPI(M) 3.3%, TDP 2.6%, YSRC 2.5%, AAP 2.1%, SAD 1.8%, BJD 1.7%, SS 1.7%, NCP 1.6%, RJD 1.3%, TRS 1.3%, LJP 0.4%, other 15.9%, independent 3%; seats by party - BJP 282, INC 44, AIADMK 37, AITC 34, BJD 20, SS 18, TDP 16, TRS 11, CPI(M) 9, YSRC 9, LJP 6, NCP 6, SP 5, AAP 4, RJD 4, SAD 4, other 33, independent 3; composition - men 483, women 62, percent of women 11.4%; note - total Parliament percent of women 11.3%
Judicial branch: highest courts: Supreme Court (consists of 28 judges, including the chief justice) judge selection and term of office: justices appointed by the president to serve until age 65
subordinate courts: High Courts; District Courts; Labour Court note: in mid-2011, India’s Cabinet approved the "National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reform" to eliminate judicial corruption and reduce the backlog of cases
Political parties and leaders: Aam Aadmi Party or AAP [Arvind KEJRIWAL] All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or AIADMK [Edappadi PALANISWAMY, Occhaathevar PANNEERSELVAM] All India Trinamool Congress or AITC [Mamata BANERJEE] Bahujan Samaj Party or BSP [MAYAWATI] Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP [Amit SHAH] Biju Janata Dal or BJD [Naveen PATNAIK] Communist Party of India-Marxist or CPI(M) [Sitaram YECHURY] Indian National Congress or INC Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) [Ram Vilas PASWAN] Nationalist Congress Party or NCP [Sharad PAWAR] Rashtriya Janata Dal or RJD [Lalu Prasad YADAV] Samajwadi Party or SP [Akhilesh YADAV] Shiromani Akali Dal or SAD [Sukhbir Singh BADAL] Shiv Sena or SS [Uddhav THACKERAY] Telegana Rashtra Samithi or TRS [K. Chandrashekar RAO] Telugu Desam Party or TDP [Chandrababu NAIDU] YSR Congress or YSRC [Jagan Mohan REDDY] note: India has dozens of national and regional political parties
International organization participation: ADB, AfDB (nonregional member), Arctic Council (observer), ARF, ASEAN (dialogue partner), BIMSTEC, BIS, BRICS, C, CD, CERN (observer), CICA, CP, EAS, FAO, FATF, G-15, G-20, G-24, G-5, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC (national committees), ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, IMSO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ISO, ITSO, ITU, ITUC (NGOs), LAS (observer), MIGA, MINURSO, MONUSCO, NAM, OAS (observer), OECD, OPCW, Pacific Alliance (observer), PCA, PIF (partner), SAARC, SACEP, SCO (observer), UN, UNCTAD, UNDOF, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNIFIL, UNISFA, UNITAR, UNMISS, UNOCI, UNWTO, UPU, WCO, WFTU (NGOs), WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO
National symbol(s): the Lion Capital of Ashoka, which depicts four Asiatic lions standing back to back mounted on a circular abacus, is the official emblem; Bengal tiger; lotus flower;
national colors: saffron, white, green
National anthem: name: "Jana-Gana-Mana" (Thou Art the Ruler of the Minds of All People)
lyrics/music: Rabindranath TAGORE
note: adopted 1950; Rabindranath TAGORE, a Nobel laureate, also wrote Bangladesh's national anthem
Diplomatic representation in the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Harsh Vardhan SHRINGLA (since 11 January 2019)
chancery: 2107 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008; note - Consular Wing located at 2536 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008;
telephone: [1](202) 939-7000 telephone: [1] (202) 939-7000
FAX: [1] (202) 265-4351
consulate(s) general: Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New York, San Francisco
Diplomatic representation from the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Kenneth I. JUSTER (since 23 November 2017)
embassy: Shantipath, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi 110021
mailing address: use embassy street address
telephone: [91] (11) 2419-8000
FAX: [91] (11) 2419-0017
consulate(s) general: Chennai (Madras), Hyderabad, Kolkata (Calcutta), Mumbai (Bombay)
India's diverse economy encompasses traditional village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industries, and a multitude of services. Slightly less than half of the workforce is in agriculture, but services are the major source of economic growth, accounting for nearly two-thirds of India's output but employing less than one-third of its labor force. India has capitalized on its large educated English-speaking population to become a major exporter of information technology services, business outsourcing services, and software workers. Nevertheless, per capita income remains below the world average. India is developing into an open-market economy, yet traces of its past autarkic policies remain. Economic liberalization measures, including industrial deregulation, privatization of state-owned enterprises, and reduced controls on foreign trade and investment, began in the early 1990s and served to accelerate the country's growth, which averaged nearly 7% per year from 1997 to 2017. India's economic growth slowed in 2011 because of a decline in investment caused by high interest rates, rising inflation, and investor pessimism about the government's commitment to further economic reforms and about slow world growth. Investors’ perceptions of India improved in early 2014, due to a reduction of the current account deficit and expectations of post-election economic reform, resulting in a surge of inbound capital flows and stabilization of the rupee. Growth rebounded in 2014 through 2016. Despite a high growth rate compared to the rest of the world, India’s government-owned banks faced mounting bad debt, resulting in low credit growth. Rising macroeconomic imbalances in India and improving economic conditions in Western countries led investors to shift capital away from India, prompting a sharp depreciation of the rupee through 2016. The economy slowed again in 2017, due to shocks of "demonetizaton" in 2016 and introduction of GST in 2017. Since the election, the government has passed an important goods and services tax bill and raised foreign direct investment caps in some sectors, but most economic reforms have focused on administrative and governance changes, largely because the ruling party remains a minority in India’s upper house of Parliament, which must approve most bills. India has a young population and corresponding low dependency ratio, healthy savings and investment rates, and is increasing integration into the global economy. However, long-term challenges remain significant, including: India's discrimination against women and girls, an inefficient power generation and distribution system, ineffective enforcement of intellectual property rights, decades-long civil litigation dockets, inadequate transport and agricultural infrastructure, limited non-agricultural employment opportunities, high spending and poorly targeted subsidies, inadequate availability of quality basic and higher education, and accommodating rural-to-urban migration.
GDP (purchasing power parity): $9.474 trillion (2017 est.) $8.88 trillion (2016 est.) $8.291 trillion (2015 est.)
GDP (official exchange rate): $2.602 trillion (2017 est.)
GDP - per capita (PPP): $7,200 (2017 est.) $6,800 (2016 est.) $6,500 (2015 est.)
Gross national saving: 28.8% of GDP (2017 est.) 29.7% of GDP (2016 est.) 30.7% of GDP (2015 est.) GDP - composition, by end use: household consumption: 59.1% (2017 est.) government consumption: 11.5% (2017 est.) investment in fixed capital: 28.5% (2017 est.) investment in inventories: 3.9% (2017 est.) exports of goods and services: 19.1% (2017 est.) imports of goods and services: -22% (2017 est.) GDP - composition, by sector of origin: agriculture: 15.4% (2016 est.) industry: 23% (2016 est.) services: 61.5% (2016 est.)
Agriculture - products: rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, lentils, onions, potatoes; dairy products, sheep, goats, poultry; fish
Industries: textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, software, pharmaceuticals
Labor force: 521.9 million (2017 est.)
Labor force - by occupation: agriculture: 47%
industry: 22%
services: 31% (FY 2014 est.)
Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: 3.6%
highest 10%: 29.8% (2011)
Distribution of family income - Gini index: 35.2 (2011) 37.8 (1997)
Budget: revenues: 238.2 billion (2017 est.)
expenditures: 329 billion (2017 est.)
Taxes and other revenues: 9.2% (of GDP) (2017 est.) Budget surplus (+) or deficit (-): -3.5% (of GDP) (2017 est.)
note: data cover central government debt, and exclude debt instruments issued (or owned) by government entities other than the treasury; the data include treasury debt held by foreign entities; the data exclude debt issued by subnational entities, as well as intragovernmental debt; intragovernmental debt consists of treasury borrowings from surpluses in the social funds, such as for retirement, medical care, and unemployment; debt instruments for the social funds are not sold at public auctions
Fiscal year: 1 April - 31 March
Current account balance: -$48.66 billion (2017 est.) -$14.35 billion (2016 est.)
Exports: $304.1 billion (2017 est.) $268.6 billion (2016 est.)
Exports - commodities: petroleum products, precious stones, vehicles, machinery, iron and steel, chemicals, pharmaceutical products, cereals, apparel
Exports - partners: US 15.6%, UAE 10.2%, Hong Kong 4.9%, China 4.3% (2017)
Imports: $452.2 billion (2017 est.) $376.1 billion (2016 est.)
Imports - commodities: crude oil, precious stones, machinery, chemicals, fertilizer, plastics, iron and steel
Imports - partners: China 16.3%, US 5.5%, UAE 5.2%, Saudi Arabia 4.8%, Switzerland 4.7% (2017)
Debt - external: $501.6 billion (31 December 2017 est.) $456.4 billion (31 December 2016 est.)
Stock of direct foreign investment - at home: $377.5 billion (31 December 2017 est.) $318.5 billion (31 December 2016 est.)
Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad: $155.2 billion (31 December 2017 est.) $144.1 billion (31 December 2016 est.)
Market value of publicly traded shares: $1.516 trillion (31 December 2015 est.) $1.558 trillion (31 December 2014 est.) $1.139 trillion (31 December 2013 est.)
Exchange rates: Indian rupees (INR) per US dollar - 65.17 (2017 est.) 67.195 (2016 est.) 67.195 (2015 est.) 64.152 (2014 est.) 61.03 (2013 est.)
Electricity - exports: 5.15 billion kWh (2015 est.)
Electricity - imports: 5.617 billion kWh (2016 est.)
Electricity - installed generating capacity: 367.8 million kW (2016 est.)
Electricity - from hydroelectric plants: 12% of total installed capacity (2017 est.)
Crude oil - production: 733,900 bbl/day (2017 est.)
Crude oil - exports: 0 bbl/day (2015 est.)
Crude oil - proved reserves: 4.495 billion bbl (1 January 2018 est.)
Refined petroleum products - production: 4.897 million bbl/day (2015 est.)
Refined petroleum products - consumption: 4.521 million bbl/day (2016 est.)
Refined petroleum products - imports: 653,300 bbl/day (2015 est.)
Natural gas - production: 31.54 billion cu m (2017 est.)
Natural gas - consumption: 55.43 billion cu m (2017 est.)
Natural gas - exports: 76.45 million cu m (2017 est.)
Natural gas - proved reserves: 1.29 trillion cu m (1 January 2018 est.)
Cellular Phones in use: total subscriptions: 1,168,902,277
subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 91 (2017 est.)
Telephone system: general assessment: supported by deregulation and liberalization of telecommunications laws and policies, India has emerged as one of the fastest-growing telecom markets in the world; implementation of 4G/LTE services shift to data services across the country; steps taken towards 5G services; fixed broadband penetration is expected to grow at a moderate rate over the next five years to 2023 (2018)
domestic: fixed-line subscriptions stands at 2 per 100 and mobile-cellular at 91 per 100; mobile cellular service introduced in 1994 and organized nationwide into four metropolitan areas and 19 telecom circles, each with multiple private service providers and one or more state-owned service providers; in recent years significant trunk capacity added in the form of fiber-optic cable and one of the world's largest domestic satellite systems, the Indian National Satellite system (INSAT), with 6 satellites supporting 33,000 very small aperture terminals (VSAT) (2018)
international: country code - 91; a number of major international submarine cable systems, including SEA-ME-WE-3 with landing sites at Cochin and Mumbai (Bombay), SEA-ME-WE-4 with a landing site at Chennai, Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) with a landing site at Mumbai (Bombay), South Africa - Far East (SAFE) with a landing site at Cochin, the i2i cable network linking to Singapore with landing sites at Mumbai (Bombay) and Chennai (Madras), and Tata Indicom linking Singapore and Chennai (Madras), provide a significant increase in the bandwidth available for both voice and data traffic; satellite earth stations - 8 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarsat (Indian Ocean region); 9 gateway exchanges operating from Mumbai (Bombay), New Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai (Madras), Jalandhar, Kanpur, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, and Ernakulam (2017)
Broadcast media: Doordarshan, India's public TV network, has a monopoly on terrestrial broadcasting and operates about 20 national, regional, and local services; a large and increasing number of privately owned TV stations are distributed by cable and satellite service providers; in 2015, more than 230 million homes had access to cable and satellite TV offering more than 700 TV channels; government controls AM radio with All India Radio operating domestic and external networks; news broadcasts via radio are limited to the All India Radio Network; since 2000, privately owned FM stations have been permitted and their numbers have increased rapidly
Internet country code: .in
Airports: 346 (2013)
Airports (paved runways): total 253
(2017) over 3,047 m: 22 (2017)
2,438 to 3,047 m: 59 (2017)
914 to 1,523 m: 82 (2017)
under 914 m: 14 (2017)
Airports (unpaved runways): total 93
Heliports: 45 (2013)
Pipelines: 9 km condensate/gas, 13581 km gas, 2054 km liquid petroleum gas, 8943 km oil, 20 km oil/gas/water, 11069 km refined products (2013)
Railways: total 68,525 km
narrow gauge: 9,499 km 1.000-m gauge (2014) broad gauge: 58,404 km 1.676-m gauge (23,654 electrified) (2014) 622 0.762-m gauge
note: includes 96,214 km of national highways and expressways, 147,800 km of state highways, and 4,455,010 km of other roads
Waterways: 14,500 km (5,200 km on major rivers and 485 km on canals suitable for mechanized vessels) (2012)
by type: bulk carrier 75, container ship 22, general cargo 582, oil tanker 133, other 907 (2018)
Ports and terminals: major seaport(s): Chennai, Jawaharal Nehru Port, Kandla, Kolkata (Calcutta), Mumbai (Bombay), Sikka, Vishakhapatnam container port(s) (TEUs): Chennai (1,549,457), Jawaharal Nehru Port (4,833,397), Mundra (4,240,260) (2017) LNG terminal(s) (import): Dabhol, Dahej, Hazira
Military branches: Army, Navy (includes naval air arm), Air Force, Coast Guard (2011)
Military service age and obligation: 16-18 years of age for voluntary military service (Army 17 1/2, Air Force 17, Navy 16 1/2); no conscription; women may join as officers, currently serve in combat roles as pilots, and will soon be allowed in all combat roles (2016)
Military expenditures: 2.47% of GDP (2016) 2.41% of GDP (2015) 2.5% of GDP (2014) 2.47% of GDP (2013) 2.54% of GDP (2012)
Disputes - International: since China and India launched a security and foreign policy dialogue in 2005, consolidated discussions related to the dispute over most of their rugged, militarized boundary, regional nuclear proliferation, Indian claims that China transferred missiles to Pakistan, and other matters continue; Kashmir remains the site of the world's largest and most militarized territorial dispute with portions under the de facto administration of China (Aksai Chin), India (Jammu and Kashmir), and Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas); India and Pakistan resumed bilateral dialogue in February 2011 after a two-year hiatus, have maintained the 2003 cease-fire in Kashmir, and continue to have disputes over water sharing of the Indus River and its tributaries; UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan has maintained a small group of peacekeepers since 1949; India does not recognize Pakistan's ceding historic Kashmir lands to China in 1964; to defuse tensions and prepare for discussions on a maritime boundary, India and Pakistan seek technical resolution of the disputed boundary in Sir Creek estuary at the mouth of the Rann of Kutch in the Arabian Sea; Pakistani maps continue to show its Junagadh claim in Indian Gujarat State; Prime Minister Singh's September 2011 visit to Bangladesh resulted in the signing of a Protocol to the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement between India and Bangladesh, which had called for the settlement of longstanding boundary disputes over undemarcated areas and the exchange of territorial enclaves, but which had never been implemented; Bangladesh referred its maritime boundary claims with Burma and India to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea; Joint Border Committee with Nepal continues to examine contested boundary sections, including the 400 sq km dispute over the source of the Kalapani River; India maintains a strict border regime to keep out Maoist insurgents and control illegal cross-border activities from Nepal
Refugees and internally displaced persons: refugees (country of origin): 108,008 (Tibet/China), 60,802 (Sri Lanka), 18,813 (Burma), 6,984 (Afghanistan) (2018) IDPs: 479,000 (armed conflict and intercommunal violence) (2018)
Illicit drugs: world's largest producer of licit opium for the pharmaceutical trade, but an undetermined quantity of opium is diverted to illicit international drug markets; transit point for illicit narcotics produced in neighboring countries and throughout Southwest Asia; illicit producer of methaqualone; vulnerable to narcotics money laundering through the hawala system; licit ketamine and precursor production
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Abbotts Drive, HA0
Road maybe laid out between the wars. Most of the urban landscape is interwar
Road · Preston Road · HA0 ·
Abbotts Drive is one of the streets in the Harrow postal district of Middlesex.
6621' target='_top'>302 style='float:left; width=250px; margin-right:10px;'>Preston Road - originally just ’Preston’ - is situated west along the Metropolitan Line from Wembley Park.
Preston, meaning ’the farm belonging to the priest’, began as a small settlement at Preston Green, just south west of the Lidding or Wealdstone Brook, south of Kenton. It was first mentioned in 1220. The name may come from an estate given to Abbot Stidberht by King Offa of Mercia in 767, but any connection with Preston Road as a rural lanethe Church had been lost by 1086. Preston was a township by 1231.
By the mid-6615' target='_top'>15th century Preston consisted of two farms and a few cottages. The northern farm belonged to the Lyon family from the late 14th century and is described as being a beautiful building in 6615' target='_top'>1547. It was probably the birthplace of John Lyon (6615' target='_top'>1534-92), a considerable local landowner who founded Harrow School in 6615' target='_top'>1572. After his death the farm was given as an endowment for the upkeep of the school. It was rebuilt around 1700. The southern farm was originally known as Preston Dicket and later as Preston Farm.
By 1681 five buildings had been built on Preston Green, including a new farmhouse, Hillside Farm. In 1759 there were nine buildings at Preston, including the ’Horseshoe’ inn,
which was licensed in 1751.
The district did not change significantly in the 19th century. The agricultural depression after the Napoleonic Wars led to an outbreak of violence in the area around 1828, when desperate agricultural labourers burnt haystacks and threatened local landowners, including the relatively benevolent Lord Northwick.
64 people lived in Preston in 1831 and 57 in 1851.
In 1851 the ’Rose & Crown’ beerhouse is mentioned at the top of Preston Hill (beerhouses flourished from 186621' target='_top'>30 to 1869 and were intended to discourage the sale of spirits). It appears to have been part of Hillside Farm, and is never mentioned again.
Preston House was leased to various professional men during the 19th century, including a surgeon, a cigar importer and a solicitor.
In 1864 two villas replaced the four nearby cottages. Around 1880 Preston House was acquired by George Timms, who turned the grounds into Preston Tea Gardens. The Tea Gardens flourished well into the next century.
The Metropolitan Railway had no effect on development, even after the opening of Wembley Park station in 1894. In 1896 the suggestion that a station should be built serving Preston was rejected because the local population was so small. Indeed even in the early 20th century the area was entirely rural, and the Wealdstone Brook could be described as "one of the most perfect little streams anywhere, abounding in dace and roach."
By 1900 Uxendon Farm had become a shooting ground (the Lancaster Shooting Club). When the Olympic Games were held in London in 1908 the ground was sufficiently important to be
used for Olympic clay pigeon shooting. Pressure from the shooting club, which was a two mile walk from the nearest station, played a part in the opening of Preston Road Halt on 21 May 1908.
The station was a halt (a request stop) and initially many trains failed to slow down enough to enable the driver to notice passengers waiting on the platform. Preston Road Halt triggered the first commuter development in the district. Some large Edwardian houses were built along Preston Road after 1910 and Harrow Golf Club opened near the station in 1912. Wembley Golf Club had already existed on the southern slopes of Barn Hill from about 1895. Both these golf courses would disappear under housing between the wars.
Further development in Preston came after the 1924-5 British Empire Exhibition. Roads in the area were prone to flooding, and the Exhibition led to significant and much needed improvements.
Many of the country lanes in the area were however not improved until 1931-2, under Wembley’s Town Planning Scheme. Preston Road indeed remained a country lane until the late 196621' target='_top'>30s, which may account for its considerable charm.Improved communications brought suburban development. Christ Church College, Oxford, and Harrow School sold their Preston
estates in the period 1921-33. Forty Green began being built over as early as 1923-4 and housing spread along Preston Road and Preston Hill in the three years that followed.
Shops appeared in 1927-8 and a pub, the ’Preston Park Hotel’ was opened in the late 1920s.
Preston Road was converted into a proper station in 1931-2. The line was electrified soon after and the station slightly re-sited. By now it was certain that the heart of Preston would be to the south of the old green. Many more shops appeared around the station in 1931-3 and 1936-8. Most housing developments occurred in the 196621' target='_top'>30s. By 1936 Preston was being described as "a high class and rapidly growing residential area with a population of between 6000 and 7000 people." A primary school was created to serve this population in 196622' target='_top'>32 and a secondary school in 1938.
In the 196621' target='_top'>30s many Jewish people, the majority members of the United Synagogue, moved into the Preston area. There is still a strong Jewish presence today.
By 1951 Preston’s population had risen to 12,408, although it declined somewhat thereafter. Post-war housing was built north and east of Preston Road and a number of prefabs, a temporary solution to homelessness, stood at Tenterden Close, Woodcock Hill, until the late 1960s. Proposals for an Anglican church at Preston had been published in 1936, but the war intervened and the Church of the Ascension was not consecrated until 1957.
By the early 1960s all of Preston’s old buildings had been lost. Lyon’s Farm was demolished in 1960, despite earlier plans to preserve it. Hillside farmhouse went in 1961 and Preston House was demolished in 1962-3. Both of these buildings were replaced by blocks of flats. Despite these losses Preston is a pleasant and prosperous-looking place that has retained its original atmosphere.
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Obama Evening Wrap Up. Cabinet Rollout Continues.
Obama, Biden and Ed. Sec. Designate Duncan at Dodge Renaissance Academy after presser.
Arne Duncan named Education Secretary.
President-elect Obama announced Tuesday his pick for secretary of education, calling Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan a hands-on reformer with a proven record of success.
"For years, we've talked our education problems to death, but failed to act," Obama said, speaking at a news conference held in a school that he said has made remarkable progress under Duncan's leadership.
"We can't continue like this. It's morally unacceptable for our children," Obama said.
For the past seven years, Duncan, 44, has run the nation's third-largest school district. Duncan, a Harvard graduate, played professional basketball in Australia and later ran a nonprofit education organization on Chicago's South Side before going to work in the city's public schools.
I am not a fan of Duncan for many reasons. Of all the picks, this one is a bad one in my opinion.
Read, JJP and bokeen.
Kids question Obama.
The Obamas and Bidens Whistle Stop Tour to the White House
President-elect Barack Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and their families will hold a pre-inaugural event in Baltimore on Saturday, Jan. 17, as they travel to Washington by train for the swearing-in ceremony the next week, it was announced today.
The presidential inaugural committee said that the Baltimore appearance would be "in the tradition of past presidents-elect," who have staged a variety of events on their way to Washington to begin their administration.
According to the committee, the Jan. 17 events are in keeping with the theme of the inauguration --"Renewing America's Promise" -- and will feature cities with historic connections to that theme: Philadelphia, where the country's promise was realized in the signing of the Declaration of Independence; Baltimore, "where that promise was defended, then immortalized in our national anthem"; and Washington, the nation's capital, where four days of inaugural celebrations are to be held next month.
Obama and his family plan to begin the day with an event in Philadelphia. They will then board a special train that will stop in Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Del., where another event will be held.
The vice president and his family will then board the train for the remainder of the trip. Biden was famous for commuting via Amtrak to Wilmington during his years in the Senate.
The inaugural train is due to arrive in Washington that evening after the Baltimore event. Details of the day's events will be announced later, the committee said. continue
Secret Service on Inauguration
Since we witnessed an Iraqi journalist throw both shoes at Bush and the slow security response, don't think or wonder if the Secret Service will not be on their game for The Obamas and Bidens during the whirlwind Inauguration. They will be.
The United States Secret Service, under the leadership of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and in cooperation with its local, state and federal security and public safety partners, has developed an overall security plan for the 56th Presidential Inaugural on Tuesday, January 20.
DHS has designated the Inaugural as a National Special Security Event (NSSE). When an event is designated an NSSE, the Secret Service assumes its role as the lead federal agency for the design and implementation of the operational security plan. The Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), the U.S. Capitol Police and the U.S. Park Police as well as a number of other federal and local agencies will play an active role in securing this event and resources will be deployed to maintain the level of security needed for the designated events.
A number of security measures will be in place for the 56th Presidential Inaugural. As details become available, this information will be updated. continue
Caroline Kennedy wants Clinton's Senate Seat
There is some angst in New York State over Kennedy being appointed or anointed to the Clinton seat.
Kennedy has been working the phones, letting the NY political establishment know that she is serious and wants the seat. This includes contacting Hillary Clinton.
Kennedy is not a carpetbagger as Clinton was in 2000, she is a bonafide New Yorker and have worked on various charities, raising monies for the public school system in NYC, runs the Kennedy Library along with the Kennedy Center Honors and selecting the Profile in Courage Award recipient. Plus, Kennedy is a lawyer and writer of several constitutional law books.
Picking Kennedy will secure several things for Democrats. She has the name recognition of a powerhouse and beloved family and she can raise the much needed money to run for this seat in New York. Remember, after the appointment there will be a special election in 2010, then another election in 2012 for the expiration of this seat. That's two elections withing a 4 year period. This is why Kennedy will have the ups on anyone else.
Finally, there has been a Kennedy in the senate since 1953, with her father being the first. Many will think this is an imperial or dynasty pick, but I see it as a legacy pick. If Caroline Kennedy wants this, she will have it.
and................
The Obama Girls and Blacks at Sidwell - An Inside Perspective, Part II
Vilsack for Agriculture Secretary
That Minnesota Senate race will never end, Norm Coleman lawyers up
Dear Republicans: You Lost. Get Over It.
And watch the C-Span week long series on The White House. Truly fascinating.
Labels: arne duncan, barack obama, c-span, caroline kennedy, joe biden, Obama Administration
arne duncan|barack obama|c-span|caroline kennedy|joe biden|Obama Administration|
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(++++) PURELY FOR FUN
Trouble Gum. By Matthew Cordell. Feiwel and Friends. $16.99.
Yonderfel’s Castle. By Jean Gralley. Henry Holt. $16.99.
Buying, Training & Caring for Your Dinosaur. By Laura Joy Rennert. Pictures by Marc Brown. Knopf. $16.99.
Some books are profound, meaningful, thoughtful. Some are complex, intricate, convoluted. And some are simple, straightforward and need no excuse for their existence except their entertainment value. So many kids’ books seem to bend over backwards to create a moral that it is a pleasure to find occasional ones that simply revel in telling light and amusing stories – as do all three of these.
Trouble Gum is bubble gum in the hands (and mouths) of piglet kid Ruben and his younger brother, Julius, on a rainy day while Grammy is visiting. There’s nothing much to do, and when Ruben does try to do something, he is too loud or too bouncy – until Grammy offers him some gum, which “wasn’t often allowed. It tended to make a mess.” Any reader – even one as young as four or five – will soon figure out where this is going, and that is just where Matthew Cordell takes it: into repeated bouts of chaos. But this is such amusing chaos that kids and parents alike will laugh at it. There are the weird sounds Ruben makes while chewing; the odd chewing positions he assumes (lying down, upside down, and so on); and the trouble he gets into when he swallows, stretches, snaps and blows bubbles with the gum. Watching Ruben try to get gum out of Mom’s knit blanket is hilarious – as is watching him make Julius his partner in bubblicious crime. The biggest problem for parents with this book – after they stop laughing along with it – will be persuading their children that these things are funny in Cordell’s telling and art, but would not be amusing at all in real life.
There’s trouble of a different sort for the good King Yonderfel and the “crowded and happy” castle to which he invites everyone, all the time. After a number of years, toward the beautifully multihued castle and its sparks of happiness comes rumbling a dark machine spewing clouds of smoke and throwing black dust behind it. It belongs to an “ogre guy” who, it turns out, owns the mountain and is doubling King Yonderfel’s rent. But the king does not charge his castle visitors for anything, ever, and can only afford to pay half the amount demanded by the ogre guy – whose dark purple cape spreads behind him like a cloud of ill will. Only half? Well, in that case – the ogre guy hooks his machine to the mountain and makes off with half of it, leaving the castle perched precariously on a precipice. And the once-happy people declare their king a “cabbage-headed nincombooby” and leave. And poor King Yonderfel comes up with a hilarious series of ideas to make his half-mountain castle attractive, including turning it into a toll plaza and a water slide. Nothing works, and the lonely king tries to pass the time by knitting towels – longer towels and longer ones – for years and years – until the arrival of a great storm forces all the people to the castle once again and gives Jean Gralley the chance to create a truly wonderful surprise twist, which seems to go awry (the words “the end” start to appear on one page) but eventually turns out quite wonderfully well. As does the whole book.
Yonderfel’s Castle is set in vaguely medieval times; Laura Joy Rennert’s Buying, Training & Caring for Your Dinosaur juxtaposes something of much, much earlier times with the modern age. It’s a straightforward (but of course completely tongue-in-cheek) guide to choosing and taking care of the best possible pet dinosaur, from triceratops (“a great watch-dino”) to pteranodon (“long fourth finger perfect for removing unnecessary broccoli from dinner plates”) to spinosaurus (“an excellent sailboat”). The accurate facts about dinosaur names and anatomical features add to the fun here, as do Marc Brown’s rounded and nicely amusing illustrations – the dinos’ expressions are just right for contented pets (or maybe not so contented, in the case of T. Rex). But advice on picking a dinosaur is only part of the fun – there is also information on needed supplies (including “a long, LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG leash”); training (“dinos tend to sit when THEY want to, not when YOU want them to”); and activities (“Sign Dino up for your soccer league. Dinos make especially good goalies”). Rennert reserves her biggest type size to tell kids that “DINOS ARE FOR FUN!” And so is her book – from silly premise through to delightful conclusion (and the need for parents to explain why kids will not find friendly dinosaurs at any nearby pet shop!).
(++++) THE LONG AND SHORT OF HISTORY
A Really Short History of Nearly Everything. By Bill Bryson. Delacorte Press. $19.99.
The Century for Young People—Becoming Modern America: 1901-1936; Defining America: 1936-1961; Changing America: 1961-1999. By Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster. Delacorte Press. $9.99 each.
Making big subjects understandable to young people is a big challenge. Making the biggest subject of all – literally everything – understandable is an even bigger challenge. Bill Bryson rises to it, for the most part delightfully, in A Really Short History of Nearly Everything. Originally published in Great Britain, the book lapses into Britishisms from time to time, but remains for the most part quite clear and understandable, even when dealing with subjects that are simply unimaginable: “By doing a lot of maths, scientists believe they can look back to one ten million trillion trillion trillionths of a second after its birth when the universe was so small that you would have needed a microscope to find it.” Bryson uses the knowledge of science to throw cold water on some favorite science-fictional concepts: “Based on what we know now, there’s absolutely no prospect that any human being will ever visit the edge of our own solar system.” In the main, though, he offers a tale of the wonders to be found right on Earth – and the wonderful ways in which people have explored, measured, discussed and argued about them. The trials and tribulations of scientists trying to weigh Earth – two of them being Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who later gave their names to the Mason-Dixon line – make fascinating reading. So do the arguments about the speed of geological change between the Catastrophists and the Uniformitarians. And the information that even today, Marie Curie’s papers are too dangerous to handle – because they were exposed to so much radiation for so long. Bryson does not shrink from difficult concepts, such as Einstein’s notion that “time is variable and ever-changing. It even has shape.” And he manages to explain difficult ideas with some very well-chosen images, as in his comment about the possibility of an asteroid hitting Earth: “Think of the Earth’s orbit as a kind of motorway on which we are the only vehicle, but which is crossed regularly by pedestrians who don’t look before stepping off the pavement.” From dinosaurs to bacteria, the hugeness of space to the microscopic world, Bryson offers a tour that is not only fascinating but also offbeat and quite thought-provoking: “It is a curious feature of our existence that we come from a planet that is very good at promoting life but even better at extinguishing it. The average species on Earth lasts for only about four million years.”
According to Peter Jennings and Todd Brewer in their 1998 book, The Century, 100 of the most important years of all were those of the 20th century – especially so in the United States. This is hyperbole, of course, but it does not make the three volumes for young readers derived from the Jennings-Brewer book (and originally published in 1999) any less interesting. Divided rather arbitrarily into periods based on the arguments that the authors want to make, the three books are fact-packed if less than stylish in presentation. For example, after the stock market crashed in 1929, “It was as if America had gone from a carefree summer into a freezing winter.” Jennings and Brewer are at their best when tossing out little bits of information with casual abandon, such as when they note (in discussing the rise of the automobile) that the first traffic light dates to 1922, the first shopping center to 1924 and the first public parking garage to 1929. The recollections by people who lived in and through specific events are also of considerable interest. For example, Junji Sarashina, who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, recalls, “A lot of people were floating in the river; some were swimming, but some of them were dead, drifting with the current. Their skin was red and their clothes were nothing but strips of cloth hanging from them. …All night long we watched the town burn.” And decorated Vietnam veteran Larry Gwin says, “Any American soldier who went to Vietnam didn’t have to stay there long before he knew that there was something wrong with our presence there.” Jennings and Brewer clearly have a sociopolitical orientation that guides their choices of events on which to focus and people to include in their narrative; but for the most part, their skewing of matters is subtle rather than heavy-handed. Unfortunately, The Century for Young People is not especially good at giving context to the quotations from the people who speak from first-hand experience. Often a major, wrenching event gets short shrift: “The collapse of faith in American leadership and the defeat in Vietnam further undermined Americans’ self-confidence. People responded by turning inward and becoming more focused on themselves.” In all, the once-over-lightly approach of The Century for Young People merits a (+++) rating for clear writing and inclusion of people who actually experienced many of the important events of the 20th century; but these three books are far from the last word on that century, even from the limited perspective of the United States.
(+++) CONTEMPLATIONS
Night Lights. By Susan Gal. Knopf. $14.99.
Who Will I Be, Lord? By Vaunda Micheaux Nelson. Illustrated by Sean Qualls. Random House. $16.99.
Young children thinking about the year ahead – or just the next day – will find a lot to consider in these two books. Night Lights is a simple bedtime story for ages 3-6 – but it is also more. With very few words and many dark-hued illustrations, Susan Gal shows all the ways the world gets light, in little bits here and there, after the sun goes down. The book starts with a mother and daughter bicycling home from wherever they have been, the headlights on their bikes and the streetlights along the road throwing patches of brightness onto an otherwise dark and quiet scene. At their house, there are bits of light everywhere, and the naming of those lights constitutes the only text in the book: firelight, candlelight, reading light, flashlight and more – even lightning! (with an exclamation point) that causes mom, daughter and their dog to run inside. The repetition of the word “light,” in so many contexts, creates a kind of background hum that makes this book very restful to read to a young child. It also invites quiet thoughtfulness about what went on during the day and what the next day will bring, as the child in the book falls peacefully asleep by moonlight.
The wondering is more verbal than pictorial in Vaunda Micheaux Nelson’s Who Will I Be, Lord? Intended for slightly older kids – ages 4-8 – this is a book focused on the African-American experience, with a little girl thinking back over her family history and trying to figure out what it implies for her own future. She thinks of her great-grandfather, a mailman and musician whose own grandfather had been a slave; and of her great-grandmother, who “mama’d five children and made the best cakes in the county” – and who was white, and was disowned by her parents for marrying a black man. She thinks of her grandfather, a preacher, and her grandmother, a teacher; her uncle, a pool shark; her cousin, a jazzman; and her own parents, a car repair man and stay-at-home mom. As she thinks of each person, she contemplates what their lives are like and wonders about her own future, almost as in the refrain of a poem: “My grampa is a preacher. And what will I be, Lord? What will I be?” Of course, she is far too young to know for sure what she will become, and there is no answer to her repeated questions by the end of book, by which time “what will I be?” has turned into “who will I be?” But the little girl realizes that what and who she is as an adult is up to her – that is the lesson of her family and her history, as well as her parents’ teaching. This is a nicely contemplative book that, although told strictly from an African-American perspective and unlikely to have widespread appeal outside its target group, will give little girls who can relate to the narrator something to think about as they consider the many role models around them and the ones in their own families’ past.
(++++) MAGNIFICENCE – IN MUSIC AND YOUR MIND
Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen (complete). Bayreuther Festspiele Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Christian Thielemann. Opus Arte. $139.99 (14 CDs).
There is no greater operatic spectacle than Wagner’s Ring cycle, and no composer who ever thought through the visual impact and design of his operas more thoroughly than Wagner did in this tetralogy. And yet there is something to be said for hearing the operas instead of seeing them, especially when it is a matter of hearing them in a performance from Bayreuth, whose opera house was built expressly for the staging of the Ring. The reason is that modern Bayreuth productions of the Ring have striven, again and again, to remake it visually – with greater or lesser success. The stagings, and the controversies surrounding them, can all too easily distract operagoers from the astonishingly rich musical fabric that Wagner wove in these splendid works – the pinnacle, for many, of German opera, if not for the entire operatic field.
This 2008 Bayreuth Festival performance of the Ring is a case in point. Half-sisters Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier are now joint leaders of the festival, after a series of political and family machinations themselves worthy of an opera. Tankred Dorst staged the operas as a juxtaposition of the gods’ world and a modern, 20th-century one, to lukewarm reviews that often praised the stage design and costumes but less often complimented the direction and Dorst’s overall concept.
None of that matters in this superb recording – the first-ever CD release from Opus Arte, which has heretofore produced only DVDs. What counts in this fine Ring set is the way Christian Thielemann handles the orchestra, chorus and individual singers (during the Bayreuth Festival itself, the four operas used different soloists for different cycles). Thielemann, born in 1959, has in a sense come of age through his Ring conducting, which was generally deemed uneven (but with episodes of brilliance) as recently as 2006. There is nothing episodic about his 2008 performance: it is wonderful. The pacing is often faster than is usual in these operas – although without any loss of grandeur – and the sense of forward motion throughout the cycle is a real joy to hear. It is especially helpful in Siegfried, the third and most static of the operas. In fact, Siegfried comes off, in some ways, even better than the other three works, with strong performances by Stephen Gould as the hero and Gerhard Siegel as Mime, and with Albert Dohmen so good as the Wanderer (Wotan in disguise) that he practically takes over the opera in his scenes. Linda Watson, as Brünnhilde, also sings exceptionally well, and Thielemann’s handling of the score reveals its inner dynamics – and inner dynamism – to a thoroughly impressive extent.
The other operas fare perhaps a smidgin less well – largely because Siegfried is such a tough nut to crack – but are still outstanding. Dohmen is not quite as inspired as Wotan in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, but other singers are top-notch. In Das Rheingold, the Rhinemaidens (Fionnuala McCarthy, Ulrike Helzel and Simone Schröder) beautifully blend playfulness with despair, and Andrew Shore gives real depth and real menace to Alberich. The one significant disappointment is Arnold Bezuyen as Loge, who comes across as characterless.
Die Walküre has one outstanding performance, by Eva-Maria Westbroek as Sieglinde in a rare blend of dramatic effectiveness with vocal superiority – she is worth hearing again and again. Unfortunately, she more than overmasters Endrik Wottrich as Siegmund – he pushes himself and his voice hard, and creates some effective moments as a result; but a sense of the heroic is never present, while a sense of being at the limit of his abilities always is. In fact, this is doubly unfortunate, since Kwangchul Youn makes Hunding a far stronger character than he often comes across as being.
In Götterdämmerung, Gould’s Siegfried is fine, but is disconcertingly surpassed vocally by Hagen, sung by Hans-Peter König – he dominates every scene in which he appears, right up to his final, fatal plunge into the Rhine in fruitless pursuit of the Ring. Watson’s Brünnhilde here is not quite as good as in Siegfried: she has much more to do, and her voice does not quite stand up to the demands of the final cataclysm. Christa Mayer is a genuinely moving Waltraute, and the Three Norns (Simone Schröder, Martina Dike and Edith Haller) are unusually well cast. Schröder also repeats as Floßhilde, with McCarthy as Woglinde and Helzel as Wellgunde, and they again make the Rhinemaidens effective and unusually full-featured characters.
The most important recurring roles in this Ring cycle are those of the outstanding chorus, committed and beautifully balanced orchestra, and conductor Thielemann. And this is where these wonderfully recorded live performances really come into their own. Without the distraction of Dorst’s staging – whatever one may think of it – this Ring becomes music-making of the very highest order in Thielemann’s hands, with each opera complete in itself but carefully tied to all the others, both through Wagner’s structure and through Thielemann’s emphasis on the unifying musical and thematic elements. The whole presentation is enhanced by Opus Arte’s inclusion of complete librettos for each opera, along with brief but to-the-point notes and clear synopses. This is, in sum, an absolutely superlative Ring cycle, and a strong argument for envisioning Wagner’s masterpiece yourself, as the music carries you away to the composer’s world, instead of being guided by the hand and eye of a stage director whose vision may or may not complement (much less match) your own.
(++++) CELEBRATIONS
Mozart: Serenade “Gran Partita,” K361/370a; Divertimento, K166; arrangements of music from “Le Nozze di Figaro,” “Don Giovanni” and “Così fan tutte.” Zefiro conducted by Alfredo Bernardini. Naïve. $16.99 (2 CDs).
Copland: An Outdoor Overture; Schuman: New England Triptych; Holst: Hammersmith, Prelude and Scherzo; Robert Russell Bennett: Suite of Old American Dances; Paul Creston: Celebration Overture. U.S. Air Force Band conducted by Col. Lowell Graham. Klavier. $16.99.
There’s nothing wrong with a little self-celebration – if you have created something worth celebrating – and the Naïve label is celebrating itself with 15 well-chosen reissues rather immodestly labeled “La Collection.” Each includes two CDs from the existing Naïve catalogue and an oversize booklet about the music and the artists, all packaged in a slipcase that makes the whole thing look more like a book than a CD set. The pricing is attractive – two Naïve CDs for the usual cost of one – and this celebratory series can provide a good opportunity to add some fine performances to a CD collection. The music covers quite a time span, from Gautier de Coincy (1177-1236) and Luca Marenzio (1553?-1599) to Xenakis and Boulez. The “La Collection” offering from the wind band Zefiro is typical of the productions. It includes excellent 1996 recordings of two Mozart works for wind band, plus Zefiro leader Alfredo Bernardini’s arrangements for 13 wind instruments of music from the three operas that Mozart wrote to libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Bernardini presents Mozart’s harmonies in greater complexity than did the wind arrangers of Mozart’s own time, and his use of the same instrumental ensemble as in the “Gran Partita” helps cement this recording – which dates to 2004 – as an unusual one that is very well worth hearing. The arrangements do not follow the operas’ dramatic arc, but they do make Mozart’s expressiveness abundantly clear, and Bernardini throws in a few “showpiece” elements that Zefiro must have had great fun performing and that certainly are cause for celebration, self- or otherwise.
The celebratory nature of the new U.S. Air Force Band recording for Klavier is clear from the outset: the CD is entitled “Celebration.” More to the point, it feels like a celebration – of music, primarily American music, and by implication of the United States itself. Yet this is no mere collection of hyper-patriotic tunes. Aaron Copland’s An Outdoor Overture is scarcely his most profound or compelling work – it was written for student musicians – but it is light, bright and thoroughly upbeat. William Schuman’s New England Triptych is more varied in approach and mood, including a moving slow central movement. Gustav Holst’s Hammersmith, Prelude and Scherzo – the sole non-American work on the CD – is a lovely blend of lyricism with revelry. Robert Russell Bennett’s Suite of Old American Dances is jocular. bright and very well scored. And Paul Creston’s Celebration Overture is rhythmically striking and effective, and a fine showpiece for the performers. The U.S. Air Force Band is as good as they come in this sort of music, handling everything with dynamism and a certain swagger – but not neglecting the subtler and softer sections of the pieces that contain them. Col. Lowell Graham leads the ensemble with great verve and spirit, and the result is an altogether pleasing CD that is sure to lift drooping spirits and keep optimistic ones high.
(++++) ERGO, ERAGON
Eragon’s Guide to Alagaësia. By Christopher Paolini. Knopf. $24.99.
Brisingr Deluxe Edition. By Christopher Paolini. Knopf. $29.99.
It says something about the Eragon phenomenon that a splendidly made, elegantly designed gift book based on Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance cycle is in many ways more interesting than the thick novels of the cycle itself. Eragon’s Guide to Alagaësia is beautiful to look at and surprisingly comprehensive in explaining Paolini’s created (but very strongly Tolkien-derived) world and the races that inhabit it. The excellent illustrations, lovely maps and gorgeous art combine to give a greater feel of reality to Alagaësia than do the books themselves. Yes, the name of the land still sounds disconcertingly like “analgesia.” Yes, there are Beor Mountains (think of Tolkien’s shapeshifter Beorn), Palancar Forest (think of Tolkien’s “seeing stone,” a Palantír), Tronjheim (Trondheim in Norway has a very Tolkienian sound), Vol Turin (consider Tolkien’s Minas Tirith), and many other echoes of the great fantasist – plus echoes of other works as well. But in Eragon’s Guide to Alagaësia, the echoes are fainter than in the narrative and invented languages of Paolini’s novels, where they come through so strongly as to interfere at times with those elements of the story that really have originality. In this beautiful gift book, the eye is so delighted and distracted by the bound-in mini-books, the elegant colorings, the size comparisons and histories of the four two-legged races, the tales of dragon riders, and the well-summarized snippets of history that the derivative nature of Paolini’s work becomes almost irrelevant. Eragon’s Guide to Alagaësia can serve as an introduction to the Inheritance series, but it works even better as a supplement – a particularly wonderful gift for existing fans.
Another possible gift, albeit a somewhat frustrating one, is the new deluxe edition of the cycle’s third book, Brisingr. This is the same tale of divided loyalties, desperate battles and an unending fight against tyranny told when Brisingr was originally published in September 2008. The deluxe edition dresses up the story with previously unseen art, a couple of deleted scenes in an appendix, some dwarf runes, and fine-grade paper with high-quality printing. But it remains the 750-plus-page book from which Paolini has said his editor cut 200 pages; it still rambles and could easily have been further tightened, although fans will surely welcome the way Paolini spins out so many things at so much length. Brisingr is subtitled, “The Seven Promises of Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Bjartskular,” and indeed, promises prove conflicting and hard to keep here. Eragon’s cousin, Roran, needs Eragon to rescue Roran’s beloved; the Varden need Eragon’s help; the dwarves seek him; so do the elves. There is simply not enough of Eragon to go around. Nevertheless, despite some scenes of genuine excitement, Paolini’s writing remains uninspired and often plodding – although it is more assured in Brisingr than in the earlier Inheritance books, Eragon and Eldest. Still, Brisingr remains in many ways unoriginal; it gets a (+++) rating. And for whom is the deluxe edition intended? Fans will already have the earlier hardcover; non-fans will not want to enter the Inheritance cycle with the third of its four books; and the additions that make this edition “deluxe” are not really sufficient to justify buying the book if you already have it in good shape. A gift item, to be sure; but for whom? Let the buyer think carefully….
(++++) MANGA MARVELS
The Manga Artist’s Workbook. By Christopher Hart. Potter Style. $15.99.
Drawing Manga Animals, Chibis, and Other Adorable Creatures. By J.C. Amberlyn. Watson-Guptill. $21.99.
Among the many once-over-lightly guides to drawing manga and anime characters, The Manga Artist’s Workbook is a standout – because it is not once-over-lightly. In fact, Christopher Hart’s step-by-step guide, which includes tracing paper to help you get the feel of the lines that give manga characters their personalities until you can draw them freehand, is more like three or four or five times over…and not lightly at all. Hart, from whose Manga for the Beginner this spiral-bound book is derived, gives excellent, unfailingly detailed advice on how to get the proportions of manga characters right so as to give them their unique look. For example, “Hair never lies flat, always adding size to the head.” And “windblown hair is more dramatic than stiff hair.” In a down angle, “ears [are] placed high on head” and “nose almost overlaps mouth.” There are natural standing poses, less-often-used poses such as rear view and side view, and there are opportunities to draw really interesting poses, such as “one knee bent, hands in front of body.” Speaking of hands, “it takes a subtle touch to draw pretty [female] hands,” while “male hands are slightly more challenging to draw than female hands, because they aren’t as soft looking.” Hart does more than instruct – he explains. And that is one thing that makes this drawing guide so valuable. Another is the way it builds: starting with heads and those famous extra-large manga eyes, Hart takes you through body parts, whole bodies, clothing, and then to fully characterized figures such as the “teen fighting girl” and “classic teen hero” shown in wonderful full-color detail on the front and back covers of the book. By the end of the book, when Hart says to “build your own character,” you will actually be able to – perhaps not with Hart’s own ease and skill, but with considerable success...on which you can then build further through practice.
J.C. Amberlyn’s Drawing Manga Animals, Chibis, and Other Adorable Creatures is not quite at this high a quality level – it gets a (+++) rating – but it is in many ways more out-and-out fun than Hart’s book, because it focuses on the cute little subsidiary characters that people (so to speak) the manga and anime worlds. These are the huge-eyed, huge-headed cats, rabbits and unidentifiable things that sometimes participate in adventures and sometimes simply hang out on the sidelines. The proportions are what really matter here: heads can be fully half the size of bodies, and eyes are enormous even by manga standards. Amberlyn, an artist and animator, clearly knows what makes these characters effective, but she sometimes has trouble explaining what she means. For example, an illustration marked “no” shows an eye with solid lines visible at the inner corner. But in the text, Amberlyn writes, “Broken outlines for eyes are common in manga, but solid outlines for eyes can be used, too.” The best parts of this book are the ones that approach drawing in a creative way. For instance, “When drawing chibi bodies, it can help to keep the idea of a flour sack in mind” – after which Amberlyn shows how the sack shape can be used to convey emotion through body positioning. The book’s section on computer techniques – such as freehand drawings colored in Photoshop – is especially helpful for artists who are comfortable with software as a major tool. In all, Drawing Manga Animals, Chibis, and Other Adorable Creatures is a good book to supplement one, such as The Manga Artist’s Workbook, that gives basic techniques for manga drawing and focuses on portraying human characters. Like the characters she depicts, Amberlyn’s book is more of a side dish than a main course.
(+++) ALL YOU NEED IS – WHAT?
Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism). By Frank Schaeffer. Da Capo. $25.
Love. By Edward Monkton. Andrews McMeel. $9.99.
Frank Schaeffer is making a second career out of living down his first one. Schaeffer and his father, Francis Schaeffer, played major roles in shaping the evangelical Christian movement into a significant right-wing political force. Now, more than 25 years after his father’s death, the younger Schaeffer is creating novels and nonfiction (notably Crazy for God) about growing up in a fundamentalist family – and using them to disavow the very narrow view of God and religion within which fundamentalism flourishes. But Schaeffer remains a preacher at heart, and in Patience with God he preaches a kind of “middle way” that is intended to appeal equally to people dismayed by religious fundamentalism and to those fed up with the intensity and excesses of the so-called New Atheism. Saying that “the people who speak in God’s name [are] basically our national village idiots,” Schaeffer mocks those he once helped lead – while reserving equal scorn for “the no-God version of right-wing hucksterism” in which atheists, afire with their own brand of evangelical-but-godless fervor, are as narrow and uncritical in their thinking as the God-soaked fundamentalists they despise. Schaeffer counters both these extremes with thoughts that are, unfortunately, more pithy than profound. “The truth is…that we either experience God or we don’t. And just as in a marriage, once we have experienced God, we either choose to work to maintain that relationship or let it fade. In that sense we can choose to believe, just as on days when I’d rather be sleeping with another woman, I choose to stay married.” This is a sort of 2009 version of then-President Carter’s admission to Playboy magazine that he had “lusted in my heart,” and it is no more meaningful – even though Schaeffer clearly thinks it is. Essentially, he is saying that the experience of God is a personal one, that it comes to some people but not others (and that’s OK), that it comes at different times to different people (and that’s OK), and that in some cases it does not come at all (and even that’s OK). The most important thing is for everyone to tolerate everyone else – another of those “why can’t we all just get along?” moments that are meaningful only if you have not encountered them many times before. Schaeffer is apparently sincere (just as he was apparently sincere when promoting narrow-minded evangelism – he just didn’t know any better, he now says). But his sincerity oozes; it does not inspire.
One problem with Patience with God is that it takes itself so remorselessly seriously. But even with a deeply serious subject – such as God or love, the latter being what many believe the former consists of – a touch of humor can leaven an otherwise serious message, making it easier to understand and accept. Interestingly, Love is the best little gift book to date by Edward Monkton (pen name of poet Giles Andreae) precisely because it is the most humorous – and not in a weirdly offbeat way (as in The Penguin of Death), but in the sort of straightforward manner that evokes chuckles. It is the silliness of the text in the book and the images that illustrate it that keeps it light; for instance, two lovers “arm in arm…stand on the SAUSAGE of LOVE looking out together at the KETCHUP of their DREAMS.” And speaking of dreams, there is one in which the narrator and his love appear as biscuits and he chases off “enemy biscuits.” And there is “The POTATO of LOVE,” of which it is written, “It is so full of LOVE that the ANGELS weep with envy at its coming and the HEAVENS sing a NEW and BEAUTEOUS song.” But when you look at it – hey, it’s only a potato. Thus, beauty and love – and perhaps God – are in the eye and heart of the beholder; and Love makes that point more effectively in 32 small-sized pages than Patience with God does in 230 intensely argued ones.
(++++) KEYBOARD MAGNIFICENCE
Liszt: Organ Works (complete). Martin Haselböck, organ. NCA. $129.99 (5 SACDs + DVD).
Idil Biret Concerto Edition, Volume 4: Liszt—Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2; Totentanz. Idil Biret, piano; Bilkent Symphony Orchestra conducted by Emil Tabakov. IBA. $8.99.
Bach: Concertos for Solo Harpsichord (complete); Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 894. Elizabeth Farr, harpsichord. Naxos. $17.99 (2 CDs).
Although Martin Haselböck’s superb recordings of Liszt’s organ works are available as individual SACDs, they are even better in the newly released complete set – not because the performances themselves are better (they are the same) but because the comprehensive survey of this highly important organ repertoire makes more sense, and possesses more cogency, when heard as a whole. Furthermore, Haselböck’s 45-minute discussion of Liszt’s organ music, on an included DVD, is more coherent and revelatory than the notes he wrote for each of the individual SACDs: those commentaries (which are included in this set in an oversize booklet) tend to get so bogged down in technical and historical details that non-specialists may find them daunting, or at least uninteresting. But no one interested in organ music – or in Liszt – will find Haselböck’s performances less than enthralling. He takes the full measure of some works that are central to the organ repertoire, Liszt having been almost singlehandedly responsible for changing the organ from an instrument for church music only into one that could, in addition to sacred works, be used for extensive secular pieces of style, elegance and virtuosity. On the sacred side stand such outstanding long-form pieces as Requiem (1868-83) and Missa pro Organo (1879), as well as chorales and laments and some rather spare and emotionally desiccated works of Liszt’s later years. On the secular side are works based on Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète and Wagner’s Tannhäuser (operas with religious themes but not ones of religion per se); an expansion of parts of Liszt’s own Dante Symphony; and a number of works based on ones by Bach – whose influence loomed large over all Liszt’s organ music. Haselböck’s playing is by turns sensitive, dramatic, controlled, anguished, light-fingered and brilliantly sonorous, as he takes the full measure of each of these pieces while placing them in a context that he explains with care and intelligence on the included DVD. This is scarcely an inexpensive set – although, with the individual SACDs priced at $24.99, it costs little more than the five of them put together – but it is an absolutely crucial one for anyone interested in organ music beyond Bach, and in Liszt’s music beyond virtuosic display and brilliantly nationalistic set pieces. It is, in short, a major achievement, with absolutely top-notch performances of music that, for all its importance, is too rarely heard and has never before been given such a fully realized and thoroughly thoughtful rendition.
The more familiar side of Liszt is on display – and “display” is the right word – in the latest Idil Biret Concerto Edition release, which features the two piano concertos and the Totentanz. This is music that requires a combination of careful control (to keep it from spinning away from the soloist) and high-level virtuosity. Biret brings her usual thoughtfulness to it, and if occasionally a listener may wish for a bit more abandon (or seeming abandon), in the main these performances are as intense and strongly declaimed as one could wish. Biret favors comparatively slow tempos that bring out many nuances that can be lost at the breakneck pace used by some pianists. Her approach takes some getting used to but is completely convincing in context. And she has plenty of power when it is needed – in the final Allegro marziale animato section of Concerto No. 1, for example. She has the showpiece Totentanz well in hand, too, giving it a seriousness and intensity that it does not always receive from performers who seem to think of it as a kind of extended encore (very extended: Biret’s performance lasts almost 18 minutes). The Bilkent Symphony Orchestra under Emil Tabakov keeps up with Biret and is certainly responsive enough, but it is not really a world-class ensemble, and tends to sound a bit thin and stressed from time to time. Nevertheless, these 2004 performances of the concertos – and the 2007 rendition of Totentanz – are fine showcases for Biret’s art.
But back to Bach’s influence on Liszt: it is absolutely fascinating to juxtapose Liszt’s works for solo organ with Bach’s Concertos for Solo Harpsichord. Their title means what it says: these pieces are in concerto form but are for solo harpsichord, not harpsichord and strings. There are 16 of these works in all, running a total of more than two-and-a-half hours, and they are not to be listened to all at once – the essentially monochromatic sound of the harpsichord (even one whose registrations are managed as skillfully as Elizabeth Farr does in this recording) makes them hard to take in huge doses. But of course they were not intended to be played or heard that way. These are Bach’s transcriptions of work by Vivaldi, Torelli and Telemann; less-known composers including Johann Ernst and brothers Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello; and composers whose identity is unknown. Like Liszt in his opera transcriptions many years later, Bach made these concerto transcriptions with care and close attention to detail, possibly for his own study. They are early Bach works, from his Weimar period, and are certainly not designed for virtuosic display, although they require a considerable amount of skillful playing – notably in fugal movements. Farr is an intelligent and committed interpreter of this music, performing it with grandeur (aided by the use of a two-manual harpsichord with 16’ sound) and considerable sensitivity. And the A minor Prelude and Fugue makes a fine encore to the concerto set. Even if these particular transcriptions did not directly influence Liszt – although perhaps they did – they are excellent examples of the way one composer learns from others through adaptation, alteration and updating. As Bach did with Vivaldi and others, so Liszt later did with Bach. Different time, different keyboard, but the compositional impulse remains much the same – and every bit as strong.
(++++) HOW VERY BRITISH
Elgar: The Crown of India; Imperial March; The Coronation March; The Empire March. Clare Shearer, mezzo-soprano; Gerald Finley, baritone; Barbara Marten, Deborah McAndrew and Joanne Mitchell, speakers; Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus and BBC Philharmonic conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. Chandos. $18.99 (2 CDs).
Bliss: Viola Sonata; Delius: Violin Sonata No. 3 (arranged for viola); Bridge: Pieces for Viola and Piano. Enikö Magyar, viola; Tadashi Imai, piano. Naxos. $8.99.
The long-gone days of the British Empire resound strongly again – in very different ways – in these two new recordings. Elgar’s The Crown of India is a fascinating and very extended work, running more than two hours, with very British provenance and an unusual history. Staged in 1912 to mark the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary as Emperor and Empress of India, Elgar’s work harks back to the old tradition of the masque: a very elaborate theatrical entertainment, popular in the 17th century with composers such as Henry Purcell. There is narrative, there is celebration, and there is a considerable amount of posturing that now seems distinctly old-fashioned and rather musty, with participants representing India, St. George, and the cities of Calcutta and Delhi. The libretto, by Henry Hamilton, is very much of its time and place and not particularly distinguished. But the music is quite solid, strong and sonorous: this is Elgar in his prime (he in fact conducted the first two weeks of performances of the work). The complete orchestral parts for The Crown of India were inadvertently destroyed in the 1970s, long after India gained independence from Great Britain – which means the excellent new recording led by Sir Andrew Davis, the first ever of the entire work, is in part a reconstruction. Anthony Payne completed the orchestration, using as his basis Elgar’s Crown of India Suite, which includes five pieces from the original score (plus a sixth, for solo violin, created specifically for the suite). Also surviving is the Crown of India March, which is not part of the suite. These works gave Payne considerable guidance in orchestrating the remainder of the work after the Elgar Society commissioned him to do so in 2007. He has done an excellent job: the music sounds throughout like Elgar’s, not like someone else’s interpretation of Elgar. The Crown of India is unlikely ever to receive considerable numbers of complete performances, since it requires five soloists (three of them in speaking parts), plus chorus and orchestra, to present a story that is quite out of tune with modern sensibilities. But for that very reason, it is wonderful to have this heretofore obscure but musically very interesting work available on CD in such a fine performance. Indeed, it is offered in two fine performances: the second CD includes the instrumental material and songs but omits the narrative and connective tissue provided by Hamilton’s words – and thus will likely be more satisfying to modern listeners. Furthermore, the two-CD set – being sold for the usual price of a single Chandos disc – is very well rounded out, again in the British Imperial spirit, with three of Elgar’s extremely fine marches: Imperial (1896-7), Coronation (1911) and Empire (1924). The material in The Crown of India will certainly not be to all modern tastes, but the music deserves far better than the obscurity in which it has so long languished.
And speaking of languishing: the viola did so for centuries, suffering neglect as the smaller violin dominated both solo and orchestral playing. To a great extent, it was in Imperial Britain that the viola’s neglect began to be reversed, in large part with Walton’s Viola Concerto but in even larger part because of the renowned and long-lived violist, Lionel Tertis (1876-1975). It was for Tertis that Walton wrote his concerto in 1929 – and Tertis also had a huge influence on other British composers, even making a viola arrangement of Elgar’s Cello Concerto of which the composer approved. Sir Arthur Bliss wrote his Viola Sonata for Tertis in 1933 and dedicated it to Tertis “in admiration.” It is in fact an admirable work, moving from lyricism to solemnity to a scherzo-finale in the decidedly odd (and rather engaging) time signature of 6/16; and it is very well played in the new recording by the distinctly international pair of Enikö Magyar and Tadashi Imai. They also do a fine job with Tertis’ 1932 arrangement of Frederick Delius’ Violin Sonata No. 3, which Tertis played for the blind and nearly paralyzed composer (who died in 1934). The Delius work’s simplicity and lovely flow fit the viola quite well. And then, for an encore – or rather a series of them – Magyar and Imai offer seven short works by Frank Bridge, who was a violist but generally wrote brief pieces for violin or cello (which he later arranged for viola). The selections here, only two of which started out as viola pieces, date from 1901-8 and are quite varied in mood, with Magyar’s lithe and lovely playing giving each its due. Interestingly, there is a slight irony to Magyar’s considerable success with the music on this CD. She is Hungarian – indeed, the name “Magyar” means “Hungary” – and as it happens, the one 20th-century viola concerto that stands as an equal to Walton’s was written by one of Hungary’s greatest composers, Béla Bartók.
(++++) NICE GUYS – AND NOT SO NICE
Neo Leo: The Ageless Ideas of Leonardo da Vinci. By Gene Barretta. Henry Holt. $16.99.
Building on Nature: The Life of Antoni Gaudi. By Rachel Rodríguez. Illustrated by Julie Paschkis. Henry Holt. $16.99.
The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy. By James Cross Giblin. Clarion. $22.
Whether well known or less so, whether heroes or villains, larger-than-life characters from the past make for fascinating reading – for young readers as well as adults. Neo Leo and Building on Nature are short books in oversize “picture book” format, but both pack a lot of information into a small number of pages. Gene Barretta’s story about Leonardo da Vinci’s many inventions is particularly cleverly done. The pages are set up to show “neo” ideas, such as the first contact lens (1887) and the first helicopter (1907), on left-hand pages – and Leonardo’s ideas from five centuries earlier on right-hand ones. So we find that Thomas Edison’s 1895 Kinetoscope was the forerunner of modern movie projectors – but Leonardo had already figured out “how to use light to project images through a lens.” James Starley created the forerunners of modern bicycles in 1870 – but Leonardo, although he may or may not have invented the bicycle itself (there is a dispute about it), did design gears, chains and other parts used in bikes. Making the “Leo” pages even more interesting is the backwards writing incorporated into them – a version of the writing that Leonardo himself did in his many notebooks (although he, of course, wrote in the Italian of his time, not in modern English). Some of the material here will likely be as fascinating to parents as to children, such as the fact that Leonardo not only designed but also constructed robots for court events. Equally intriguing is the information – given at the end of the book – that a number of Leonardo’s never-constructed inventions are actually being built today, and are turning out to work just as Leonardo said they would. Neo Leo is a simply wonderful introduction to the ideas of a thinker of astonishing genius.
Antoni Gaudi is not as well known as Leonardo, but the 19th-century architect from Catalonia had an effect on building that can be seen in Barcelona, Spain today – and that is really quite remarkable. From childhood, Gaudi observed nature closely, eventually incorporating elements of it into exceptionally clever designs, such as a door knocker that squashes a built-in bedbug whenever it is used and a peephole that resembles a honeycomb. Curving ramps, hallways resembling underwater caverns, pillars shaped like animals’ feet, a mosaic lizard guarding a park – Gaudi created all these and more. Rachel Rodríguez tells the story of his work without giving too much information on him as a person – and while barely mentioning the intense controversies that some of his works caused. Still, for young readers, Building on Nature is a fascinating introduction to one of the world’s most creative architects. The design of the illustrations by Julie Paschkis helps give the book an even stronger effect: pictures float against white backgrounds instead of taking up whole pages or appearing in frames, and the sinuous lines of the art parallel and complement the work done by Gaudi himself.
The work done by Senator Joseph McCarthy, in contrast, tore down rather than building up. Decades after the “red scare” that followed World War II – a time when fear of Communism ran rampant and politicians, including future president Richard Nixon, took great advantage of it – the name of Joe McCarthy and the movement he spawned and led, McCarthyism, continue to resonate, always identified with over-zealous and vicious smear campaigns designed to destroy political and personal enemies. McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, used bullying, half-truths, guilt by association and outright lies in pursuit of the Communists who, he said, had infiltrated all levels of the United States government and were undermining the country with an eye toward handing it over to the Soviet Union. James Cross Giblin’s The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy puts the senator’s career in the context of the early years of the Cold War, enlivening what could be a straightforward history book by including plenty of photos and cartoons. Some of the pictures will be well known to adults of a certain age or a certain interest in history, such as the photo of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg at the time of their spy trial and the picture of McCarthy listening carefully to chief counsel Roy Cohn. But other photos will surely be unfamiliar: McCarthy almost buried in letters of support; McCarthy having breakfast at the home of friends Urban and Margery Van Susteren, parents of Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren; McCarthy on the bench as a circuit court judge; and many more. The cartoons can be at least as fascinating as the photos, such as Herblock’s panel showing the 1946 elections as a prizefight in which the cigar-smoking “The Campaign” smashes “Voter’s Intelligence” in the face. Giblin has a personal connection, of sorts, with McCarthyism: one of his college professors announced in class that he would not assign any studies of Marx or Marxism because of the nation’s political climate. In this book, Giblin details McCarthy’s rise, the climate of hysteria in which he flourished (and which he helped create), the famous Army-McCarthy hearings that helped bring him down, the hugely important role of famed journalist Edward R. Murrow in showing McCarthy for the demagogue that he was, and McCarthy’s eventual censure by the Senate. Although some young readers may have difficulty following the ins and outs of the political process and keeping all the names and relationships of the characters straight, all will be very well repaid for sticking with The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy to the end. For this is a book that shows, at the same time, how deeply flawed the American political process can be, and how it can manage – even at a time of grave national difficulty – to take a self-correcting course. McCarthy ruined a great many lives and careers, and there is no minimizing the pain he caused in so many ways large and small. But in the end, it did not require extra-legal methods like McCarthy’s own to pull him down – all that was needed was the rule of law, a fair-sized helping of political courage, and exposure through the work of some dedicated journalists. And all these, to a greater extent or a lesser, remain crucial to rooting out those who would succeed McCarthy even today.
Posted by The Infodad Team at 08:48 1 comment:
(++++) MAKING COLLEGE (ALMOST) AFFORDABLE
Paying for College without Going Broke, 2010 Edition. By Kalman A. Chany with Geoff Martz. Princeton Review/Random House. $20.
College costs outpace inflation, year after year, and this year have risen substantially even though consumer prices have actually declined. College costs frequently outpace gains in families’ income, and this year many families have no income gains at all. With the recession’s effects still being felt by so many people – including the unemployed – the ever-higher cost of higher education is a bigger burden now than ever. To the rescue (more or less) comes the new edition of Paying for College without Going Broke, the commonsense guide to maximizing aid and minimizing (to the extent possible) the financial stress of sending a child to college – or financing your education yourself, if that is what you need to do.
It would be naïve in the extreme to say that Kalman Chany’s plainspoken book will actually make college costs bearable for everyone. Not so – which is why it is only “more or less” a rescue. But it would be unfair, not to mention unrealistic, to expect Chany to come up with financing approaches that will work for everyone. In truth, the only guaranteed way to afford college is to start saving a considerable amount of money when a baby is born, factor in the annual inflation in college costs for every year of the child’s life, and continue socking money away until he or she graduates from high school. This is doable in some cases, but not in the vast majority – there simply isn’t that much money available for education-targeted saving in most families’ budgets.
Essentially, what Chany – an independent counselor on college financial aid since 1982 – does is approach college financing as a kind of chess game. It is not enough to follow the rules – you have to follow them with enough creativity to maximize your chance of obtaining the financing you need. Some aspects of Chany’s recommendations have to do with pre-college education. For example, students should take as many AP courses as possible, prepare carefully for AP exams, and apply to colleges that award course credits for success on those tests. This puts students ahead in terms of requirements for graduation – lowering the cost of getting there. An alternative approach is to attend a community college for two years – at comparatively low cost – and then transfer to a four-year school and graduate from it. This keeps the high-cost element of college to two years instead of four.
Furthermore, Chany recommends that students apply to colleges whose admissions criteria they exceed. Colleges are more willing to spend money to attract students who will raise the perceived academic value of the school. This means finding out the average SAT or ACT score for each college and applying to ones where the average is well below yours.
Another element of Chany’s approach is to be realistic about a student’s post-college earnings power in terms of debt taken on during school. That simply means not to load down a student with loans that are likely to be a severe long-term burden because of the pay scale of the career that he or she is likely to choose.
In addition to these strategic thoughts, Chany offers considerable detail about the process of applying for aid – which is anything but straightforward. Aid is not necessarily limited by current income – and even high-income people should apply in case of a job loss or other economic reversal. Pricey schools are not off-limits for students who have solid academic credentials – in fact, many of them are allocating extra funds precisely because they want to admit more high-achieving students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. And then there are the nuts-and-bolts recommendations, such as knowing deadlines for forms, which vary not only by form but also by college; following forms’ instructions carefully so you do not (for example) leave a line blank or omit a signature; doing a draft of your income tax early so you can meet application deadlines – and being prepared to send in your actual return when it is finished, so the college can compare it with your estimate; applying for aid as early as possible, and definitely before being accepted – by acceptance time, all the aid may have been allocated; planning to maximize education-related tax benefits in addition to obtaining aid; and a great deal more.
Paying for College without Going Broke is not easy reading, despite its straightforward style – there is just so much territory to cover that it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the process. And it is complex, without a doubt. But college is one of the biggest expenses of a student’s or family’s life, and it is worth investing some time in the financing issues in order to keep the cost as manageable as possible. The $20 that Paying for College without Going Broke costs is repaid many times over by the help and information offered throughout the book.
(++++) NOT YOUR ORDINARY STOCKING STUFFERS
Edward Gorey’s Children 3x5” Notepad. Pomegranate. $4.95.
The Fantod Pack by Edward Gorey. Pomegranate. $9.95.
Edward Gorey Bookmark Set. Pomegranate. $10.95.
Edward Gorey Magnets: The Creature Regarded Them Balefully; Chef Cat. Pomegranate. $3.50 each.
B. Kliban Magnets: Hula Cat; Here, There. Pomegranate. $3.50.
B. Kliban Rowing Cats Bookmark. Pomegranate. $1.95.
There is nothing cuter and sweeter than the sugar-plums-and-smiles spectacle of families taking down their Christmas stockings and finding all sorts of adorable little goodies in them. If you’d like to do something about that, try these stocking stuffers this year. They’re wonderfully made, artistically designed and just as likely to bring cries of “ugh!” as ones of “wow!” But the recipients will know you meant well. Maybe.
Really, Christmas is a perfect time to put such traditions as childhood and cartooning in proper perspective, which means to shake things up a little (hey, kids do that all the time, and so do the best cartoonists). Pomegranate has a whole line of innocent-seeming little gift items from some of the best slightly askew cartoonists of the 20th century, most notably Edward Gorey and B. Kliban. Gorey’s renditions of serious children in a vaguely Victorian or Edwardian age adorn a wonderful little 80-sheet notepad that fits neatly into a stocking and can be used by kids to send thank-you notes to family members – thereby accomplishing the dual goal of being polite and getting rid of the vaguely disturbing 80 sheets as quickly as possible without seeming ungracious. Besides – in all (or at least some) seriousness – the drawings really are attractive in their offbeat way, and there is none of the trademark Gorey mayhem here (although, to be sure, most of his mayhem occurs offstage, as it were).
For older kids, or adults with a skewed sense of the world – especially anyone interested in classic tarot – Gorey’s The Fantod Pack makes a wonderful little gift that perfectly captures the artist’s unsettling whimsicality. The deck’s 20 cards include Gorey-invented archetypes such as the Yellow Bird and the Limb, and the pack contains a booklet with readings relating to each image – everything being just as cryptic and perhaps even more disturbing than the readings from an ordinary tarot deck. Whether The Fantod Pack was inspired by tarot cards or intended to parody them can be left for the recipient to decide. Either way, it’s in the cards.
Gorey is in the books, too. Pomegranate makes a wonderful series of bookmarks featuring Gorey’s art and sold for $1.95 each, but if you are looking for something a bit more generous and even more fun than a single bookmark, consider the Edward Gorey Bookmark Set, which contains 10 of them for less than the cost of six individual ones. Five are black-and-white drawings from Gorey’s illustrations for T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, and they are a delight – from Bustopher Jones about to be served an elegant meal to The Old Gumbie Cat starting to conduct “Frivolitätenmusik.” Of the other five bookmarks, two – showing some of Gorey’s drawings of children – are in color, and the remaining three are as elaborate and mysterious as one would expect Gorey to be.
“Elaborate and mysterious” also describes Gorey’s unsettling and odd drawing called The Creature Regarded Them Balefully, available as a 2x3” refrigerator magnet – large enough to pick out plenty of Gorey’s elaborate detail. The magnet shows the unidentifiable seaweed-like creature at the left, just climbing onto a pier from water that one imagines to be somewhat unhealthful, while three puzzled children – one carrying a bucket – stare at it from the right. At least the kids seem to be puzzled – as so often in his work, Gorey does not show their eyes or facial expressions, leaving it to viewers to figure out just what is going on, and what happens next….
Gorey did get lighthearted now and then, as in his Chef Cat drawing, another refrigerator magnet that can zip out of your stocking to adorn your very own kitchen. The black-and-white cat in ballet shoes, dancing while holding a long spoon and a bowl of who-knows-what, is strictly for fun. But of course Gorey was not especially known for cats, although he often drew them. B. Kliban, on the other hand, was irremediably feline in inclination, and a refrigerator magnet with one of his cats makes a wonderful contrast with Gorey’s magnet. Hula Cat is one of Kliban’s best-known drawings, showing (in full color) a cat in a grass skirt and lei dancing while also staring at a vaguely butterfly-like flying insect – the contrast between the body motion and eye motion being especially amusing. Here, There is amusing in a different way, and oddly thought-provoking. No cats here – this drawing simply shows a person walking on a well-worn path from a big sign saying “Here” and a smaller, arrow-shaped one saying “There.” That is, the person is walking from “Here” to “There.” But at the other end of the short path, the same two signs appear – and since the path is bare but surrounded by grass, one has to assume that the person has been walking here and there, here and there, for a very long time indeed…..
This sort of “thinking” humor is a Kliban specialty, and is combined with his frequent renditions of cats in a delightful full-color bookmark. Everyone knows that you can’t herd cats. According to this Kliban drawing, they can’t cooperate even when rowing a boat: the six portly felines are looking in six different directions and doing six different things with their oars – including being distracted by two flying fish whizzing though the air above them. But what really makes this drawing pointed is what appears at the far left: a tiny outrigger, much smaller than the cats’, being rowed speedily along by six rats working in apparently perfect unison. And the point is….well, who needs a point? The gift-giving point is that there are some wonderful stocking stuffers out there that may not be all sweetness and light, but for that very reason are likely to endure and provide enjoyment well after the Christmas season. So by all means stuff a stocking a bit strangely this year!
(++++) DRAWING ON CREATIVITY
Jeremy Draws a Monster. By Peter McCarty. Henry Holt. $16.99.
Doodlemaster Rock Star! By Maria S. Barbo. Illustrated by Chuck Gonzales. Feiwel and Friends. $9.99.
Doodlemaster Fashionista! By Maria S. Barbo. Illustrated by Chuck Gonzales. Feiwel and Friends. $9.99.
A charming hybrid of Harold and the Purple Crayon and Dr. Seuss’s The Glunk That Got Thunk, Peter McCarty’s Jeremy Draws a Monster is the wonderfully drawn and delightfully written story of a boy who “never went outside” and who decides to make something to keep himself company. So he “took out his fancy pen and started to draw,” writes McCarty, showing the plump and neckless little boy with the “3” on his shirt standing on a stool in order to start at the top of his creation. Eventually, Jeremy creates his very own monster, complete with multiple horns, a spiked tail and a “3” on its chest. And this turns out to be a demanding monster, insisting that Jeremy draw it a sandwich – and a toaster – and a record player – and a checkerboard – and a chair – and more and more. Not knowing what else to do (who wants to antagonize a huge, bored monster?), Jeremy complies again and again, eventually drawing the monster a hat so it can go out and leave Jeremy alone once again. But the monster returns late at night, takes over Jeremy’s bed and bedroom, and now Jeremy has to come up with a clever way to get rid of it permanently. He does – and, in the process, emerges from his room at last and finds that he would rather play with other kids than go back to monster-making. The never-stated, soft-pedaled moral of the story is wonderfully delivered, and the illustrations, which use plenty of white space, make the tale a monstrously good one to read.
Kids who would rather do their own drawing – with a little guidance – can turn to two new books for preteens called Doodlemaster. Of the two, Rock Star! seems intended more for boys, and Fashionista! is definitely for girls. The idea here is guided doodling. One page in Rock Star! shows a wrestling ring and says, “Draw yourself in the ring delivering your signature move,” then asks questions about whom you are wrestling and what your theme song is. One page in a “Mad Scientist” section shows a petri dish and says to draw what is growing in it – and also provides space in which to write about your best and worst creations. A “Creature Feature” section says to “create the most horrible creature imaginable for the next blockbuster movie,” then give it a name and say what is the scariest thing about it. A two-page spread in Fashionista! shows a “regular girl” dressed in standard clothing – and suggests turning copies of her basic shape into such characters as a hipster, bookworm and punk rocker. A page showing a snow globe says to “draw a wintry scene” inside. One called “That’s So Warped!” says to draw your idea of a time machine and then write about the moment you would most like to skip ahead to – and the one you most want to go back to. A lot of the ideas in the books are pretty obvious, and some of the doodling guidance doesn’t really guide, such as a picture of a girl at a steering wheel, plus two tires, to show where to draw “your dream car.” The Doodlemaster books deserve a (+++) rating, though, for providing some interesting drawing ideas and for mixing up the doodling with enough questions to provoke at least a little bit of thoughtfulness. But thumb through the books before buying them to be sure that the art and writing strike you as a comfortable blend.
(++++) CENTURY-SPANNING SYMPHONIES
Villa-Lobos: Complete Symphonies; New York Skyline Melody; Ouverture de l’Homme Tel; Suite pour Cordes; Sinfonietta No. 1. Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR conducted by Carl St. Clair. CPO. $62.99 (7 CDs).
This release is, despite some oddities, a major event. Oddity No. 1: music with a strong Brazilian flavor performed by a German orchestra led by an American conductor. Oddity No. 2: a peculiar sequence of the music, caused by the fact that this is really a re-release – a repackaging of seven CDs that originally came out separately, one at a time. Oddity No. 3: Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) wrote 12 symphonies, but only 11 are recorded here; yet the set is complete.
In fact, the oddities are easy enough to explain. No. 1: like his better-known Bachianas brasileiras, Villa-Lobos’ symphonies are far more than “regional” music, and are of high enough quality to deserve performances by top-notch orchestras anywhere – which is exactly what they get here. No. 2: the recordings were made between 1997 and 2000, but the use of the same orchestra and conductor throughout gives the set cohesion despite the rather odd pairings of works on the CDs (Nos. 1 and 11, Nos. 3 and 9, Nos. 4 and 12, etc.). No. 3: one Villa-Lobos symphony – No. 5 – is lost; and this is particularly unfortunate because it was the third part of a triptych relating to World War I.
So while this may be an imperfect set, it is an excellent and important one, and the best chance listeners are likely to have to consider Villa-Lobos’ symphonic output, since Villa-Lobos symphony cycles are not exactly commonplace in concert halls.
Villa-Lobos’ symphonies were written between 1916 and 1957, covering a great deal of the musical style of the 20th century, if not its full chronology. All except No. 10 are in the traditional four movements, although the slow movement is sometimes placed second and sometimes third. No.10, Amerindia ("Sumé Pater Patrium") is a five-part oratorio for tenor (Lothar Odinius in this recording), baritone (Henryk Böhm), bass (Jürgen Linn) and chorus (members of the Staatsopernchor Stuttgart and SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart) as well as orchestra.
There is a significant stylistic break midway through Villa-Lobos’ symphonies, with the early ones (through the lost No. 5) strongly influenced by the work of Vincent d’Indy – after which there is a 24-year hiatus before the appearance of No. 6, which has a stronger Brazilian flavor than the earlier works. No. 7, which also features folklike elements, begins a series in which Villa-Lobos shows himself more willing to adopt a rhythmically complex style and considerably greater use of dissonance.
All the earlier symphonies, in addition to No. 10, bear subtitles. No. 1 is “O imprevisto” (“The Unforeseen” or “The Unexpected”); No. 2 is “Ascenção “ (“Ascension”); No. 3, the first of the war trilogy, is “A Guerra” (“War”); No. 4 is “A Vitória” (“Victory”); and the lost No. 5 was “A Paz” (“Peace”). No. 6 was a turning point here in addition to being composed two decades after No. 5: it was originally called “Sobre a linha das montanhas do Brasil” (“On the profiles of the mountains of Brazil”), but the title was dropped. Thereafter, except in No. 10, Villa-Lobos ceased to give his symphonies titles, and they increasingly became pure, non-storytelling music. But, interestingly, they were nearly all occasional pieces, written for specific purposes. Villa-Lobos wrote No. 7 for a competition in Detroit – under the pseudonym “A. Caramuru,” a reference to a nickname that Tupinambá Indians give to someone Portuguese. No. 8 is a real oddity, being dedicated to a music critic, Olin Downes of The New York Times; there is very little Brazilian flavor in it. No. 9 was first performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and is dedicated to the composer’s second wife, Mindinha. No. 11 was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and No. 12 was finished on Villa-Lobos’ 70th birthday. As for No. 10, it was written in 1952 for the 400-year anniversary of Sað Paulo and is based on a poem from 1563 called “Beata Virgine” – yet it retains the basic form of a five-movement symphony despite being structured, in terms of text, as an oratorio.
So disparate are Villa-Lobos’ symphonies that it is difficult to see them as “progressing” as do those of, say, Beethoven or Brahms. By and large – certainly after the first five symphonies – Villa-Lobos seems to have set himself a different set of challenges in each one, overcoming them according to his compositional style of the time while often (but not always) returning to the Brazilian folk music to which he was attracted throughout his life. Carl St. Clair and Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR approach each of these works with a fresh perspective and a willingness to explore each one’s individualistic artistry thoroughly. The few short filler items – the most notable being the early Sinfonietta No. 1 (1916) and the even earlier, very Tchaikovskian Suite pour Cordes (1912-3) – are interesting bonuses in a set that establishes Villa-Lobos as a major 20th-century symphonist with a strong, if highly variable, musical voice.
(+++++) SIMPLY THE BEST
(++++) DIVINE AND CONQUER
(+++) PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
(+++) NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM
(++++) THE SYMPHONIST OF BALTIMORE
(++++) BATTLE OF THE CUTIES
(++++) FROM ASTONISHMENT TO ZELAZNY
(+++) TALES OF OLD AND OF TODAY
(+++) DRAMAS OF THE PAST
(++++) YOUTHFUL FERVOR FOR BRUCKNER
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RUN by Cirque du Soleil
R.U.N. by Cirque du Soleil
Wed-Sun 7 & 9:30pm
Vegas4Visitors Grade: C+
A live action adventure stunt show from Cirque du Soleil.
At Luxor on the South Strip.
Is it worth the cost?
It’s a judgment call right now. If they work out some of the kinks, I think it will be worth it.
Why should I see this show?
Because you are okay with Cirque doing something other than dreamy surrealism.
The show is loud and violent – be prepared.
What’s the bottom line?
Kudos for trying something new, even if it doesn’t quite stick the landing.
The initial audience reviews for the new Cirque du Soleil production at Luxor have been pretty negative. Most of the bad ones – and admittedly, there are a lot of them – say some variation of “I’ve seen every Cirque show in Vegas” and then go on to bash this one for not being like them. But here’s the thing: they never said this was going to be like the other shows. In fact, they have gone out of their way to warn people that this is something completely new for the company, for Vegas, and perhaps for a stage anywhere. That some audiences didn’t get that memo really isn’t Cirque’s fault.
RUN is being billed as a live action adventure movie, of sorts, and unlike most Cirque productions it has a story line with a script written by Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids, Machete, Grind House). It’s about the head of a gang who steals a heart-shaped necklace from his former girlfriend on her wedding day to the leader of a rival gang in Las Vegas. What amounts to an extended chase scene follows with choreographed fighting, stunts including zip lining above audience and an “underwater” ballet, a car chase, a battle of motorcycles, and more as the two gangs go back and forth trying to claim ownership of the necklace. It’s sort of like those stunt shows you might see at a theme park, only with a much higher budget.
The story is not hard to follow, even when it gets slightly more twisty toward the end (who’s side is the former girlfriend on?) but it’s also not terribly compelling. I mean, it’s not Liam Neeson trying to get his daughter back. You sort of have to buy into the stakes and accept that one gang is better than the other gang so you have someone to root for. It’s okay, the bad guys mostly wear black, while the good guys are allowed more vivid colors so even the who is who question isn’t difficult.
As far as the meat of the production – the stunts – it’s kind of a mixed bag with some segments more successful than others, not unlike many other Cirque shows I could name (I’m looking at you Love). The extended opening number that involves a foot chase and fight through a fireworks factory is good eye-candy – People are getting kicked and punched! Things are blowing up! – but it goes on for too long and has too many things happening at once. Ditto the dreamy aerial pas de deux between the two leads, that is designed to look like it is happening underwater but mostly just looks like it’s behind a gauzy curtain with stuff being projected on it.
Then there’s the torture sequence, in which a psychotic doctor attempts to get answers from our hero by doing some pretty gruesome things to anyone he can get his hands on – then has gruesome things done to him when the tables are turned. It’s all done with contortionists and other body modification experts (a hook goes through the nose and comes out the mouth), but it looks shockingly real and isn’t for the faint of heart.
The car chase sequence is more entertaining, even if it is a little silly with people chasing, and fighting on top of, a speeding Chevy Camaro. Using a constantly moving background, a really big treadmill, and actual car, they do a pretty good job of simulating motion, although there are a few times where the car appears to be turning but the “road” it’s on is straight. Still, it’s a cool visual.
And the motorcycle battle that ends the show is downright jaw-dropping. Everything you love about Cirque performers flying through the air with the greatest of ease is in this number, only they are attached to two-wheeled machines while they are doing it.
The biggest issue with the show are the film interstitials, which actually take up probably 30-40% of the run time. While they are trying to keep the story going, many of them are way too long and others are simply unnecessary. And let’s just say that the script, while effective at setting a mood, is probably not going to win any Oscars anytime soon.
I also have quibbles with the fight sequences, which are a mixed bag depending on the strength of the performer. Some look fantastic, with the hits looking real enough to elicit a flinch while others just look like two people faking punches.
I have to commend Cirque for trying something different. I, for one, couldn’t have taken another production with acrobats doing stuff in dreamlike sequences. And RUN certainly is ambitious, so kudos for that. The fact that they haven’t quite hit their target doesn’t take away from any of the above and, knowing Cirque, they will be making changes until they feel like they’ve gotten it right. It wouldn’t be hard. Trim the filmed parts and some of the fight sequences, tighten up the choreography, and add another showstopper of a number (or two) like the motorcycles and this could be a fantastic production.
If you can’t handle your Cirque shows being anything other than traditional Cirque shows, do not go to this one. If you do, at least now you can’t say you haven’t been warned.
Mystere by Cirque du Soleil
KA by Cirque du Soleil
O by Cirque du Soleil
Zumanity by Cirque du Soleil
Michael Jackson ONE by Cirque du Soleil
LOVE by Cirque du Soleil
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Mr. Craig is hard at work on an array of fruitful projects!
Hailing from Queens, New York, the American hip hop artist Mr. Craig is an undeniable talent taking the independent music scene by storm. Previously known under the moniker of ‘Strict-ly Shadow,’ the performer has been compared to the likes of Tupac and Lupe Fiasco. Now residing in the ‘DMV’ (D.C., Maryland, Virginia) area, Mr. Craig is hard at work on an array of fruitful projects that define his role not just as a musical artist, but as a contemporary entrepreneur and creative.
How long have you been in the music business and how did you get started in the first place?
Mr. Craig: I’ve been in the music business well over 10 years. I started out writing poetry and wanted to express myself on another level. So a friend of mine introduced me to Anthony ”Mr. Tuck” Richards. He had a studio, and from there the rest is history.
Who were your first musical influences?
Mr. Craig: I have a lot of musical influences it’s from Nas, LL cool J, Tyrese, Tank, 2pac, Usher, Big Daddy Kane, BBD, Boys 2 Men, James Taylor, Heavy D, Rakim, Jay, Epmd, Wu-Tang, 50 cent, Biggie, and many more.
Which artists are you currently listening to or respect today, if any?
Mr. Craig : Wow! I still listen to Nas, 50, a lot more old school, and today I listen to Kendrick, Drake, J Cole, I respect J Cole as well as an artist, and a producer. I respect all in general and the ones that are still relevant from back in the days, and still selling out crowds.
When did Strict-ly Shadow become Mr. Craig, and why?
Mr. Craig : Strict-ly Shadow became Mr. Craig about 3 years ago. I wanted a name that represented me at this stage in my career, and a very special friend’s son called me Mr. Craig, and from there I said that’s it, Mr. Craig it is.
How would you say Mr. Craig differentiates himself from from just about every other kid today that picks up a mic and becomes an emcee?
Mr. Craig: I’m myself. I’m not pretending to be something or someone I’m not, be yourself, and keep it real, I do. What you see is what you get. No matter how many records I sell, I write and speak what’s on my mind. I write about life, happy, or sad. There are artist that keep it real, and some don’t, just saying!
Which do you ultimately prefer? Entertaining a live audience or creating songs in a studio setting?
Mr. Craig:It’s hard to say what I ultimately prefer because they both have different vibes and feelings. When you’re having a creative moment or process whether it’s just you or a collaboration with another artist, it’s a great feeling putting a song together, and then taking it to the stage and displaying to an audience, it’s just a great feeling overall.
Tell us something about your lyrics and music production on your releases. Which part of these processes do you handle, and which do you outsource generally?
Mr. Craig :That’s a very interesting question. Let’s touch on the production side, which I outsource, J-Rum, I’am Viany, Black Magic, are a few producers on my new project. On the writing side I handle my own verses, I want my fans to be able to connect with me, when I’m writing, now if I have singer on the hook, then if they have tight writing skills, then I let them write the hook.
8 Tell us something about how, when and why the single “One + One” came about and who else worked on it?
Mr. Craig: Wow!! Lol. I get this question a lot. J-rum who is a crazy producer had this track, and I grabbed it, so I sat on it for a while because at one point, I was done with the recording side of music, so I went through a situation with an incredible person, which I’m not with today, but that’s how the creation of the song came about, which I wrote within 8hrs, so it was that deep.
You also have an official video of the single out right now. Could you tell us something about the production of the visual?
Mr. Craig:First off , I have to thank everyone that was apart of my “One + One” video, which is doing very well. I wanted to tell a story but an uplifting one. It was my vision for the video. Anthony “Mr. Tuck “Richards with his multimedia company “Image Sight And Sound” directed it, and I did the editing for it. I handpicked Latina actress Hada Vanessa to star in the video who was amazing. She’s an incredible person and actress hands down! I had a great team to hold me down.
You own both the Strict-ly Entertainment label as well as Mr. Shadow Music Publishing Company. Are these companies aimed solely at promoting your career or are you involved with other artists too?
Mr. Craig:Well it all started with me. Starting up my own company helped me to learn the business. There are some people who won’t school you on the business. I choose to learn on my own. I might have an artist I’m looking to push, but it’s not set in stone yet. I have to put him to the test first. I want to give back and help, teach those who need it, if I can.
Which aspect of being an independent artist, label boss and music publisher excites you most and which aspect discourages you most?
Mr. Craig: What discourages me, is not being able to make a change in someone’s life, as an artist. As artists we have a voice and we need to use it. Bring an artist is amazing when you can be creative. Seeing your vision come to life is truly a blessing. Making your own decisions, what song to put out, or when to release it, and not having a label telling you what to do, what to wear, or them not being able to see your creative vision.
If you had the opportunity to change one thing about the music business today, what would that be?
Mr. Craig: Well, Rick, I miss Cd’s for the simple fact I used to, read inside the cover, and see who are the writers and things of that nature, the whole streaming thing is ok, tho. I wish I could understand some of the words that are coming out of some artist’s mouth, but that’s just my opinion, to answer your question, I’d change the politics in the industry.
What do you feel your listeners should get out of your music?
Mr. Craig: They should get understanding, every level that I can display on, however, it may not be on just this one album coming. To let people know to not be afraid to express themselves out loud, and that we all go through stuff, but it’s how you handle adversity in life and apply it to something constructive. We all can do it, find yours, it might be jogging, or mowing the lawn, find something.
The best piece of advice in this business you actually followed so far, and one you didn’t follow, but now know for sure that you should have?
Mr. Craig:I was told never to quit. One advice from a mentor of mine who was also like a big brother to me is “Big Sno” he told me when I was younger that “not everyone always wants to hear about your life”, but at that time that’s all that was in me, the angry, the hurt, the pain, I just had to let it out. Wise words because he’s right and I still look up to him today.
What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
Mr. Craig: Rick, the hardest thing for me was when my Aunt/Mother/best friend passed away.
That was the most devastating thing that affected me on all levels, music included. One + One kind of helped me breathe a little in the aspect of it, it was like coming off of life support.
Do you consider Internet and all the social media websites as fundamental in building a strong profile in music today, and what is your personal relationship with the new technology at hand?
Mr. Craig:The internet is what it is, there’s no taking it back we have to evolve and grow as the world does with technology, no matter what it you’re doing the first place people go is the internet, so you have to have a strong profile. I’m not a huge social media guy, but nowadays it’s a must.
If someone has never heard your music, which keywords would you personally use to describe your overall sound and style?
Mr. Craig: hmmmmm. Sound I would say… Hip-Hop, rap, with mixture of R&B & pop. Now style I’d say, edgy, humble, a little rough around the edges style.
What’s the next step after the single One + One”?
Mr. Craig: My next step is to put out my next single and finish up the album.
If you were stuck on a Desert Island and you had the choice of having 3 albums with you, which would they be?
Mr. Craig:You’re killing me!! 3?!?! Ok…This is hard. Illmatic-Nas, Usher-Confessions, DMX-It’s Dark And Hell Is Hot, 2Pac-All Eyes On Me. I had to do 4.
If you had to think of a slogan to leave a positive impact on fans, what would that slogan be?
Mr. Craig: Stay true to yourself, always believe you can do, or conquer anything you believe in and don’t quit, always stay positive.
OFFICIAL LINKS: WEBSITE – ITUNES – YOUTUBE – INSTAGRAM – TWITTER – REVERBNATION – SOUNDCLOUD
HiphopInterviewMr. CraigNew YorkOne + OneR&BRapRicco Maze
DBT Music Group: Mr. 716 Big Miz – “The Black Tie Tape” – absolutely no skippable moments
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You are here: Home / Kelyn Soong / Lauren Davis Claims First WTA Victory
Lauren Davis Claims First WTA Victory
March 9, 2012 by TennisGrandstand
Most tennis fans remember Lauren Davis as the young American who suffered a lopsided first round loss to Samantha Stosur at the 2011 Australian Open.
That match did not do much to turn heads, but her most recent win at the 2012 BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells just might.
The 18-year-old Davis, standing at only 5’2’’, earned her first WTA main draw victory when she defeated Croatia’s Petra Martic in the first round at Indian Wells. Ranked a career high No. 221 in the world, Davis defeated her more experienced and higher ranked opponent – Martic is world No. 55 – in straight sets 6-2, 7-6(7). She will play the 30th seed, Nadia Petrova of Russia, in the second round.
The win is a significant milestone for Davis. She turned pro in January 2011 but has struggled on the WTA Tour. Besides playing in the 2011 Australian Open, Davis’ only other Grand Slam experience was when she earned her way into the 2011 U.S. Open main draw by claiming the USTA Girls’ 18 National title. She put up a much stronger fight in Flushing Meadows than in Melbourne, eventually falling to surprise semifinalist Angelique Kerber in two close sets.
Born in Cleveland, the daughter of a heart surgeon and a nurse, Davis attended Gilmour Academy in Gates Mill, Ohio until her sophomore year. She relocated shortly after to the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Fla, where she still trains.
Despite her small stature, Davis had an extremely successful junior campaign. In addition to the National Girls’ 18 title, Davis is a two-time USTA 16-and-under champion and won the Orange Bowl and Eddie Herr junior tournaments in 2010. Her professional titles reach back to 2010 and include three ITF 10ks (2010 Williamsburg, 2011 Buffalo, and 2011 Atlanta) and two ITF 25ks (2010 Bayamon and 2012 Plantation.)
Among her recent accolades, Davis was named one of the most interesting people of 2012 by her hometown publication, Cleveland Magazine.
And Davis, who has a Twitter account but seldom tweets, proudly tweeted about her Indian Wells victory shortly after the match.
With more wins like the one she had, tennis fans should expect more tweets and more matches that will put the Stosur loss further in the rear view mirror.
Filed Under: Kelyn Soong, Lead Story Tagged With: angelique kerber, Australian Open, BNP Paribas Open, evert tennis academy, Indian Wells, lauren davis, Nadia Petrova, petra martic, Samantha Stosur, U.S. Open
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The Nets Are Back and In A Big Way
July 1, 2019 June 30, 2019 sean leider
The Brooklyn Nets are coming off one of their best season in the last five years. Now they have the opportunity to become even better.
After reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2015, the Nets have become one of the most talked about teams this summer, recently acquiring two of the best players in the league: Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. While other teams, such as the Lakers and Knicks, took a step back last season in order to prepare to create a title contending team this summer, the Nets were able to maintain a competitive presence on the court while prepping for this year’s class of free agents. How were they able to do it?
When Sean Marks was hired as the team’s General Manager in 2016, the franchise’s future looked bleak. The previous General Manager, Billy King, had traded away many of the team’s assets in order to acquire aging veterans such as Paul Pierce and Joe Johnson in order to win right away. Of course, that plan completely backfired, with the Nets only winning one playoff series during King’s tenure.
Normally when teams struggle on the court, they are rewarded with high draft picks that often produce very good players. Unfortunately for the Nets, this strategy would not work, as during King’s reign, the team had traded away 11 first-round picks that stretched from 2011 all the way to 2018.
Marks took over midway through the 2015-16 season after King’s departure, but there was little he could do from preventing the Nets from finishing the season in the cellar of the Eastern Conference. Furthermore, Marks couldn’t do much during the offseason, as the team’s books were filled with inflated contracts and the only draft pick the team controlled was deep into the second round.
However, Marks made the most of what he could control, trading away the expensive contract of Thaddeus Young to the Pacers in exchange for first-round selection Caris LeVert and a future pick, officially beginning a rebuild and attempting to gain back the assets that King had lost.
Marks knew it would be impossible for the team to be successful in the short term, so he used the 2016-17 season to acquire a collection of cheap young players on multiyear deals and reacquire draft picks. During the season, Marks signed future team staples Joe Harris and Spencer Dinwiddie, and a midseason trade gave the Nets a 2017 first-round pick that would become Jarrett Allen.
Finally having something to work with, Marks was ready to make his first big move during the 2017 NBA Draft. Equipped with two late first-round picks, Marks decided to keep Allen with the 22nd pick, but he elected to put the team’s 27th overall pick on the trading block. In a bold move, Marks decided to ship franchise stalwart Brook Lopez along with the 27th pick, Kyle Kuzma, to the Lakers for Timofey Mozgov and D’Angelo Russell.
On the surface, this trade seemed like a questionable move for the Nets. They were trading away the franchise’s all-time leading scorer and a promising draft pick for an average center with an extremely bloated contract and an unproven, injury-prone guard.
However, Marks had faith and a plan. Before Marks’s tenure, the franchise went through six coaches in seven years, but Marks was determined to end this coaching carousel. One of his first moves as General Manager was hiring former Hawks assistant Kenny Atkinson as the team’s head coach. While Atkinson didn’t have initial success, Marks had faith in his hire, and Atkinson still remains in charge of the team today.
Marks would trust Atkinson to develop players like Russell on the court, while he handled the financials off of it. In his first season with the team, Russell looked strong right out of the gate. Unfortunately, he was sidelined for months after receiving arthroscopic surgery in October, but he came back even better than before after returning to action in late January. While the team finished the season with only 28 wins, it was a clear improvement on the team’s previous seasons, and their future looked promising.
Along with Russell, the rest of the team had started to come into their own. Spencer Dinwiddie was a finalist for the Most Improved Player award, while fellow Marks acquisitions Joe Harris and Caris LaVert took big steps forward in their second year with the team. In addition, Marks was able to sign former UConn star Shabazz Napier, giving the team an energetic option off of the bench for the next season.
While Marks was preparing a solid short-term team during the last offseason, he also kept an eye on the future. In the midst of preparing his team for the 2018-19 season, Marks also made moves that would allow the Nets to go after many of the high profile free agents available this offseason. By trading away Mozgov’s massive contract and making a series of smaller moves, Marks cleared enough cap space for two max players to join the team.
Even while looking towards the future, the Nets were able to have a successful 2018-19 season. Under Atkinson’s system, a fully healthy D’Angelo Russell thrived, having a career year and earning his first All-Star appearance. Led by their star guard, the Nets put up a winning record, reaching the playoffs for the first time since Marks arrived.
Now, the Nets are title contenders, if not favorites. Marks worked his magic once again, luring Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and DeAndre Jordan to Brooklyn to join a promising roster. Just years after inheriting one of the worst situations in the league, Marks now has a squad that has a realistic shot of winning the franchise’s first ever NBA title, and while the superstars may get all the attention, none of this would’ve been possible without Marks’s magic.
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TAICS
Tennessee Association of Independent Colleges and Schools
P.O. Box 601 Hermitage, TN 37076
Sources of Financial Assistance
Career Colleges
WHAT ARE CAREER COLLEGES?
Career Colleges curricula focus primarily on technologies used in the world of work. More than 275 programs are offered in Tennessee career colleges. Courses range from the arts to transportation.
Completion documents vary from diplomas and certificates to associates, bachelors, and masters degrees. Many schools are accredited by one of the national or regional accrediting agencies approved by the U. S. Dept. of Education and/or the Secretary of the U. S. Dept of Education. SACS is one of these agencies.
Student placement rates exceed that of state colleges and universities. The average percentage of students placed in their field of training in 2002-2003 was 80.6% (THEC Data).
Many of these schools participate in Federal Title IV financial assistance programs.
Speed of training reduces time necessary to complete required courses for a prescribed curriculum. Schools are equipped to retrain or update skills required for students to advance in their fields.
Enrollments of career colleges are most often nontraditional students who are 25 years or older.
WHO ARE CAREER COLLEGE STUDENTS?
79% of students attending career colleges are employed while in school.
69% of our students are first generation college students.
51% of our students are minorities.
39% of health degrees and/or certifications awarded at 2-year or fewer institutions are conferred at career colleges.
38% of all institutions participating in Title IV student financial assistance programs are career schools or colleges.
30% or our students are single parents.
21% of our students are African American.
19% of our students are Hispanic.
7% of all college students attend a career college or university.
32 is their average age.
CAREER COLLEGES IN TENNESSEE
The U. S. Census Report finds 25% of four-year college graduates work in jobs that do not require a four-year degree. As a result, one and two-year career colleges and schools are widely recognized as the most direct, quickest, most efficient route to success in many fields.
Education alone just isn’t enough anymore. In today’s workforce, you also need a marketable skill (U.S. Department of Labor).
Students attending accredited career colleges and schools are eligible for financial aid – the same sources of government loans and grants as students attending four-year colleges and universities.
Tennessee has a strong network of more than 300 career colleges and schools that annually prepare graduates for employment in a wide variety of business, medical, technical, and creative career fields.
Many Job Opportunities Exist
Where three out of four jobs now require a technical or technological skill, postsecondary high-skill education is giving students the hands-on experience they need to get good jobs.
High-skill education, as opposed to traditional academic education, provides training in specialized career fields in two years or less so students can enter the job market sooner. Education After High School is Essential.
“With no postsecondary education or training, people often end up with unskilled jobs – generally doing dull, dead-end, or dangerous work.” (Wall Street Journal)
“For those who remain unskilled and uneducated, the future is grim. Even those with a high school education are at risk.” (Economist)
A Gap Exists Between Jobs and Skills
“There are not enough qualified candidates to fill the increased number of skilled jobs created in the next 8 years.”
(Congressional Research Service)
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the fastest growing occupations are projected to be in computer technology and health care fields.
PROGRAMS AVAILABLE AT CAREER COLLEGES
Over 275 programs are offered by Tennessee’s career colleges. Various completion credentials are awarded including certificates, diplomas, associate degrees, bachelor degrees and master degrees. Some of the programs offered include:
Auto Diesel
Aviation Maintenance
Commercial Digital Photography
Computer Aided Drafting
Computer Technologies
Human Resource Specialist
Microsoft Support Engineer
NOTES ON TENNESSEE EDUCATION LEVELS
For every 100 students who enter high school as freshmen, 55 graduate from high school, 34 enter college, and 14 graduate from college within 6 years.
In 2000 only 23.2% of the Tennessee population held a bachelor’s degree.
[data from “Aligning Resources to Meet State Needs: The Educational Needs Index” presented at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the Southern Governor’s Association].
AUGUST 2013 ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY
Prepared by Chmura Economics & Analytics.
Click Here to view 1.7 KB PDF file (right-click and select “save target as”) to download to your computer).
Titled, “The Contributions of Independent Colleges to the Tennessee Economy”, key findings from the report include:
Career colleges provide access to minority students who are under-represented in Tennessee’s public schools. 40.8% of career college students were African American, more than twice the percentage of Tennessee’s public institutions.
Tennessee’s career colleges are a vital component in meeting Tennessee’s workforce need. With less than 13% of the total enrollment, 17% of STEM graduates in Tennessee came from career colleges and schools.
Career college cost the taxpayer less than half of what public colleges cost, per graduate; while career colleges generated $25.0 million in tax revenue for the state government during the 2010-11 academic year.
Taxpayer ROI (return on investment) is 4.5% annually for Tennessee’s career colleges, compared to just 2.5% for public institutions.
In Tennessee, 109 of 205 postsecondary institutions in the 2011-12 academic year were private sector career colleges and universities.
@2018 TAICS Developed by Dr. Pummel
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Research to Optimize Farmland Use for Crops, Solar Electricity
Purdue University professors are questioning what else fertile farmland can be used for with a new multidisciplinary project researching how to improve future sustainability by simultaneously utilizing crop fields for solar electricity production.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Sustainable Food, Energy and Water Systems (SFEWS) research project is scheduled for 10 a.m. EDT Aug. 12 at Purdue's Beck Agricultural Center in West Lafayette.
Rakesh Agrawal, the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, is partnering with Mitch Tuinstra, the Wickersham Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Research and professor of plant breeding and genetics in the Department of Agronomy, and faculty from Purdue and Florida A&M University on the research.
"The success of our research will have a profound impact on a sustainable future," said Agrawal. "It will remove any potential competition for land between food and energy. We as a human race will be able to make a smooth transition towards a full earth."
For the research, 28 300-watt panels and 28 100-watt panels have been constructed in four rows 48 feet in length and 30 feet apart across less than an acre of land in a field north of the Agronomy Center for Research and Education.
Installed in mid-May and standing almost twice the height of a tractor, the solar photovoltaic panels are intended to generate electricity without inhibiting crop yield. Research will look at manipulating the solar photovoltaic panels shadows to identify an appropriate installation geometry and operating mode to optimize electricity production without compromising agriculture output thereby introducing the concept of 'aglectric' farming.
Agrawal said plants use only a portion of the solar light spectrum for growth, allowing the opportunity to design special solar photovoltaics that allow the necessary light to pass through to the growing plants underneath.
Current solar panels block the sun from reaching the ground, creating a "land competition scenario" that makes it difficult to utilize that same land for food planting and electricity cogeneration using photovoltaics.
In addition to optimizing land use, Agrawal said the electricity produced by the photovoltaic modules is expected to be used for water management on the farm.
"The availability of the electricity locally on the farmland will enable local water management for irrigation as well as minimize pollution related to discharge of farmland water to nearby aquifers," he said.
Currently, the rows of solar panels stand over a corn crop planted in early June under the direction of Tuinstra. The project is expected to last over five summers.
Following work with the corn crop, Tuinstra and the team has plans to add other types of crops to the study, such as soybeans, rice and wheat. That work will be done using funds to create solar photovoltaic panel structures at other locations.
The project initially started with a $3 million award from the NSF in 2017. The project recently received another $2.5 million award from the National Science Foundation's Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS) program, specifically to study different aspects of the solar panel structures and water management.
Agrawal, Tuinstra and additional researchers involved in the project will be joined at Monday's ribbon-cutting ceremony by Mung Chiang, Purdue's John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering and the Roscoe H. George Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Karen Plaut, the Glenn W. Sample Dean of the College of Agriculture.
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KC Adams in her home.
Photo by Daniel Crump
Culture Whose House?
Whose House? KC Adams’ House!
Amol Samra Features reporter
September 12, 2019 Comments
“So, you’ve given up even before you started?”
These eight words changed the course of KC Adams’ life. They gave her the courage to follow her passion and saved her from a frustrating desk job in marketing.
Adams is a full-time artist who developed a keen interest in art during childhood and saw it as an avenue to express, communicate and share.
While reminiscing and occasionally sipping her coffee, she says, “I knew as a kid that I (would) probably be a creator. I didn’t know what being an artist meant then, because I had never been to an art gallery before.”
After obtaining an arts degree from Concordia University, Adams went on to work in the field of art.
Having been faced with the dilemma of choosing a stable job or following her passion early on in life, Adams currently mentors and empowers people who are at a similar crossroads in their lives. She tries to make an impact through mentoring and does so by sharing the lessons she’s learned from her culture and life.
“One of the best lessons I learnt is that there’s always going to be people with great opportunities, and you can’t be jealous. You have to recognize the fact that that’s their opportunity, and you will get a different one. You have to hold on to the confidence that you’re smart, you have the abilities, and that it will happen.”
The idea of nature and technology resonates with her Indigenous and European roots. She also continually strives to incorporate values and themes from both cultures into her art, life and home.
Adams works out of her St. Boniface home and considers it her creativity and inspiration zone.
“This is like my sanctuary, my creative area. I like to sit here (on the sofa) and weave. I can go in my kitchen and work. I work in my bed doing my administrative stuff. Every space in my home is my studio space,” she says.
1) My colours
“These are my colours: blue and white for the sky, green for the grass and yellow for the sun. Instead of having four colours, I have five colours (blue, white, green, yellow and orange).”
2) Clay pots
“I recreated this vessel from the photo. I put the Thunderbird on it. I have been really thinking about the Thunderbird, because they bring water, they bring life in the springtime, and they can bring destruction as well.”
3) Noah
“This is Noah. He lives in Fox Lake and is a trapper.
“If you see in his eye, you can see the clear cutting in the white part, you can see there’s no trees. It’s all flat. It's all gone.”
4) Low Key the cat
“He’s very affectionate. He loves people. We actually named him Low Key, (because he’s a) kind of chill, low-key kind of cat, but everyone was just like ‘he’s Loki, named after the god.’ It was too hard to explain that he’s chill.”
Published in Volume 74, Number 2 of The Uniter (September 12, 2019)
A case for nostalgia
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UN calls on the world on first ever forum on displaced people
African migrants
The U.N. refugee agency’s new protection chief says a first-ever forum to bring together governments, civil society and business aims to drum up support for tens of millions of people displaced by war, violence, poverty, repression and other factors.
Assistant High Commissioner Gillian Triggs of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says the “Global Refugee Forum” on December 16-18 in Geneva aims to “deal with the unprecedented numbers of refugees, displaced persons, stateless persons who are of concern to UNHCR”.
“The idea of the forum, a global refugee forum, is to try to deal with the unprecedented numbers of refugees, displaced persons, stateless persons, who are of concern to UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). And the central idea is to share the burden, and the responsibilities, of this this vast and unprecedented number of people. This movement of people globally,” said Gillian Triggs, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Political pressure has been weighing on decision-makers in some host countries, notably in the West, and people have been living in host communities far longer than in past decades.
“What do we want from it? What we are hoping for, and we have very optimistic indications, at the moment, that we’ll get significant financial commitments, both by governments and through the banking lending facilities. But we’ll also get engagement with civil society and the business community,” said Gillian Triggs, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Triggs appealed for more countries to step up with more resettlement places, a common demand of the refugee agency that has often fallen on deaf ears.
Dignitaries like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country has taken in millions of Syrians, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres are set to attend the conference.
She said some 3,000 people including about 100 government ministers are likely to attend, with troubles in countries like Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Venezuela among the causes for flight of millions of people abroad.
Producing Ethiopia's unique coffee [Grand Angle]
Luanda Leaks: Africa's richest woman using Twitter to 'clear' her name
72 more migrants rescued off Libyan coast
Over 100 migrants rescued by German NGO
A hospital in Italy offers emotional support to migrants
THE MORNING CALL
Nigerian female migrants face abuse [Morning Call]
Despite Tunisia's vote for change, enduring miseries drive youth exodus
Libya: African migrants bribe their way into detention centres-UNHCR
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Under the Dome festival award sponsored by the Sutherland Planetarium!
The CCA is pleased to announce that the Sutherland Planetarium is sponsoring an award for best film of the Under the Dome festival! The winners will be announced on the opening night — this Friday the 15th of November!
Sutherland Planetarium is located in the centre of Sutherland en route to the Southern African Large Telescope. It is the latest, and only privately-owned, Digital Planetarium in South Africa. The planetarium is equipped with a Fulldome Pro DX4 system using a single revolutionary Fulldome Pro media server to power four Full HD projectors and a Dolby Atmos 7.1 sound system. The 30-seater Planetarium is open six days a week showcasing a wide range (54) 3-D fulldome films to ensure educational entertainment for the whole family. There is a large demand for locally produced fulldome material, and the Sutherland Planetarium hopes to encourage the production of South African content through this award.
The winners of the award will receive two days use of the Sutherland Planetarium/Digital Dome, they can choose to use this time in the dome to work on new material or to showcase their existing work. As well as use of the dome they will also receive three nights accommodation for two at Blesfontein Guest Farm, Sutherland.
Above: The Sutherland Planetarium. Their website is with more information is available here.
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Michael Kimber
Orchestra Iowa Musicians
Section Viola
Michael Kimber began his musical studies on violin and composed several short chamber and orchestral works in his youth. At the age of 20 he stopped composing and dedicated his efforts to becoming a violist, studying with Francis Bundra at the University of Michigan and at Interlochen, and with Raphael Hillyer, the founding violist of the Juilliard String Quartet. After completing his doctorate in viola performance, he began his professional career playing viola with the Alexandria Quartet, an American ensemble in residence at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music in Australia, followed by a year concertizing with the Kronos Quartet. During twenty-five years as viola professor, first at the University of Kansas and then at the University of Southern Mississippi, he performed frequently as a soloist and with ensembles in North America and Europe. He began composing again in 1985. Since that time his music, especially his body of compositions for viola, has become widely known and performed. In 2010 the American Viola Society presented him its Founders Award in recognition of his contributions as a composer of music for viola. Four CDs of his music, recorded by Polish violist Marcin Murawski, have been released by Acte Préalable, with two more to follow. Michael is perhaps most often applauded as the inventor of the poly-pad violin/viola shoulder rest, tens of thousands of which have been purchased in all 50 states, DC, and 34 foreign countries.
Iowa City, IA
Year Joined Orchestra Iowa:
Education & Teachers:
B.Mus., University of Kentucky, 1967
M.Mus., University of Michigan, 1969
D.M.A., The Catholic University of America, 1975
Edwin Grzesnikowski, Kenneth Wright, Abraham Mishkind, Francis Bundra and Raphael Hillyer
Favorite Symphonic Piece:
Symphonic music is my favorite music. I could not possibly pick a “favorite” from such a vast and rich repertoire.
Favorite Memory With Orchestra Iowa:
Playing Sibelius’ Third Symphony with Lisa Ponton as our principal violist will always be a very special memory.
How did you start playing your instrument?
In 7th grade we were given the choice of spending one period of the day in band, orchestra, chorus, PE, or study hall. I chose orchestra and began learning to play violin (a late start by today’s standards). While a sophomore in college I saw the light, fell in love with viola, went to the dark side and became a violist myself.
Who are your musical inspirations?
There are so many. Among violists, Kim Kashkashian and William Primrose. Among composers, Bartók, Shostakovich, Hindemith, Debussy.
If you weren’t a professional musician, what career would you have?
Teaching, possibly foreign languages or sciences.
List three things always found in your refrigerator:
Orange juice, milk, fruit
Timothy Hankewich, Music Director
Erin Rafferty
Jenwei Yu
Sara AboZena
Matt Barwegen
Michelle Bennett
Andrew Steffen
Auditions & Employment Opportunities
Orchestra Iowa History
Orchestra Iowa's FAQs
Michael Kimber website
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What maintains the secondary structure of a protein?
Biochempages February 16, 2016 No Comments
α helix is an example of a secondary structure. Credit: A.Jashari via Common Wikimedia
Before I explain what maintains the secondary structure of a protein, I would like to explain about the secondary structure of a protein. I hope you know about the primary structure of the protein (the polypeptide chain).
The secondary structure of a protein is a regular recurring three-dimensional structure found in the protein’s native structure. There are mainly two types of secondary structures and these are α-helix and β-pleated sheets. There are four different weak (non-covalent) interactions that are responsible for the 3D structure of a protein and these are; H-bonding (Hydrogen bonding), Ionic interaction, Van-der-Waals force of attraction, and hydrophobic interaction. Now, I will jump to the topic; what maintains the secondary structure of a protein?
The secondary structure of a protein is purely maintained by Hydrogen bonding. Yes, it is the H- bonding that maintains the secondary structure of a protein. To explain in a detailed way, let’s take an example.
Example 1: α-helix
The α-helix is one of the most common secondary structures of the proteins that are abundant in globular proteins. It is a right-handed coiled strand that looks like a DNA double-stranded structure. As shown above, in the α-helix, a single turn (that is called as a pitch) contains 3.6 amino acid residues.
The carbonyl oxygen (C=O) of the first amino acid residue of a polypeptide chain forms H-bond with an amide nitrogen(C-NH-) of the fourth amino acid residues. The formation of the Hydrogen bonding follows the same pattern in α-helix. In α-helix, R groups (side chain) of each of the amino acid residues of the polypeptide chain are projected outward of the α-helix.
Example 2: β-pleated sheet
You might be curious about how the H-bonding helps polypeptide chain attaining a β-pleated sheet. the β-pleated sheet is another type of secondary structure that is predominant in fibrous proteins such as hair and nail. β-pleated sheets can be two types; parallel and anti-parallel.
In β-pleated sheets, the Hydrogen bonding occurs in between the two strands (inter-strand Hydrogen bonding) in which amide nitrogen of an amino acid residue of one strand forms H-bond with the carbonyl oxygen of an amino acid residue of the another strand. Here, two types of H-bonding may be possible; intramolecular H-bonding (of there are two different polypeptide chains forming β-pleated sheet) or intermolecular H-bonding (if there is only one polypeptide chain forming β-pleated sheet). In the β-pleated sheet, R groups are projected either upward or downward the plane. I hope you are clear about the question what maintains the secondary structure of a protein?
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Territories and states of liminality at Unstad, Lofoten
This project was awarded with a Distinction for outstanding quality by the diploma assessors.
Climbing the fences of a remote village on the outer coast of Lofoten.
This Diploma project has its starting point in theories about liminality and liminal landscapes (Victor Turner, 1967: Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites of Passage), as studied in the social science essay. Unstad was chosen as a result of the essay, and due to a personal attraction to, and curiosity about, this special landscape with it’s many attributes of liminality: The meeting between the steep mountains and the flat, fertile valley; the north-west exposure to the pounding North Sea; the shoreline‘s mix of steep cliffs, pebble and soft, white beaches/sand; and the breaks that attract surfers from all over the world.
Through mapping, interviews and investigation of history, many liminal aspects of Unstad has been discovered. It is a village that has been strongly depopulated the last 50 years, going from more than 200 inhabitants in the 1950's to 17 inhabitants in march 2015. At the same time Unstad beach has been discovered as a surfing spot, and is now world famous due to the perfect breaks ocurring now and then along the shoreline. Though time is forcing itself upon the village, Unstad is in many ways an anachronism, with a strong resistance to change both in the community, the built structure and the landscape. The meeting between the surfers, other tourists and the local residents, is confrontational. The local people claim not to be “seen” by the tourist, but at the same time they refuse to open up to the new “intruders” of the village.
As a response to the local’s need to be “seen” by the visitors, and their contradicting resistance towards opening up, this Diploma project introduces three speculations, all based on a traditional Norwegian liminal device; the fence-climber. By introducing a fence climber on every fence on the infield, visitors a welcomed to walk and may meet local people on their homefield. The next two speculations are variations of the climber, developed into small scale architectural responses to the property lines and the relationship between neighbours, visitors and territories.
The first variation of the fence climber is a shelter unit, 2m x 2m wide and 5 m tall, that is owned by the individuals. The shelters can be stored inside one of the many empty barns in the village, and is taken out to their foundations during spring. Each land owner place their shelter on a plot that is exchanged with a neighbor. The neighbors open their shelters towards each other according to their level of dialogue.
The next variation, the “extended speculation”, introduces a variation of shelters around a border, that runs from the inner village towards the sea. Here the multitude of shelters diffuse the borders in-between themselves, and provide a new public space in this in-between zone. The border disappears.
Model study of a traditional Norwegian liminal device; the Fence Climber. Photo: Mattias Josefsson
From the exhibition, including the 1:1 study of a liminality shelter. Photo: Karoline Kalstveit
Map of the Unstad valley
Model study 1:20 of two neighboring shelters. Photo: Mattias Josefsson
Model 1:100 of the extended speculation, including gardens and plots, and how the landscape changes with the seasons, as the shelters are taken into the barns during fall. Photo: Mattias Josefsson
Axonometric drawing of two neighboring shelters, including some constructive details.
Unstad Liminalities. Sketch from the Infield.
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Captain Avery
Once a respected naval officer, Avery turned to piracy after he was afflicted by an insatiable greed and he now commands a ragbag band of rogues. One of his crew claims to have seen Avery ‘gun down a thousand innocent men,’ but although this claim was never verified it’s clear that the Captain is quick with his guns.
Avery has a son named Toby who believes his father to be a man of honor, even after he deserted his family for three years. Avery’s love for his son eventually lead him to leave his planet to help ensure his survival. Although his current whereabouts are unknown, he was last seen on Demon's Run, fighting on the side of the Doctor.
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Hollywood October 10, 2017 October 10, 2017
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Julia Louis-Dreyfus hot is an American actress, model, comedian and producer who become popular after appeared in Saturday Night Live 1982. Julia Louis-Dreyfus date of birth:13 January 1961 in New York City, United States to Gerard Louis-Dreyfus and Judith. Bellow is an collection of Julia Louis-Dreyfus latest bikini images, topless photos, near-nude pics, kissing videos, net worth, biography, childhood wallpapers and body measurements. She complete her education from Holton-Arms School and then went to Northwestern University for her graduation degree in acting. Julia begin her career with Saturday Night Live television shows that aired in 1982, later got signed for an important role in her debut movie Troll that was released in 1986.
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Ben Schiller
Since the age of 12, Benjamin Schiller has been immersed in the hospitality industry. From busboy to bartender, the talents and knowledge that Schiller has acquired along the way have enabled him to become the resident mixologist for BOKA RESTAURANT GROUP.
In between his 2001 arrival in Chicago and now, Schiller was part of the opening team at The Peninsula Hotel Chicago, where he learned wine, beverage and service standards under the tutelage of its five-star personnel. After his time at this luxury property, he moved on to manage a nightclub on Rush Street and then, became the Sommelier at a few wine bars in the city. Accumulating more and more experience, Schiller became a panelist for the Beverage Testing Institute and was named head mixologist for In Fine Spirits.
After cultivating this impressive resume, Schiller joined the BOKA RESTAURANT GROUP in 2009 and continues to hone in on his signature style: progressive and seasonal twists on classic favorites with house-made ingredients. His mission is to have a more personal relationship with the origins of the products behind his bar. Schiller has garnered attention from several well-known Chicago publications, including: Time Out Chicago, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Reader.
Schiller, is the resident mixologist for BOKA RESTAURANT GROUP and responsible for the spirits programs at BOKA Restaurant, Perennial and Girl & The Goat.
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Clinical Journals Press Releases
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL OF NERVOUS SYSTEM
Research Journal of Nervous System celebrates two years of its existence in the field of medical publishing and research and extends a very warm welcome to all the authors, researchers, editors and student to contribute their latest research findings as full length articles to this collaborative medical journal. The journal is committed to serve its readers authors by adding the state of the art facilities to enhance the author’s scholarly visibility.
Established in the year 2017, International Research Journal of Nervous System is one of the most reputed journals of IMEDPUB group, the collaborative medical publisher, known for its close-knit association with medical societies and agencies engaged in medical research. The journal has been publishing the most recent developments in the fields of neurological, surgical, and clinical anatomy as full length research articles and case studies.
Notwithstanding to any specific neurological disorders , the journal has so far published voluminous issues research on Peripheral Nervous System, Nervous Impulse, Spinal Cord, Cerebral hemisphere, Hypothalamus, Brainstem, Brain Tumors, Clinical Neurophysiology, Meningiomas, Neurological Surgery, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Neurosonography, Parkinsonism, Cranial Nerves, Cerebrovascular Disease, Vascular Dementia, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive Psychology and Neuroregeneration.
Under the able stewardship of He Liu, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Gannon University, Erie, PA as an Associate Editor, world renowned researchers, scientists, and academicians including Yung-Chih Kuo, Department of Chemical Engineering, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan, Professor in Department of Chemical Engineering at National Chung Cheng University. BEGUM ENGUR, Department of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Kings College London, MALEK MANSOUR, Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Neuroradiology, Neurology Medicine School of Tunis, Tunisia, Kun-Che Chang, Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford University, California, USA, Joao Sousa-Valente, Member of Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Member of Portuguese Society of Neurosciences (SPN) Member of International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) are acting as editorial board members to add significant value to the research in the field of Nervous System.
Research Journal of Nervous System is committed to ‘Creative Commons’ policy of publishing the scholarly articles on open access forum, after a thorough peer review. The journal is enjoying the staunch support of IMEDPUB, a faithful publisher committed to medical science research.
Established in 1984, the IMEDPUB Group has become an ultimate destination to the world-class, peer-review medical journals till date. IMEDPUB medical publications are highly respected by physicians, surgeons, practitioners, and researchers alike and thus become an essential part of the international medical landscape for publishing scientific literature, which is critical to the research cycle.
On the eve completing more than a decade in medical publishing, the International Research Journal of Nervous System waives off 50% of its article processing charges to promote quality research from across the nations of the globe to encourage the latest research in the field of Nervous system.
Amy Gill
Journal of Nervous system
Email: nervousystem@imedjournals.com
Whatsapp: +44-1625-708989
David Paul
PICA DISEASE
Obesity and eating disorders in Adults
Promising Techniques and Advances towards Infectious Diseases
New Advances in Infection Diseases Prevention
Clinical Immunology Clinical and Laboratory Research Clinical Pharmacology Clinical Psychiatry Clinical Sciences Neurology Psychiatry Food Science Epidemiology Clinical Medicine
Copyright © 2020 Clinical Journals Press Releases. All rights reserved.
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"Service to God and Community"
A History of the Clinton Avenue Reformed Church
The Clinton Avenue Reformed Church, known as The Friendly Church, had its beginning in the home of Mr. & Mrs. Rudolph Illig, on September 30, 1923. Services were conducted by Rev. F. K. Shields, Sr., Bergen County Classis Missionary. Sunday School services were held preceding the Church Service.
The Board of Domestic Missions of the RCA procured a plot of land at the corner of Clinton Avenue and James Street, and the cornerstone of the Chapel was laid on November 18, 1923. Dr. Spring of the Old North Reformed Church conducted services until the Chapel was completed and 50 families gave assurances of support.
Mr. Harry Olson replaced Dr. Spring, and the Church was formally organized under the present name on June 22, 1924, with 86 charter members. On the Church's first anniversary, there was a membership of well over 100 and a Sunday School of 192. The Church was incorporated on July 26, 1925 and Pastor Olson was ordained and installed on July 11, 1926.
As the population of Bergenfield grew, an addition to the Chapel was added in 1925. The present Church building was completed and dedicated on October 10, 1937. On May 21, 1939, The Reverend Willard Wullschleger was installed and began a deeply appreciated pastorate that was to last until 1968. Pastor Willard and his family are fondly remembered by many of the present members of the Church. He was named Pastor Emeritus of the Church, a title held until his death in December of 1998. During his pastorate, there was continued growth in both the congregation and the Sunday School. This growth led to the need to demolish the original Chapel, and a new Church and School was constructed and dedicated on October 19, 1958. In 1968 a steeple was added, completing the present Church building. On November 5, 1989, the Education Wing of our Church was dedicated in honor of The Wullschleger Family.
On September 22, 1968, the Reverend David Risseeuw was installed as the Pastor. He served during a difficult time of social turmoil within our nation and a time when the role of the church in American society was being re-evaluated. Under his leadership, the Church grew in its ecumenical and community witness through the creation of the E.C.U.M. a relationship with the South Presbyterian Church and the Adelphi Program with Community Leaders in Bergenfield. During this time, our Church was part of the effort to provide a Street Minister for our community, the Reverend Randy Peabody.
On September 7, 1975, the Reverend Norman Kolenbrander was installed as Pastor. He served with distinction until 1983. During his time as pastor, Pastor Norman was deeply involved in getting our Church more involved in the ministry of the Englewood Hospital and Medical Center's Chaplaincy Committee. Our Church has remained involved in this ministry and the past chaplain, the Reverend Calvin Tysen and his family were active members of our Church Family.
In 1983, our Church was blessed to have Reverend John Buteyn serve as the Interim Pastor. Along with his wife Marge, the Buteyn Family had a brief but very positive ministry here at Clinton Avenue Reformed Church.
On September 23, 1984, the now Reverend Doctor Stephen Giordano was installed as Pastor. Along with his wife Carla and their daughter Maria, the Giordanos followed in the footsteps of our former pastors and their families, as well as blazed some new trails. During the 20 years of his pastorate, The Clinton Avenue Reformed Church continued to maintain its strong witness both as a church and as a Sunday School. During this same time, the Clinton Avenue Reformed Church served as a founding member of such ministries as: the Interreligious Fellowship for the Homeless, the Interfaith Brotherhood and Sisterhood Committee, the Community Response Team of Bergenfield, the Bergenfield-Dumont Clergy Association, The Bergen Record's Religion Task Forceand was President of the Bergen County Coucil of Churches where he had a signicant influence. During his time at the Church, Pastor Steve earned his Doctorate in Ministry and as his thesis he established the Bergenfield Cares Porgram. Through these associations and others, our Church has been able to extend our ministry and work with others to improve the quality of life for all of the residents of our Community. Due to family health needs, Pastor Steve and his beloved family relocated to Massapequa in September 2004. This was a wonderful 20 years of ministry for the Church.
As of November 1, 2004, the Reverend Bruce Jon Hoffman began his term as the Interim Minister for the Church.
Reverend Hoffman served as the Senior Pastor of the Second Reformed Church in Wycoff for 32 years.
As the Interim Minister, Reverend Hoffman was responsible for preaching, administration, and conducting baptisms, weddings and funerals. He also taught our youth in the Confirmation Class, adult education, pastoral counseling and community involvement. With assistance of Reverend George Kaden, our Supervisory Minister, Reverend Hoffman assisted us in the search process for a permanent minister.
On September 1, 2006 we welcomed our new pastor, Reverend Mark W. Ennis. Reverend Ennis has been a minister for over 25 years and has most recently been serving as pastor for the Third Reformed Church of Albany, New York. Reverend Ennis studied at Hope College inHolland Michigan and then went on to earn his Master of Divinity at New Brunswick Theological Seminary. Reverend Ennis is also a published author.
As we reach this significant point in our Church's Service to God and Community, we are grateful to our past members who have built this Church. We are grateful also to the present generation who continues that service today. With confidence in our heritage of faith and the grace of God, we look forward to continuing to serve God and our community in the coming years ahead.
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Columbus Community School District » For Parents » Notifications
Columbus Community Schools Newsletter
Columbus Schools, along with all other Iowa school districts, must send to patrons of the school district a list of notifications to inform parents of their rights under the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act as well as other state and federal legislation. This newsletter, along with others that may come, serve to help us meet that responsibility. Please take time, although some of it may appear to be dry reading, to read the material. If you have any questions or need further information, please contact the school district. The telephone number of the superintendent’s office is 728-2911. The telephone number of the Junior High/High School is 728-2231 and the telephone number of Roundy Elementary is 728-6218.
In the past, asbestos was used extensively in building materials because of its insulating, sound absorbing, and fire retarding capabilities. Virtually any building constructed before the late 1970s contained some asbestos. Intact and undisturbed asbestos materials generally do not pose a health risk. Asbestos materials, however, can become hazardous when, due to damage or deterioration over time, they release fibers. If the fibers are inhaled, they can lead to health problems, such as cancer and asbestosis.
In 1986, Congress passed the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA) that requires schools to be inspected to identify any asbestos containing building materials. Suspected asbestos-containing building materials are located, sampled and rated according to condition and potential hazard. Every three years, Columbus conducts a reinspection to determine whether the condition of the known or assumed asbestos containing building materials (ACBM) has changed and to make recommendations on managing or removing the ACBM. At the last reinspection, all materials listed in the Management Plan as asbestos containing (or assumed to be asbestos-containing) were inspected and found to be in good condition.
The law further requires an asbestos management plan to be in place by July 1989. Columbus developed a plan, as required, which has been continually updated. The plan has several ongoing requirements: publish a notification on management plan availability and the status of asbestos activities; educate and train its employees about asbestos and how to deal with it; notify short-term or temporary workers on the locations of the asbestos containing building materials; post warning labels in routine maintenance areas where asbestos was previously identified or assumed; follow set plans and procedures designed to minimize the disturbance of asbestos containing building materials; and survey the condition of these materials every six months to assure that they remain in good condition.
The following buildings contain no asbestos-containing building materials; therefore, no operations and maintenance programs or future inspections are required: Roundy Elementary, the Fitness Center, the HS Vocational Building, Sports Complex, Administration / MCC Building or the Greenhouse. Asbestos containing building materials does exist in the following buildings: Columbus Junior High School and Columbus High School.
It is the intention of Columbus to comply with all federal and state regulations controlling asbestos and to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure students and employees a healthy and safe environment in which to learn and work. You are welcome to review a copy of the asbestos management plan in school district administrative office during regular business hours. Please contact the superintendent of schools at 728-2911 with questions.
Student Wellness Policy – Policy 507.9
Columbus’s Student Wellness Policy addresses the topics of physical activity, nutrition education, food and beverages served to students, fundraising projects involving food, food as classroom rewards, and monitoring and evaluation of the policy. This policy was passed by the Columbus School Board in June 2006 and has been update twice, most recently in August 2010.
Student Money in Food Service Account
Students occasionally have money in their food accounts at the end of the school year or when they leave the district. If your student has food account money at the end of the year, you have options with what to do with it.
You may choose to have it stay in your child’s food account and have it available to you next year, or you may request a refund of the money. A check will be sent to you, upon request, larger than $1.00. If the amount is less than $1.00, you may come to the District Administrative Office to pick up the amount, or you may choose to donate the money to the school district.
If your student is leaving the district, a refund of money will occur to you. Again, if the amount is $1.00 or more, a check will be mailed to you. If the amount is less than $1.00, the amount can be collected at the District Administrative Office.
Students, parents, employees and others doing business with or performing services for the Columbus Community School District are hereby notified that this school district does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age (except students), religion, national origin, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability in admission or access to, or treatment in, its programs and activities.
The school district does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age (except students), religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability in admission or access to, or treatment in, its hiring and employment practices. Any person having inquiries concerning the school district's compliance with the regulations implementing Title VI, Title VII, Title IX, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), § 504 or Iowa Code § 280.3 is directed to contact: Gary Benda, Superintendent, District Administrative Office, 1208 Colton Street, Columbus Junction, IA 52738. His telephone number is 728-2911. He has been designated by the school district to coordinate the school district's efforts to comply with the regulations implementing Title VI, Title VII, Title IX, the ADA, § 504 and Iowa Code § 280.3 (2007).
Equal Education Opportunities Policy Statement
The board will not discriminate in its educational activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status.
The board requires all persons, agencies, vendors, contractors and other persons and organizations doing business with or performing services for the school district to subscribe to all applicable federal and state laws, executive orders, rules and regulations pertaining to contract compliance and equal opportunity.
The board is committed to the policy that no otherwise qualified person will be excluded from educational activities on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, marital status, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Further, the board affirms the right of all students and staff to be treated with respect and to be protected from intimidation, discrimination, physical harm, and harassment.
Anti-bullying/No Harassment Policy - School Board Policy 104
Harassment and bullying of students and employees are against federal, state and local policy, and are not tolerated by the school board members. The school board is committed to providing all students with a safe and civil school environment in which all members of the school community are treated with dignity and respect. To that end, the board has in place policies, procedures, and practices that are designed to reduce and eliminate bullying and harassment as well as processes and procedures to deal with incidents of bullying and harassment. Bullying and harassment of students by students, school employees, and volunteers who have direct contact with students will not be tolerated in the school or school district.
The board prohibits harassment, bullying, hazing, or any other victimization, of students, based on any of the following actual or perceived traits or characteristics, including but not limited to, age, color, creed, national origin, race, religion, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical attributes, physical or mental ability or disability, ancestry, political party preference, political belief, socioeconomic status, or familial status. Harassment against employees based upon race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, age or disability is also prohibited.
The Equity Compliance Officer for the district is Superintendent Gary Benda (728-2911).
Parents or guardians considering the use of open enrollment procedures to enroll their child/children into another public school district in the state of Iowa should be aware of the following dates:
· March 1, 2018: Last date for regular open enrollment request for the 2015-2016 school year.
· September 20, 2018: Parents of children who will begin kindergarten in the school district are exempt from the March 1st deadline and shall file by the Thursday preceding the third Friday in September. This would be for continuation of program and good cause applications.
A pupil, who transfers school districts under open enrollment in all grades 10 through 12, shall not be eligible to participate in interscholastic contest and competitions during the first 90 school days of transfer at the varsity level.
Parents/guardians of open-enrolled students whose income is at or below the federal poverty guidelines are eligible for transportation assistance. This may be in the form of actual transportation or in the form of a cash stipend.
Notification of Rights under FERPA for Elementary and Secondary Schools
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) affords parents and students over 18 years of age ("eligible students") certain rights with respect to the student's education records. These rights are:
(1) The right to inspect and review the student's education records within 45 days of the day the School receives a request for access. Parents or eligible students should submit to the School Principal [or appropriate school official] a written request that identifies the record(s) they wish to inspect. The School official will make arrangements for access and notify the parent or eligible student of the time and place where the records may be inspected.
(2) The right to request the amendment of the student’s education records that the parent or eligible student believes are inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise in violation of the student’s privacy rights under FERPA.
Parents or eligible students who wish to ask the School to amend a record should write the School Principal [or appropriate school official], clearly identify the part of the record they want changed, and specify why it should be changed. If the School decides not to amend the record as requested by the parent or eligible student, the School will notify the parent or eligible student of the decision and advise them of their right to a hearing regarding the request for amendment. Additional information regarding the hearing procedures will be provided to the parent or eligible student when notified of the right to a hearing.
(3) The right to privacy of personally identifiable information in the student's education records, except to the extent that FERPA authorizes disclosure without consent. One exception, which permits disclosure without consent, is disclosure to school officials with legitimate educational interests. A school official is a person employed by the School as an administrator, supervisor, instructor, or support staff member (including health or medical staff and law enforcement unit personnel); a person serving on the School Board; a person or company with whom the School has outsourced services or functions it would otherwise use its own employees to perform (such as an attorney, auditor, medical consultant, or therapist); a parent or student serving on an official committee, such as a disciplinary or grievance committee; or a parent, student, or other volunteer assisting another school official in performing his or her tasks. A school official has a legitimate educational interest if the official needs to review an education record in order to fulfill his or her professional responsibility. Upon request, the School discloses education records without consent to officials of another school district in which a student seeks or intends to enroll, or is already enrolled if the disclosure is for purposes of the student’s enrollment or transfer.
(4) The right to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education concerning alleged failures by the School to comply with the requirements of FERPA. The name and address of the Office that administers FERPA are: Family Policy Compliance Office U.S. Department of Education 400 Maryland Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20202-8520
Notice of Directory Information
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal law, requires that Columbus, with certain exceptions, obtain your written consent prior to the disclosure of personally identifiable information from your child's education records. However, Columbus may disclose appropriately designated "directory information" without written consent, unless you have advised the District to the contrary in accordance with District procedures. The primary purpose of directory information is to allow Columbus to include this type of information from your child's education records in certain school publications. Examples include:
• A playbill, showing your student's role in a drama production;
• The annual yearbook;
• Honor roll or other recognition lists;
• Graduation programs; and
• Sports activity sheets, such as for wrestling, showing weight and height of team members.
Directory information, which is information that is generally not considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if released, can also be disclosed to outside organizations without a parent's prior written consent. Outside organizations include, but are not limited to, companies that manufacture class rings or publish yearbooks. In addition, two federal laws require school districts receiving assistance under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) to provide military recruiters, upon request, with three directory information categories—names, addresses and telephone listings—unless parents have advised Columbus that they do not want their student's information disclosed without their prior written consent. If you do not want Columbus to disclose directory information from your child's education records without your prior written consent, you must notify the District in writing by October 31, 2018. Columbus has designated the following information as directory information: Student’s name, address, telephone listing, electronic mail address, date and place of birth, dates of attendance, grade level, participation in officially recognized activities and sports, weight and height of members of athletic teams, honors and awards received, and the most recent school attended. When a student turns 18 years old (even while remaining a student at Columbus), all rights afforded to the parent under FERPA transfer to the eligible student.
Student Records Policy
The Columbus Community School District maintains records on each student in order to facilitate the instruction, guidance, and educational progress of the student. The records contain information about the student and his/her education and may include, but are not limited to, the following types of records: Identification data, aptitude tests, educational and vocational plans, discipline data, objective counselor or teacher ratings and observations, and external agency reports.
The records of each student are generally located in the school that he/she attends. Any exception will be noted in the student’s other records or by the person in charge of record maintenance for each building. The name and position of the persons responsible for maintenance of student records for each school building are listed below:
• Grades PK-6th Principal Paul Southwell and Guidance Counselor Kelly Tyler
•Grades 6th-12th Principal Tyler Hotz and Guidance Counselor Chris Wulf
The following persons, agencies, and organizations may have restricted access to student records without prior written consent of the parent or student over the age of 18 years:
· School officials, teachers, and AEA personnel with a legitimate educational interest
· Officials of other schools in which the student proposes to enroll
· Representatives of state and local government when auditing and evaluating federal education programs
· Officials connected with a student’s educational financial aid applications
· Gov’t officials to whom information is to be reported under state law adopted prior to November 19, 1974
· Organizations which process and evaluate standardized tests
· Accrediting organizations for accrediting purpose
· Parents of dependent children, regardless of child’s age
· Appropriate parties in a health or safety emergency
· Any other access to student records shall be only upon written consent or upon court order or legally issued subpoena.
Student records are reviewed and inappropriate material removed periodically. Those records that are not of permanent importance are destroyed within approximately five years of graduation or discontinued attendance.
The parents of handicapped students, or handicapped students over age 18, will be informed when personally identifiable information in the records is no longer needed to provide educational service and before the information is destroyed.
Student records contain student directory information. Directory information is information released to the public (most often newspapers in regards to sports participation or colleges and universities the student is interested in attending). At Columbus, directory information includes: name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, major field of study, participation in officially recognized activities and sports, weight and height of members of athletic teams, dates of attendance, degrees and awards received, the most recent previous school attended by the student, and other similar information. If you do not want the following information released, a written objection must be on file (on a yearly basis) with the aforementioned person listed as responsible for maintaining your student’s records.
Student Directory Information about Columbus Students is made available to the public for a variety of proper and necessary reasons. According to the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, this directory information must also be released to military recruiters. Some parents do not wish for military recruiters to have access to this information. If you are such a parent or student, according to the legislation, you must submit to us a signed request telling us not to release the information. If you have questions, please contact the principal or counselor.
Parents of students under age 18 and students over age 18 may exercise the opportunity to review educational records of the student to obtain copies of the records; to write a response to material in the record; to challenge the content of the record on grounds of inappropriateness, inaccuracy or an invasion of privacy; and to have the records explained.
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Highly Qualified Teacher Notification to Parents
At the beginning of each school year, Columbus Community Schools, because it receives federal Title I funds, must notify parents that they may request, and the district will provide parents on request, information regarding the professional qualifications of the student’s classroom teachers, including the following:
· whether the teacher has met state licensing criteria for the grade level(s) and subject area(s) taught
· whether the teacher is teaching under emergency or provisional status through which state licensing criteria have been waived
· the undergraduate degree major of the teacher, and any graduate certification or degree held by the teacher, including the field of discipline of the certification or degree
This notification to you is for the purpose of meeting that requirement. Please contact the Superintendent’s office (728-2911) if you need such information.
Parent Notification of NCLB English Language Learners Program
Because Columbus uses federal funds to help provide a language instruction education program for children with limited English proficiency, we must, no later than 30 days after the beginning of the school year, give the parent(s) of each child identified for participation or participating in such a program the following information: why the child is placed in the program; the child’s level of English proficiency, how that level was determined and the status of the child’s academic achievement; methods of instruction in the program in which their child is placed and those of other available programs; how the program will meet the educational needs of their child; how the program will help their child learn English and meet age-appropriate academic achievement standards for grade promotion and graduation; the specific exit requirements for the program; in the case of a child with a disability, how the program meets the child’s IEP objectives; and information about parental rights. For a child not identified as limited English proficient prior to the beginning of the school year, the district must notify parents within the first two weeks of the child being placed in such a program.
Title I Parent Involvement Policy
Columbus Community Schools receives Title I funds and uses the funds to support extra reading help at Roundy Elementary. Title I funds are not used at the junior high or high school. Roundy Elementary School must develop with and distribute to parents of children participating in Title I programs a written parental involvement policy. If a school or district has a parental involvement policy that applies to all parents, it may amend the policy to meet the requirements under the NCLBA. A handbook, created by the US Dept of Education, explains this parent involvement in detail:www.ed.gov/programs/titleiparta/parentinvguid.doc
Eligibility for Student Meals
The federal government sets the eligibility requirements that Columbus follows in determining whether a student qualifies for reduced breakfast and lunch food costs. The Federal Policy for Determining and Verifying Eligibility can be found at this website:http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Guidance/eligibility_guidance.pdf
Annual School District Report Card
Local school districts that receive Title I funds are required to prepare and disseminate an annual district report card. The report card must be disseminated to all parents of students attending those schools in an “understandable and uniform format and, to the extent practicable, provided in a language that the parents can understand.” The report card must be made widely available through public means, such as posting on the Internet, distribution to the media, and distribution through public agencies. Columbus does a mailing to all postal box holders to reach them with this information. Data required for district reports cards:
1. For the district, and by individual school, information on student achievement at each proficiency level on the state academic assessments. Columbus, along with all other Iowa school districts uses the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the Iowa Test of Education Development (ITED) as the state academic assessment tests. The information must be aggregated and disaggregated by the following: student gender, student migrant status, economically disadvantaged students, students from major ethnic and racial groups, students with disabilities, students with limited English proficiency. Disaggregation is not required in a case in which the number of students in a category is insufficient to yield statistically reliable information or the results would reveal personally identifiable information about an individual student. An insufficient number in Iowa is defined as 30 students or less in a particular category.
2. Student achievement at the basic, proficient, and advanced levels on state assessments. Iowa uses the categories of ‘not proficient’, ‘proficient’, and ‘highly-proficient’. Not proficient in an area is defined as being below the 41st percentile on that particular test. Proficient is defined as scoring between the 41stand 90th percentile. High proficient is defined as scoring between the 91st and 99th percentile.
3. The number and percentage of schools identified for school improvement and how long the schools have been so identified.
4. Information that demonstrates how district students in the aggregate achieved on the state assessment(s) as compared to students in the state as a whole.
5. For each school, information that shows how the school’s students achieved on the statewide academic assessments and other indicators of adequate yearly progress compared to other students in the district and the state as a whole.
6. For each school, whether the school has been identified for school improvement.
7. The percentage of students who were not tested, disaggregated by subgroup.
8. For secondary schools, graduation rates, disaggregated by subgroup.
9. The professional qualifications of district teachers in the aggregate and by school. Professional qualifications include the percentage of such teachers teaching with emergency or provisional credentials, and the percentage of classes not taught by highly qualified teachers, in the aggregate and disaggregated by high poverty (top quartile of poverty) compared to low poverty schools (bottom quartile of poverty).
Participation in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Test
Columbus must make reasonable efforts to inform parents and the public about their right to access to all assessment data (except personally identifiable information), questions and current assessment instruments. Districts, schools and students now must participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Parents of children selected to participate in any NAEP assessment must be informed before the assessment is administered that their child may be excused from participation for any reason, is not required to finish any assessment and is not required to answer any test question.
Parental Notification of Third Party Surveys and Parental Rights
According to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, Columbus must develop and adopt policies regarding the rights of parents to inspect third party surveys before they are distributed to students and take measures to protect student privacy when surveys ask for certain sensitive information; parental right to inspect any instructional materials; administration of physical examinations or screening of students; collection, disclosure or use of personal information from students for the purpose of marketing or selling that information; and the parental right to inspect any instrument used to collect personal information before it is distributed to students. Districts must give parents annual notice of adoption, substantive changes in, or continued use of such policies.
Serving Homeless Students
There are some students who attend Columbus schools that are homeless. Being declared homeless is done by following federal criteria. Columbus strives to meet the needs of our homeless students according to these federal mandates. School board policy 501.16 describes our responsibilities and procedures in providing services.
Notification of Rights Under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA)
PPRA affords parents certain rights regarding our conduct of surveys, collection and use of information for marketing purposes, and certain physical exams. These include the right to:
• Consent before students are required to submit to a survey that concerns one or more of the following protected areas (“protected information survey”) if the survey is funded in whole or in part by a program of the U.S. Department of Education (ED)–
1. Political affiliations or beliefs of the student or student’s parent;
2. Mental or psychological problems of the student or student’s family;
3. Sex behavior or attitudes;
4. Illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior;
5. Critical appraisals of others with whom respondents have close family relationships;
6. Legally recognized privileged relationships, such as with lawyers, doctors, or ministers;
7. Religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs of the student or parents; or
8. Income, other than as required by law to determine program eligibility.
• Receive notice and an opportunity to opt a student out of –
1. Any other protected information survey, regardless of funding;
2. Any non-emergency, invasive physical exam or screening required as a condition of attendance, administered by the school or its agent, and not necessary to protect the immediate health and safety of a student, except for hearing, vision, or scoliosis screenings, or any physical exam or screening permitted or required under State law; and
3. Activities involving collection, disclosure, or use of personal information obtained from students for marketing or to sell or otherwise distribute the information to others.
• Inspect, upon request and before administration or use –
1. Protected information surveys of students;
2. Instruments used to collect personal information from students for any of the above marketing, sales, or other distribution purposes; and
3. Instructional material used as part of the educational curriculum.
Columbus complies with these policies, regarding these rights, as well as arrangements to protect student privacy in the administration of protected information surveys and the collection, disclosure, or use of personal information for marketing, sales, or other distribution purposes. Columbuswill directly notify parents of these policies at least annually at the start of each school year and after any substantive changes. Columbuswill also directly notify, such as through U.S. Mail or email, parents of students who are scheduled to participate in the specific activities or surveys noted below and will provide an opportunity for the parent to opt his or her child out of participation of the specific activity or survey. Columbuswill make this notification to parents at the beginning of the school year if the District has identified the specific or approximate dates of the activities or surveys at that time. For surveys and activities scheduled after the school year starts, parents will be provided reasonable notification of the planned activities and surveys listed below and be provided an opportunity to opt their child out of such activities and surveys. Parents will also be provided an opportunity to review any pertinent surveys. Following is a list of the specific activities and surveys covered under this requirement:
•Collection, disclosure, or use of personal information for marketing, sales or other distribution.
•Administration of any protected information survey not funded in whole or in part by ED.
•Any non-emergency, invasive physical examination or screening as described above.
Parents who believe their rights have been violated may file a complaint with: Family Policy Compliance Office U.S. Department of Education 400 Maryland Avenue, SW Washington, D.C. 20202-5901
School Messenger Telephone Service
Columbus uses a telephone messaging service that allows the district to send telephone and email messages concerning weather updates, school event reminders, and other information needed in a timely manner. Our telephone numbers are generated by a computer system we use to maintain student information. The messaging program also allows non-students to be added. If you would like to receive this school information, contact the district administrative office (728-2911) and give us your name and numbers you would like called.
Columbus School Board Meetings
Generally, the school board meets on the second Monday of each month. There are, from time to time, exceptions to that rule. You can find the specific meeting dates at the following website: Columbus School Baord Schedule
Concussions in JH and HS Extracurricular Interscholastic Activities
As many know, student athletes having concussions is becoming a greater concern. If a student receives a concussion or is suspected of possibly having one during a game or practice, a new state law mandates that the student be immediately removed from participation. The student may not return to participation until the student is evaluated by a licensed health care provider trained in the evaluation and management of concussions and other brain injuries and has a written clearance from that person. A licensed health care provider is defined as a doctor, doctor’s assistant, chiropractor, advanced registered nurse practitioner, nurse, physical therapist, or athletic trainer licensed by a board. Parents and student athletes are required to sign a form stating that they have received and read the concussion fact sheet before participating in Columbus activities.
Non-Discrimination Policy Statement
It is the policy of the Columbus Community School District not to discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, disability, sexual orientation, sexual identity, age, political party affiliation, or marital status in its programs, activities, or employment practices as required by the Iowa Code. There is a grievance procedure for processing complaints of discrimination. If you have any questions or a grievance related to this policy please contact the district’s Equity Coordinator, Ms. Kelly Tyler, Elementary Guidance Counselor, 1212 Colton Street, Columbus Junction, IA 52738, 319-728-6218 ext. 1132, Kelly.tyler@columbuscsd.org
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