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Better Late than Never: Quest for Glory
By Greg in Greg, Retro Reviews, Reviews on May 26, 2014 May 27, 2014
Nostalgia is a tricky thing. Sometimes, it makes a person want to dive into the games that evoke their strongest memories of the past over and over again. It’s this type of nostalgia that makes me play through pretty much every version of old Final Fantasy games that gets released. There’s another kind of nostalgia, though: the kind that makes a person want to keep the memory of a thing as the best possible version of that thing that could exist. It’s this kind of nostalgia that ensures that I won’t ever read Dune more than once, or listen to very much music from the 1980’s again, or, I thought, play through Quest for Glory again.
However, I got challenged by a friend to do one of those three things. And it’s the thing that has nothing to do with sandworms or excessively long hair. So, I decided to grab the anthology from Good Old Games and see how my memory of Quest for Glory held up to the real thing. As it turns out, not very well, because I’d forgotten enough of the game to ensure that I was basically playing through it blind again. So, what did I think?
What is Quest for Glory anyway? Does it have anything to do with King’s Quest?: Yes and no. Quest for Glory was released in 1989, about five years after the first King’s Quest game. Plotwise, they don’t have any connection, though there are quite a few similarities. Both games have a point system to let the player know how many events, puzzles, or secrets have been seen through the course of the game, and both feature a fairly large map with a central town location. And both are, primarily, point and click adventure games. However, Quest for Glory has quite a few more subsystems in it than King’s Quest does. It’s less of a puzzle game and more of a RPG adventure, when it comes down to it.
What’s it about?: Quest for Glory starts off with very little buildup. You are a nameless hero who has arrived in the town of Spielburg (yes, really) in search of work. As it turns out, Spielburg and the surrounding area are in desperate need of a hero. The Baron’s heirs have been kidnapped, brigands and monsters surround the area, and the town has been cursed by the witch Baba Yaga. All of which might seem a bit daunting to a hero-in-training, so there are, of course, smaller tasks that must be carried out which lead up to the big jobs.
So how does it play?: Not as poorly as you’d expect, seeing as how it is a DOS game made in 1989. Your nameless hero moves around the map using the arrow keys and interacts using a text parser,in the manner of something like Zork. It was actually a fairly sophisticated text parser for its time. As long as you give it the general gist of what you want to do (and make sure not to misspell it), you’ll probably succeed.
The difference between this game and the aforementioned King’s Quest or Zork is the combat and attribute system. When you create your character, you choose whether you want to make him a warrior, a magic user, or a thief. From there, you have points you can allocate into various stats and abilities, with the ones not natural to your class costing more. In this way, you can control the manner in which you progress through the game (as some paths are only open to players with a certain class or certain abilities).
And you increase your stats by…: Doing a thing over and over again. Probably the memory that stuck in my mind the most about this game from my time with it years ago is typing in the phrases ‘pick up rock’, ‘throw rock’, ‘throw rock’, ‘throw rock’ over and over again. It’s sort of like the kind of thing that Morrowind eventually used, only far, far more basic.
And tedious.
Is there combat?: Yes, and it’s terrible. It’s probably the one thing that doesn’t really hold up at all. When you run into an enemy on the main screen, you’re taken into an over-the-shoulder view of a one-on-one fight against the enemy. For 1989, this is actually really graphically amazing. Mechanically, though, it fails. Maybe it’s because of some DOSBox weirdness, but every part of the combat that is timing-based (read: all of it) is impossible to pull off. You’re supposed to be able to dodge by pressing left and right or parry by pressing back, but none of those really ever prevented me from taking damage in the slightest. On the upside, you can also increase your vitality by taking hits in battle, so I did get a lot of practice in at that.
Well, actually, I got a lot of practice getting straight up shanked by cat people.
So the stat system is a lot like Morrowind‘s. Are there any other inspirations other games took from this?: Well, the part where you’re dropped into the middle of the world with very little indication of what to do with yourself is also fairly Elder Scrolls-ish. The world isn’t as big, and the map is a whole lot more Legend of Zelda-ish, but in spirit, anyway, I think that Quest for Glory was a lot of inspiration to Elder Scrolls. There is also a mechanism of exporting your character from one game to the next that has been used in several role playing games since then, most recently in the Mass Effect series.
Does Good Old Games do a good job with making the game compatible with modern systems?: In general, yes. The game, like many of their older offerings, uses DOSBox as its compatibility layer. The game is fully playable in windowed mode with very little configuration necessary by the player. As a note, I am playing the original EGA version and not the VGA remake, though both are included in the anthology that is sold on Good Old Games.
But seriously, look at the reflections on that water!
So here’s the question. Does the game actually hold up?: Yes and no. For it’s time, it was actually a pretty advanced game. Even now, the game can stand on its own as an example of a non-linear game that benefits the most from multiple playthroughs. On the other end of things, there is a pretty big learning curve for the system as a whole, because not only are you not told what to do in the game itself, you aren’t really told much about how to play the game either. I guess what I’m saying is, there’s a reason that games used to come with manuals.
You pretty much just have to start guessing.
Really, it’s just one big exercise in how games aren’t the same now as they used to be. I’m not saying that games are any easier or harder now, I’m just saying that there is a different expectation on accessibility. Back then, part of the joy of learning a new game was actually learning the game. Learning the interface, learning how to make your characters do what you want them to do, and being fascinated when you discover new aspects to the interface itself in addition to new things in the world. Nowadays, the interface is a tool, not an object of wonder in itself.
Does it hold up as well as it did in my memory? Not quite, but the things I remembered with fondness are just as endearing as they were before.
And would you recommend it to people today?: I’d recommend it to anyone who likes Elder Scrolls, as well as anyone who likes any of Telltale’s adventure games. There is a bit of tedium in stat boosting, and combat, as I said, has a lot to be desired, but if a person can get past that, there’s quite a bit to enjoy in Quest for Glory. As long as one isn’t expecting a game to have a lot of modern sensibilities, it’s really worth playing, even if just for a history lesson.
Tags: adventure games, PC, quest for glory, retro, sierra
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401 U.S. 532 - Labine v. Vincent
401 US 532 Labine v. Vincent
91 S.Ct. 1017
28 L.Ed.2d 288
Lou Bertha LABINE, Natural Tutrix of Minor Child, Rita Nell Vincent, Appellant,
Simon VINCENT, Administrator of the Succession of Ezra Vincent.
Argued Jan. 19, 1971.
Decided March 29, 1971.
Rehearing Denied May 17, 1971.
See 402 U.S. 990, 91 S.Ct. 1672.
James J. Cox, Lake Charles, La., for appellant.
James A. Leithead, Lake Charles, La., for appellee.
Mr. Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this appeal the guardian (tutrix) of an illegitimate minor child attacks the constitutionality of Louisiana's laws that bar an illegitimate child from sharing equally with legitimates in the estate of their father who had publicly acknowledged the child, but who died without a will. To understand appellant's constitutional arguments and our decision, it is necessary briefly to review the facts giving rise to this dispute. On March 15, 1962, a baby girl, Rita Vincent, was born to Lou Bertha Patterson (now Lou Bertha Labine) in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. On May 10, 1962, Lou Bertha Patterson and Ezra Vincent, as authorized by Louisiana law, jointly executed before a notary a Louisiana State Board of Health form acknowledging that Ezra Vincent was the 'natural father' of Rita Vincent.1 This public acknowledgment of parentage did not, under Louisiana law, give the child a legal right to share equally with legitimate children in the parent's estate but it did give her a right to claim support from her parents or their heirs. The acknowledgment also gave the child the capacity under Louisiana law to be a limited beneficiary under her father's will in the event he left a will naming her, which he did not do here.
Ezra Vincent died intestate, that is, without a will, on September 16, 1968, in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, leaving substantial property within the State, but no will to direct its distribution. Appellant, as the guardian of Rita Vincent, petitioned in state court for the appointment of an administrator for the father's estate; for a declaration that Rita Vincent is the sole heir of Ezra Vincent; and for an order directing the administrator to pay support and maintenance for the child. In the alternative, appellant sought a declaration that the child was entitled to support and maintenace of $150 per month under a Louisiana child support law.2
The administrator of the succession of Ezra Vincent answered the petition claiming that Vincent's relatives were entitled to the whole estate. He relied for the claim upon two articles of the Louisiana Civil Code of 1870: Art. 206, which provides:
'Illegitimate children, though duly acknowledged, can not claim the rights of legitimate children. * * *'
and Art. 919, which provides:
'Natural children are called to the inheritance of their natural father, who has duly acknowledged them, when he has left no descendants nor ascendants, nor collateral relations, nor surviving wife, and to the exclusion only of the State.'
The court ruled that the relatives of the father were his collateral relations and that under Louisiana's laws of intestate succession took his property to the exclusion of acknowledged, but not legitimated, illegimate children. The court, therefore, dismissed with costs the guardian mother's petition to recognize the child as an heir. The court also ruled that in view of Social Security payments of $60 per month and Veterans Administration payments of $40 per month available for the support of the child, the guardian for the child was not entitled to support or maintenance from the succession of Ezra Vincent.3 The Louisiana Court of Appeal, Third Circuit, affirmed 229 So.2d 449, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana denied a petition for writ of certiorari, 255 La. 480, 231 So.2d 395. The child's guardian appealed and we noted probable jurisdiction. 400 U.S. 817, 91 S.Ct. 79, 27 L.Ed.2d 44 (1970).
In this Court appellant argues that Louisiana's statutory scheme for intestate succession that bars this illegitimate child from sharing in her father's estate constitutes an invidious discrimination against illegitimate children that cannot stand under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution. Much reliance is placed upon the Court's decisions in Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68, 88 S.Ct. 1509, 20 L.Ed.2d 436 (1968), and Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., 391 U.S. 73, 88 S.Ct. 1515, 20 L.Ed.2d 441 (1968). For the reasons set out below, we find appellant's reliance on those cases misplaced, and we decline to extend the rationale of those cases where it does not apply. Accordingly, we affirm the decision below.
In Levy the Court held that Louisiana could not consistently with the Equal Protection Clause bar an illegitimate child from recovering for the wrongful death of its mother when such recoveries by legitimate children were authorized. The cause of action alleged in Levy was in tort. It was undisputed that Louisiana had created a statutory tort4 and had provided for the survival of the deceased's cause of action,5 so that a large class of persons injured by the tort could recover damages in compensation for their injury. Under those circumstances the Court held that the State could not totally exclude from the class of potential plaintiffs illegitimate children who were unquestionably injured by the tort that took their mother's life. Levy did not say and cannot fairly be read to say that a State can never treat an illegitimate child differently from legitimate offspring.6
The people of Louisiana, through their legislature have carefully regulated many of the property rights incident to family life. Louisiana law prescribes certain formalities requisite to the contracting of marriage.7 Once marriage is contracted there, husbands have obligations to their wives.8 Fathers have obligations to their children.9 Should the children prosper while the parents fall upon hard times, children have a statutory obligation to support their parents.10 To further strengthen and preserve family ties, Louisiana regulates the disposition of property upon the death of a family man. The surviving spouse is entitled to an interest in the deceased spouse's estate.11 Legitimate children have a right of forced heirship in their father's estate and can even retrieve property transferred by their father during his lifetime in reduction of their rightful interests.12
Louisiana also has a complex set of rules regarding the rights of illegitimate children. Children born out of wedlock and who are never acknowledged by their parents apparently have no right to take property by intestate succession from their father's estate. In some instances, their father may not even bequeath property to them by will.13 Illegitimate children acknowledged by their fathers are 'natural children.' Natural children can take from their father by intestate succession 'to the exclusion only of the State.' They may be bequeathed property by their father only to the extent of either one-third or one-fourth of his estate and then only if their father is not survived by legitimate children or their heirs.14 Finally, children born out of wedlock can be legitimated or adopted, in which case they may take by intestate succession or by will as any other child.
These rules for intestate succession may or may not reflect the intent of particular parents. Many will think that it is unfortunate that the rules are so rigid. Others will think differently. But the choices reflected by the intestate succession statute are choices which it is within the power of the State to make. The Federal Constitution does not give this Court the power to overturn the State's choice under the guise of constitutional interpretation because the Justices of this Court believe that they can provide better rules. Of course, it may be said that the rules adopted by the Louisiana Legislature 'discriminate' against illegitimates. But the rules also discriminate against collateral relations, as opposed to ascendants, and against ascendants, as opposed to descendants. Other rules determining property rights based on family status also 'discriminate' in favor of wives and against 'concubines.'15 The dissent attempts to distinguish these other 'discriminations' on the ground that they have a biological or social basis. There is no biological difference between a wife and a concubine nor does the Constitution require that there be such a difference before the State may assert its power to protect the wife and her children against the claims of a concubine and her children. The social difference between a wife and a concubine is analogous to the difference between a legitimate and an illegitimate child. One set of relationships is socially sanctioned, legally recognized, and gives rise to various rights and duties. The other set of relationships is illicit and beyond the recognition of the law. Similarly, the State does not need biological or social reasons for distinguishing between ascendants and descendants. Some of these discriminatory choices are perhaps more closely connected to our conceptions of social justice or the ways in which most dying men wish to dispose of their property than the Louisiana rules governing illegitimate children. It may be possible that some of these choices are more 'rational' than the choices inherent in Louisiana's categories of illegitimates. But the power to make rules to establish, protect, and strengthen family life as well as to regulate the disposition of property left in Louisiana by a man dying there is committed by the Constitution of the United States and the people of Louisiana to the legislature of that State. Absent a specific constitutional guarantee, it is for that legislature, not the life-tenured judges of this Court, to select from among possible laws.16 We cannot say that Louisiana's policy provides a perfect or even a desirable solution or the one we would have provided for the problem of the property rights of illegitimate children.17 Neither can we say that Louisiana does not have the power to make laws for distribution of property left within the State.
We emphasize that this is not a case, like Levy, where the State has created an insurmountable barrier to this illegitimate child. There is not the slightest suggestion in this case that Louisiana has barred this illegitimate from inheriting from her father. Ezra Vincent could have left one-third of his property to his illegitimate daughter had he bothered to follow the simple formalities of executing a will. He could, of course, have legitimated the child by marrying her mother in which case the child could have inherited his property either by intestate succession or by will as any other legitimate child. Finally, he could have awarded his child the benefit of Louisiana's intestate succession statute on the same terms as legitimate children simply by stating in his acknowledgment of paternity his desire to legitimate the little girl. See Bergeron v. Miller, 230 So.2d 417 (La.App.1970).
In short, we conclude that in the circumstances presented in this case, there is nothing in the vague generalities of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses which empowers this Court to nullify the deliberate choices of the elected representatives of the people of Louisiana.
Mr. Justice HARLAN, concurring.
In joining the opinion of the Court, I wish to add a few words, prompted, I may say, by the dissenting opinion, which in my view evinces extravagant notions of what constitutes a denial of 'equal protection' in the constitutional sense.
It is surely entirely reasonable for Louisiana to provide that a man who has entered into a marital relationship thereby undertakes obligations to any resulting offspring beyond those which he owes to the products of a casual liaison, and this whether or not he admits the fact of fatherhood in the latter case.* With respect to a substantial portion of a man's estate, these greater obligations stemming from marriage are imposed by the provision of Louisiana law making a man's legitimate children his forced heirs. For the remainder of his estate, these obligations are not absolute, but are conditional upon his not disposing of his property in other ways. With all respect to my dissenting Brethren, I deem little short of frivolous the contention that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits enforcement of marital obligations, in either the mandatory or the suppletive form. See H. M. Hart & A. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in the Making and Application of Law 35—36, 251—256 (tent. ed. 1958).
In addition to imposing these obligations, Louisiana law prohibits testamentary dispositions to one's illegitimate children. Even were my dissenting Brethren prepared to hold this rule of law unconstitutional, to do so would not affect the outcome of this case. First, appellant's child is 'natural' rather than 'illegitimate'; and second, if the father desired her to have his property after his death, he did not manifest that desire in the appropriate way.
Mr. Justice BRENNAN, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, Mr. Justice WHITE, and Mr. Justice MARSHALL join, dissenting.
In my view, Louisiana's intestate succession laws, insofar as they treat illegitimate children whose fathers have publicly acknowledged them differently from legitimate children, plainly violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court today effectively concedes this, and to reach its result, resorts to the startling measure of simply excluding such illegitimate children from the protection of the Clause, in order to uphold the untenable and discredited moral prejudice of bygone centuries which vindictively punished not only the illegitimates' parents, but also the hapless, and innocent, children. Based upon such a premise, today's decision cannot even pretend to be a principled decision. This is surprising from Justices who have heretofore so vigorously decried decisionmaking rested upon personal predilections, to borrow the Court's words, of 'life-tenured judges of this Court.' Ante, at 539. I respectfully dissent.
* In 1961, Ezra Vincent was 69 years old and Lou Bertha Patterson (now Lou Bertha Labine) was 41. They were unmarried adults living in rural, southwest Louisiana, outside the town of Lake Charles. Soon after meeting each other in 1961, Mrs. Patterson moved in with Mr. Vincent. Although they did not marry, Mrs. Patterson had a daughter by Mr. Vincent on March 15, 1962. The child's birth certificate identified the father and mother by name. Within two months, Mr. Vincent and Mrs. Patterson appeared before a notary public and executed a form, in accordance with Louisiana law, acknowledging that Mr. Vincent was the father of the child. A month later, the child's birth certificate was changed to give the child Mr. Vincent's name,1 and she has always been known since as Rita Nell Vincent. By acknowledging the child, Mr. Vincent became legally obligated under state law to support her.2 Mr. Vincent and Mrs. Patterson continued to live together and raise Rita Nell until Mr. Vincent died in 1968. He left no will.
As natural tutrix of Mr. Vincent's only child, Rita Nell's mother brought this suit on the child's behalf seeking to have Rita Nell declared Mr. Vincent's sole heir. Applying Louisiana law,3 the trial court dismissed the action and declared Mr. Vincent's collateral relations—his brothers and sisters—to be his heirs.4 The child's tutrix appealed, arguing that to treat a publicly acknowledged illegitimate child differently from a legitimate child was a denial of equal protection and due process. The Louisiana intermediate appellate court affirmed in all respects, upholding the state statutory provisions against constitutional attack, '(h)owever unfair it may be to punish innocent children for the fault of their parents.' 229 So.2d 449, 452 (1969). The Louisiana Supreme Court declined review, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 400 U.S. 817, 91 S.Ct. 79, 27 L.Ed.2d 44 (1970).
The rationality and constitutionality of Louisiana's treatment of the illegitimate child can only be analyzed against the background of a proper understanding of that State's law. Under Louisiana law, legitimate children have an automatic right to inherit from their parents.5 Legitimate children generally cannot be disinherited.6 Property cannot even be given away without taking account of the rights of a legitimate child, since the portion of the decedent's estate that can be given away or disposed of through donations inter vivos or mortis causa is sharply limited by law for the benefit of a person's legitimate children.7 Actually the Louisiana Constitution protects this scheme of forced heirship which benefits the decedent's parents as well as his legitimate children.8
This enshrinement of forced heirship in the state constitution symbolizes Louisiana's extensive legal ordering of familial affairs. Louisiana's regulation of the family covers not merely the devolution of property upon the death of any member, but virtually every aspect of the duties owed by one family member to another, and the authority, particularly of the father, over the other members.9 This reflects the derivation of Louisiana's legal traditions from the French, Spanish, and Roman civil law; they do not have their roots in English common law:
'Countries which received the Roman law in one form or another have traditionally ordered relationships between citizens in terms of two institutions, family and obligation. * * * (T)he relationships formed by Romanist man were all grounded in one or both of these institutions. His relationship with his family was determined by law, it established his status, and this, in turn, qualified the relationships which he could make with those who were not his family. * * * (A) man's position within his family passed into the modern Roman laws as the significant qualification to forming private legal relationships.' Tucker, Sources of Louisiana's Law of Persons: Blackstone, Domat, and the French Codes, 44 Tul.L.Rev. 264, 275—276 (1970) (emphasis added).10
Thus it is that Louisiana law distinguishes between legitimate children and illegitimate children throughout that law's extensive regulation of family affairs.11 But, for purposes of this case, I need only discuss those portions of Louisiana law that bear upon inheritance rights. Article 178 of the Louisiana Civil Code provides in full: 'Children are either legitimate, illegitimate, or legitimated.' Not all illegitimate children can be legitimated, however—only those whose parents do not have legitimate descendants or ascendants and could lawfully have married each other at the time of the child's conception, or those whose parents later marry can be legitimated.12 An illegitimate child who can be legitimated becomes a 'natural' child when his father formally acknowledges him. However, Article 206 of the Louisiana Civil Code provides that, '(i)llegitimate children, though duly acknowledged, can not claim the rights of legitimate children.' Thus, the primary consequence under Louisiana succession law that flows from acknowledgment is that the natural child may inherit under a will, and inherits if there is no will, only after the father's other descendants, ascendants, collateral relations, and surviving spouse, but before the estate escheats to the State.13 An illegitimate child whose parents could lawfully have married each other at the time of the child's conception, but who has not been publicly acknowledged, or an illegitimate child whose parents were not capable of marriage at the time of conception, may not inherit at all, either by will or intestate sucession, 'the law allowing them nothing more than a mere alimony.' La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 920 (1952).14
Under Louisiana law a legitimate child would have had an absolute right to inherit Mr. Vincent's estate; Mr. Vincent could not have totally disinherited such a child. This is a consequence of Louisiana's 'forced heirship' law, in other words a consequence of a state decision, however contrary that might be to Mr. Vincent's own desires. Similarly in the present case, Mr. Vincent's illegitimate daughter, though duly acknowledged, is denied his intestate estate, not because he wished that result but because the State places her behind Mr. Vincent's collateral relations—indeed behind all his relations—in the line of succession.
The State's discrimination is clear and obvious.15 Ordinarily, even in cases of economic regulation, this Court will inquire, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, whether there is some 'reasonable basis' for a discrimination in a state statute, or whether the discrimination is invidious. E.g., Morey v. Doud, 354 U.S. 457, 77 S.Ct. 1344, 1 L.Ed.2d 1485 (1957); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483, 75 S.Ct. 461, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886). Such an inquiry does not question the State's power to regulate; rather, it focuses exclusively on whether the State has legislated without the invidious discrimination that is forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment.
For reasons not articulated, the Court refuses to consider in this case whether there is any reason at all, or any basis whatever, for the difference in treatment that Louisiana accords to publicly acknowledged illegitimates and to legitimate children. Rather, the Court simply asserts that 'the power to make rules to establish, protect, and strengthen family life as well as to regulate the disposition of property left in Louisiana by a man dying there is committed by the Constitution of the United States and the people of Louisiana to the legislature of that State.' Ante, at 538. But no one questions Louisiana's power to pass inheritance laws.16 Surely the Court cannot be saying that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause is inapplicable to subjects regulable by the States—that extraordinary proposition would reverse a century of constitutional adjudication under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. It is precisely state action which is subjected by the Fourteenth Amendment to its restraints. It is, to say the least, bewildering that a Court that for decades has wrestled with the nuances of the concept of 'state action' in order to ascertain the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment, in this case holds that the state action here, because it is state action, is insulated from these restraints.
Putting aside the Court's repeated emphasis on Louisiana's power to regulate intestate succession—something not questioned and wholly irrelevant to the present constitutional issue-only two passages in the Court's opinion even attempt an argument in support of today's result. First, the Court tells us that Louisiana intestate succession law favors some classes of a deceased's relatives over other classes. That is certainly true, but the Court nowhere suggests what bearing these other discriminations have on the rationality of Louisiana's discrimination against the acknowledged illegitimate. It is a little like answering a complaint of Negro school children against separate lavatories for Negro and white students by arguing that the situation is no different from separate lavatories for boys and girls, or for elementary school children and high school students. These other discriminations may be rational or irrational. But their only relevance to the rationality and constitutionality of the specific challenged discrimination is the light they throw, if any, on the basis for that discrimination. The conclusion the Court appears to draw from its itemization of other discriminations among a deceased's relatives is that Louisiana needs no justification at all for any of the distinctions it draws. That reasoning flies in the face not only of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, but also of the very notion of a rule of law.
The only other hint at an attempt to support today's result may appear in the purported distinction of Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68, 88 S.Ct. 1509, 20 L.Ed.2d 436 (1968): 'We emphasize that this is not a case, like Levy, where the State has created an insurmountable barrier to this illegitimate child.' Ante, at 539. There may be two implications in this statement: (1) that in Levy, there was an insurmountable barrier to recovery; and (2) that any discrimination that falls short of an 'insurmountable barrier' is, without need for further analysis, permissible. As to the first, Levy involved an unacknowledged illegitimate child. Louisiana permitted an illegitimate child to recover in tort for the death of the child's mother, under the State's wrongful death act, only if the illegitimate child had been acknowledged. There was no insurmountable barrier to the child's recovery; if the mother had formally acknowledged the child, recovery would have been permitted. My Brother Harlan's dissent emphasized this fact and argued that the State was entitled to rely on specified formalities. Plainly then Levy did not involve any 'insurmountable barrier.'
The Court's second implication—that any discrimination short of an 'insurmountable barrier' is permissible—is one of those propositions the mere statement of which is its own refutation. Levy, as I have pointed out, holds squarely to the contrary specifically in the context of discrimination against illegitimate children. And numerous other cases in this Court establish the general proposition that discriminations that 'merely' disadvantage a class of persons or businesses are as subject to the command of the Fourteenth Amendment as discriminations that are in some sense more absolute.17
In short, the Court has not analyzed, or perhaps simply refuses to analyze, Louisiana's discrimination against acknowledged illegitimates in terms of the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment.18 Since I still believe that the Constitution does prohibit a State from denying any person the 'equal protection of the laws,' I must therefore undertake my own analysis to determine, at a minimum, whether there is any rational basis for the discrimination, or whether the classification bears any intelligible proper relationship to the consequences that flow from it.19 See, e.g., Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970); McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184, 190—191, 85 S.Ct. 283, 287—288, 13 L.Ed.2d 222 (1964); Morey v. Doud, supra; Gulf, C. & S.F.R. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U.S. 150, 155, 17 S.Ct. 255, 256—257, 41 L.Ed. 666 (1897).
Certainly, there is no biological basis for the State's distinction. Mr. Vincent's illegitimate daughter is related to him biologically in exactly the same way as a legitimate child would have been. Indeed, it is the identity of interest 'in the biological and in the spiritual sense,' Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S., at 72, 88 S.Ct., at 1511, and the identical 'intimate, familial relationship,' id., at 71, 88 S.Ct. at 1511 between both the legitimate and illegitimate child, and their father, which is the very basis for appellant's contention that the two must be treated alike.
Louisiana might be thought to have an interest in requiring people to go through certain formalities in order to eliminate complicated questions of proof and the opportunity for both error and fraud in determining paternity after the death of the father. This argument, of course, was the focal point of the dissent in Levy and Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., 391 U.S. 73, 88 S.Ct. 1515, 20 L.Ed.2d 441 (1968). I leave aside, for the moment, the fact that the holdings of those two cases indicate that this consideration is insufficient to justify a difference in treatment when there is no dispute over the fact of parentage. For my Brother Harlan's dissenting opinion in those cases explicitly recognized that the State's interest in this regard is fully satisfied by a formal public acknowledgment. 391 U.S., at 80, 88 S.Ct., at 1514. When a father has formally acknowledged his child or gone through any state authorized formality for declaring paternity, or when there has been a court judgment of paternity, there is no possible difficulty of proof, and no opportunity for fraud or error. This purported interest certainly can offer no justification for distinguishing between a formally acknowledged illegitimate child and a legitimate one.
It is also important not to obscure the fact that the formality of marriage primarily signifies a relationship between husband and wife, not between parent and child. Analysis of the rationality of any state effort to impose obligations based upon the fact of marriage must, therefore, distinguish between those obligations that run between parties to the marriage and those that run to others. By Brother Harlan, unlike his colleagues in the majority, concedes that the Equal Protection Clause requires a justification for Louisiana's discrimination against illegitimates, and he attempts one; he argues that it is reasonable for a State to impose greater obligations on a man in respect to his wife and their children than in respect to other women and any other children of whom he may be the father. In other words, contrary to the Louisiana court below he apparently believes that Louisiana's discrimination against illegitimates reflects a state policy that would discourage marriage by imposing special burdens, such as those of forced heirship, upon those who enter into it. However that may be, such force as his argument may have stems directly from its lack of specificity. Imposition by a State of reciprocal obligations upon husband and wife that are not imposed upon those who do not enter into a formalized marriage relationship is based upon the assumptions (1) that marriage may be promoted through pressure applied on or by the party seeking the benefit of obligations imposed by the married status, and (2) that in any event the choice is entirely within the control of the two individuals concerned. These elements are entirely lacking when we consider the relationship of a child vis-a -vis its parents. Precisely this point was made approvingly by Chancellor Kent, relied upon by my Brother Harlan, early in the 19th century:
'This relaxation in the laws of so many of the states, of the severity of the common law (discrimination against illegitimates), rests upon the principle that the relation of parent and child, which exists in this unhappy case, in all its native and binding force, ought to produce the ordinary legal consequences of that consanguinity.' 2 J. Kent, Commentaries *213 (12th ed. O. Holmes 1873).20
Intestate succession laws might seek to carry out a general intent of parents not to provide for publicly acknowledged illegitimate children. However, as the summary of Louisiana law I have made shows, one of the primary hallmarks of Louisiana's civil code is its detailed, extensive regulation of the family relationship. Its discrimination against the illegitimate in matters of inheritance and succession is official state policy, completely negating any argument that such discrimination merely represents a legislative judgment about the probable wishes of a deceased or the desires of most persons in similar situations. The opinion of the state court below itself eliminates that possibility. The Louisiana court affirmatively states that the disinheritance of acknowledged illegitimates is in furtherance of specific state policy goals goals that are unrelated to parents' intentions, 229 So.2d, at 452. Finally, viewing the general statutory treatment of illegitimates as a whole, particularly the facts that only a narrow class of fathers can legitimate their children by declaration, and that unacknowledged and 'adulterous' illegitimates are prohibited from inheriting even by will, I think the conclusion is compelled that Louisiana's discrimination represents state policy, not an attempt to aid in the effectuation of private desires.
Even if Louisiana law could be read as being based on a legislative judgment about parents' intent, the present discrimination against illegitimates could not stand. In order to justify a discrimination on the ground that it reflects a legislative judgment about the desires of most persons in similar situations, there must be some rational basis21 for finding that the legislative classification does reflect those persons' desires or intentions as a general matter. The Court makes no argument that fathers who have publicly acknowledged their illegitimate children generally intend to disinherit them. No Louisiana court opinion or Louisiana legislative pronouncement that I can discover, or the Attorney General of Louisiana in this case, has ever argued that the Louisiana scheme reflects the general intentions of fathers of illegitimate children in that State. Indeed, the state court below justified the discrimination on the ground that 'the denial of inheritance rights to illegitimates might reasonably be viewed as encouraging marriage and legitimation of children.' 229 So.2d, at 452. Such denial could encourage marriage only if fathers generally desire to leave their property to their illegitimate children; otherwise, disinheritance would not operate as a sanction to encourage marriage.
Moreover, logic and common experience also suggest that a father who has publicly acknowledged his illegitimate child will not generally intend to disinherit his child. A man who publicly announces that he has fathered a child out of wedlock has publicly claimed that child for his own. He has risked public opprobrium, or other sanctions, to make the public announcement. Surely, it does not follow that he will generally desire to disinherit that child and further discredit his reputation by refusing to contribute to his own child at death. All the writings cited to us, including a United Nations study report,22 an English study commission,23 the proposed Uniform Probate Code,24 and a variety of law review commentary in this country,25 suggest precisely the opposite conclusion. Moreover, Louisiana is the only State in the country that denies illegitimate children rights of inheritance from the mother equal to those of legitimate children,26 and one of only four States that have expressly provided by statute that the illegitimate child may not inherit from his father.27 The legislatures of 20 States by statute allow acknowledged illegitimate children to inherit equally from their fathers.28 Three States grant equal rights of inheritance from the father regardless of acknowledgment.29 The legislatures of the other 23 States have not passed upon the question.
The Court nowhere mentions the central reality of this case: Louisiana punishes illegitimate children for the misdeeds of their parents. The judges of the Third Circuit Court of Appeal of Louisiana, whose judgment the Court here reviews, upheld the present discrimination '(h)owever unfair it may be to punish innocent children for the fault of their parents * * *.' 229 So.2d, at 452. It is certainly unusual in this country for a person to be legally disadvantaged on the basis of factors over which he never had any control. 'Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.' Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 100, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 1385, 87 L.Ed. 1774 (1943). The state court below explicitly upheld the statute on the ground that the punishment of the child might encourage the parents to marry.30 If that is the State's objective, it can obviously be attained for more directly by focusing on the parents whose actions the State seeks to influence. Given the importance and nature of the decision to marry, cf. Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 91 S.Ct. 780, 28 L.Ed.2d 113, I think that disinheriting the illegitimate child must be held to 'bear no intelligible proper relation to the consequences that are made to flow' from the State's classification. Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., 391 U.S., at 81, 88 S.Ct., at 1514—1515 (Harlan, J., dissenting).
In my judgment, only a moral prejudice, prevalent in 1825 when the Louisiana statutes under consideration were adopted, can support Louisiana's discrimination against illegitimate children. Since I can find no rational basis to justify the distinction Louisiana creates between an acknowledged illegitimate child and a legitimate one, that discrimination is clearly invidious.31 Morey v. Doud, 354 U.S. 457, 77 S.Ct. 1344, 1 L.Ed.2d 1485 (1957). I think the Supreme Court of North Dakota stated the correct principle in invalidating an analogous discrimination in that State's inheritance laws: 'This statute, which punishes innocent children for their parents' transgressions has no place in our system of government which has as one of its basic tenets equal protection for all.' In re Estate of Jensen, 162 N.W.2d 861, 878 (1968).
See App. 8.
La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 240, provides: 'Fathers and mothers owe alimony to their illegitimate children, when they are in need * * *.' Art. 241 provides: 'Illegitimate children have a right to claim this alimony, not only from their father and mother, but even from their heirs after their death.'
Rita Vincent qualifies as Ezra Vincent's child for federal social security and veteran's benefits by virtue of his acknowledgment of paternity, 42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(3)(A)(i)(I) (1964 ed., Supp. V) and 38 U.S.C. § 101(4) (1964 ed., Supp. V). No question has been raised concerning the legality under federal law of reliance upon such benefits to relieve parents or their estates from the state-imposed obligations of child support.
La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 2315 (1952).
Nor is Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., 391 U.S. 73, 88 S.Ct. 1515, 20 L.Ed.2d 441 (1968), analogous to this case. In Glona the majority relied on Louisiana's 'curious course' of sanctions against illegitimacy to demonstrate that there was no 'rational basis' for prohibiting a mother from recovering for the wrongful death of her son. Id., at 74—75, 88 S.Ct. at 1515—1516. Even if we were to apply the 'rational basis' test to the Louisiana intestate succession statute, that statute clearly has a rational basis in view of Louisiana's interest in promoting family life and of directing the disposition of property left within the State.
La.Civ.Code Ann., Arts. 90—98 (1952).
La.Civ.Code Ann., Arts. 119, 120 (1952).
'Fathers and mothers, by the very act of marrying, contract together the obligation of supporting, maintaining, and educating their children.' La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 227 (1952). See n. 2, supra.
La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 229 (1952).
La.Civ.Code Ann., Arts. 1493—1495 (1952).
'Natural fathers and mothers can, in no case, dispose of property in favor of their adulterine or incestuous children, unless to the mere amount of what is necessary to their sustenance, or to procure them an occupation or profession by which to support themselves.' La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 1488 (1952).
'Those who have lived together in open concubinage are respectively incapable of making to each other, whether inter vivos or mortis causa, any donation of immovables; and if they make a donation of movables, it can not exceed one-tenth part of the whole value of their estate.
'Those who afterwards marry are excepted from this rule.' La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 1481 (1952).
'Now the law in question is nothing more than an exercise of the power which every state and sovereignty possesses, of regulating the manner and term upon which property real or personal within its dominion may be transmitted by last will and testament, or by inheritance; and of prescribing who shall and who shall not be capable of taking it.' Mager v. Grima, 49 U.S. (8 How.) 490, 493, 12 L.Ed. 1168 (1850). See Lyeth v. Hoey, 305 U.S. 188, 193, 59 S.Ct. 155, 158, 83 L.Ed. 119 (1938).
See Krause, Bringing the Bastard into the Great Society—A Proposed Uniform Act on Legitimacy, 44 Tex.L.Rev. 829 (1966).
Louisiana law authorizes illegitimate children to claim support not only from both parents but also from the parents' heirs. See ante, at 534 n. 2. It thus goes considerably beyond the common law and statutes generally in force at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. These rarely did more than authorize public officials to bring an action directing the putative father to support a child who threatened to become a public charge. See 2 Kent's Commentaries *215 and nn. (b) and (c) (12th ed. O. W. Holmes 1873).
Louisiana law appears to direct that the birth certificate be changed only when the child has been legitimated. La.Rev.Stat. § 40:308 (1950).
See Part II, infra.
In addition, the trial court, despite uncontradicted testimony that the child required $192 per month for support, rejected the claim for alimony from her father's estate, as provided in Louisiana law, La.Civ.Code Ann., Arts. 240—242, 243, 919 (1952), on the ground that the child was receiving $100 per month in Social Security and Veterans Administration benefits.
La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 1495 (1952) provides:
'In the cases prescribed by the two last preceding articles (legitimate children and parents), the heirs are called forced heirs, because the donor can not deprive them of the portion of his estate reserved for them by law, except in cases where he has a just cause to disinherit them.' (Emphasis in original.)
Ibid. A parent can only disinherit a legitimate child if the parent alleges a certain statutorily defined 'just cause' in his will and in terms expresses his desire to disinherit the child. La.Civ.Code Ann., Arts. 1617—1620 (1952). Article 1621 of the Louisiana Civil Code specifies the 'just causes' for which disinherison is permitted:
'The just causes for which parents may disinherit their children are ten in number, to wit:
'1. If the child has raised his or her hand to strike the parent, or if he or she has actually struck the parent; but a mere threat is not sufficient.
'2. If the child has been guilty, towards a parent, of cruelty, of a crime or grievous injury.
'3. If the child has attempted to take the life of either parent.
'4. If the child has accused a parent of any capital crime, except, however, that of high treason.
'5. If the child has refused sustenance to a parent, having means to afford it.
'6. If the child has neglected to take care of a parent become insane.
'7. If the child refused to ransom them, when detained in captivity.
'8. If the child used any act of violence or coercion to hinder a parent from making a will.
'9. If the child has refused to become security for a parent, having the means, in order to take him out of prison.
'10. If the son or daughter, being a minor, marries without the consent of his or her parents.'
The persons seeking to take against the disinherited forced heir must prove the truth of the 'just cause' alleged in the parent's will. Pennywell v. George, 164 La. 630, 114 So. 493 (1927). Disinherison is not favored. Succession of Reems, 134 La. 1033, 64 So. 898 (1914).
La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 1493 (1952) provides, in pertinent part:
'Donations inter vivos or mortis causa can not exceed two-thirds of the property of the disposer, if he leaves, at his decease, a legitimate child; one-half, if he leaves two children; and one-third, if he leaves three or a greater number.'
See generally La.Civ.Code Ann., Arts. 1493—1518 (1952).
La.Const., Art. 4, § 16 (1921).
See, e.g., La.Civ.Code Ann., Arts. 215—237 (1952).
See generally Pelletier & Sonnenreich, A Comparative Analysis of Civil Law Succession, 11 Vill.L.Rev. 323 (1966).
La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 200 (1952), provides:
'A natural father or mother shall have the power to legitimate his or her natural children by an act passed before a notary and two witnesses, declaring that it is the intention of the parent making the declaration to legitimate such child or children. But only those natural children can be legitimated who are the offspring of parents who, at the time of conception, could have contracted marriage. Nor can a parent legitimate his or her natural offspring in the manner prescribed in this article, when there exists on the part of such parent legitimate ascendants or descendants.' (Emphasis added.)
La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 198 (1952) provides:
'Children born out of marriage, except those who are born from an incestuous connection, are legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their father and mother, whenever the latter have formally or informally acknowledged them for their children, either before or after the marriage.'
See Oppenheim, Acknowledgment and Legitimation in Louisiana—Louisiana Act 50 of 1944, 19 Tul.L.Rev. 325, 327 (1945).
See Succession of Elmore, 124 La. 91, 49 So. 989 (1909).
As Part II of this opinion makes clear, only parents of illegitimate children who could have married at the time of conception and who have no legitimate ascendants or descendants may legitimate those children by notorial act. See n. 12, supra. The Court relies on the fact that Mr. Vincent was within this narrow class of fathers of illegitimate children to suggest that Louisiana law allows fathers to decide whether or not their illegitimate children will inherit the father's estate. Ante, at 539. Even as to this class, however, Louisiana law places the burden on the father of a publicly acknowledged illegitimate child to take affirmative action to inherit that child, while virtually disabling the same father from disinheriting a legitimate child, or, at least, placing a burden of affirmative action on the father in order to disinherit the legitimate child. Thus, even as to this small group, the discrimination imposed by the State is clear.
The only context in which this statement might have relevance would be in the context of the question, not presented in this case, of the power of Congress to regulate the devolution of property upon the death of citizens of the various States. In such a case, the question would indeed be whether the Constitution commits such power exclusively to the States. It so happens that this Court, in an opinion written by my Brother Black, has held that the Constitution does not commit the power to regulate intestate succession exclusively to the States. United States v. Oregon, 366 U.S. 643, 649, 81 S.Ct. 1278, 1281, 6 L.Ed.2d 575 (1961) ('The fact that this (federal) law pertains to the devolution of property does not render it invalid. Although it is true that this is an area normally left to the States, it is not immune under the Tenth Amendment from laws passed by the Federal Government which are, as is the law here, necessary and proper to the exercise of a delegated power.').
E.g., Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970); Morey v. Doud, supra; Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U.S. 385, 89 S.Ct. 557, 21 L.Ed.2d 616 (1969); Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811 (1963); Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U.S. 553, 51 S.Ct. 582, 75 L.Ed. 1264 (1931). Cf. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256 (1896); Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954).
In one sentence in a footnote, the Court says, 'Even if we were to apply the 'rational basis' test to the Louisiana intestate succession statute, that statute clearly has a rational basis in view of Louisiana's interest in promoting family life and of directing the disposition of property left within the State.' Ante, at 536 n. 6. I agree that Louisiana has an interest in promoting family life and in directing the disposition of property left within the State. I do not understand how either of these interests provides any basis for Louisiana's discrimination against the acknowledged illegitimate, and the Court does not explain the relevance of these state interests.
In view of my conclusion that the present discrimination cannot stand even under the 'some rational basis' standard, I need not reach the questions whether illegitimacy is a 'suspect' classification that the State could not adopt in any circumstances without showing a compelling state interest, or whether fundamental rights are involved, which also would require a showing of a compelling state interest. See Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68, 71, 88 S.Ct. 1509, 1511, 20 L.Ed.2d 436 (1968); Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 86 S.Ct. 1079, 16 L.Ed.2d 169 (1966); Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 62 S.Ct. 1110, 86 L.Ed. 1655 (1942). This Court has generally treated as suspect a classification that discriminates against an individual on the basis of factors over which he has no control.
The concurring opinion suggests that the legal obligation to support the illegitimate child imposed by Louisiana law goes 'considerably beyond the common law and statutes generally in force at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted.' Ante, at 540 n. The authority cited by the concurrence for this proposition describes early 19th century American law on the subject as follows: 'The mother, or reputed father, is generally in this country chargeable by law with the maintenance of the bastard child; and in New York it is in such way as any two justices of the peace of the county shall think meet; and the goods, chattels, and real estate of the parents are seizable for the support of such children, if the parents have absconded. The reputed father is liable to arrest and imprisonment until he gives security to indemnify the town chargeable with the maintenance of the child. These provisions are intended for the public indemnity, and were borrowed from the several English statutes on the subject; and similar regulations to coerce the putative father to maintain the child, and indemnify the town or parish, have been adopted in the several states.' 2 J. Kent, Commentaries *215 (12th ed. O. Holmes 1873).
But see n. 19, supra.
Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the Commission on Human Rights, United Nations Economic and Social Council, Study of Discrimination against Persons Born Out of Wedlock: General Principles on Equality and Non-Discrimination in Respect of Persons Born out of Wedlock, U.N.Doc. E/CN. 4 Sub. 2/L 453 (Jan. 13, 1967).
Stone, Report of the Committee on the Law of Succession in Relation to Illegitimate Persons, 30 Mod.L.Rev. 552 (1967).
National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Uniform Probate Code § 2—109 (official text 1969).
Note, Illegitimacy, 26 Brookyln L.Rev. 45 (1959); Krause, Equal Protection for the Illegitimate, 65 Mich.L.Rev. 477 (1967); Krause, Bringing the Bastard into the Great Society—A Proposed Uniform Act on Legitimacy, 44 Tex.L.Rev. 829 (1966); Gray & Rudovsky, The Court Acknowledges the Illegitimate: Levy v. Louisiana and Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., 118 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1 (1969); Note, The Rights of Illegitimates Under Federal Statutes, 76 Harv.L.Rev. 337 (1962).
See the table summarizing state statutes in Note, Illegitimacy, 26 Brooklyn L.Rev. 45, 76—79 (1959). In 1959, New York as well as Louisiana did not allow illegitimate children to inherit equally from their mothers. New York has since changed its law. N.Y.Est., Powers & Trusts Law § 4—1.2(a)(1) (McKinney's Consol.Laws, c. 17—b, 1967).
Hawaii Rev.Laws § 577—14 (1968); Ky.Rev.Stat. § 391.090 (1962); Pa.Stat.Ann., Tit. 20, § 1.7 (1950).
Cal.Prov.Code § 255 (Supp.1971); Colo.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 153 2—8 (1963); Fla.Stat. § 731.29 (1965); Ga.Code Ann. § 74—103 (1964); Idaho Code § 14—104 (1947); Ind.Ann.Stat. § 6—207 (1953) (adjudication of paternity required); Iowa Code § 633.222 (1971); Kan.Stat.Ann. § 59—501 (1964); Mich.Stat.Ann. § 27.3178(153) (Supp.1970), M.C.L.A. § 702.83; Minn.Stat. § 525.172 (1967); Mont.Rev.Codes Ann. § 91—404 (1964); Neb.Rev.Stat. § 30—109 (1964); Nev.Rev.Stat. § 134.170 (1967); N.M.Stat.Ann. § 29—1—18 (1953); N.Y.Est., Powers & Trusts Law § 4—1.2 (1967) (order of filiation required); Okla.Stat.Ann., Tit. 84, § 215 (1970); S.D. Compiled Laws Ann. § 29—1—15 (1967); Utah Code Ann. § 74—4—10 (1953); Wash.Rev.Code § 11.04.081 (1967); Wis.Stat.Ann. § 237.06 (Supp. 1970).
Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 14—206 (1956); N.D.Cent.Code § 56—01 05 (Supp.1969); Ore.Rev.Stat. §§ 111.231, 109.060 (1957).
The state court also argued that Louisiana's disinheritance of the illegitimate would serve the State's interest in the stability of land titles, by avoiding 'the disruptions and uncertainties to result from unknown and not easily ascertained claims through averments of parentage * * *.' 229 So.2d, at 452. This is simply a variation on the State's interest in relying on formalities, see supra, at 552, which is completely served by public acknowledgment of parentage and simply does not apply to the case of acknowledged illegitimate children.
See n. 19, supra.
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Disentangling Style and Content in Anime Illustrations
Sitao Xiang, Hao Li
Keywords: Adversarial Training, Generative Models, Style Transfer, Anime
TL;DR: An adversarial training-based method for disentangling two complementary sets of variations in a dataset where only one of them is labelled, tested on style vs. content in anime illustrations.
Abstract: Existing methods for AI-generated artworks still struggle with generating high-quality stylized content, where high-level semantics are preserved, or separating fine-grained styles from various artists. We propose a novel Generative Adversarial Disentanglement Network which can disentangle two complementary factors of variations when only one of them is labelled in general, and fully decompose complex anime illustrations into style and content in particular. Training such model is challenging, since given a style, various content data may exist but not the other way round. Our approach is divided into two stages, one that encodes an input image into a style independent content, and one based on a dual-conditional generator. We demonstrate the ability to generate high-fidelity anime portraits with a fixed content and a large variety of styles from over a thousand artists, and vice versa, using a single end-to-end network and with applications in style transfer. We show this unique capability as well as superior output to the current state-of-the-art.
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SINCE SAUDI ARABIA IS THE BIRTHPLACE FOR ISLAM, DON’T MUSLIMS FOLLOW WHAT THE SAUDIS PREACH?
Saudi Arabia as a country only came into being in 1932 (less than 90 years ago) or over 1300 years after Muhammad (PBUH)’s death, so no, Saudi is not exactly the birthplace of Islam.
Mecca and Medina are indeed two key cities located within present-day Saudi Arabia. By governing the cities Mecca and Medina after its founding, the Saudi royal family has self-appointed itself as the guardian of the two Holy mosques but this does not in any way make them leaders over the Muslim community worldwide.
PRESENT-DAY MIDDLE EAST IS MODELLED ON AN IDEAL ISLAMIC SOCIETY.
Considering the simple, ascetic lifestyle Muhammad (PBUH) encouraged Muslims to lead, it is shocking the number of Muslim leaders living in sheer opulence in the Middle East and elsewhere today. It is also worth asking how does one generalise the entire Muslim world with the actions of what for example, Saudi Arabia which accounts for less than 2 percent of the world’s Muslim population that is, 34 million population does especially when no other Muslim-majority country around the world has the kind of regressive laws some Middle Eastern countries are infamous for.
Therefore, one could argue present-day Middle East does little to resemble the equal rights Muhammad (PBUH) promised when he was sent to mankind as a Prophet. Having said that, the West is also not exactly a beacon for women’s rights either. America today ranks top of a notorious list, in terms of women abuse and rape in the world today (where every two minutes a women is sexually assaulted and where 44 percent of the victims are under the age of 18) according to statistics by RAINN, America’s largest anti-sexual assault organization. But finger pointing is a cop-out and can go on until kingdom comes.
It is more important people understand, Islam as a religion is not based on the Islam practiced in for example, Saudi Arabia, the Middle East or (Aceh) Indonesia but true Islam practiced privately within the homes of genuine ordinary Muslims around the world – that every Muslim firmly believes only God-Allah is the able judge of what is right and wrong and not some Arab cleric who delivers lengthy speeches on moral codes and religious edicts and yet remains eerily silent when it comes to condemning the chauvinistic rule of some tyrannical dictators in the Middle East.
HOW CAN MUSLIMS THEN STILL BE STUCK WITH A SEVENTH-CENTURY VIEW WHEN IT COMES TO ITS WOMEN?
A number of Middle Eastern countries have strangely regressed to a view that is anything but seventh century, or after the passing of Muhammad (PBUH). Women enjoyed great rights and mobility then unlike present-day Middle East and in many respects the seventh century was inarguably the best century for women given the voluminous rights given to women, a large portion of which the West finally introduced 100 years ago or 1300 years following the advent of Islam.
Consent in marriage, freedom to work and control over economic livelihood, freedom from violence were all indeed unheard of among the monotheist religions until the arrival of Islam in the seventh century. But not long after those rights were established men mobilised to undermine these revolutionary advancements and corrode the gains made by women. (Source: Yassmin Abdel-Magied said nothing wrong. She should not have to face this venom, Joumanah El Matrah, 21 February 2017, The Guardian)
In fact, like in all monotheistic religions, middle-aged men controlled how Islam was to be understood and consequently a tradition was produced that favoured the worldview, interests and needs of men, thus there is no denying a large portion of what we see today is the corrupted cultural practices labeled Islamic, when it is anything but.
For example, homosexuality is considered a major sin in Islam but so is disrespecting parents; having sex outside marriage; severing ties of kinship; theft – all considered equally grievous along with 10 other major sins on the list in Islam.
Yet disproportional condemnation is reserved exclusively towards homosexuality and not nearly as much passionate intolerance directed towards some of the other major sins listed above, laying bare the misogynistic hijacking of Islam today by Muslim men which many Muslim feminist theologians, academic and circuit speakers today armed with decades of scholarship are working very hard towards reclaiming while on the other hand – overcoming the mainstream media narrative on Muslim women which is riddled with hyperbole, stigma, and misinformation.
DIDN’T MUHAMMAD MARRY A SIX-YEAR OLD AND CONSUMMATE THEIR MARRIAGE WHEN SHE WAS ONLY 9-12?
Scientifically verifiable, girls from that century and many generations thereafter the world over used to enter puberty much earlier due to varying climatic and geographical conditions then and thus, used to get married much sooner. Even boys were married off by the age of 10-13. This however was not limited to the Middle East but all over the world, including in Christian, non-Christian and atheist’ communities for a good part of the last 1,900 years. In fact, the idea of setting the age limit to 18 only came about less than 100-120 years ago.
Fast forward to 2017, Florida is one of 47 US states today that permits children of any age to be married with their parents’ permission and a ground-breaking report issued in 2011 found that some 9.4 million American girls were married before age 16. Nevertheless, it may be worth guessing the 18-year age limit may be too young in another 50-70 years.
Focusing on the question at hand and at the time of Muhammad (PBUH) 1400 years ago, the concept of schooling or seeking a career didn’t exist either therefore the fact that Muhammad (PBUH) married Aisha, when she was young was never an issue, not even to the Islamophobes of that era, as this was perfectly normal. What was not normal however was to stay married as women were used and disposed of during the era of ignorance (Jahiliya), before the advent of Islam but remarkably, Aisha and Muhammad (PBUH) remained married until his dying day when he died at age 63, with his head in her lap.
To however understand why this marriage took place when it did, Dr. Resit Hay Lamaz, author of the remarkable book “Aisha: The Wife, The Companion, The Scholar” explains it best:
Given the unique proximity to Muhammad (PBUH) thanks to the marriage, “Aisha’s bright, inquisitive mind and quick wit facilitated the transmission of knowledge that would have been next to impossible to transmit. Therefore as a direct result of this marriage, the 9-year old Muhammad (PBUH) married became the most important interpreter of the Qur’an and the main teacher of Hadith, becoming the foremost transmitter of Islam unlike any other. Perceptive scholars such as Hakim have said that one-fourth of the body of religious knowledge [Hadith or narrated teachings of Prophet Muhammad – PBUH] was transferred to us through Aisha [given her unrivalled proximity]. Following Muhammad (PBUH)’s death, when possible controversies arose, Aisha was a kind arbitrator. For mistakes on religious issues that emerged, she was a dignified corrector and a decisive and patient example of the straight path of Islam. If there is one woman responsible for the huge important expansion in the rights of women, Aisha is to be credited first and foremost. Aisha defended women not because they were right. She did not refrain from admonishing women who were wrong, who went too far, who were trying to force the boundaries of religion. Justice and equity was the essence of her decision-making, illustrating how the young nine-year old he married came to become revered throughout the Muslim world rightfully, as the Mother of all Believers”.
BUT ALL RELIGIONS INCLUDING ISLAM HAVE A PATRIACHIAL ATTITUDE TOWARDS ITS WOMEN.
From peddling stereotypes that show Muslim women as constantly oppressed to the hijab, which is seen as the epitome of oppression, the idea that Islam encourages unfairness towards women has been a favorite claim of the Islamophobia industry for years. There is nothing in the Qur’an to justify the controlled seclusion of women.
The Qur’an gave women rights of inheritance and divorce, legal rights the Western world didn’t have until the end of the 19th century.
As an example, Muhammad (PBUH)’s first wife or the very first person to become a Muslim in the Prophet’s era, Khadija (R.A) was a noble businesswomen before they met and there are plenty of historical documents that prove she held her own therefore if not anything else, the Saudi government may have appointed themselves the “Guardian of the two Holy Mosques” and our women but they are not all role models for Muslims within the country let alone, outside the country, a bitter truth most ordinary Muslims will privately, if not publicly admit.
ALL FUNDAMENTALIST RELIGIONS (INCLUDING THOSE ROOTED IN JUDAISM OR CHRISTIANITY) SEEK TO CONTROL FEMALE SEXUALITY.
The key problem with this argument is that it conflates a moral right with a factual inaccuracy. While it is perfectly right to criticise any culture that limits women, one ought to at the very least understand Islam is a religion and not a culture. If the Saudis for example, who account for less than two percent of the world’s Muslim population and are not in any way, shape or form representative of Islam impose prohibitive restrictions on the movement and rights of women, it has more to do with their culture than the rights given to women in Islam. Besides, if this were in any way Islamic, why are the same restrictions not applied in other fifty-odd Muslim-majority countries around the world?
Progress towards women’s rights in the West had to wait until the late-19th and early-20th centuries and even to this day, fast forward a hundred years there remains a huge disparity in those rights, regardless of whether people in the West admit or deny it. Wage inequality, glass ceiling, high heels and dress code expectations to name a few, are still issues in many parts of the West.
Quoting directly from another important article on the subject: “Islam on the other hand institutionalised gender equality upon its inception, in far worse circumstances”. (Source: Islam Is Actually A Feminist Religion: 5 Myths About Islam, Mint Press News)
The pre-Islamic environment of 7th century Mecca, with its tribalism, lack of law and order and constant warfare, was strongly male-dominated. The advent of Islam challenged the status quo and sought not only to introduce a new kind of social order but to limit the excesses of Meccan society, which directly harmed women and girls. (Source: No, Islam Is Not Inherently Misogynistic. Here’s Why by Bina Shah, 23 July, 2015, Huffington Post)
It is therefore bewildering why the religion that had revolutionised the status of women is still being singled out and repeatedly misrepresented as so repressive of women. This misinformation about Islam is inarguably one of two most widespread myths about Islam in our world today, with the role of violence in Islam as the other contentious issue often exploited and misrepresented by Islamophobes. Having said that, this may in large part have to do with the way the loudest voices (and most unrepresentative of ordinary Muslims) act, speak and behave in public, while calling themselves Muslims.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record for this has been repeated more times than it has been necessary, it is unfair to blame Islam if a group of people or a given society does not follow the edicts based on the Qur’an and Hadiths (narrated sayings and recorded actions of Muhammad – PBUH). After all, it is only fair to look at what the religion of Islam or any other religions says about women and not what its deviant followers or people who call themselves Muslims do.
Put simply, blame the driver, not the car.
ISLAM AND MUSLIM-MAJORITY COUNTRIES SHOULD BE CRITICISED IN THE MEDIA FOR FEMALE GENETILIA MUTILATION (FGM), FORCED MARRIAGES AND HONOUR KILLINGS.
People or countries that show little sign of wanting to bring to an absolute end to female genital mutilation (FGM), forced marriages and honour killings should not only be condemned and criticised but every effort should be made to boycott these countries however, we need to first get our facts straight.
Female genital mutilation, forced marriages and honour killings are all often misreported as inherently Islamic issues, despite well-substantiated evidence of their presence in many other non-Islamic cultures around the world, including in Africa, sub-continent Hindu India and many non-animist countries around the world. In fact, why does the fact that Islam has clear precedents calling against all of the above seem to matter little in the generic media reporting while the fact that these are practiced by some Muslims and non-Muslims as part of their ancestral tradition and patriarchal culture (and not religion) matter so much?
The key is education and generating willingness from the community. Else nothing will change and women and girls in these cultures will remain in the same quagmire.
WHY THEN IS FGM SUCH AN ISSUE IN SO MANY MUSLIM-MAJORITY COUNTRIES IN AFRICA?
Muslims account for only 12 percent of the population in Liberia while Christians account for 85.5 percent of the population and yet half of Liberian women and girls are estimated to have undergone Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), illustrating how FGM is not an Islamic issue but a cultural practice in Africa with zero health benefits that no doubt needs to be banned.
The same could be said for Eritrea that has a 50 percent Christian population or Ethiopia where Christians make up to 62 percent of the population and Kenya as well as Central African Republic where 83 percent are Christians. In all these cases, FGM remains a prevalent issue today. Undeniably, FGM is also a challenge for a number of Muslim-majority countries in Africa including Somalia, Guinea, Djibouti while Nigeria and Gambia, are two leading Muslim-majority countries in the African continent that have decided to move with the times with the relevant legislations enacted recently to help bring this barbaric practice to an end.
In reality though, unless tough legislation is enacted and properly enforced, it will remain an uphill battle to accelerate change in this abhorring form of child abuse and the lives and wellbeing of millions more girls will continue to be put at risk.
WHY ARE MUSLIM WOMEN DISRESPECTED IN ISLAM AND REQUIRED TO COVER UP SO MUCH?
In the words of Imam Mongy Elquesny, leader of the Northwest Indiana Islamic Center in Crown Point: “If your definition of disrespect is due to the requirement of women in Islam to dress modestly then you can make the same argument for nuns and the Virgin Mary being disrespected in the Christian faith . . . You can also make the argument that those women in the entertainment industry who are encouraged to not dress modestly are creating an environment that focuses on the physical appeal of women rather than their intellect. Therefore, that ends up disrespecting women too”. (Source: Muslim leaders address questions about Islamic faith, culture by Jerry Davich, 3 April 2016, Chicago Tribune)
WHY DO MUSLIM WOMEN INSIST ON WEARING THE HIJAB OR HEADSCARF?
Hijab has little to with the headscarf given how Hijab encompasses much more than an article of clothing. In the eloquent words of Rawan AbuShaban: Hijab refers to one’s behavior, speech, countenance, and dress. It is a habitual practice that is applicable to both men and women. Not engaging in obnoxiousness, boisterous behavior, resisting flirtations, prolonged staring, and idleness with the opposite sex, and wearing clothes that conceal one’s figure, and preserve one’s beauty . . . Hijab isn’t something one wears; it is how one is. A person’s hijab is one’s modesty in its entirety. It is an Islamic code of conduct, respect for oneself and for one another. (Source: Differentiating the Hijab From the Headscarf by Rawan AbuShaban, 15 Feb 2016, Huffington Post)
In a separate article, Assignment Editor/Producer and Writer Slma Shelbayah at CNN shares: “At a time when a woman’s body is often depicted sexually in the fashion and media industry, it can feel liberating and empowering not caving into these idealized images . . . Let me not forget those who are forced to wear hijab unwillingly. They also exist. To their perpetrators, I say, “you do not represent Islam nor do Muslims want to be associated with you for imposing your political agenda on women . . . It sits on my head so silently, yet says so much as a symbol. It makes me stand out from the crowd. It screams that I am different. And though my body is physically covered, the scarf puts all of me on display”. (Source: Removing hijab, finding myself By Slma Shelbayah, Assignment Editor/Producer and Writer, CNN, November 11, 2015, CNN)
Perhaps Dr. Ali Merad, a professor of Arabic literature and civilisation at the University of Lyon, France says it best: “If a woman wears a short skirt and drinks wine, Frenchmen don’t care about her skin colour. But when she wears a headscarf, France becomes neurotic”. (Source: Dining with Terrorists, Author, Phil Rees)
WEARING A BURQINI IS AN OBVIOUS SIGN A PERSON DOES NOT WISH TO ACCEPT THE CUSTOMS AND HABITS OF THE COUNTRY WHERE THEY HAVE DECIDED TO LIVE.
Telling Muslim women they have to be at least semi-naked in order to prove their inclusiveness is astonishingly hypocritical: Politicians too talk constantly about integration, and then proceed to push to the fringes the very women they claim are oppressed and excluded from society. (Source: Five reasons to wear a burkini – and not just to annoy the French, Remona Aly, 15 August 2016, The Guardian)
In France, a nun in traditional dress is seen as going about her day, whereas a woman in a headscarf is taking over public space in the name of Islam. (Source: The West can have burkinis or democracy, but not both, Yascha Mounk, 27 August 2016, Foreign Policy Magazine)
If there was any doubt that the French belief in freedom of expression is wholly one-sided, it has surely vanished now. France cannot be in favour of free expression when it offends Muslims, but whines about provocation when Muslims and others choose to be different. (Source: France defended Charlie Hebdo’s right to o end – so why can’t a Muslim woman in a burkini ‘offend’ us too?, Sunny Hundal, 25 August 2016, The Independent)
Isn’t it bizzare that when the Saudis tell you how to dress it is oppression, but when France does it, it’s called liberation. If women in thongs and string bikinis can express themselves, who is being harmed if a women chooses to cover up on a beach? (Source: Burkini controversy puzzles North Jersey Muslim women, Patricia Alex and Monsy Alvarado, 28 August 2016, USA Today)
A burqini is simply a garment, for example, for a modest person, someone with skin cancer, or a new mother who doesn’t want to wear a bikini. It is not symbolic of Islam. (Source: Why we wear the burkini: five women on dressing modestly at the beach, Carmen Fishwick, 31 August 2016, The Guardian)
As sociologist Agnès De Féo said during an interview with CBS News: It is easier to accuse French Muslims “than to solve real social problems: unemployment, poverty, and social inequality”. (Source: France’s burkini bans justifiable security measures or Islamophobia, Pamela Falk, 25 August 2016, CBS News)
The French establishment talks about “liberty, equality, fraternity”. It claims to want Muslim women to achieve independence from their men, but deprives them of the means to acquire it, by keeping them indoors. This is a betrayal of its own core values. (Source: How a legal misunderstanding is fuelling France’s witch-hunt of Muslim women, Christine Delphy, 29 August 2016, The Guardian)
In fact, if the self-professed feminists of the world really want Muslim women not be oppressed, it may be worth asking what we are all doing about the rising Islamophobia slowly becoming a legitimate ideology in the West, because that Islamophobia disproportionately hurts visibly Muslim women most.
Susan Carland, a lecturer at Monash University’s National Centre for Australian Studies, says it best: Yet for something about which so many people are adamantly sure, I feel there is very little information from the women actually involved . . . It’s uncanny how often people try to demonstrate their concern about the alleged oppression of Muslim women by humiliating them. (Source: If you want to know about Muslim women’s rights, ask Muslim women by Susan Carland, 7 May 2017, The Guardian)
YET THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT ISLAM THAT LEADS INEXORABLY TO THE SUBJUGATION OF WOMEN.
We ordinary Muslims need to fully [re-learn], understand and acknowledge the unique rights of Muslim women in Islam and distinguish this [indisputable] fact with the un-Islamic and poor treatment of women in certain if not most Muslim-majority countries today. While Islam offers more than equal rights to women in our midst, the powers that be as well as patriarchal societies in Muslim-majority countries continue to repress such rights to women in their own societies. Muslim women today suffer social and cultural marginalization, political exclusion, economic discrimination and threats, and acts of violence all over the world. (Source: How can the rights of Islamic women be improved? By Maha Akeel, 23 March 2016, Newsweek)
The point is, women are certainly not mistreated in Islam but also do not enjoy the optimal equal rights in many Muslim-majority countries they rightly deserve.
However, the same argument could be made for many non-Muslim countries around the world today. From violence and rape against women that has become rife in reality and on TV, the cinema and on stage to the unashamed mourning of celebrities accused of sexual abuse let alone mainstreaming of pedophilia, pornography and sexual abuse, the West is hardly a beacon for women rights.
After all, aren’t celebrities in the West often compelled to take their clothes off to “grace” covers of magazines with soft-porn photo shoots to help with their profile while advertisements involving women having orgasms about food are increasingly commonplace today? Indeed, no one does it better than the West when it comes to reducing women into “empowered” sexual objects especially since pornography, became widely available on the internet at the turn of the century.
In fact, some women are under so much pressure today to be “sexy” that they have stopped standing up for themselves and each other in matters relating to sexual abuse, body shaming and rape. Again, volumes have been written about this, to no avail.
Granted, rape is not only just confined to the West but is endemic in many shady, impoverished corners of the globe as well but to claim women in the West are better off than their counterparts in the East let alone parts of the Middle East could not be more further from the truth and is most certainly an issue that can be vigorously argued from almost all sides.
WHY THEN ARE FEMINISTS THE WORLD OVER CONCERNED ABOUT DETERIORATING RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM?
How then would you explain the deafening and choking silence from white feminists (ever ready to liberate Muslim women from Muslim patriarchy) and yet stony, hypocritical silence when it came to condemning the French and the EU courts for policing women how to dress and restricting the fundamental liberties of Muslim women in France?
Women’s rights are theirs, and the subject has no place being bandied about by uppity Muslim women. Feminism is something the West beneficently imposes on Muslims, never something that can be indigenously theirs, and certainly never in a form that isn’t Western, liberal and secular. To them, the only way a Muslim can be a feminist is to view Islam with the same unwavering misogyny-goggles they do. (Source: Yassmin Abdel-Magied and the Australian crucible, Susan Carland, 25 February 2017, The Saturday Paper)
Citing a number of further examples of leading commentators starting with: Sunny Hundal at the Independent Newspaper wrote:
“France cannot be in favour of free expression when it offends Muslims, but whine about provocation when Muslims choose to be different. This is astonishingly hypocritical.” (Source: France defended Charlie Hebdo’s right to offend – so why can’t a Muslim woman in a burkini ‘offend’ us too?, 26 August 2016, The Independent)
Arundhati Roy too, eloquently put it: “Coercing a woman out of the burka instead of enabling her to choose is an act of violence, humiliation and cultural imperialism.” (Source: The burkini ban is misogynistic – and Western feminists are turning a blind eye, Huda Jawad, 13 August 2016, The Independent)
A nun is allowed to wear a headdress and not be called oppressed because she is devoting her life to Christianity, but as soon as a Muslim woman wears a headscarf, suddenly it’s called oppression and racists say these women are being forced to do things, but people forget it’s their own choice. (Source: Muslim girls fence against Islamophobia in the UK, Zeb Mustafa, 8 July 2016, Aljazeera.com)
There have been multiple incidents of schoolgirls being forbidden from wearing ‘long skirts’ to school – not when they’re worn as a fashion statement, but when they’re worn by Muslim girls because then it suddenly becomes a ‘religious symbol’. (Source: Dear white people of France: being forced to undress wasn’t exactly the liberation I was longing for, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, 24 August 2016, The Independent)
Given such, can a Muslim be faulted for asking where were the usually loud intersectional feminists of the world or actresses trying to brand themselves as feminist icons when Muslim women came under attack in one of the self-professed leading democracies of the world?
Alarmingly, the decision the EU judges made is strikingly like the anti-Jewish legislation that was passed in Germany prior to the Second World War. The Nuremberg laws specifically targeted a social group by restricting them on an economic level. Jews were banned from professions such as midwifery and law, and state contracts were cancelled with Jewish owned businesses. That is not dissimilar to telling a woman that she is not welcome at a workplace if she decides to identify as a member of a given faith. (Source: Europe has started to enshrine Islamophobia into law – history tells us this can’t end well, So a Ahmed, 14 March 2017, The Independent)
Therefore, how can we consider ourselves advocates and guideposts for feminism for the progression of all women and at the same time sideline Muslim women who are fighting systematic discrimination in the West?
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PAULLEBOWITZ.COM
Attendance Figures, Part II—Some Teams Just Don’t Try
All Star Game, Ballparks, Books, CBA, Cy Young Award, Draft, Fantasy/Roto, Free Agents, Games, Hall Of Fame, History, Hot Stove, Management, Media, MiLB, MLB Trade Deadline, MLB Waiver Trades, MVP, Paul Lebowitz's 2012 Baseball Guide, PEDs, Players, Playoffs, Politics, Prospects, Spring Training, Stats, Trade Rumors, Umpires, World Series
It’s not a remote experience for clubs to be content with losing 90 games, occasionally getting lucky and hovering around .500 and collect revenue sharing, put forth the pretense of spending money on players and pocketing profits while formulating a new plan every few years to return their teams to prominence while not caring whether their teams win or not.
The Twins and Pirates were rotten for years and refused to spend money. The Cubs have loyal fans and have had ownerships that have tried to win, but there’s a masochistic enjoyment of being known as the “lovable losers” to the point where it doesn’t matter if they win or not because they’re going to be in the top 5 in attendance no matter what. That attitude of, “oh, whatever” is one major thing that Theo Epstein has to combat. The Red Sox had a similar attitude of liking the pain of The Curse and constantly being abused by the Yankees and the Baseball Gods. Epstein ended that attitude in Boston; it might be harder to do with the Cubs.
For teams like the Twins and Pirates, it just so happened that the continuous presence at the ocean floor in the standings led to high draft picks and eventually those draft picks begat circumstantial improvement to the big league product. The Pirates are still 15th in the National League in attendance despite being in playoff contention and having a one of the few players in baseball that it’s worth the price of admission to see, Andrew McCutchen. Even the last Pirates teams that were legitimately good and had star power from Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla didn’t draw better than middle of the pack in the NL. It’s a football town and the ballpark has had little to do with anything in terms of fans coming out.
The Twins are an example of the simplest of cause and effects when it comes to a sports franchise. It’s been evident with the Mets of recent years and now the Phillies and Orioles in different directions. If the teams are good, the fans will pay to go and see it; if the teams are bad, they won’t. This is a different circumstance than what confronts the Pirates, the Florida franchises and the Athletics. The Twins were bad for years and played in an unfriendly atmosphere in the Metrodome. They built from within and became the dominant team in the AL Central for almost a decade, then moved into a brand new park, Target Field and spent money to try and win once they were on the verge to do so. They never made it to the finish line with the Johan Santana, Joe Mauer, Torii Hunter core and now the team is facing a long rebuilding process. The fans are still coming to the park in reasonable numbers, but if the rebuild takes a long time that won’t last, new park or not.
The Mets attendance has plummeted from 3-5 years ago with the club a title contender and the opening of Citi Field and it’s happened because the team has been unlikable, rudderless and just plain bad. Aggravation with the franchise has caused apathy within the fanbase. The prices of the tickets aren’t helping matters either. What family can go to a game in this economy when paying $30 (at the minimum) each for a ticket and having to pay $20 to park, plus food and souvenirs? If you’re talking about a family of four paying in excess of $200 to sit in the upper deck and watch a team that’s floundering after a surprisingly good first half, what’s the point? These fans are not casual and they are loyal, but they don’t want to hear about the bright future (and the Mets do have a bright future) when the now is so mediocre and pricey.
The Orioles regularly led the American League in attendance in the 1990s when they had just built Camden Yards—the first of the new age/old school parks that are now the norm—and maintained that trend until the fans could no longer take the perennial losing and stopped going. Now they’re coming back because there’s been a significant improvement in the team. But Baltimore is a baseball town with a long history of success and were waiting for the team to be good again. The Marlins and Rays have no chance of success in Florida because the Florida population in general doesn’t care about baseball one way or the other.
Read Part I here.
August 10, 2012 Paul Lebowitz Tagged Andrew McCutchen, Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Boston Red Sox, Camden Yards, Chicago Cubs, Citi Field, Cost of going to a Mets game, Cubs, Cubs attendance, Cubs lovable losers, Fans don't care about baseball in Florida, Joe Mauer, Johan Santana, Marlins, Mets attendance, Miami Marlins, Orioles, Orioles attendance, Pirates, Rays, Red Sox, Red Sox curse, Tampa Bay Rays, Theo Epstein, Torii Hunter Leave a comment
← Figures of Attendance, Part I–the Mets, Rays and Marlins
Figures of Attendance, Part III—the Genius Can’t Conjure Fans to Come to the Park →
Why was the 2019 MLB Trade Deadline so different from the past?
The Giants’ rebuild hits a snag: They’re winning
A note about the Mets bullpen and revisionist history
A lesson for the Mets on the manager from none other than Billy Beane
The Mets and ending their definition of mediocrity
2013 MLB Predicted Standings
Fantasy/Roto
MLB Trade Deadline
MLB Waiver Trades
Paul Lebowitz's 2011 Baseball Guide
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BEZOS V BEZOS
Mar 15, 2019 | Divorce, Family Law, marriage
“WHEN YOU have loving and supportive people in your life, like MacKenzie…you end up being able to take risks.” So declared Jeff Bezos, boss of Amazon, the e-commerce giant, last April. This affirmation by the planet’s richest man of the contribution of his wife of 25 years to the company (she was in the founding team) takes on a new significance now that the power couple is preparing to split.
When a founder divorces it can affect firms and shareholders in several ways. Most consequential are changes in corporate control. In the case of Wynn Resorts, a casino group, for example, its founder, Steve Wynn, was challenged for control by his former wife, Elaine, after a bitter divorce in 2010. She became the largest shareholder in the group and demanded governance reforms.
Mr. Bezos is not thought to have a prenuptial agreement. In the state of Washington, where the couple mainly live, Ms. Bezos is entitled to half of her husband’s $137 billion fortune (if the divorce is filed elsewhere, her share may be lower). Critically, Mr. Bezos owns a smaller proportion of his firm than other tech founders: whereas Mark Zuckerberg, for example, controls 51.3% of Facebook’s voting rights through a dual-class structure, Mr. Bezos controls only about 16% of Amazon and has no special voting rights.
The divorce could weaken his hand in two ways. His stake could be cut to 8% (though Ms. Bezos may accept some cash or put her shares in a trust), changing the balance of power with the largest institutional investors—Vanguard has a 6% stake, for example. And she may demand a board seat. It is conceivable that she might then oppose her ex-husband’s plans at the company. She might push for pay rises for workers, say, that hurt profits (Amazon is already under pressure in this regard).
To reassure shareholders, reckons William Klepper of Columbia Business School, author of The CEO’s Boss, Amazon’s board must now hold discussions with Mr. Bezos about how any share transfer will take place and communicate relevant points to shareholders. The board will need to be vigilant on other fronts, too, says David Larcker of Stanford Graduate School of Business. Executives going through a divorce often get distracted, which explains why a company spokesman insisted this week that “Jeff remains focused”. Studies have also shown that a big reduction in wealth through divorce can lead a boss to make more aggressive corporate bets in the hope of clawing back riches. Some boards have even awarded CEOs extra pay to tamp down such behavior.
Mr. Bezos’s best defense may not be legal maneuvering, but continuing to do his job well. Amazon has outperformed the S&P 500 index by 33% over the last year, and by over 2,000% over the past decade. A recent survey by Stanford found him (and not Tesla’s Elon Musk) to be “the most difficult CEO to replace”. For now, the love affair between Mr. Bezos and investors is still going strong.1
1 This blog was taken from The Economist, Bezos v Bezos, January 19th 2019, retrieved from: https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/19/what-the-break-up-of-the-worlds-richest-couple-means-for-amazon
+ 7 = eight
Tags: alimony, clearwater family attorney, divorce, divorce attorney, divorce attorney clearwater, divorce lawyer clearwater, family attorney clearwater, Family Law, family lawyer pinellas, family lawyer tampa
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Quiz: Do You Know the Meaning of These Cowboy Sayings?: HowStuffWorks
Do You Know the Meaning of These Cowboy Sayings?
Were you glued to the television for every small screen Western? Do you wish there were more playing on the big screen? Do you dream of living in the Wild Wild West? Take this How Stuff Works quiz if you fancy yourself a real, live cowboy.
Git along little doggie. Ok, so we're not entirely sure that this is an actual cowboy saying, but it was the first one that came to mind for us. Cowboys ride the range, mend fences, and rope cattle. Yes, they really do exist, and they are not just a figment of our imaginations. And, just like any pursuit, cowboys have their own unique set of sayings that hold meanings that are sometimes apparent only to other cowboys. We've compiled a list of them here.
Here's one of our favorites: "Don't approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a _____ from any direction." Can you fill in the blank? If you said "fool," you're right, and you'll probably do well on this quiz. If you said anything other than "fool," you've either had a very different life from the rest of us or you need to spend some time on the farm.
We challenge you to ace this cowboy quiz.
Don't ______ with your spurs on.
It seems advisable to not do any of these with spurs on. However, we were looking for "Don't squat with your spurs on."
Don't judge anybody by their __________.
Wise words with any answer, We were, however, looking for "Don't judge people by their relatives."
Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a _____ from any direction.
The saying is "Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction." Simply put, stay away from fools.
Always drink upstream from the ____.
The saying is "Always drink upstream from the herd." The prospects are better.
If you have to lose, don't lose the _______.
The saying is "When you lose, don't lose the lesson." This means, don't get so caught up in the loss that you fail to learn from it.
If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop ________.
laughin'
diggin'
watchin'
The saying is "If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging," This advises one to stop and take a minute before continuing.
If it don't seem like it's worth the ______, it probably ain't.
The saying is "If it don't seem like it's worth the effort, it probably ain't." Put your effort into things that are worth it.
Sometimes you ___ and sometimes you get got.
The saying is "Sometimes you get and sometimes you get got." Life is a balance. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad.
Telling a man to get lost and ______ him do it are two entirely different propositions.
makin'
askin'
The saying is "Telling a man to get lost and making him do it are two entirely different propositions." You have to be willing to back it up.
The biggest ____________ you'll probably ever have to deal with watches you shave his face in the mirror every morning.
The saying is "The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with watches you shave his face in the mirror every morning." Most of us do a good job of making things harder on ourselves.
Never ask a ______ if you need a haircut.
The saying is "Never ask a barber if you need a haircut." Clearly, the answer will always be "yes."
If you get to thinking you're a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else's ___ around.
The saying is "If you get to thinking you're a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else's dog around." We have little influence outside our own domain.
You ain't ________ nothin' when your mouth's a-jawin'.
eatin'
singin'
sayin'
The expression is "Generally, you ain't learning nothing when your mouth's a-jawing." This means you have to be quiet to learn and hear what others are saying.
If you're ______ ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there with you.
The saying is "If you're riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there with you." People aren't always going to be willing to follow where you lead.
Good _________ comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
The saying is "Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment." This means that you're probably going to make your share of mistakes.
When you give a personal lesson in ________ to a critter or to a person, don't be surprised if they learn their lesson.
The expression is "When you give a personal lesson in meanness to a critter or to a person, don't be surprised if they learn their lesson." Don't teach people and animals to be mean. They will return the favor.
Letting the ___ outta the bag is a whole lot easier than putting it back.
The saying is "Letting the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than putting it back." You can't undo most things.
The quickest way to double your _____ is to fold it over and put it back into your pocket.
The saying is "The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back into your pocket." Better safe than sorry. Don't risk your money.
You can't tell how good a ___ or a watermelon is until they get thumped.
The saying is "You can't tell how good a man or a watermelon is until they get thumped." One's character comes out when it's tested.
Remember that ________ is sometimes the best answer.
The saying is "Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer." This means that you don't always have to respond to everything. Just listen.
Never miss a good ______ to shut up.
The saying is "Never miss a good chance to shut up." Many times, it's best to say nothing.
The ____ is up.
The saying is "The jig is up." This means that the truth has come out.
By hook or ______.
The saying is "By hook or crook." This means to get something done any way possible.
Head ’em up, ____ ’em out.
The saying is "Head ’em up, move ’em out." This means "let's go."
I took to the life of a cowboy like a _____ takes to oats.
The saying is "I took to the life of a cowboy like a horse takes to oats." This means it came naturally.
It's better to keep your mouth shut and look ______ than open it and prove it.
The saying is "It's better to keep your mouth shut and look ______ than open it and prove it." This is a play on the old saying "Tis better to be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."
Just because _______ comes visiting doesn't mean you have to offer it a place to sit down.
The saying is "Just because trouble comes visiting doesn't mean you have to offer it a place to sit down." It's best to avoid trouble, not invite it.
Don't interfere with something that ain't _________ you.
botherin'
The saying is "Don't interfere with something that ain't bothering you." This is a catchy way of saying mind your own business.
The only good reason to ride a bull is to meet a _____.
The saying is "The only good reason to ride a bull is to meet a nurse." If you ride a bull, you're likely to get hurt.
Above your ____.
The saying is "Above your bend." It means that something is out of your control or out of your reach.
A lick and a _______.
The saying is "A lick and a promise." This refers to something done shoddily.
Airing the _____.
The saying is "Airing the lungs. " This is what a cowboy would be doing if he were cussing.
It's not all ____ and skittles.
The saying is "It's not all beer and skittles." This means that something is unpleasant.
They're all down but ____.
The saying is "They're all down but nine." It means that you missed the point.
You're barking at a ____.
The saying is "You're barking at a knot." It means that what you're doing is useless.
Can We Guess Your Intelligence Type Based on This Word Association Test?
Which Famous Cowboy Are You Most Like?
What’s Your Best Quality?
Build a Subway Sandwich and We'll Guess Your Age
What’s Your Enchantress Name?
What % Cowboy Are You?
How Weird Are You?
What Age Is Your Inner Soul?
Take This Word Association Test and We'll Guess Your Dominant Personality Trait!
Tell Us Your Stance on These Unpopular Foods and We'll Guess If You're Millennial or Gen Z
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Pirelli experiences thrilling Spa GP3 weekend
The Spa-Francorchamps circuit, located in the foothills of the Ardennes in Belgium, traditionally produces some dramatic races. This year was no exception, in Pirelli's first season of supplying the newly-created GP3 Series. The GP3 Series exists to train young drivers for the demands they will face at the pinnacle of single-seater racing in the future, such as Formula One, which will be supplied by Pirelli from 2011. At Spa, the champions of tomorrow learned some hard lessons. One of the defining characteristics of Spa is variable weather, and this was very much in evidence throughout qualifying and both races. Pirelli came to Spa - the seventh and penultimate round of the GP3 Series - with the medium compound PZero 13-inch tyre, designed to cope with a wide range of weather conditions. However, the rain tyre also played a starring role during the weekend at Spa, whose iconic corners such as Eau Rouge and Blanchimont have defined motorsport history. Qualifying on Saturday morning provided a taste of what was to come, as it was held on a wet track that progressively dried out. Consequently, drivers started the session on rain tyres before coming in to switch to slick tyres as a dry line emerged. "From a technical point of view it was a very interesting session, as it allowed us to evaluate the performance of our tyres on a drying track, and assess at which point slick tyres became quicker," commented Mario Isola, Pirelli's Racing Manager. The first race on Saturday afternoon was interrupted by safety cars and torrential rain. When the rain hit, nearly all the competitors dived into the pits to change to wet tyres. But pole-sitter Robert Wickens stayed out on slicks to take the lead and because of a safety car, none of the other competitors were allowed to overtake him. The Status Grand Prix driver judged his pace to ensure that the maximum permitted time limit for the race would be reached, so that it could end under the safety car and give him victory. The second race on Sunday morning was won by Adrien Tambay, the son of ex-Formula One driver Patrick Tambay. The Frenchman was quickest in Friday practice but started Sunday's race from 27th on the grid: co-incidentally the race number that his father was most famous for. Again, the race was hit by rain halfway through but Tambay managed to drive through the shower and then take advantage of his PZero slick tyres when the track dried out again. With most other drivers having chosen to pit for rain tyres, Tambay claimed a brilliant tactical victory for Manor Motorsport. "Our tyres were at the centre of the action this weekend, which featured two of the most unusual and entertaining races that we have seen so far this GP3 season," added Isola. "The performance of Robert Wickens on Saturday and Adrien Tambay on Sunday proved that our medium compound PZero slick tyres were able to stay on the road even in mixed conditions. Both drivers managed to use the rain to their advantage even while running on our slick tyres. We are delighted to see that GP3 is fulfilling its role of teaching drivers not only about close competition but also about racecraft in challenging conditions." The final two races of the eight-round GP3 series take place on home territory for Pirelli at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza from September 11-12. With the championship leader Esteban Gutierrez failing to score this weekend, Wickens still stands a chance of claiming the inaugural GP3 drivers' title in Italy.
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News | Policy
Brandis Backs Down on Bigotry
Thursday, 27th March 2014 at 10:25 am
Federal Attorney General George Brandis has watered down his controversial changes to the racial discrimination laws, however community organisations remain steadfast that no changes should be made to the current law.
Thursday, 27th March 2014
Previously the Coalition Government’s proposed changes, as part of an election commitment, were to Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) , which prohibit public conduct that is reasonably likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” a person or groups because of their skin colour or national or ethnic origin.
However, the Government has announced that while continuing to repealing some sections of the Act a new section will be inserted which Senator Brandis claims will preserve the existing protection against intimidation and create a new protection from racial vilification.
“This will be the first time that racial vilification is proscribed in Commonwealth legislation sending a clear message that it is unacceptable in the Australian community,” Senator Brandis said.
“I have always said that freedom of speech and the need to protect people from racial vilification are not inconsistent objectives. Laws which are designed to prohibit racial vilification should not be used as a vehicle to attack legitimate freedoms of speech.”
Co-Chairs of Reconciliation Australia, Dr Tom Calma and Melinda Cilento released a joint statement saying they are opposed to any changes to the RDA which weaken the protections against racial discrimination.
“The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (RDA) currently ensures all Australians are protected from discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, descent or ethnic origin,” Dr Calma and Cilento said.
“Any changes to the RDA that weaken protections from racial vilification would pave the way to a less reconciled, just and equitable Australia. We therefore strongly oppose the current proposed changes to the RDA which repeal Section 18C.”
The Reconciliation Australia Co-Chairs said the use of defamation laws by politicians from both sides of politics was well known and exemplifies the balance between free speech and the need for citizens to be protected from scurrilous and false verbal attacks.
“We note that Section 18D of the current Racial Discrimination Act contains exemptions for ‘anything said or done reasonably and in good faith’ and, in the case of publishing, anything that constitutes ‘a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest’.
“We note that in the key case against which the alleged free speech restrictions of the RDA are being measured – the Andrew Bolt case – the judge, J Bromberg, found that Mr Bolt contravened section 18C because the articles were not written in good faith and contained factual errors, and therefore not made exempt by Section 18D of the RDA.
“In his judgment J Bromberg found the Section 18D exemptions did not apply because of ‘….the manner in which the articles were written, including that they contained errors of fact, distortions of the truth and inflammatory and provocative language’.
“Section 18D does provide free speech protection for comments that may be considered offensive to many Australians as long as these comments are delivered in a reasonable and honest way.”
New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council has also condemned the moves to amend the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act.
NSWALC Chairperson Craig Cromelin said Brandis should be asked to withdraw his claim people “have the right to be bigots”, when seeking to defend the Government’s position in Federal Parliament this week.
“Bigotry is not OK, Mr Brandis,” Cromelin said.
“It is astonishing that our top law maker seeks to passionately defend the right of people to be bigots than the rights of the most marginalised people in our society.”
Chairperson Cromelin said no-one should forget the Federal Government’s move to amend the Racial Discrimination Act stems directly from the judgment handed down by Justice Bromberg in the case of Eatock v Bolt.
He said Senator Brandis, who was then Shadow Attorney General, immediately claimed the judgment was an attack on free speech, while respected senior journalists claimed the judgment had nothing to do with an attack on free speech.
“Exemptions are available under the current Act which the Australian Human Rights Commission has clearly stated allow the media considerable scope by permitting fair and accurate reporting on any matter of public interest,” he said.
The Government’s draft amendments are now out for community consultation and submissions are open until April 30, 2014 at s18cconsultation@ag.gov.au.
Exposure Draft
Freedom of speech (Repeal of S. 18C) Bill 2014
The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 is amended as follows:
Section 18C is repealed.
Sections 18B, 18D and 18E are also repealed.
The following section is inserted:
“ It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:
the act is reasonably likely:
to vilify another person or a group of persons; or
to intimidate another person or a group of persons,
the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of that person or that group of persons.
For the purposes of this section:
vilify means to incite hatred against a person or a group of persons;
intimidate means to cause fear of physical harm:
to a person; or
to the property of a person; or
to the members of a group of persons.
Whether an act is reasonably likely to have the effect specified in sub-section (1)(a) is to be determined by the standards of an ordinary reasonable member of the Australian community, not by the standards of any particular group within the Australian community.
This section does not apply to words, sounds, images or writing spoken, broadcast, published or otherwise communicated in the course of participating in the public discussion of any political, social, cultural, religious, artistic, academic or scientific matter.”
Tags : Attorney General George Brandis, australia, Craig Cromelin, Dr Tom Calma, Melinda Cilento, National, New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council, Racial Discrimination Act, racial discrimination laws, RDA, Reconciliation Australia, the Coalition Government,
NSW Indigenous Coalition Reunites to Push Change for Aboriginal People
Monday, 13th August 2018 at 4:28 pm
Why NFPs Should Volunteer to File a Modern Slavery Statement
Rob Jackson
Thursday, 26th July 2018 at 1:59 pm
Why Investing in an Awards Event Brings Results
Wednesday, 25th July 2018 at 1:59 pm
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LONDON: Wreck kills dozens
By Susan Taylor Martin, St. Petersburg Times — Oct 6th, 1999
Death toll expected to rise as search of crash site continues
LONDON - At least 26 people were killed and 160 injured, many seriously, when two packed commuter trains collided Tuesday morning in Britain's worst rail disaster in more than a decade.
"There were a lot of very badly burned people, a lot of people with smacked heads and blood on their faces," said Stuart Allen, a passenger who had to make his way through flames to escape from an overturned buffet car. "There was one lady close to me with very burned hands - the skin was peeling off like a rubber glove."
The death toll was almost certain to rise today as rescue teams resume their search of one badly burned and mangled car that is thought to contain many more bodies. Authorities said they were satisfied they had removed all survivors and would work throughout the night to make the site safe for recovery work to continue at daybreak.
Among those unaccounted for late Tuesday were the drivers of the two trains. Teams combing the wreckage earlier in the day were startled to hear the eerie ringing of mobile phones, the fate of their owners unknown.
Hospitals throughout London were put on disaster alert and cancelled all non-emergency surgery to deal with the injured, at least 26 of them suffering from serious burns or trauma wounds. The collision, near London's Paddington Station, forced the cancellation of scores of trains to other parts of Britain as well as to Heathrow, the world's busiest international airport. Full service from Paddington is not expected to resume until Thursday or Friday.
Tuesday's accident in west London occurred on nearly the same stretch of track where two trains collided in 1997, killing seven and injuring 150. And it follows the "Summer of Chaos" on the city's Underground subway system, raising yet more concerns about the rail network that millions of Britons ride daily.
"We know that our railway system, both over-ground and underground, has suffered for years from chronic neglect, under-investment and poor management," said the Evening Standard, the first paper to hit the streets after the disaster. "The lamentable state of our transport system is the focus of bitter public sentiment that will not go away."
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, in charge of Britain's overall transportation policy, called for an "urgent report" on the wreck and promised a full public inquiry. Just last week, Prescott was widely criticized when he took a chauffeured limousine 300 yards to deliver a speech urging Britons to leave their cars at home and ride buses and trains.
The collision occurred at 8:11 a.m., at the height of morning rush hour, between a Great Western train headed for Paddington and a Thames Trains train which had just left the station bound for Bedwyn, 90 miles west of London.
The Thames train reportedly had been given the green light to cross two lines of track to reach its outbound track when it hit the other train nearly head-on.
The impact of the collision between the diesel-fueled trains sent a huge cloud of flame and smoke high into the sky.
Allen, a civil servant on his way to work in London, said he was standing in the Great Western's crowded buffet car when he heard a loud bang and was suddenly thrown forward.
"The carriage was tipping on its side," he said. "I was holding onto the railings and I could see flames through the window above me and acrid smoke. The worst thing was the heat and to see the flames going past the carriage, which I assume was the Thames train."
Allen managed to crawl out through a narrow space where the buffet car had separated from another carriage. He made his way through flames and thick, black smoke and was shocked to see what remained of the three-carriage Thames train.
"The back car was intact, the middle was half to three quarters there and the front car was non-existent," he said, still shaking three hours later.
Despite the carnage, survivors said there was surprisingly little panic. Uninjured passengers dragged others from the wreckage and helped them up a steep embankment and over a brick wall to the supermarket parking lot, 20 feet above the tracks.
Officials said the Thames Trains train cars carried about 150 passengers, its their maximum capacity, while the Great Western train had as many as 500. The trains were close enough to the station that neither was traveling at top speed - 125 mph for the Great Western - but the force of the collision was still great enough to apparently hurl one of the Thames cars over the other train.
Investigators will be checking the trains' "black boxes" - similar to those on airlines - to see how fast the trains were going and whether their collision avoidance systems were working.
The collision was the worst in Britain since 1988, when one packed commuter train ran into the back of another near London, killing 35 people.
Despite that disaster, the Conservative government then in power axed a $1.2-billion plan for a system that would automatically halt trains that ran through signal lights.
The current Labor government has introduced a scaled-back version of the system, which will apply only to key routes and junctions.
The latest wreck is also certain to rekindle debate over the wisdom of privatizing Britain's rail lines. Great Western and other companies that took over operation of the railroad system in the mid-1990s have been accused of short-changing service, cleanliness and even safety in order to maximize profits.
However, a 1997-98 report by Britain's Chief Inspector of Railways found that the number of "significant" crashes had dropped since privatization. Last year, not a single passenger was killed in a collision or derailment.
However, that was scant comfort Tuesday.
"I wasn't afraid before today," said Amelia Bale, 25, a systems engineer who escaped from the Great Western train. "But it scares me to think that in this day and age, with all these safety procedures, these things are still happening."
Train death toll rises
A woman was rescued about 15 hours after a packed commuter train jumped the tracks and hurtled into an apartment complex in Amagasaki, Japan, on Monday. AP by photo/Asahi Shimbun, Takeshi Tokitsu A worker checks the interior of a crashed commuter train in ... [Read More...]
ENGLAND: Train crash kills at least 13
* Motorist shouts "The train's coming!" moments before his Land Rover is hit. By Beth Gardiner The Associated Press GREAT HECK, England - With a high-speed passenger train bearing down on his Land Rover stuck on the train tracks, the frantic motorist called an ... [Read More...]
TRAIN COLLISION: A day of sorrow in Britain
LONDON (AP) - Thousands of people sang hymns and prayed in a supermarket parking lot in west London on Sunday, remembering 40 people killed nearby when two passenger trains collided. Worshippers at churches across the country said special prayers, while forensic experts sifted through ... [Read More...]
Missed Signal Triggered Fatal Train Wreck
GHOTKI, Pakistan The driver of a passenger train misinterpreted a signal as he pulled into a Pakistan station shortly before dawn Wednesday, slamming into another train in a chain-reaction crash that killed at least 128 people, authorities said. The collision involving three passenger trains — ... [Read More...]
IN THE HEADLINES: From Sun news services
* GAY ATTACK Man convicted of murder; could face death penalty LARAMIE, Wyo. - A 22-year-old man was convicted of murder Wednesday in the beating of gay college student Matthew Shepard and could get the death penalty after a trial in which the defense ... [Read More...]
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Home Article Voters Prefer More Money to Less
Voters Prefer More Money to Less
Here at The Prospect, we like to stress the extent to which presidential elections are determined by macroeconomic variables, like unemployment. But there's always the risk of being a little reductive, and The New York Times falls into that trap with this piece on the subject:
No American president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has won a second term in office when the unemployment rate on Election Day topped 7.2 percent. [...]
Ten presidents have stood for re-election since Mr. Roosevelt. In four instances the unemployment rate stood above 6 percent on Election Day. Three presidents lost: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush. But Ronald Reagan won, despite 7.2 percent unemployment in November 1984, because the rate was falling and voters decided he was fixing the problem.
Alone, the unemployment rate won't predict the outcome of a given presidential election. Parties have lost control of the White House during periods of historically low unemployment (Stevenson in 1952, Humphrey in 1968 and Gore in 2000), and have retained it during periods of relatively high unemployment: Ronald Reagan in 1984, George H.W. Bush in 1988, George Bush in 2004. Insofar that there's a leading macroeconomic indicator for presidential elections, it's the growth in real disposable personal income per capita. Simply put, when people are better off financially at the time of an election than they were the previous year, they are more likely to reelect the incumbent or his party. As it stands, the forecast isn't great for President Obama. Harry Joe Enten explains:
According to the BEA's prior April report, RDPI grew at 1.8% in the fourth quarter of 2010 over the preceding quarter and 2.9% in the first quarter of 2011. Last Friday, the BEA re-adjusted those numbers to 1.1% and 0.8%.
Why should the President be worried?
It turns out that weighted* quarterly growth in RDPI (along with three other already known variables* for the 2012 election) over the President's term can account for 92.9% of the variation in the incumbent party's percentage of the two-party vote in the 1952-2008 Presidential Elections.
He provides a chart:
If he's up against a fringe candidate -- like Sarah Palin, for instance -- Obama won't have much trouble in his bid for reelection. But if Republicans nominate someone with the appearance of credibility (Pawlenty or Romney), then Obama stands to lose if the economy doesn't improve.
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Jimmy John’s workers fight for a union
Originally published in Baltimore City Paper on October 28, 2014.
On Sunday, Oct. 19, as Ravens fans meandered around the chilly Inner Harbor in advance of the game set to begin later that afternoon, about two dozen workers and community supporters formed a picket line outside the Jimmy John’s sandwich shop on Pratt Street to demand the right to form a union. “Ravens have a union!” the protesters chanted. “Why can’t we?” The Jimmy John’s employees claim that ever since their efforts to publicly unionize kicked off in early August, management has responded with clear efforts to intimidate them, including the firing of their co-worker James Hegler. Workers have responded by filing seven counts of illegal retaliation complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.
On Aug. 9, with support from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a radical union founded in 1905 that gained a reputation for organizing across class, race, gender, and occupational lines, Baltimore Jimmy John’s workers presented their list of demands to management, which included one paid sick day per month, a transparent disciplinary system for both workers and managers, and wage parity with their landlord, the Hilton, that has unionized employees making between $10.75-$13 per hour. Wages at Jimmy John’s hover around $7.25.
The Baltimore fight comes at an interesting time as Jimmy John’s workers across the country have gained national attention for launching a class action lawsuit over the non-compete agreements all Jimmy John’s employees are forced to sign in order to work there. These contractual clauses require employees to promise not to work in any nearby sandwich shop for at least two years after they leave, so as not to give away “trade secrets.” In response, over 35 House Democrats recently signed a letter requesting the Department of Labor and the Federal Trade Commission to launch an investigation into this suspect labor practice. Though the Baltimore Jimmy John’s workers say they stand in solidarity with the class-action suit, they themselves are not presently involved.
The fight for a union also stands out as thousands of fast-food employees across the country have gotten involved with the Fight for 15 campaign, an effort to demand fast-food chains provide a $15 minimum wage and the right to form a union. Founded in Chicago in 2012, and largely backed by the Service Employees International Union, Fight for 15 includes employees at McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, and Wendy’s who have taken to high-profile one-day strikes in order to send a message to their employers that they deserve better conditions in the workplace. Even President Obama has publicly cheered on the fast-food strikers’ organizing.
But despite the fast-food industry’s substantial presence in the Baltimore labor market, the Fight for 15 campaign just has not taken off here like it has in other cities. Some activists involved in the Baltimore and Maryland Workers Assembly marched in a “Walk 4 Justice” downtown in May and September, to support strikers in other cities, but by and large the local fast-food organizing efforts have been minimal.
“We’re the only union organizing fast-food workers in the city,” said Brennan Lester, a Jimmy John’s worker and IWW organizer. “But this is an idea whose time has come. We’re long overdue for unions. We’re precariously employed with no rights and no protections and we’re one of the only growth industries. It’s not just for kids anymore.”
Colleen Davidson, an activist with the Baltimore chapter of Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST), who came out to the Jimmy John’s demonstration, said organizing can be particularly difficult in Baltimore because “so many people are just in survival mode, juggling two to three jobs, raising kids, and grappling with gentrification and homelessness.”
Yet back in the early ’90s, there was a time when Baltimore was the national leader for low-wage organizing efforts—proudly standing as the first city to launch a “living wage” campaign, and ultimately being the first city to pass a “living wage” law. Activists called for a minimum wage of $7.70 per hour, a significant spike from the federal minimum wage of $4.25. Led by the church-based civic group Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD) in conjunction with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), residents began organizing for higher wage standards after it became clear that even full-time workers couldn’t pay their bills. Activists campaigned with the theory that public subsidies and city contracts should not support private firms that paid poverty wages.
Going forward, Jimmy John’s workers have pledged to continue launching “a series of escalating direct actions” in order to pressure the company to recognize their union. Toward the end of the Oct. 19 protest, picketers marched inside the store, holding up signs, and calling for management to reinstate Hegler. “What do we want? Rehire James! When do we want it? Now!” In the end, four Baltimore City police came to break up the event.
Stephen Thompson, a 28-year-old adjunct math professor at UMBC, showed up to picket alongside the Jimmy John’s workers. “Compared with other labor-related protests I’ve been to in Baltimore, this one had a different feel. That’s what I really liked about it,” said Thompson, who noted that the IWW people are a “young ragtag kind of group” in contrast to the more professional organizers of other unions. In Baltimore, the IWW is also affiliated with the unions at Red Emma’s and Baltimore Bicycle Works. “They are very passionate,” Thompson added. “It made the picket more fun and exciting.”
Tagged activism, Baltimore, fast food strikes, Fight for 15, Hilton, IWW, jimmy john's, living wage, minimum wage, non-compete agreements, police, Ravens, SEIU, unions
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Remembering Tiananmen Square
Fleur Taylor
I arrived in Beijing in February 1989 as an 18-year-old student. I was fresh out of high school and part of an Australian government study program. The Hawke-Keating Labor government had dispatched eight teenagers to China to learn the language, so we could grow up into businesspeople, trade experts or wily diplomats, armed with the superpower of understanding what Chinese people were really saying.
Beijing is situated on a flat, dry plain in north-east China. In 1989, it was home to around 10 million people. It still contains ancient laneways, temples and courtyards, but these did not feature in our first impressions. What we saw were immense concrete structures – apartment towers, factories, public buildings – stained a uniform brown by coal smoke and dust storms, and vast, arrow-straight boulevards, alive with thousands of cyclists, dozens of buses and very few cars.
Major public buildings and workplaces all sported giant red and white slogans, exhorting passers-by to GO TO WORK HAPPILY, GO HOME PEACEFULLY or to DILIGENTLY WORK TO BUILD OUR COUNTRY. A very large proportion of people in the streets were dressed the same as each other, in dull blue or khaki cotton work clothes. On campus, loudspeakers blared you awake early with the same whip-cracking message – get up, work hard and build the country.
It was just what we expected “communism” to look like. I wrote in my diary, “A country with such a huge population simply has to have some form of socialism. It would be chaos otherwise. As poor as people are, everyone has the basics. There are no homeless or beggars”. Our hilarity at the sinister Orwellian slogans included the racist assumption that our Chinese teachers and classmates didn’t get the joke. We believed the Chinese Communist Party propaganda and assumed people were OK with the poverty and the mind control because it was the least worst option available to them.
Yet inconsistencies nagged at us. If everyone had a job and a home, who were the ruddy-faced lurkers and urgers eking out a living hawking cigarettes and games of pool at roadside tables, or sidling up to us offering to “change money”? Government stores dominated, so who were the entrepreneurs selling souvenirs and clothing at a few, tolerated free markets? And if the chicken at the first KFC in China was too expensive for us, let alone for our Chinese classmates, who could afford to buy it?
In fact, Chinese society in 1989 was unequal and hierarchical. The “people’s republic” established by Mao Zedong 40 years earlier cloaked itself with the slogans of communism and national liberation but did not end the exploitation of workers and peasants. Instead of enriching local landlords and gangster capitalists, their labour was exploited by the Chinese Communist Party so the Chinese state could grow larger and more powerful. This violent dictatorship had nothing to do with democracy, socialism or workers’ control. It was capitalist exploitation via the one-party state.
A huge apparatus of social control was developed and refined to prop up this state capitalist regime. China had been a virtually closed state from the 1950s. But this didn’t allow it to escape the pressures of military competition and arms spending that also weighed on the Soviet Union and other state capitalist economies during the 1980s. In Russia, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power arguing for perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness). The Chinese regime was keen on restructuring, dubbing it “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, but had staked a lot against openness. Occasional experiments in loosening political repression always resulted in harsh crackdowns when the regime became terrified of losing control.
On 15 April 1989, the former general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Hu Yaobang, died suddenly. He’d been sacked from his leadership positions two years earlier for the twin crimes of being an enthusiastic reformer and supporting student protesters who demanded faster restructuring and more openness.
In the repressive political climate of China, the deaths of more sympathetic or progressive political leaders have often sparked protests. Protesters have used the cover of mourning to gather and paste up public criticisms of the regime. Hu’s death was seized on as just such an opportunity by groups of radical students and intellectuals who had been organising for several years before 1989. Within two days of Hu’s death, rallies of several thousand students from the city’s two most prestigious universities, Beijing University and Qinghua University, marched around 20 kilometres to the symbolic heart of the Chinese nation, Tiananmen Square.
There, the students formulated a list of demands for political freedoms and against elite corruption. Discussion swirled under the cover of darkness, and the students were joined by handfuls of disaffected workers attracted by the upheaval and the questioning of normality. Small but politically significant autonomous student and workers’ federations were formed.
On the eve of Hu Yaobang’s state funeral four days later, 100,000 students marched to the square in defiance of official instructions that it was out of bounds. Divisions within the senior leadership of the Communist Party meant that the official response to the protests was by turns placatory and threatening. On 26 April, top leader Deng Xiaoping ordered the official newspaper, the People’s Daily, to print a hard-line editorial on its front page condemning the protesters. The aim was to isolate the protesters and scare off their support. It backfired spectacularly. The next day another huge student protest took place, and this time the working class of Beijing started to show active support.
It would have been around this time that I attended my first Tiananmen protest. I had never been in a crowd so large before, or seen the joy and creativity unleashed in struggle. Imagine the impact of seeing hundreds of banners representing colleges and universities all over the city, and the sight of workers out on the streets pressing drinks and food into the hands of the student marchers. Another massive protest took place on 4 May, the 70th anniversary of a celebrated uprising against colonial forces in China started by students in Beijing in 1919. Significantly, there were large marches across China, not just in Beijing.
Press restrictions were loosened in early-mid May, too. Footage and sympathetic coverage of the students appeared on TV and in the newspapers. We were astounded one morning when our very earnest and formal teacher cast aside her lesson plan and spent the class time talking with us movingly about why the protests were happening and why she supported them. She explained to us that the students had started a hunger strike to publicise their demands, and convinced us to leave class immediately and head straight to central Beijing, where we became part of one of the very largest rallies of the Tiananmen protests.
Buses were still running from our outer suburban campus but could go no further than the outskirts of central Beijing. We walked through a city alive with rebellion. This time, workers’ participation was prominent. We waited at an intersection for workplace after workplace to cross. Railway workers carrying portraits of Mao Zedong seemed to claim his support for their mobilisation. Shop workers in aprons and cotton hats marched alongside construction workers in bamboo helmets.
Most memorable for me were the workers from the People’s Daily, wearing paper hats fashioned out of their newspaper, and the bloke who’d borrowed an excavator to bring to the protest. High school and primary school students marched with banners that read: “Elder brothers and sisters, we are coming to join you”. Contingents from universities across China had started arriving in Beijing, too. It was exhilarating to be part of a city that had collectively decided that continuous protest was the new normal.
Calling the hunger strike was a brave and outrageous step for the students to take. It seemed deliberately timed to severely embarrass the Communist Party leadership. The Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, was to visit Beijing on 15 May. It would be the first meeting between the leaders of the two countries since their alliance had broken down 30 years earlier.
Such a visit would normally be celebrated with a huge ceremony in Tiananmen Square. Instead, Gorbachev received a low-key welcome at the airport, and had to be hustled in the back door of the Great Hall of the People for the official ceremonies. The daring of forcing such a loss of face on China’s cruel powermongers was not lost on anyone. The day Gorbachev left, the gloves came off and the orders to declare martial law across Beijing were written. The hardliners were outfacing the moderates in the leadership.
Meanwhile, the daily protests were growing and the movement spread to more than 400 cities. The fledgling Beijing Autonomous Workers’ Federation was prominent during this week of rising protests, and recruited dozens of new members, with its focus on attacking corruption and calling for action against rampant inflation. It attempted to register its existence formally with several bodies, including with the government-run All-China Federation of Trade Unions and the Public Security Bureau, but its existence was too dangerous to be officially recognised.
The hunger strikers in Tiananmen Square had become a moral centre for the protests. The movement did not aim to overthrow the regime, but its demands threatened to tear down the facade of the regime’s authority. Tiananmen Square is vast – the equivalent of 22 Melbourne Cricket Grounds. During the hunger strike protest days, all of it was covered with a tent city of student protesters. The hunger strikers lay in ranks of iron bedsteads “liberated” from campus dormitories, or sheltered in buses commandeered from the streets. Workers had set up dedicated, cordoned-off roadways through the square, and marshals enforced these so ambulances could reach the weak and fainting hunger strikers. The constant ambulance sirens tearing through the square made the situation feel so serious and urgent.
Members of the general public (and, sadly, members of the workers’ federation) were not permitted within the student protest camp itself. That included many foreign students, but we had real Chinese student cards because our study program was government-funded. We showed our student cards to the nearest marshal and demanded to be allowed in to show our solidarity and be part of it all. Inside the tent city, discussions were taking place everywhere you turned, singers strummed guitars and students from across the nation met under each other’s banners, swapped college badges and felt themselves to be “the moral conscience of the people”.
None of us from Australia had ever been part of a protest movement. Yet the language of struggle is universal. In the contest between repressive state control and student uprising, we all instinctively sided with the movement. None of us had ever heard “the Internationale” before (the international song of the workers’ and socialist movement), but we somehow, suddenly, just knew what it was, and when it was sung in the square it made us shiver. The history of student uprisings in Paris gave the French students in our dormitory much more of an idea of what to do. They painted a banner of solidarity with the Chinese students and hung it out of their third-floor windows until they were forced to remove it by college authorities.
Martial law was declared on 20 May; 30 divisions of the army were mobilised to take control of Beijing. We were in the square the night of the announcement. Deputy premier Li Peng’s hated voice blared through the sound system, telling the protesters to disperse. He was drowned out by tens of thousands of voices singing “the Internationale”. (The song was taught to schoolchildren in China like a solemn patriotic hymn, so the fact that its revolutionary energy couldn’t be quashed is amazing. It became one of the anthems of the movement.)
The workers and citizens of Beijing mobilised against the army. The troops entered Beijing in open trucks during broad daylight. That was a mistake, because the grandmas could see them and talk to them. On the road from the east that ran past our campus, we witnessed an army truck stoppage. People surrounded the truck and then argued with the soldiers and simply refused to let them pass. They held up children to pass them food, drinks and sweets that the soldiers were unable to refuse. “You’re the People’s Liberation Army!”, cried one woman. “We’re the people! You have to help us; you can’t go there and act against the protesters!” The soldiers – most of whom looked around 18 years old – looked ashamed and confused. The truck did not advance.
I recorded what I could understand of the conversations around me. On the night of the declaration of martial law, I noted that there was talk of a strike by the 200,000 workers at the Capital Iron and Steel Works, the largest factory in China. Despite my relative lack of political knowledge, it was clear to me that strikes and industrial action could put pressure on the government that no amount of moral high ground and martyrdom could match.
Tragically, the fractious and disparate leadership of the Tiananmen student movement was united in disdain and dismissiveness toward the Beijing Autonomous Workers’ Federation, most of whose activists were blue collar workers. Just as the student movement was starting to fall apart through infighting and lack of political strategy, the Workers’ Federation was coordinating mass daily protests, signing up hundreds of new members every day, running a wildly popular nightly broadcast at the square and calling for a general strike against martial law.
Key student leaders resisted the calls for a mass strike, and their moral authority was respected by the Workers’ Federation. This proved fatal for the struggle. By the time a messenger was sent to the Workers’ Federation tents to ask that a general strike be called, at the beginning of June, it was far too late.
By the end of May, the numbers had dwindled to around 10,000 at the square, but unrest was spreading through the country. There was jubilation at the ease with which protesters had withstood the first attempt at imposing martial law. A brief resurgence took place on 30-31 May, when as many as 300,000 people returned to the square to watch a 10-metre tall statue, Goddess of Democracy, being defiantly installed by a collective of art students. It faced the giant portrait of Mao Zedong in a mute challenge to the authority of the Chinese state. To maintain control, Communist Party leaders gave the orders for a sustained military assault. Tiananmen Square was to be cleared.
On Saturday evening 3 June, troops were secretly moved into position in buildings surrounding the square while tanks and armoured personnel carriers advanced from the four compass points, some firing indiscriminately as they advanced. These troops were not youths from the local garrison, but battle-hardened soldiers from the borders of the Chinese empire, with experience in putting down uprisings in Tibet and Xinjiang (East Turkestan).
The population of Beijing rose bravely to resist, hurling rocks at the troops and building roadblocks, often with buses. The most savage fighting took place in the inner-west of the city. At Muxidi, buses were used to barricade a bridge and then set on fire. Dozens were killed in the two miles between Muxidi and Xidan. More than 100 military vehicles were destroyed in the fighting and hundreds more were damaged.
As the troops drew nearer to Tiananmen Square, they raked the buildings lining Chang’An Boulevard with live fire. Multiple fatalities were recorded in apartments lining the approach to the Square. In the Square itself, the thousands of students remaining were huddled together at the Monument to the People’s Heroes. They joined hands, singing and preparing to die for their ideals. Helicopters roared overhead as night fell, and news of the bloodshed in the west of the city reached the square.
Just after midnight, a flare lit the sky above and the first armoured vehicles advanced into Tiananmen Square. Demonstrators fought to resist, setting fire to one vehicle. Debate raged among those remaining. Should they remain non-violent? Should they resist in any way possible? Should they surrender and attempt to save lives? Testimony of the savagery of the troops’ approach influenced leading protesters to attempt to negotiate a safe passage out.
Finally, hundreds of troops sealed off the square and advanced on the protesters from all sides. Tanks rolled menacingly through, crushing the feeble student barricades, their tent city and the Goddess of Democracy. Paratroopers shot dead people trying to enter the Square from the south, and police prevented hundreds of parents and relatives of the protesters from entering from the north. The soldiers and riot police clubbed, beat and bayoneted the protesters until all had left the square. Then the soldiers removed and, in some cases, burned the tents and items left behind.
We had travelled to the nearby city of Tianjin the day before to visit a friend. We returned to Beijing Railway Station, three kilometres from Tiananmen, at 6am on Sunday morning 4 June, intending to go straight to the square to see the Goddess of Democracy. Pushing through crowds of people moving in the opposite direction, we met a pair of dazed-looking students from our college and asked them what was going on. Shell-shocked, they told us that the army had cleared the square. They had lost their friends and all their belongings. The man’s shoes were much larger than his feet, his head was bleeding and her arm was badly injured. Emerging onto the main boulevard, we saw buses splayed wildly across the ten lanes to form barricades. We saw tanks, army vehicles and soldiers with machine guns blocking the roads from the east and understood that the protests had finally been crushed.
In the days that followed, the crackdown intensified across the country. Thousands were arrested, and four insurgent worker leaders in Shanghai were summarily shot. Beijing remained under martial law. Our group of students was evacuated a few days later. We did not see Tiananmen Square again until National Day (1 October). That day, security was fierce around this incendiary 40 hectares of concrete, as it has been on every significant commemoration day since 4 June 1989. Only tourists were permitted into the vast windscape, and so we traversed it, weeping, sickened by the brazen lack of cover-up of what had taken place four months earlier. The steps of the Monument to the People’s Heroes – the organising centre of the protests – were chipped, broken and burned all the way around. There were bullet holes in the friezes. At regular intervals across the Square were vast burned areas, and faintly visible painted slogans from the movement. Most chilling was the one that simply read: TYRANNY. It looked like it had been painted in fear and haste.
We were based in Shanghai at this time, and on campuses the repression was ongoing. A friend was taken into custody for carelessly whistling “the Internationale” while cycling home one afternoon. The newspapers reverted to their usual practice of failing to report the news. But they could not fail to report the Berlin Wall coming down in November 1989. At Christmas celebrations, Chinese friends shared news of the overthrow of the brutal Ceausescu regime in Romania and the fall of Czech communism. Their faces were solemn, but their eyes were alight with hope.
By the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, I was at university in Australia. I was disillusioned with the idea of mass struggle. When socialist activists handed me leaflets for rallies, I felt like telling them there was no point. Hadn’t I been in rallies of more than a million people, only to see the protests crushed and the regime become even stronger? But again and again I faced the choice – to side with the rulers or the ruled; the protesters or the powers-that-be? We’re all continually faced with this choice, both when our side is winning victories, and whenever a movement is defeated. And our movements will continue to suffer defeats and setbacks until this brutal system of repression and exploitation is finally overthrown.
Since 1989, China has become a paradise for capitalists, still ruled by the elite of the Chinese Communist Party. Censorship is widespread, labour activists imprisoned and killed, and more than a million Uighur Muslims are interned in labour camps. It’s a glittering industrial empire with a black heart of corruption, murder and state control. In the lead-up to the 30th anniversary, repression intensified in China. Yet as fast as the regime cuts off the heads of the movement, more continually rise. And the ghosts of 1989 are cheering them on. The time is long overdue for the butchers of Tiananmen to be called to account for their crimes.
For information about the Beijing Autonomous Workers’ Federation, I have relied heavily on Andrew G. Walder and Gong Xiaoxia’s 1993 article “Workers in the Tiananmen protests: the politics of the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation”, available at http://www.tsquare.tv/links/Walder.html.
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Detectorists: Season One Review
There’s no reason this show should be good. Really, there’s not one single reason. It’s about metal detectors. Well, detectorists, as we are constantly reminded over the course of the six episodes. But against all odds, Detectorists triumphs in a way I would never have thought possible.
I started watching Detectorists because of the sheer ridiculousness of the concept: two friends like to do metal detecting with each other. It’s British, so that gave me another reason to watch it, and it’s also considered a comedy. I really don’t think it’s supposed to be, and I don’t think that those of you who aren’t fans of the typical dry British humor will think it is, but I couldn’t stop laughing. Each episode is funnier than the last, even as the two main characters sink deeper into confusion and depression.
The characters are really what makes this series shine. Andy, played by Mackenzie Crook (the “‘ello poppet” guy from Pirates of the Caribbean”), is really just plain sad, but loveable. His life is going great at the beginning, and each decision he makes just flushes it further down the toilet. Whether it’s furthering his relationship with Sophie, played by Aimee-Ffion Edwards, ignoring his girlfriend, or stopping just short of a hoard of Saxon treasure, he really can’t do anything right.
And, regardless of his shitty decisions, you really kind of root for him and his friend Lance, played by Toby Jones. They may be pathetic, they may be losers, but you come to love them over the course of the series.
Getting back to a point I made two paragraphs ago, I think that’s another great aspect of this show: there’s always something two feet away from where these guys are digging. Their raison d’etre is to find gold, to find that long lost Saxon hoard that’s buried right below their feet. But (spoiler alert) they don’t. They never do. Sure, Andy finds a measly gold coin, but stops short of unearthing the massive trove that’s right underneath it.
(I know this is a season one review, but I’m going to reference season 2 real quick) The second season opens up with a flashback: a priest in Essex is trying to hide his prized bible from oncoming marauders and buries it next to a rock. A great effect is applied where we follow the bible underground, 1,500 years pass by in 12 seconds, and all that’s left is the priest’s golden ornament depicting Jesus and a lamb.
The camera then comes up out of the ground to show the two protagonists detecting in that very field, not 10 feet away from the stone where the bible was buried. They don’t keep going. They both stop in their tracks and decided to call it a day.
I think that’s what this show is really all about: just two guys hanging out and shooting the shit. They’re not supposed to find anything. If they did, they’d be happy, sure, but that’s just the icing on the cake for them. They really just enjoy being out with each other away form the complexities of their daily lives. It’s beautiful, really.
Another great thing about this show is the cinematography in general. Every shot is meticulously planned, showing off the natural beauty of the English countryside. I think it’s the final episode of the first season, but there’s a shot that just involves a snail on a leaf. For a solid 15 seconds, we get to watch this snail on the leaf. Is it just filler? Is it supposed to symbolize the protagonists slow hunt for something big? Is it supposed to tell us to stop and enjoy the little things? I’m not sure, but it’s beautiful nonetheless.
The music is also superb. Johnny Flynn, brother of actor Jerome Flynn of Game of Thrones fame, composes the score for Detectorists. His acoustic guitar (sometimes a dobro) and violin studded score adds an amazing air to the series as a whole. It doesn’t compete with the film, the actors, or the plot at all. In fact, it compliments it perfectly, which is exactly what a good score is supposed to do.
I really couldn’t recommend this show enough. It’s such a welcome change to the programs I’ve been watching lately, and I can’t wait to finish season two. This show is a masterpiece, plain and simple, and you’ll be a better person for watching it.
Reed’s Review Corner:
Detectorists: Season 1
9.3 ring pulls out of 10.
Fantastic acting, story, and score.
British humor overload.
All plot points wrapped up.
(Very) short bits of dragging story.
Posted in TelevisionBy readhartmanLeave a comment
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Reid™ has a history spanning over 90 years as a supplier of solutions to the Australian construction industry.
Today, Reid is at the forefront of concrete reinforcement, anchoring, fastening and fixing technologies, with the design of precast concrete and tilt-up concrete construction systems a particular specialty.
Our products help solve construction problems and enable better performing buildings to be constructed more quickly, more efficiently, and at a lower overall cost.
At Reid we work with our customers to shape the future, through the development, testing and introduction of new engineering technology, construction, reinforcing and anchoring systems. Our parent organisation, Illinois Tool Works Inc. is a global manufacturer of highly engineered products and specialty systems with more than 800 business units located in 52 countries.
The largest part of ITW is its activities in the construction market, which provides Reid with a vast resource base of engineering expertise that we draw on to continually improve, test and develop our core product range. It also enables us to respond quickly to specific issues that our customers bring to us. We were recently able to resolve an intractable production bottleneck for one of our customers through the rapid design and development of a custom panel production system.
Alan H.Reid established the business that continues to bear his name in Sydney in 1921, selling wire rope to meet the growing needs of the Australian mining, construction and manufacturing sectors. Through unstinting focus on service and quality the business survived the Great Depression and then negotiated the shortages of both imported and locally produced feed material brought on by World War II. Having overcome the incredible challenges of the first thirty years of its life, the Reid™ business was well placed to profit from the opportunities presented by Australia’s spectacular growth in the period since 1945. Drawing on its extensive experience with wire strand products, Reid pioneered the introduction of pre-stressed concrete in Australia during the 1960s, commencing an involvement with concrete construction that has become the primary focus of the Reid business in the 21st century.
In 1973 Reid established the Reinforced Earth Company in Australia, which gave the business its first exposure to precast concrete retaining walls. This lead to the introduction of the Swiftlift™ clutch and lifting anchor system in the 1977 which has expanded to a complete range of Concrete Lifting Systems that can provide a solution to any lifting, anchoring or bracing challenge. Having built a reputation for innovation in the field of precast and tilt-up concrete construction, in the 1990’s Reid applied that creativity to the field of Reinforcing Systems for in-situ concrete construction. In 1995 Reid introduced ReidBar™ – a fully integrated continuous reinforcing system based on a patented, threaded bar and coupling mechanism that offers designers and builders advantages in flexibility, speed of constructions, and reduced cost compared to alternate methods of construction.
With a long history, Reid continues to lead the industry in service and innovation. Our products and our people have one aim – to reduce the total cost of concrete construction, by making it faster, safer and more efficient.
Who is ramsetreid?
ramsetreid is a newly formed division of Illinois Tool Works (ITW) a Fortune 500 diversified manufacturing company that brings together the combined resources of market leading brands including Ramset™, Reid™, Danley™, Miska™ and Modfix™. Specialising in products and systems for both wet and dry concrete construction, ramsetreid now provides greater resources to devote to research and development, engineering & design services, manufacturing and distribution, whilst retaining a specialist sales and specification structure.
With manufacturing plants in Brisbane, Melbourne & Sydney and distribution centres located in Auckland, Brisbane, Christchurch, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, ramsetreid provides direct representation and support to concrete construction across the Commercial, Precast, Tilt-Up, Structural Steel, Industrial and Residential Flooring markets segments throughout Australia and New Zealand.
ramsetreid’s commitment to Research and Development has established a dedicated team and fully functioning ISO9001 accredited Product Engineering Laboratory to understanding and improving Concrete Construction. The establishment and continued support of this initiative demonstrates our commitment and belief in the growth of the concrete industry and serves as a dynamic platform to provide our customers first hand testing, training and familiarization. This ultimately augments ITW’s commitment to customized solutions to progress the Concrete Construction Industry.
The ramsetreid engineering team comprises of qualified, experienced engineers and technicians based in Australia and New Zealand, providing product support and engineering design services to the construction industry.
Maintaining engineering expertise has been a tradition since the formation of the Reid business more than 50 years ago. Many of its innovative construction products and methods, based on sound engineering principles, are now firmly accepted industry practices. The engineering team has grown with the company and today enjoys strong specialist knowledge that is built upon many years of product testing and experience.
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HomeCompaniesIndian Energy Exchange
Indian Energy Exchange
Embarks on a higher-growth trajectory
The power trading segment has seen phenomenal growth and the country’s first power exchange, the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX), has been a key element of this growth story. Launched in June 2008, the exchange now has over 6,300 participants and accounts for 97 per cent of the total volume traded in electricity at the two power exchanges in the country. Around 56.8 billion units (BUs) were transacted at the exchange in 2017-18, as against a mere 2 BUs in 2008-09.
Products and participants
The IEX offers electricity trading products under the day-ahead market (DAM), the term-ahead market (TAM) and the energy certificates market. Under DAM, the IEX offers trading of 96 separate electricity contracts of 15-minute blocks each for the next day, involving double-sided bidding with a uniform clearing price. Meanwhile, TAM covers a range of options for electricity trading for a duration of up to 11 days including intra-day, day-ahead contingency, daily and weekly contracts. In the certificates markets, the IEX offers trading of renewable energy certificates (RECs) and energy saving certificates (ESCerts). The IEX’s participants include 55 distributing companies, over 450 electricity generators, more than 3,900 open access consumers and 1,050 renewable energy generators. Among the open access beneficiaries, industries such as textiles accounted for the largest share (24 per cent), followed by metals (20 per cent) and automobiles (12 per cent).
Operational performance
In the last five years, the traded volumes at the IEX grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17 per cent to reach 56,843 MUs. On a year-on-year basis, the traded volumes witnessed an increase of 26 per cent in 2017-18. The daily average cleared volumes during 2017-18 stood at 126.8 MUs. The average market clearing price (MCP) during the year was Rs 3.26 per unit, an increase of 35 per cent over that in the previous year. This was mainly on account of the increase in buy bids and the decrease in sell bids on the exchange, caused by lower availability of coal supply. With regard to the trading of RECs, in 2017-18, the IEX traded 9.33 million RECs, reporting a volume growth of 102 per cent, mainly owing to an increase in renewable purchase obligation (RPO) compliance by the state discoms. Between 2013-14 and 2017-18, the RECs traded at the exchange grew at a CAGR of 63 per cent. The IEX is also the platform for the trading of ESCerts under the Perform, Achieve and Trade scheme. Under the first cycle, 1.3 million ESCerts were traded at the exchange.
During the first six months of 2018-19, the company’s traded volumes stood at 28,584 MUs, witnessing an increase of 19 per cent over the corresponding period of the previous year. There was a significant increase of 33 per cent in the average MCP in the first half of 2018-19, largely due to inadequate coal availability. The average MCP during the period stood at Rs 3.98 per unit. Notably, in October 2018, the electricity market at the IEX – DAM and TAM combined – traded the highest ever monthly volume of 7,125 MUs. Meanwhile, in the REC segment, 5,121 certificates were traded, a 325 per cent increase over the corresponding period in the previous year.
During the period 2013-14 to 2017-18, the IEX’s total revenue grew at a CAGR of 10 per cent to reach Rs 2,561 million. Meanwhile, on a year-on-year basis, its total revenue grew at 10 per cent. The company’s profit after tax (PAT) stood at Rs 1,317 million, growing at a CAGR of 9 per cent during the same period. On a year-on-year basis, the company’s PAT grew at 16 per cent in 2017-18. A notable business highlight of the company was its listing on the Indian stock markets in October 2017. During the first six months of 2018-19 (up to September 2018), the company recorded a total revenue of Rs 1,494 million, witnessing a growth of up to 21 per cent on account of an increase in the volume of electricity and RECs traded. The company’s PAT stood at Rs 845 million, an increase of 32 per cent over the corresponding period of the previous year.
With only 4 per cent of India’s generated power transacted through the exchanges, as against 30 per cent in developed countries, there is enough headroom for the IEX to expand operations. In addition to this, power demand is expected to increase in the coming years. The IEX intends to embark on a higher-growth trajectory with the introduction of new order types in DAM. These include contracts with longer duration electricity, contracts that allow consumers to change the quantum of power being traded across time blocks and contracts focused primarily on renewable energy producers. Meanwhile, in TAM, the company is soon likely to introduce the Smart Order Entry option, which would provide consumers information about the best volume and price. Apart from this, the IEX plans to expand its coverage to cross-border markets. It is also mulling over widening its presence to alternative energy products like gas.
To conclude, the IEX has achieved success in the short-term power trading market, registering a multifold increase in the volumes traded and in the number of participants. In the coming years, its growth story is expected to continue, primarily on the back of the growth in electricity demand and the expansion of short-term power transactions in the country.
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Discovering Inner Peace and Healthy Aging
Health & Wellness - Jul. 03, 2018
How Spiritualism Helps the Mind, Body and Soul
Revera’s Six Dimensions of Wellness is a holistic approach to health and wellness that includes: physical, social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and community engagement.
Life can be full of stressful situations. In order to cope, some people rely on the support of their family and friends. Others combine their experience with a deeper sense of personal understanding by exploring their spirituality to find peace within themselves.
Spiritualism is often associated with a person’s religious affiliation, but it also has a much broader meaning. It can be understood as a person’s connectedness to the world around them and to others. In any case, what’s important is the journey and pursuit of purpose in life and the greater appreciation for the world and others that it can bring to one’s life.
Toby Ciglen, 86, moved into Revera’s Forest Hill Place in Toronto, Ontario in 2016 with her husband. The retired actress says it was an easy adjustment for them as they knew the neighbourhood well and it fit their lifestyle.
With her Jewish background, Ciglen’s spiritualism helps her to maintain a positive outlook on life. “Personally, I pray by myself, but of course always hold and need a strong connection to my religious community. I like doing this because it relieves me and takes away the worry and pressure that I may be experiencing.”
“I always look forward to the next day and I’m grateful for that. It’s my attitude of gratitude!”
Jennifer Sardella is the Director of Recreation at Forest Hill Place and designs the programs, including those that focus on a person’s spiritual development. She says that sometimes new residents enter a retirement residence with a sense of loss. Spiritual programs can help them to overcome negative feelings and redirect their focus to more positive elements in their lives.
“Sometimes there can be a lot of negativity, and I thought we should really focus on gratitude and being grateful for what we have,” says Sardella.
Gratitude and appreciation are major factors in spiritual health, and it’s a mantra that Ciglen subscribes to. “I always look forward to the next day and I’m grateful for that. It’s my attitude of gratitude! I like that saying and I like to be positive and spread positivity to those around me.”
A popular program at Forest Hill Place that residents have done is to design their own “gratitude jars” where they can place little notes inside about things they are grateful for. When they may be experiencing difficult moments, they can go to their jars and pull out their notes as a reminder of all the positive things in their lives.
Being spiritually connected also allows Ciglen to form strong bonds with others. The spiritual programs she participates in give her the opportunity to expand upon her own beliefs and challenge her views. “I like the spiritual programs of mindfulness at Forest Hill Place as they allow us to have group discussions and open conversations in a non-judgmental atmosphere.”
Sardella says exercises that encourage spirituality have the added benefit of mindfulness. “It’s about giving residents the tools to be more mindful, which can deter them from becoming depressed, lonely or isolated. To be mindful allows you to be more in tune with those around you and create better understanding towards others. They get that sense of camaraderie.”
Ciglen says her spiritual understanding allows her to be more connected not just with others, but also with herself. “I’m reminded I can go with the flow, unless it’s against my principles, and I like that about myself. I’m adaptable and I’m able to adapt to different situations and personalities. Each person is a unique individual.”
As we age, participation in spiritual programs is an important activity to keep us grounded. Activities such as yoga, tai chi and meditation – many of which can be found in Revera’s residences – are great tools to help us cope with challenges and rejoice in the wonders of life. If physical exercise is about maintaining able-bodiedness, spiritual exercise is about able-mindfulness. Age does not diminish a person’s ability to find joy. If anything, it increases the opportunity to take pleasure in others’ company and experience what the world has to offer.
Celebrating human rights
When should you take antibiotics?
Vaccines save lives
Let’s talk about Alzheimer’s
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Thoughts on a Postsecondary Institution Rating System
A presentation at the Postsecondary Institution Rating System Technical Symposium
We need better data. Let me rephrase that. YOU need better data. This should be the Department’s first priority. According to the story in InsideHigherEd in mid-January regarding the deal reached by congressional budget negotiators, the Department is required to submit to Congress a report “on the data it has on Pell enrollment and graduation information by institution.” I suspect that the four months allocated will be ample time to write a report that says, “Not much.” In Virginia, I can turn around a document with retention and graduation rates out to 10 years post-entry for any Title IV or state aid program (or a host of other characteristics) in a matter of minutes. In fact, any user of our website can do so. It can also be broken down by gender and majority/minority student status.
We need a vision for better data and tools that help students and policy-makers make better decisions. This vision involves four primary points:
Better data, ideally student-level;
Increased transparency through new metrics and the use of Navigator and the College Scorecard;
A small number of ratings that are tied explicitly to federal aid programs, such as Pell grants.
Partnership with states higher education offices.
The Student Right-to-Know Before You Go Act from Senators Wyden and Rubio, with the support of Senator Warner is one model. I hope that the IPEDS Act under consideration in the House results in a study that clearly demonstrates that a unit record collection is the most appropriate and efficient path.
Without significant change to, and expansion of, the IPEDS collection, the Department and Administration should stay out of the business of institutional ratings beyond a very limited scope, which I will describe later. US News & World Report and other publishers have taken existing IPEDS data about as far as it can reasonably go and they collect and use additional data and information that go well beyond IPEDS. College Navigator makes very good use of existing IPEDS data.
If current IPEDS data were adequate for rating and assessing institutions in a complete or meaningful way:
Most states would not have at least one student-level collection.
SREB would not have expanded its collections significantly beyond IPEDS.
If we are to envision a rating system that does more to help students and families make better-informed decisions about postsecondary education we need to move away from the simple aggregations of today. We need to provide measures that are relevant to the audience we are trying to reach. We also need to remind them through these measures that effort and work are required to be successful. For example, graduation rates based on full-time and part-time enrollment, paired with time-to-degree, could do a great deal to help students make better decisions.
Virginia has gone through several iterations of accountability in the last two decades. Rarely does a system last undisturbed for a sufficient length of time to determine the effectiveness of accountability systems, or specific measures. We believe in accountability almost as much as we believe we can always make something better. This is perhaps an advantage with a federal system in that the gears grind so slowly here in DC that once started, a system takes awhile to change. The foundational practices at the Department, especially in NCES, to conduct Technical Review Panels (TRPs) and provide public comment periods before adding to, or modifying, collections ensure the involvement of the higher education community. These practices also provide the avenue for some associations to maintain and practice their traditions of obstruction and confusion, especially when it comes to measures that improve transparency.
As much as many people complain about the traditional IPEDS GRS graduation rate, we at least understand it. It has been a stable measure of the community and has developed its own identity. Much of what we talk about today derives from that simple measure of tracking a cohort from start to graduation. This measure is a result of many TRPs and periods of public comment and much research. At one of the meetings of the Committee on Measures of Student Success, Carol Fuller of NAICU, presented the long history of its development. Her presentation reminded me of what I saw dimly from an institution as these discussions took place in DC, as well as the frustrating discussions took place at IPEDS TRP #24 in 2008 as we considered adding graduation rates for Pell students and Part-time students to IPEDS.
At SCHEV we are moving away from the standard IPEDS measures of the Graduation Rate Survey. We have heard the concerns of the institutions that the first-time, full-time cohort of new students is too narrow. Thus we have created reports based on broader cohorts with multiple sub-cohorts. We follow these cohorts for up to 10 years.
We have an extensive website with a tremendous amount of data available. We have carefully designed reports to keep the focus away from the strict comparison of institutions. This was notably true in our publication of the Post-Completion Wages of Graduates in 2012, and in 2013 the Student Debt reports of recent graduates. Our primary goals are transparency and the establishment of a common base of fact from which honest conversations of effectiveness and quality can be initiated.
We should know what “is” before we discuss what “should be.”
For example, on our institutional profile, we provide the basics: Admissions, Enrollment, Degree Awards, Retention and Graduation, Student Success, Graduate Debt, and Wage Outcomes.
Under Admissions, we provide information on apps, admits, and enrolls for all levels of students, as well as a traditional profile of First-time Freshmen.
In the Enrollment tab we provide 10 years of enrollment by student level.
The UG (Undergraduate) Origin tab maps the number of enrolled undergraduate students from each city/county in the Commonwealth.
The Completions tab provides the recent 10 years of degree awards by level and 20 years of degree awards by STEM/non-STEM categories.
The Retention tab should be of special interest to today’s audience. We have taken cohort graduation rate reporting and analysis to new levels of detail and on this tab provide a small subset of metrics that are available elsewhere on the site. Since these versions follow retention into the eighth year and graduation into the tenth, we include both full-time and part-time students, for fall, spring, and summer starts. These subcohorts include All FTIC (First-Time in College), in-state FTIC, FTIC direct from HS, FTIC with No Financial Aid, FTIC with Pell, and various categories of family income at entry. We also include a graduation rate for students earning at least 60 credits within two years as a reminder to both students and policy-makers that each student must do the requisite work and put forth appropriate effort to graduate. When they do, there is much less differentiation in graduation rates across institutions. After all, a much of the student success equation is in the hands of each individual student – they must do the work to be successful.
Under the Success tab, we introduce the Student Success Index which combines the graduation and persistence rates of FTIC and Transfer, both full and part-time.
The Debt tab builds from recently released reports on student debt of graduates. We provide an overview of borrowing at the institution, and then the debt trends of the dominant undergraduate level degree at the institution. Our debt reports differ from all others in that they include all debt processed (public, private, institutional) through the institution as well as debt of transfer students (including any debt accumulated prior to transfer for in-state students).
Under the Wages tab, we include the summary data on wage outcomes for each level of credential offered by the institution. These data include wage outcomes at 18 months and five years post-completion and what we know of students enrolling in programs post-completion.
Finally, we include a tab on Tuition fees, for all levels of programs at the institution.
These profiles provide a sampling of the data available on our site. They emphasize state policy concerns and objectives without pitting one institution against another. Transparency is provided without the need to attempt defining one institution as better than another. In the absence of clear and believable measures of student learning outcomes, any sense of “better” strikes me as very limited, inappropriate, and misleading, at best. I am further concerned about the possibility that the department might commit to new metrics, with ratings based on those metrics, before anyone has really seen and debated the data. We are better served as a community through the development of measures that are allowed to become stable over time through debate and the development of accepted identity of their value and meaning.
In light of this, I would suggest that desirable metrics be collected and reported out for a period of two years before they are used in a rating system. Only by taking best advantage of the collective thinking of the academic community will we gain their confidence in the ultimate product. It is the urge to rush because of the timeframe of elections that most jeopardizes this project.
Another problem that I think we face with any rating system is clarity in whose behavior we are trying to affect. Clearly, there is a desire here to create a system to direct the distribution of resources. It seems that this will cause institutions to behave in a way to maximize their access to those resources under the guise of remaining, or becoming, more affordable. However, wouldn’t the easiest route to greater affordability be attracting more of those resources? Attracting and obtaining more third-party payments (financial aid) doesn’t solve the problem of rising college costs – it only shelters some students from those increased costs.
If the goal is to use the rating system to affect student behavior, how will that improve affordability? By directing more students to more highly rated institutions? I’m not sure this helps affordability as the economies of scale in higher education only go so far right now, and, more importantly, in my opinion, an institution rating does not necessarily translate to a rating of individual programs. After all, it is at the program level where student engagement really occurs, not at the institution level. I also don’t think government should be picking winners and losers amongst institutions and programs. Requiring transparency is what government can do best.
Even though the Department’s focus is on ensuring access to undergraduate education, institutions are complex entities that do much more than provide undergraduate education. Any rating system created should recognize that reality and provide alternative ratings that are more institutionally holistic. As we know already, the GRS is too narrowly focused to be truly representative of an institution, so let us not fall into the same trap by creating a narrowly-focused rating system. Again, I understand much of the focus is on how to best allocate Pell dollars, but it is not much of a stretch to assume, that should PIRS be successful, it will be applied to the student loan program in some fashion. We should build now for that possibility by considering graduation rate metrics for graduate and professional programs.
In 2008, as a measure of affordability under the Institutional Performance Standards, the Commonwealth adopted a three part measure: graduation rates of students with Pell grants, of students with other aid but not Pell, and students with no financial aid. The intent of the measure is to bring attention to the differences while requiring institutions to work to bring those three measures in line with each other. There really should be no reason why students admitted to an institution, allegedly believed able to do the required work and succeed, should have substantially different graduation rates based on their financial aid status. Besides, no institution is affordable if you have a low likelihood of graduation, if your goal is graduating.
Bob Morse has done comparable work in his blog entries, “Measuring Colleges’ Success Graduating Low-Income,” “Measuring Colleges’ Success Graduating Students with Subsidized Stafford Loans” and “Measuring Colleges’ Success Graduating Higher-Income Students”
The Request for Information is clear: “the President will propose allocating financial aid based upon these college ratings by 2018.”
My questions are these:
• How complex do these ratings really need to be?
• Is this really about the allocation of aid or, more likely, about denying access to aid programs to certain institutions?
Greater complexity perhaps will allow a system that looks at the entirety of an institution and how that affects undergraduate education. Is it really necessary? If the department were to collect or calculate (under a UR collection) a package of graduation rates comparable to what we have done in Virginia, standards could be developed to exclude participation in the Pell grant program if the difference between graduation rates for non-aided students and Pell students was greater than the standard deviation of the national sample for that size and type of institution. Additional incentives could be provided of some kind, perhaps additional Pell dollars, for institutions that demonstrate three consecutive years of growth in graduation rates of Pell students, or, for increased annual student retention. My strong suggestion is to place the most direct measurement possible on the thing you care about.
Beyond direct measures of this type, community colleges should not be rated. They should be transparent, but they should not be rated. The large numbers of place-bound students these colleges serve don’t need ratings. They need academic support and financial aid. They will benefit from increased transparency about wage outcomes, employment market, debt, and transfer outcomes.
Without luck, nothing ever changes for the good, if we never know that it is bad. Every institution should have available to it the depth of transfer reports that we provide. Whether community college or four-year college, origin or destination, institutions and students need good information about student outcomes. We provide transfer feedback based on our subcohort models following students for up to 10 years.
Finally, the most important thing that the Department can do is to embrace the States as partners in these endeavors. Not only are we responsible for nearly all the public institutions in the nation, we have close relationships, tied to operating approval, to all other institutions.
We also have better data.
Virginia has 20 years of student-level data on public and nonprofit private colleges. It covers enrollment, completion, and financial aid. It can meet, and easily exceed, all the current IPEDS reporting requirements about students. If the Department is permitted to make the move to unit record, it would be most efficient to build a collection model that takes advantage of the state-level collections in place now. There is no reasonable need to require institutions to submit student-level data to both the state and the feds. Plus, I assure you, state collections are not going away. We have greater needs as our data are used for funding models and more. These are needs that cannot be met by the existing burdensome IPEDS aggregate surveys, or by relying on a federal unit record collection. We often have mandates in existing law for certain reports from our data collections. This is certainly true in Virginia.
There are things we can’t do though.
We don’t have access to student loan repayment and default data. Access to repayment data would allow Virginia to enhance its data products and the understanding of the specific impacts of student debt and employment outcomes in the state. Nor do we have access to Social Security Administration earnings data or wage data outside our state the inclusion of which would allow us to provide very accurate and complete data to our constituents. We also do not have access to good data on veterans.
This is where the federal government and the States can work together to establish a partnership that can result in better data for everyone.
This is what the Student Right-to-Know Before You Go Act is designed to address. In full disclosure, I provided significant technical advice on both versions of the bill. I did this because I think it can improve transparency in higher education.
One of the best roles of government is to ensure equal access to meaningful information. Consumer information and transparency are wonderful tools and can lead to a better informed consumer. However, that does not mean behavior necessarily changes.
A number of people have commented to me that federal government requires a variety of safety and performance ratings on new cars and trucks. This is true. It is good information and sometimes the EPA ratings can actually be achieved. However, the most fuel-efficient and safest car is not the largest seller. The Ford F-150 has been a number one seller for some years now. People buy what they want and what they need, not necessarily based solely on measures of safety and fuel efficiency.
Choosing a postsecondary program or college experience is not much different. At best, I think this endeavor will lead to the great majority people making the same decisions with better data. However, if the decisions of some students improve, with matching improvement in achieving their goals, then it will be worthwhile.
I want to conclude with this thought.
In his TEDx talk criticizing TED talks, Benjamin Bratton, a visual art professor at University of California-San Diego says the following:
“Problems are not ‘puzzles’ to be solved. That metaphor implies that all the necessary pieces are already on the table, they just need to be rearranged and reprogrammed. It’s not true … If we really want transformation, we have to slog through the hard stuff … we need to raise the level of general understanding to the level of complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which are embedded in us.”
I think this is true. Higher education is an exceedingly complex enterprise and no rating system is going to change that or make it appear less complex to those new to the process. And this is okay. Bratton’s comment about problems apply equally to the college search process and raising the level of general understanding about what postsecondary education means to an individual and the nation. Providing greater transparency and increasing the number of players in the information market will do more to achieve this goal than an attempting to build a one-stop mega-mart of higher education data and institution ratings. Students and families should expect, and be expected, to put forth some work and effort to decide the best path of postsecondary education for each student.
The time allocated today is far too brief for a technical discussion about the specifics of what can and should be done. I will be glad to work with the Department throughout the development and implementation of these ratings and a revised data collection. The Department should focus on:
5 thoughts on “#PIRS”
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(Redirected from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
Schematic diagram of an HIV.
One of our pieces on
Cell Theory
Divide and multiply
Bird evolution
Donor conception
FAQ on genetically modified food
Social selection
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a collection of opportunistic diseases that almost inevitably lead to death when untreated. AIDS has been conclusively demonstrated to be caused by long-term infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), except for HIV denialists (who deny that HIV causes AIDS, or that HIV even exists). In short, HIV suppresses the body's defenses against infection, leaving it vulnerable to just about anything that attempts to invade.
1.1 Definition
1.2 Pathology
1.3 Contagion
1.4 Opportunistic Infections (OIs)
2.1 Early
2.2 Sexidemic
2.3 Safety
3 Quack treatments
4 HIV/AIDS and religion
4.1 American fundamentalism
4.2 Other superstitions
Disease[edit]
Definition[edit]
According to the Centers for Disease Control's 1993 guidelines,[1][2] AIDS is defined as an HIV infection plus any of the following:
CD4 count (i.e., CD4 T lymphocytes count or T-cell count) less than 200 per microlitre blood, or
CD4 percentage less than 14% of total lymphocytes, or
any of the following illnesses: pulmonary TB, recurrent pneumonia, invasive cervical cancer, or
expanded definition including 23 clinical conditions published elsewhere.
The World Health Organization uses a different staging method for HIV disease.[3]
Pathology[edit]
Main symptoms of acute HIV infection
After infection with HIV, the virus quickly replicates in lymphatic tissue and travels through the blood to infect most areas of the body. The largest consequence of this is the "hijacking" of certain immune cells (any that express the protein CD4, which is the target of the viral antigen), especially so-called Helper-T cells, or CD4+ (CD4 positive) cells. The virus capsid contains two proteins, called Reverse Transcriptase and DNA Integrase, along with the viral strand of RNA. Reverse Transcriptase performs reverse transcription on the viral RNA, thus converting it into DNA, and DNA Integrase then "injects" the viral DNA into the host DNA in the cell nucleus.[4] One of the primary methods of control in HIV-positive patients is therefore Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors (RTIs).[5]
Early in the infection, the immune system holds the infection at bay, often causing "Acute Retroviral Syndrome," a flu-like illness. Patients often have swollen lymph nodes. After approximately 8–10 years of infection, the immune system begins to lose its battle. This is primarily seen in the loss of numbers of CD4+ cells, however the changes are somewhat more complex. When the CD4+ cell level drops low enough, AIDS becomes apparent. The first symptoms of the illness are generally night sweats, weight loss, and oral thrush.
Contagion[edit]
AIDS is spread by exchange of bodily fluids, especially when direct exposure of the bloodstream is involved. A direct blood transfusion has a well over 90% chance of infection, which is why blood donations are heavily screened and tested. Needle sharing has a relatively lower chance at around .6% per event, however, drug addicts rarely do heroin only once. Likewise, unprotected sexual intercourse has between a .04% (vaginal insertive) and 1.4% (anal receptive)[6] chance of infection per act, however, people are much more likely to engage in sex on a random day of the week than get a blood transfusion, so sex remains the primary mode of transmission. These chances become almost negligible with proper condom use.
Opportunistic Infections (OIs)[edit]
The hallmark of AIDS is the appearance of opportunistic infections, meaning infections with organisms that do not usually cause human disease, unless given the right "opportunity". This opportunity is the reduction in cell-mediated immunity, first seen in patients with certain cancers or on anti-rejection drugs for organ transplantation.
These infections include:
Pneumocystis jiroveci, previously Pneumocystis carinii
Candida albicans (the cause of thrush and vaginal yeast infections)
Staphylococcus aureus (primarily causes skin infections)
Streptococcus pneumoniae (the primary cause of pneumonia in AIDS patients)
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB)
Mycobacterium avium complex (atypical mycobacterium)
Cryptococcus neoformans (a cause of meningitis)
Epstein Barr virus (which leads to a type of lymphoma)
Human herpesvirus-8 (which causes Kaposi's sarcoma)
“”Facing the greatest public health crisis of his administration, Ronald Reagan was not heroic. He was a dithering coward.
—Laura Helmuth[7]
Early[edit]
Based on genetic analysis, the origin of the virus has been traced to a single transmission of chimpanzee to human in 1920 in what was then Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (now called Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo);[8] most likely the chimpanzee came from neighboring Cameroon as part of the bush-meat trade. The illness was first recognized in the early 1980s in the US[9] as gay men presented to their doctors with a rare lung disease called Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP).[10] Early on, the "gay disease" took on a variety of names, including "gay cancer" and "Gay-related immune deficiency" (GRID). The CDC noticed an increase in requests for drugs needed to treat this illness and launched an epidemiological investigation.
Randy Shilts in his book And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic identified Air Canada flight attendant Gaëtan Dugas as "Patient Zero", the first person to contract HIV and spread AIDS in the US,[11] but this has been refuted by a new epidemiologic analysis; HIV arrival in the US preceded Dugas by a few years and arrived from Africa via Haiti.[12][13] The earliest likely person to have died from AIDS in the US was a 16-year-old in 1969.[14] Dugas was likely erroneously identified as patient zero because 1) he was a relatively early disease carrier in the US 2) he had over 2500 sex partners by his own admission, and 3) he had an unusual name that his sex partners were more likely to remember.[15]
Sexidemic[edit]
The early epidemic-phase of the disease occurred in two main branches; in the US and other developed countries, and in sub-Saharan Africa. In the US, the early epidemic was primarily spread by anal sex (mostly among homosexuals), intravenous drug use, and blood transfusions. In sub-Saharan Africa, transmission was, and remains, widespread among heterosexuals, as anal sex is widely practiced as a means of contraception. Infection rates have dropped in industrialized countries, largely due to acceptance of safe sex practices. Currently, most new infections worldwide are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Safety[edit]
Social and political responses to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s have included the "safe sex" movement, with demands for greater availability of contraception, greater awareness of the risks of unprotected sex, and more comprehensive sex education. Sadly, however, the fact of the matter was that Ronald Reagan refused to mention AIDS on television until the disease had spread so widely that it was no longer just an American but global pandemic. Reports from the CDC going back to 1980 were alerting the government of the numbers of infections and what that meant, but queers, dopers, and Haitian refugees can fuck themselves. Only when celebrity Rock Hudson[16] turned into a walking skeleton before everyone's eyes did the Gipper catch the drift. Hell of a job.
The movements for safe sex and comprehensive sex education have been met with continuing resistance from conservatives, who see them as implying approval of promiscuous lifestyles and hence contributing to "moral decline." (Apparently saving lives is moral decline.)
Quack treatments[edit]
See the main article on this topic: Quack HIV/AIDS treatments
There is no cure or vaccine for AIDS as of present time (though one drug used to treat HIV is also effective as a prophylactic against HIV infection when taken regularly: tenofovir disoproxil/emtricitabine in combination, commercially known as Truvada).[17] Thus, unsurprisingly, there has grown a field of quack medical treatments purporting to treat AIDS. These treatments are ineffective and range from the harmless but worthless to potentially deadly.
HIV/AIDS and religion[edit]
“”When any man hath an issue out of his flesh,
Because of his issue, he is unclean.
Every bed whereon he lieth is unclean,
And everything whereon he sitteth, unclean,
And whosoever toucheth his bed shall be unclean,
And he that sitteth whereon he sat shall be unclean,
And he that toucheth the flesh of the unclean
Becomes unclean,
And he that be spat on by him, unclean
Becomes unclean.
—Diamanda Galás, "This Is The Law Of The Plague", adapted from Leviticus and Psalms[18]
American fundamentalism[edit]
Since AIDS initially appeared to be impacting only the gay community, some religious fundamentalist groups, proclaimed that the disease was a divine retribution for homosexuality, or for promiscuity and moral decline. Analogies were made to Sodom and Gomorrah, and semi-Biblical slogans such as "if you live by the flesh, you will die by the flesh" were coined; and of course references were made to Biblical predictions that plagues would mark the beginning of the apocalypse.
These ideas have lost weight[note 1] among most religious groups, although one study suggests that 23% of Americans still think AIDS is God's punishment for… well, something.[19] Global statistics of religious propaganda and belief based on AIDS being "retribution from God(s) for act XYZ" are unknown, as of present times. A few obnoxious extremists who have still clung to the punishment idea included Pat Robertson, the late Fred Phelps and the late Jerry Falwell. Placards held by members of Phelps' Westboro Baptist church in their homophobic picketing activities regularly include slogans such as "Thank God for AIDS." (Well, sure, if you wanted to portray your God as one of peace…)
Considering that first responders to accidents, babies born to infected mothers, or faithful wives/husbands infected by their partners all have exposure to AIDS, it is difficult to see what these innocent people have done to gain God's Wrath. Only Jehovah's Witnesses may perhaps imagine those who got the disease from blood transfusions are at fault. But we'll take schadenfreude at the fact that one of the most important Christian rock records was actually about AIDS.[20]
Other superstitions[edit]
Many other myths and superstitions have grown up surrounding AIDS, including the belief that the disease originated from a man having sex with a monkey or (non-human) ape, and contracting a simian disease from it. In societies with a poor education or awareness of AIDS, or a high level of prejudice, sufferers are often ostracised in the false belief that any kind of contact could spread the disease. In sub-Saharan Africa, the belief, known as virgin cleansing myth, is widespread that sex with a virgin will cure AIDS. This has had… unpleasant results.[21]
HIV/AIDS denialism
See the Wikipedia article on HIV/AIDS.
Human Immunodeficiency Viruses and Human T-Cell Lymphotropic Viruses IARC Monograph Volume 67 (1996) International Agency for Research on Cancer
↑ Almost as though the ideas themselves were suffering from AIDS symptoms…
↑ http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/00018871.htm
↑ http://www.merckmedicus.com/ppdocs/us/hcp/content/merck/hiv/hivaids/aidsdefi.htm
↑ http://www.aids-ed.org/aetc/aetc?page=cm-105_disease
↑ More here and here
↑ http://www.aidsmap.com/cms1031992.aspx
↑ https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/estimates/riskbehaviors.html
↑ Hugger-in-Chief, Slate
↑ The geographic origin of AIDS is now known (October 2014) Institut de Recherche pour le Développement,
↑ New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 344:1764-1772. June 7, 2001, Number 23.
↑ Pneumocystis pneumonia — Los Angeles. MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 1981;30:250-252.
↑ And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts (2007). St. Martin's Griffin, 20th anniversary edition. ISBN 0312374631. Page 147.
↑ HIV came to NYC at least a decade before virus ID'd: DNA analysis of early viral strains tracks U.S. debut to early '70s by Tina Hesman Saey (1:06pm, October 26, 2016) Science News.
↑ and ‘Patient 0’ HIV-1 genomes illuminate early HIV/AIDS history in North America. M. Worobey et al. Nature. Published online October 26, 2016. doi:10.1038/nature19827.
↑ A mystery illness killed a boy in 1969. Years later, doctors learned what it was: AIDS. by Steve Hendrix (May 15, 2019 at 7:00 AM) The Washington Post.
↑ See the Wikipedia article on Gaëtan Dugas.
↑ Ronnie was (allegedly) his butch in the 1950s.
↑ Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Centers for Disease Control
↑ Diamanda Galás:This Is The Law Of The Plague Lyrics Fandom: LyricWiki.
↑ See AIDS as God’s Punishment for Immorality
↑ http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=933
↑ BBC, Zambian march against rising child rape.
Retrieved from "https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=HIV/AIDS&oldid=2133374"
Bronze-level articles
Conservative deceit
Human carcinogens
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Parry writes: "In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pioneered 'perception management' to get the American people to 'kick the Vietnam Syndrome' and accept more U.S. interventionism, but that propaganda structure continues to this day getting the public to buy into endless war."
President Ronald Reagan meeting with media magnate Rupert Murdoch in the Oval Office on Jan. 18, 1983. (photo: Reagan Presidential Library)
The Victory of 'Perception Management'
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
o understand how the American people find themselves trapped in today’s Orwellian dystopia of endless warfare against an ever-shifting collection of “evil” enemies, you have to think back to the Vietnam War and the shock to the ruling elite caused by an unprecedented popular uprising against that war.
While on the surface Official Washington pretended that the mass protests didn’t change policy, a panicky reality existed behind the scenes, a recognition that a major investment in domestic propaganda would be needed to ensure that future imperial adventures would have the public’s eager support or at least its confused acquiescence.
This commitment to what the insiders called “perception management” began in earnest with the Reagan administration in the 1980s but it would come to be the accepted practice of all subsequent administrations, including the present one of President Barack Obama.
In that sense, propaganda in pursuit of foreign policy goals would trump the democratic ideal of an informed electorate. The point would be not to honestly inform the American people about events around the world but to manage their perceptions by ramping up fear in some cases and defusing outrage in others – depending on the U.S. government’s needs.
Thus, you have the current hysteria over Russia’s supposed “aggression” in Ukraine when the crisis was actually provoked by the West, including by U.S. neocons who helped create today’s humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine that they now cynically blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Yet, many of these same U.S. foreign policy operatives – outraged over Russia’s limited intervention to protect ethic Russians in eastern Ukraine – are demanding that President Obama launch an air war against the Syrian military as a “humanitarian” intervention there.
In other words, if the Russians act to shield ethnic Russians on their border who are being bombarded by a coup regime in Kiev that was installed with U.S. support, the Russians are the villains blamed for the thousands of civilian deaths, even though the vast majority of the casualties have been inflicted by the Kiev regime from indiscriminate bombing and from dispatching neo-Nazi militias to do the street fighting.
In Ukraine, the exigent circumstances don’t matter, including the violent overthrow of the constitutionally elected president last February. It’s all about white hats for the current Kiev regime and black hats for the ethnic Russians and especially for Putin.
But an entirely different set of standards has applied to Syria where a U.S.-backed rebellion, which included violent Sunni jihadists from the start, wore the white hats and the relatively secular Syrian government, which has responded with excessive violence of its own, wears the black hats. But a problem to that neat dichotomy arose when one of the major Sunni rebel forces, the Islamic State, started seizing Iraqi territory and beheading Westerners.
Faced with those grisly scenes, President Obama authorized bombing the Islamic State forces in both Iraq and Syria, but neocons and other U.S. hardliners have been hectoring Obama to go after their preferred target, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, despite the risk that destroying the Syrian military could open the gates of Damascus to the Islamic State or al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front.
Lost on the Dark Side
You might think that the American public would begin to rebel against these messy entangling alliances with the 1984-like demonizing of one new “enemy” after another. Not only have these endless wars drained trillions of dollars from the U.S. taxpayers, they have led to the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops and to the tarnishing of America’s image from the attendant evils of war, including a lengthy detour into the “dark side” of torture, assassinations and “collateral” killings of children and other innocents.
But that is where the history of “perception management” comes in, the need to keep the American people compliant and confused. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration was determined to “kick the Vietnam Syndrome,” the revulsion that many Americans felt for warfare after all those years in the blood-soaked jungles of Vietnam and all the lies that clumsily justified the war.
So, the challenge for the U.S. government became: how to present the actions of “enemies” always in the darkest light while bathing the behavior of the U.S. “side” in a rosy glow. You also had to stage this propaganda theater in an ostensibly “free country” with a supposedly “independent press.”
From documents declassified or leaked over the past several decades, including an unpublished draft chapter of the congressional Iran-Contra investigation, we now know a great deal about how this remarkable project was undertaken and who the key players were.
Perhaps not surprisingly much of the initiative came from the Central Intelligence Agency, which housed the expertise for manipulating target populations through propaganda and disinformation. The only difference this time would be that the American people would be the target population.
For this project, Ronald Reagan’s CIA Director William J. Casey sent his top propaganda specialist Walter Raymond Jr. to the National Security Council staff to manage the inter-agency task forces that would brainstorm and coordinate this “public diplomacy” strategy.
Many of the old intelligence operatives, including Casey and Raymond, are now dead, but other influential Washington figures who were deeply involved by these strategies remain, such as neocon stalwart Robert Kagan, whose first major job in Washington was as chief of Reagan’s State Department Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America.
Now a fellow at the Brookings Institution and a columnist at the Washington Post, Kagan remains an expert in presenting foreign policy initiatives within the “good guy/bad guy” frames that he learned in the 1980s. He is also the husband of Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who oversaw the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February amid a very effective U.S. propaganda strategy.
During the Reagan years, Kagan worked closely on propaganda schemes with Elliott Abrams, then the Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America. After getting convicted and then pardoned in the Iran-Contra scandal, Abrams reemerged on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council handling Middle East issues, including the Iraq War, and later “global democracy strategy.” Abrams is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
These and other neocons were among the most diligent students learning the art of “perception management” from the likes of Raymond and Casey, but those propaganda skills have spread much more widely as “public diplomacy” and “information warfare” have now become an integral part of every U.S. foreign policy initiative.
A Propaganda Bureaucracy
Declassified documents now reveal how extensive Reagan’s propaganda project became with inter-agency task forces assigned to develop “themes” that would push American “hot buttons.” Scores of documents came out during the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987 and hundreds more are now available at the Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California.
What the documents reveal is that at the start of the Reagan administration, CIA Director Casey faced a daunting challenge in trying to rally public opinion behind aggressive U.S. interventions, especially in Central America. Bitter memories of the Vietnam War were still fresh and many Americans were horrified at the brutality of right-wing regimes in Guatemala and El Salvador, where Salvadoran soldiers raped and murdered four American churchwomen in December 1980.
The new leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua also was not viewed with much alarm. After all, Nicaragua was an impoverished country of only about three million people who had just cast off the brutal dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza.
So, Reagan’s initial strategy of bolstering the Salvadoran and Guatemalan armies required defusing the negative publicity about them and somehow rallying the American people into supporting a covert CIA intervention inside Nicaragua via a counterrevolutionary force known as the Contras led by Somoza’s ex-National Guard officers.
Reagan’s task was made tougher by the fact that the Cold War’s anti-communist arguments had so recently been discredited in Vietnam. As deputy assistant secretary to the Air Force, J. Michael Kelly, put it, “the most critical special operations mission we have … is to persuade the American people that the communists are out to get us.”
At the same time, the White House worked to weed out American reporters who uncovered facts that undercut the desired public images. As part of that effort, the administration attacked New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner for disclosing the Salvadoran regime’s massacre of about 800 men, women and children in the village of El Mozote in northeast El Salvador in December 1981. Accuracy in Media and conservative news organizations, such as The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, joined in pummeling Bonner, who was soon ousted from his job.
But these were largely ad hoc efforts. A more comprehensive “public diplomacy” operation took shape beginning in 1982 when Raymond, a 30-year veteran of CIA clandestine services, was transferred to the NSC.
A slight, soft-spoken New Yorker who reminded some of a character from a John le Carré spy novel, Raymond was an intelligence officer who “easily fades into the woodwork,” according to one acquaintance. But Raymond would become the sparkplug for this high-powered propaganda network, according to a draft chapter of the Iran-Contra report.
Though the draft chapter didn’t use Raymond’s name in its opening pages, apparently because some of the information came from classified depositions, Raymond’s name was used later in the chapter and the earlier citations matched Raymond’s known role. According to the draft report, the CIA officer who was recruited for the NSC job had served as Director of the Covert Action Staff at the CIA from 1978 to 1982 and was a “specialist in propaganda and disinformation.”
“The CIA official [Raymond] discussed the transfer with [CIA Director] Casey and NSC Advisor William Clark that he be assigned to the NSC as [Donald] Gregg’s successor [as coordinator of intelligence operations in June 1982] and received approval for his involvement in setting up the public diplomacy program along with his intelligence responsibilities,” the chapter said.
“In the early part of 1983, documents obtained by the Select [Iran-Contra] Committees indicate that the Director of the Intelligence Staff of the NSC [Raymond] successfully recommended the establishment of an inter-governmental network to promote and manage a public diplomacy plan designed to create support for Reagan Administration policies at home and abroad.”
During his Iran-Contra deposition, Raymond explained the need for this propaganda structure, saying: “We were not configured effectively to deal with the war of ideas.”
One reason for this shortcoming was that federal law forbade taxpayers’ money from being spent on domestic propaganda or grassroots lobbying to pressure congressional representatives. Of course, every president and his team had vast resources to make their case in public, but by tradition and law, they were restricted to speeches, testimony and one-on-one persuasion of lawmakers.
But things were about to change. In a Jan. 13, 1983, memo, NSC Advisor Clark foresaw the need for non-governmental money to advance this cause. “We will develop a scenario for obtaining private funding,” Clark wrote. (Just five days later, President Reagan personally welcomed media magnate Rupert Murdoch into the Oval Office for a private meeting, according to records on file at the Reagan library.)
As administration officials reached out to wealthy supporters, lines against domestic propaganda soon were crossed as the operation took aim not only at foreign audiences but at U.S. public opinion, the press and congressional Democrats who opposed funding the Nicaraguan Contras.
At the time, the Contras were earning a gruesome reputation as human rights violators and terrorists. To change this negative perception of the Contras as well as of the U.S.-backed regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala, the Reagan administration created a full-blown, clandestine propaganda network.
In January 1983, President Reagan took the first formal step to create this unprecedented peacetime propaganda bureaucracy by signing National Security Decision Directive 77, entitled “Management of Public Diplomacy Relative to National Security.” Reagan deemed it “necessary to strengthen the organization, planning and coordination of the various aspects of public diplomacy of the United States Government.”
Reagan ordered the creation of a special planning group within the National Security Council to direct these “public diplomacy” campaigns. The planning group would be headed by the CIA’s Walter Raymond Jr. and one of its principal arms would be a new Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America, housed at the State Department but under the control of the NSC.
CIA Taint
Worried about the legal prohibition barring the CIA from engaging in domestic propaganda, Raymond formally resigned from the CIA in April 1983, so, he said, “there would be no question whatsoever of any contamination of this.” But Raymond continued to act toward the U.S. public much like a CIA officer would in directing a propaganda operation in a hostile foreign country.
Raymond fretted, too, about the legality of Casey’s ongoing involvement. Raymond confided in one memo that it was important “to get [Casey] out of the loop,” but Casey never backed off and Raymond continued to send progress reports to his old boss well into 1986. It was “the kind of thing which [Casey] had a broad catholic interest in,” Raymond shrugged during his Iran-Contra deposition. He then offered the excuse that Casey undertook this apparently illegal interference in domestic politics “not so much in his CIA hat, but in his adviser to the president hat.”
As a result of Reagan’s decision directive, “an elaborate system of inter-agency committees was eventually formed and charged with the task of working closely with private groups and individuals involved in fundraising, lobbying campaigns and propagandistic activities aimed at influencing public opinion and governmental action,” the draft Iran-Contra chapter said. “This effort resulted in the creation of the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean in the Department of State (S/LPD), headed by Otto Reich,” a right-wing Cuban exile from Miami.
Though Secretary of State George Shultz wanted the office under his control, President Reagan insisted that Reich “report directly to the NSC,” where Raymond oversaw the operations as a special assistant to the President and the NSC’s director of international communications, the chapter said.
“Reich relied heavily on Raymond to secure personnel transfers from other government agencies to beef up the limited resources made available to S/LPD by the Department of State,” the chapter said. “Personnel made available to the new office included intelligence specialists from the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army. On one occasion, five intelligence experts from the Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were assigned to work with Reich’s fast-growing operation.”
A “public diplomacy strategy paper,” dated May 5, 1983, summed up the administration’s problem. “As far as our Central American policy is concerned, the press perceives that: the USG [U.S. government] is placing too much emphasis on a military solution, as well as being allied with inept, right-wing governments and groups. …The focus on Nicaragua [is] on the alleged U.S.-backed ‘covert’ war against the Sandinistas. Moreover, the opposition … is widely perceived as being led by former Somozistas.”
The administration’s difficulty with most of these press perceptions was that they were correct. But the strategy paper recommended ways to influence various groups of Americans to “correct” the impressions anyway, removing what another planning document called “perceptional obstacles.”
“Themes will obviously have to be tailored to the target audience,” the strategy paper said.
Casey’s Hand
As the Reagan administration struggled to manage public perceptions, CIA Director Casey kept his personal hand in the effort. On one muggy day in August 1983, Casey convened a meeting of Reagan administration officials and five leading ad executives at the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House to come up with ideas for selling Reagan’s Central American policies to the American people.
Earlier that day, a national security aide had warmed the P.R. men to their task with dire predictions that leftist governments would send waves of refugees into the United States and cynically flood America with drugs. The P.R. executives jotted down some thoughts over lunch and then pitched their ideas to the CIA director in the afternoon as he sat hunched behind a desk taking notes.
“Casey was kind of spearheading a recommendation” for better public relations for Reagan’s Central America policies, recalled William I. Greener Jr., one of the ad men. Two top proposals arising from the meeting were for a high-powered communications operation inside the White House and private money for an outreach program to build support for U.S. intervention.
The results from the discussions were summed up in an Aug. 9, 1983, memo written by Raymond who described Casey’s participation in the meeting to brainstorm how “to sell a ‘new product’ – Central America – by generating interest across-the-spectrum.”
In the memo to then-U.S. Information Agency director Charles Wick, Raymond also noted that “via Murdock [sic] may be able to draw down added funds” to support pro-Reagan initiatives. Raymond’s reference to Rupert Murdoch possibly drawing down “added funds” suggests that the right-wing media mogul had been recruited to be part of the covert propaganda operation. During this period, Wick arranged at least two face-to-face meetings between Murdoch and Reagan.
In line with the clandestine nature of the operation, Raymond also suggested routing the “funding via Freedom House or some other structure that has credibility in the political center.” (Freedom House would later emerge as a principal beneficiary of funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, which was also created under the umbrella of Raymond’s operation.)
As the Reagan administration pushed the envelope on domestic propaganda, Raymond continued to worry about Casey’s involvement. In an Aug. 29, 1983, memo, Raymond recounted a call from Casey pushing his P.R. ideas. Alarmed at a CIA director participating so brazenly in domestic propaganda, Raymond wrote that “I philosophized a bit with Bill Casey (in an effort to get him out of the loop)” but with little success.
Meanwhile, Reich’s Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America (S/LPD) proved extremely effective in selecting “hot buttons” that would anger Americans about the Sandinistas. He also browbeat news correspondents who produced stories that conflicted with the administration’s “themes.” Reich’s basic M.O. was to dispatch his propaganda teams to lobby news executives to remove or punish out-of-step reporters – with a disturbing degree of success. Reich once bragged that his office “did not give the critics of the policy any quarter in the debate.”
Another part of the office’s job was to plant “white propaganda” in the news media through op-eds secretly financed by the government. In one memo, Jonathan Miller, a senior public diplomacy official, informed White House aide Patrick Buchanan about success placing an anti-Sandinista piece in The Wall Street Journal’s friendly pages. “Officially, this office had no role in its preparation,” Miller wrote.
Other times, the administration put out “black propaganda,” outright falsehoods. In 1983, one such theme was designed to anger American Jews by portraying the Sandinistas as anti-Semitic because much of Nicaragua’s small Jewish community fled after the revolution in 1979.
However, the U.S. embassy in Managua investigated the charges and “found no verifiable ground on which to accuse the GRN [the Sandinista government] of anti-Semitism,” according to a July 28, 1983, cable. But the administration kept the cable secret and pushed the “hot button” anyway.
Black Hats/White Hats
Repeatedly, Raymond lectured his subordinates on the chief goal of the operation: “in the specific case of Nica[ragua], concentrate on gluing black hats on the Sandinistas and white hats on UNO [the Contras’ United Nicaraguan Opposition].” So Reagan’s speechwriters dutifully penned descriptions of Sandinista-ruled Nicaragua as a “totalitarian dungeon” and the Contras as the “moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers.”
As one NSC official told me, the campaign was modeled after CIA covert operations abroad where a political goal is more important than the truth. “They were trying to manipulate [U.S.] public opinion … using the tools of Walt Raymond’s trade craft which he learned from his career in the CIA covert operation shop,” the official admitted.
Another administration official gave a similar description to The Miami Herald’s Alfonso Chardy. “If you look at it as a whole, the Office of Public Diplomacy was carrying out a huge psychological operation, the kind the military conduct to influence the population in denied or enemy territory,” that official explained. [For more details, see Parry’s Lost History.]
Another important figure in the pro-Contra propaganda was NSC staffer Oliver North, who spent a great deal of his time on the Nicaraguan public diplomacy operation even though he is better known for arranging secret arms shipments to the Contras and to Iran’s radical Islamic government, leading to the Iran-Contra scandal.
The draft Iran-Contra chapter depicted a Byzantine network of contract and private operatives who handled details of the domestic propaganda while concealing the hand of the White House and the CIA. “Richard R. Miller, former head of public affairs at AID, and Francis D. Gomez, former public affairs specialist at the State Department and USIA, were hired by S/LPD through sole-source, no-bid contracts to carry out a variety of activities on behalf of the Reagan administration policies in Central America,” the chapter said.
“Supported by the State Department and White House, Miller and Gomez became the outside managers of [North operative] Spitz Channel’s fundraising and lobbying activities. They also served as the managers of Central American political figures, defectors, Nicaraguan opposition leaders and Sandinista atrocity victims who were made available to the press, the Congress and private groups, to tell the story of the Contra cause.”
Miller and Gomez facilitated transfers of money to Swiss and offshore banks at North’s direction, as they “became the key link between the State Department and the Reagan White House with the private groups and individuals engaged in a myriad of endeavors aimed at influencing the Congress, the media and public opinion,” the chapter said.
The Iran-Contra draft chapter also cited a March 10, 1985, memo from North describing his assistance to CIA Director Casey in timing disclosures of pro-Contra news “aimed at securing Congressional approval for renewed support to the Nicaraguan Resistance Forces.”
The chapter added: “Casey’s involvement in the public diplomacy effort apparently continued throughout the period under investigation by the Committees,” including a 1985 role in pressuring Congress to renew Contra aid and a 1986 hand in further shielding the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America from the oversight of Secretary Shultz.
A Raymond-authored memo to Casey in August 1986 described the shift of the S/LPD office – where Robert Kagan had replaced Reich – to the control of the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, which was headed by Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, who had tapped Kagan for the public diplomacy job.
Even after the Iran-Contra scandal unraveled in 1986-87 and Casey died of brain cancer on May 6, 1987, the Republicans fought to keep secret the remarkable story of the public diplomacy apparatus. As part of a deal to get three moderate Republican senators to join Democrats in signing the Iran-Contra majority report, Democratic leaders agreed to drop the draft chapter detailing the CIA’s domestic propaganda role (although a few references were included in the executive summary). But other Republicans, including Rep. Dick Cheney, still issued a minority report defending broad presidential powers in foreign affairs.
Thus, the American people were spared the chapter’s troubling conclusion: that a secret propaganda apparatus had existed, run by “one of the CIA’s most senior specialists, sent to the NSC by Bill Casey, to create and coordinate an inter-agency public-diplomacy mechanism [which] did what a covert CIA operation in a foreign country might do. [It] attempted to manipulate the media, the Congress and public opinion to support the Reagan administration’s policies.”
Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome
The ultimate success of Reagan’s propaganda strategy was affirmed during the tenure of his successor, George H.W. Bush, when Bush ordered a 100-hour ground war on Feb. 23, 1991, to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait, which had been invaded the previous August.
Though Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had long been signaling a readiness to withdraw – and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had negotiated a withdrawal arrangement that even had the blessings of top U.S. commanders in the field – President Bush insisted on pressing ahead with the ground attack.
Bush’s chief reason was that he – and his Defense Secretary Dick Cheney – saw the assault against Iraq’s already decimated forces as an easy victory, one that would demonstrate America’s new military capacity for high-tech warfare and would cap the process begun a decade earlier to erase the Vietnam Syndrome from the minds of average Americans.
Those strategic aspects of Bush’s grand plan for a “new world order” began to emerge after the U.S.-led coalition started pummeling Iraq with air strikes in mid-January 1991. The bombings inflicted severe damage on Iraq’s military and civilian infrastructure and slaughtered a large number of non-combatants, including the incineration of some 400 women and children in a Baghdad bomb shelter on Feb. 13. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Recalling the Slaughter of Innocents.”]
The air war’s damage was so severe that some world leaders looked for a way to end the carnage and arrange Iraq’s departure from Kuwait. Even senior U.S. military field commanders, such as Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, looked favorably on proposals for sparing lives.
But Bush was fixated on a ground war. Though secret from the American people at that time, Bush had long determined that a peaceful Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait would not be allowed. Indeed, Bush was privately fearful that the Iraqis might capitulate before the United States could attack.
At the time, conservative columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak were among the few outsiders who described Bush’s obsession with exorcising the Vietnam Syndrome. On Feb. 25, 1991, they wrote that the Gorbachev initiative brokering Iraq’s surrender of Kuwait “stirred fears” among Bush’s advisers that the Vietnam Syndrome might survive the Gulf War.
“There was considerable relief, therefore, when the President … made clear he was having nothing to do with the deal that would enable Saddam Hussein to bring his troops out of Kuwait with flags flying,” Evans and Novak wrote. “Fear of a peace deal at the Bush White House had less to do with oil, Israel or Iraqi expansionism than with the bitter legacy of a lost war. ‘This is the chance to get rid of the Vietnam Syndrome,’ one senior aide told us.”
In the 1999 book, Shadow, author Bob Woodward confirmed that Bush was adamant about fighting a war, even as the White House pretended it would be satisfied with an unconditional Iraqi withdrawal. “We have to have a war,” Bush told his inner circle of Secretary of State James Baker, national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and Gen. Colin Powell, according to Woodward.
“Scowcroft was aware that this understanding could never be stated publicly or be permitted to leak out. An American president who declared the necessity of war would probably be thrown out of office. Americans were peacemakers, not warmongers,” Woodward wrote.
The Ground War
However, the “fear of a peace deal” resurfaced in the wake of the U.S.-led bombing campaign. Soviet diplomats met with Iraqi leaders who let it be known that they were prepared to withdraw their troops from Kuwait unconditionally.
Learning of Gorbachev’s proposed settlement, Schwarzkopf also saw little reason for U.S. soldiers to die if the Iraqis were prepared to withdraw and leave their heavy weapons behind. There was also the prospect of chemical warfare that the Iraqis might use against advancing American troops. Schwarzkopf saw the possibility of heavy U.S. casualties.
But Gorbachev’s plan was running into trouble with President Bush and his political subordinates who wanted a ground war to crown the U.S. victory. Schwarzkopf reached out to Gen. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to make the case for peace with the President.
On Feb. 21, 1991, the two generals hammered out a cease-fire proposal for presentation to the NSC. The peace deal would give Iraqi forces one week to march out of Kuwait while leaving their armor and heavy equipment behind. Schwarzkopf thought he had Powell’s commitment to pitch the plan at the White House.
But Powell found himself caught in the middle. He wanted to please Bush while still representing the concerns of the field commanders. When Powell arrived at the White House late on the evening of Feb. 21, he found Bush angry about the Soviet peace initiative. Still, according to Woodward’s Shadow, Powell reiterated that he and Schwarzkopf “would rather see the Iraqis walk out than be driven out.”
In My American Journey, Powell expressed sympathy for Bush’s predicament. “The President’s problem was how to say no to Gorbachev without appearing to throw away a chance for peace,” Powell wrote. “I could hear the President’s growing distress in his voice. ‘I don’t want to take this deal,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want to stiff Gorbachev, not after he’s come this far with us. We’ve got to find a way out’.”
Powell sought Bush’s attention. “I raised a finger,” Powell wrote. “The President turned to me. ‘Got something, Colin?’,” Bush asked. But Powell did not outline Schwarzkopf’s one-week cease-fire plan. Instead, Powell offered a different idea intended to make the ground offensive inevitable.
“We don’t stiff Gorbachev,” Powell explained. “Let’s put a deadline on Gorby’s proposal. We say, great idea, as long as they’re completely on their way out by, say, noon Saturday,” Feb. 23, less than two days away.
Powell understood that the two-day deadline would not give the Iraqis enough time to act, especially with their command-and-control systems severely damaged by the air war. The plan was a public-relations strategy to guarantee that the White House got its ground war. “If, as I suspect, they don’t move, then the flogging begins,” Powell told a gratified president.
The next day, at 10:30 a.m., a Friday, Bush announced his ultimatum. There would be a Saturday noon deadline for the Iraqi withdrawal, as Powell had recommended. Schwarzkopf and his field commanders in Saudi Arabia watched Bush on television and immediately grasped its meaning.
“We all knew by then which it would be,” Schwarzkopf wrote. “We were marching toward a Sunday morning attack.”
When the Iraqis predictably missed the deadline, American and allied forces launched the ground offensive at 0400 on Feb. 24, Persian Gulf time.
Though Iraqi forces were soon in full retreat, the allies pursued and slaughtered tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers in the 100-hour war. U.S. casualties were light, 147 killed in combat and another 236 killed in accidents or from other causes. “Small losses as military statistics go,” wrote Powell, “but a tragedy for each family.”
On Feb. 28, the day the war ended, Bush celebrated the victory. “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all,” the President exulted, speaking to a group at the White House. [For more details, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]
So as not to put a damper on the post-war happy feelings, the U.S. news media decided not to show many of the grisliest photos, such as charred Iraqi soldiers ghoulishly still seated in their burned-out trucks where they had been incinerated while trying to flee. By that point, U.S. journalists knew it wasn’t smart for their careers to present a reality that didn’t make the war look good.
Enduring Legacy
Though Reagan’s creation of a domestic propaganda bureaucracy began more than three decades ago – and Bush’s vanquishing of the Vietnam Syndrome was more than two decades ago – the legacy of those actions continue to reverberate today in how the perceptions of the American people are now routinely managed. That was true during last decade’s Iraq War and this decade’s conflicts in Libya, Syria and Ukraine as well as the economic sanctions against Iran and Russia.
Indeed, while the older generation that pioneered these domestic propaganda techniques has passed from the scene, many of their protégés are still around along with some of the same organizations. The National Endowment for Democracy, which was formed in 1983 at the urging of CIA Director Casey and under the supervision of Walter Raymond’s NSC operation, is still run by the same neocon, Carl Gershman, and has an even bigger budget, now exceeding $100 million a year.
Gershman and his NED played important behind-the-scenes roles in instigating the Ukraine crisis by financing activists, journalists and other operatives who supported the coup against elected President Yanukovych. The NED-backed Freedom House also beat the propaganda drums. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Shadow Foreign Policy.”]
Two other Reagan-era veterans, Elliott Abrams and Robert Kagan, have both provided important intellectual support for continuing U.S. interventionism around the world. Earlier this year, Kagan’s article for The New Republic, entitled “Superpowers Don’t Get to Retire,” touched such a raw nerve with President Obama that he hosted Kagan at a White House lunch and crafted the presidential commencement speech at West Point to deflect some of Kagan’s criticism of Obama’s hesitancy to use military force.
A New York Times article about Kagan’s influence over Obama reported that Kagan’s wife, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, apparently had a hand in crafting the attack on her ostensible boss, President Obama.
According to the Times article, the husband-and-wife team share both a common world view and professional ambitions, Nuland editing Kagan’s articles and Kagan “not permitted to use any official information he overhears or picks up around the house” – a suggestion that Kagan’s thinking at least may be informed by foreign policy secrets passed on by his wife.
Though Nuland wouldn’t comment specifically on Kagan’s attack on President Obama, she indicated that she holds similar views. “But suffice to say,” Nuland said, “that nothing goes out of the house that I don’t think is worthy of his talents. Let’s put it that way.”
Misguided Media
In the three decades since Reagan’s propaganda machine was launched, the American press corps also has fallen more and more into line with an aggressive U.S. government’s foreign policy strategies. Those of us in the mainstream media who resisted the propaganda pressures mostly saw our careers suffer while those who played along moved steadily up the ranks into positions of more money and more status.
Even after the Iraq War debacle when nearly the entire mainstream media went with the pro-invasion flow, there was almost no accountability for that historic journalistic failure. Indeed, the neocon influence at major newspapers, such as the Washington Post and the New York Times, only has solidified since.
Today’s coverage of the Syrian civil war or the Ukraine crisis is so firmly in line with the State Department’s propaganda “themes” that it would put smiles on the faces of William Casey and Walter Raymond if they were around today to see how seamlessly the “perception management” now works. There’s no need any more to send out “public diplomacy” teams to bully editors and news executives. Everyone is already onboard.
Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is bigger than ever, but his neocon messaging barely stands out as distinctive, given how the neocons also have gained control of the editorial and foreign-reporting sections of the Washington Post, the New York Times and virtually every other major news outlet. For instance, the demonizing of Russian President Putin is now so total that no honest person could look at those articles and see anything approaching objective or evenhanded journalism. Yet, no one loses a job over this lack of professionalism.
The Reagan administration’s dreams of harnessing private foundations and non-governmental organizations have also come true. The Orwellian circle has been completed with many American “anti-war” groups advocating for “humanitarian” wars in Syria and other countries targeted by U.S. propaganda. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Selling ‘Peace Groups’ on US-Led Wars.”]
Much as Reagan’s “public diplomacy” apparatus once sent around “defectors” to lambaste Nicaragua’s Sandinistas by citing hyped-up human rights violations now the work is done by NGOs with barely perceptible threads back to the U.S. government. Just as Freedom House had “credibility” in the 1980s because of its earlier reputation as a human rights group, now other groups carrying the “human rights” tag, such as Human Rights Watch, are in the forefront of urging U.S. military interventions based on murky or propagandistic claims. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case.”]
At this advanced stage of America’s quiet surrender to “perception management,” it is even hard to envision how one could retrace the many steps that would lead back to the concept of a democratic Republic based on an informed electorate. Many on the American Right remain entranced by the old propaganda theme about the “liberal media” and still embrace Reagan as their beloved icon. Meanwhile, many liberals can’t break away from their own wistful trust in the New York Times and their empty hope that the media really is “liberal.”
To confront the hard truth is not easy. Indeed, in this case, it can cause despair because there are so few voices to trust and they are easily drowned out by floods of disinformation that can come from any angle – right, left or center. Yet, for the American democratic Republic to reset its goal toward an informed electorate, there is no option other than to build institutions that are determinedly committed to the truth.
THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community.
FOCUS: A Very Stable Genius Review: Dysfunction and Disaster at the Court of King Donald
Lloyd Green, Guardian UK
FOCUS: Joe Biden Tried to Cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare for 40 Years
Branko Marcetic, Jacobin
"Electability" Is a Poisonous Political Shibboleth
Osita Nwanevu, The New Republic
RSN: The Energizer Bernie and the Power Behind Him
Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
FOCUS: Is Joe Biden a Climate Radical Now?
Kate Aronoff, The New Republic
Injustice on Repeat
Michelle Alexander, The New York Times
Of Course Trump's Impeachment Defense Features Alan Dershowitz and ... Ken Starr
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Trump Is on Trial for Abuse of Power - the Davos Elites Should Be in the Dock Too
Robert Reich, Guardian UK
FOCUS: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Vision of Economic Justice: A Lot Like Bernie Sanders
Matthew Rozsa, Salon
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Liberty Pub Videos
History of The Ronald Reagan Lecture Series
Patricia Phillips originally proposed the Ronald Reagan Lecture Series to the Loudoun County Republican Committee (LCRC) is response to a call for action by then LCRC Chairman Glen Caroline after the 2008 Election Results. At the time, Patricia had been chairing the Speaker Search committee, an ad hoc committee of the LCRC charged with bringing speakers of interest to the routine LCRC business meetings. The proposed lecture series addressed the frustration of the speaker search committee to have access such to dynamite speakers but only offer for them to speak for 10 to 15 minutes. The first lecture was a Birthday Celebration on Feb 6, 2009 in South Riding with Grover Norquist, founder of American for Tax Reform, with over 100 people in attendance. Phillips was organizing a 100th Birthday celebration for 2011, but LCRC officials squashed the project fearing it would unfairly favor Phillips, in an anticipated challenge for the republican nomination for state senate. The Lecture Series was resurrected by Pete Fagan in September 2011 with Kate Obenshain as the speaker. Years later, in July 2012, the Reagan Committee requested the Loudoun Republican Committee to disassociate the Ronald Reagan Lecture Series. Under the leadership of LCRC Chairman, Mark Sell, the motion was approved by the LCRC Executive committee in July 2012. Chris DeFransicsi, Treasurer of the Reagan Committee at the time, prepared the official documents to submit to the State Corporation Commission as a nonprofit corporation in Virginia. Six months later he completed the lengthy application processor the IRS 501(c)(3) application (Jan 2013). After 500+ days official notice came from the IRS that the application was accepted. This change allowed the lecture series to collect cash donations at the door without tracking individual names. This greatly helped the financial status.
Designed by McShaneLLC
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EMBARGOED 0001 Monday 5 May 2008
Rubberatkins launched the HP Cup, a new range of High-Pressure Packer Cups, at OTC 2008 (Monday 5 May 2008). Created to hold differential pressures up to 18,000 PSI at temperatures reaching 160ºC, the Rubberatkins HP Cup offers significantly higher capabilities than any other products currently on the market. Providing a reliable and robust solution for liner hanger, well intervention, sand fracturing, sand control and wellhead testing, the HP Cup is designed to contain high differential pressures in an annular gap.
Engineered using specially formulated anti-extrusion elastomers, its custom designed thin walls can accommodate larger outer diameter (OD) mandrels allowing increased flow through the mandrel inner diameter (ID). The HP cup has an integral cup and thimble and its flexibility provides increased reliability when working at very high pressures and temperatures, therefore minimising risk.
Nick Atkins, director of Rubberatkins says, “The HP Cup is designed to maximise production whilst minimising risk by securely sealing high pressures at temperature. We designed the HP Cup in a range of sizes which fit three custom designed mandrels. Cups can be tailored to suit the individual needs of the client and any casing size and weight and mandrel OD. Every job has different issues and problems and therefore different needs. Each requires its own distinct solution. To meet these requirements, we can adapt the rubber compounds in our products in accordance with individual environmental parameters.”
The HP Cup will provide greater reliability, as Nick explains, “Time costs money in the energy industry and the inefficient deployment of a tool can result in wasted resources and project delays. Bearing this in mind, we focussed on making the HP Cup highly reliable and devoted a majority of resources to testing this aspect of the product. By doing this we can provide our clients with the assurance that every time the HP Cup is put in place it will work.”
The launch of the HP Cup marks a landmark period for the company, Nick comments, “This is the second year that the company has exhibited at OTC and marks a significant milestone for our operations in Houston. We officially launched the opening of our base in Houston at last year’s show and now one year on, we are back again to launch our latest range of innovative products. We have spent the last 12 months focusing on the research and development of our materials and products within our Houston office and this has proved extremely successful for us in establishing our presence in the US. The main objectives for 2008 will be to drive the business forward by increasing sales in the international market.”
Rubberatkins designs and manufactures custom made elastomer and elastomer to metal components for the Oil Industry. Established in 1988, Rubberatkins problem solving capabilities are recognised as industry leading within the down hole and surface sealing sectors. Providing flexible solutions to a worldwide client base, the firm offers a local and responsive service from its offices in Houston and Aberdeen. For further information call 1-713-784-8640 or visit www.rubberatkins.com.
Rubberatkins will exhibit at stand 2563-9.
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August 11, 2010 August 11, 2010 rustinlarson Poetry
REVIEW Rustin Larson’s The Wine-Dark House and the Poet’s Journey
Rustin Larson’s The Wine-Dark House and the Poet’s Journey
Review by Steven P. Schneider
Rustin Larson has been quietly writing his poems in Southeastern Iowa for over twenty years now. Gradually, he accumulated a body of work that has attracted the attention of other poets, critics, and that increasingly rare specimen, readers. For his efforts Larson has won prizes for his poetry, has been featured as an Iowa poet at the Des Moines National Poetry Festival in 2002 and 2004 and has read his work on the public radio program Live from Prairie Lights.
Rustin has not only put his energy into his own writing, but through his community service work and community radio show “Irving Toast, Poetry Ghost” has promoted the careers of other poets. He has also promoted the work of other writers as editor of the Contemporary Review and as poetry editor of the Iowa Source and more recently as the coordinator of a poetry reading series at the M.U.M. library. It is no wonder then that his own poems express empathy for the human condition, with its foibles and exaltations, its needs for community and friendship to ward off existential loneliness. Larson’s poetry is distinguished by an impressive emotional range because of the empathy he feels for others.
Larson’s first book, Loving the Good Driver (1996), had several excellent poems. Two of them are sure to become contemporary classics. His poem “The Paternal Side,” published in The New Yorker, is skillful in its quiet evocation of his ancestors from Norway, who like other Scandinavian immigrants moved to the plains — to Iowa — for a better life: “to be someone with a little power over destiny / and cheese….” The other poem, “Melons,” is the kind of quirky lyric-narrative that characterizes some of Larson’s best work. In this poem he and his partner “wandered the earth dreaming / of the perfect incorruptible melon.” The poem concludes with the surprising and delightful image of the poet weighing his big round head in his hands, like a melon. The humor in this poem is contrapuntal to the more serious tone found in “The Paternal Side,” and his poetry often oscillates between these two strikingly different notes.
Larson imported several of the best poems from his first book into his second book, Crazy Star (2004), selected for the Loess Hills Book’s Poetry Series in 2005. He also included several new poems and further established himself as a strong contemporary poet. His poem “Cleo” is a favorite among readers for its humorous yet poignant description of a “basset hound, overweight, lazy / and sad.” “Lord of the Apes” is a tragic narrative of love and redemption, the story of several characters who lead the kind of lives Thoreau described as “quiet desperation.” One of them, a teenage girl, shows up on the poet’s front porch one night, crying in distress over her boyfriend who in anger has punched his arm through a window in their mobile home. As in so many of his other poems, the poet provides human shelter and warmth to the distressed and dispossessed.
In his most recent book, The Wine-Dark House, Larson adds many memorable poems to his fine body of work. This is his most hefty volume, totaling 101 pages. He has clearly hit his mid-career stride and many of the poems have been published in excellent literary journals. Indeed, Rustin’s commitment to the “small, literary journal” throughout his career provides testimony to the importance of these journals for a poet. They have provided a good forum for his work, and he has provided them with consistently imaginative poetry. In this collection, as in the previous two books, Larson demonstrates his versatility as a poet.
The opening poem, “Baker’s,” rivals in excellence the earlier poem “The Paternal Side.” Both poems use description marvelously to evoke character and scene, which are normally the province of the fiction writer. Larson is adept at the lyric–narrative poem, in which a depth of emotion is conveyed and sustained within a narrative frame. In “Baker’s,” for example, the reader is treated to a view of the poet as a young boy, sitting patiently for a haircut in a place called “Baker’s.”
Buck fifty folded into
a package in my fist, I’d wait, feel the cool rails
of the chair, cold leather near the drip
drip hum of the air conditioner . . .
would take a crackle off his Pall Mall, breathe
a jet of smoke as he trimmed. (2)
Larson has an eye and an ear for the small town barbershop that reminds me of Tim O’Brien, the fiction writer and author of The Things They Carried. Like O’Brien, Larson situates this poem during the Vietnam War era, and while the boy in the barber’s chair reads comic books, the mature poet reflects that Baker surely dreamed the head of hair he trimmed would one day be returned in “a blue silk box from Asia.” Larson expresses both a nostalgia for Baker’s and the atmosphere of his barber shop as well as offers a wry political commentary on the times.
One of my favorite poems in the collection is simply entitled “Poem.” It is different from many of the others in the collection and invokes the way the mind, or the poem, can lose track of itself. In this regard, the “Poem” may be a commentary on Alzheimer’s or creeping senility. It is both frightful and humorous. Larson repeats the phrase “I had no idea” with consummate skill to convey the sense of mental “slippage.” He writes: “I had no idea I had no idea I forgot where/ ideas came from I had no idea I was / afraid of the ideas I was failing to have.” (18) This is a startling example of self-consciousness gone awry.
In the title poem, “The Wine-Dark House,” Larson, who is a master of the domestic scene, is reading late into the night Homer’s Odyssey. The poem’s title echoes the phrase “wind-dark sea,” which Homer used dozens of times in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Like Odysseus, Larson has been trying to find his way home, or at least to redefine that home. Larson’s vehicle for his journey is the process of writing itself, which he has dedicated himself to and which he knows can be both circuitous and serendipitous. But the writer who pursues his craft, like Odysseus who pursues the journey home, must have patience. Larson plays on the word “patience” in this poem. “There is a planter of impatiens / whistling in the hoop.” “I have taken / my lessons in patience/ from the wine-dark house.” The poem ends magically.
In the wine-dark house
the wine that has been poured
is darkness, you see?
I drink the wine
and the wine drinks me. (81)
Larson and the house become one; just as the poet and his journey are one. The wine is a metaphor for darkness but also inspiration, and the poet who “drinks the wine” surrenders part of himself to that inspiration, to the darkness in the house, to the quietness of reading a book, to the lushness of metaphor and to the wine of his own imagination.
These days to read a book of poetry is to engage in an act of subversion, to surrender the mind to the quiet act of discovery in a world full of noise and fear. In The Wine-Dark House the reader will find many treasures to marvel over and to stow away.
Order a signed copy of The Wine-Dark House, and receive a bonus chapbook.
$14.00 payable to:
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ArtistsExhibitionsFairsNewsAboutContact
Unseen Amsterdam 2017
Fair artworks
Booth 03, Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam
Galerie Ron Mandos proudly presents works by: Hans Op de Beeck (BE, 1969), Mohau Modisakeng (SA, 1986), Anouk Kruithof (NL, 1981) and Vytautas Kumža, winner of Best of Graduates Ron Mandos Photo Talent Award 2017 (LT, 1992).
Hans Op de Beeck (BE, 1969) The Room series consists of large black-and-white pictures, in which the artist concentrates on the loss of self, moments in which a person in an interior slips into a state of mental absence. The interiors provide information about the presumed life and social background of the person portrayed, as well as the specific moment and the stage of life that the individual has reached. This series of images in photographic form is closely related to the traditional art of painting. The artificial nature of the setting is never denied in these obviously constructed images.
Mohau Modisakeng (SA, 1986) focuses in his works on how to understand the cultural, political, and social roles as human beings in post-colonial Africa and in particular post-apartheid South Africa. Passage refers to life as a voyage as in Setswana language the experience of life is referred to as a ‘passage’. As such, all human beings are referred to as passengers, a word that highlights the fact that life is fleeting. The theme of life as a journey is visualised in images where we are confronted with a young woman and two men travelling by boat, over sea.
Anouk Kruithof (NL, 1981) Her artworks establish a curious relationship with the tremendous abundance of present-day imagery, a plenitude which seems so natural to us that it remains nearly imperceptible. In this field of tension there are various individual and collective identity blueprints, as well as social, institutional and personal representations which build a political sphere of their own. With her works, she investigates such pictorial procedures, dismantles and disassembles them, takes them apart in order to reconstruct and reassemble them in new ways.
Vytautas Kumža (LT, 1992) recently graduated at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and is this years winner of the Best Of Graduates Photography Award at Galerie Ron Mandos. Kumža is very interested in how images are constructed. His fascination for 1980’s commercial studio photography and the use of different techniques led to this series of artworks. Using only materials in his photographs and no post-production he was able to provoke small accidents which led to surprising results and showing the process, the backstage, of the photograph.
ABOUT Hans Op de Beeck
Hans Op de Beeck (Be) produces large installations, sculptures, films, drawings, paintings, photographs and texts. His work is a reflection on our complex society and the universal questions of meaning and mortality that resonate within it.
He regards man as a being who stages the world around him in a tragi-comic way. Above all, Op de Beeck is keen to stimulate the viewers’ senses, and invite them to really experience the image. He seeks to create a form of visual fiction that delivers a moment of wonder, silence and introspection.
Hans Op de Beeck was born in Turnhout in 1969. He lives and works in Brussels and Gooik, Belgium. Op de Beeck has shown his work extensively in solo and group exhibitions around the world.
He has had substantial institutional solo shows at the GEM Museum of Contemporary Art of The Hague, The Hague, NL (2004); MUHKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, B (2006); Centraal Museum, Utrecht, NL (2007); the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, US (2010); Kunstmuseum Thun, CH (2010); Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, Burgos, ES (2010); Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, IRL (2012); Kunstverein Hannover, D (2012); Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, USA (2013); the Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL, USA (2013); FRAC Paca, Marseille, F (2013); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Boston MA, US (2014); MOCA Cleveland, OH, US (2014); Sammlung Goetz, Munich, D (2014); Screen Space, Melbourne, AU (2015); Espace 104, Paris, FR (2016); Art Unlimited, Basel, CH (2016); Kunstraum Dornbirn, Dornbirn, AU (2017); Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, DE (2017); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, DE (2017); Fondazione Museo Pino Pascali, Polignano a Mare, IT (2017); ...
GO TO THE ARTIST PAGE
ABOUT Mohau Modisakeng
Material, metaphor and the black body are the tools that Mohau Modisakeng uses to explore the influence of South Africa’s violent history that has been ignored in today’s society, on how we understand our cultural, political, and social roles as human beings in post-colonial Africa and in particular post-apartheid South Africa.
Represented through film, large-scale photographic prints, installations and performances, his “work doesn’t start off with an attempt to portray violence but it becomes mesmerising because although we might recognise history as our past, the body is indifferent to social changes, so it remembers.”
Born in Soweto, an epicentre of black urbanity and cosmopolitan culture, the multi-award winning Mohau Modisakeng is a product of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art. Mentored by Jane Alexander and predominantly working and training in sculpture, he completed his undergraduate degree in 2009 then completed his Masters degree at the same institution. He was awarded the SASOL New Signatures Award for 2011 and has exhibited at Armory Show, New York (2016); Saatchi Gallery, London (2012); Dak’Art Biennale, Dakar (2012); Focus 11 and Basel (2011). In 2013 Modisakeng produced an ambitious new video work in association with Samsung as a special project for the 2013 FNB Joburg Art Fair. His work is included in public collections such as the Johannesburg Art Gallery, IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town and SAATCHI Gallery, London as well as significant private collections such as Zeitz MOCAA. He currently lives and works between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Prinsengracht 282, 1016 HJ Amsterdam
Wed – Sat: 12am – 6pm
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Alphabet Diamond
Lévres
IDIOSYNCRATIC (sur mesure)
Rings as a whole are semiotic objects which have been tied to human culture throughout the history of mankind, and are arguably the most intimate accessory we wear on a daily basis. Pinky rings and signet rings in particular date back to ancient times, and have since then functioned as signifiers of different forms of status up until modern times. They have been worn by the bourgeoise and aristocracy in earlier historical moments, though today they often signify more of a spirit of individuality, often work by bankers, gangsters, musicians, and more recently, empowered women.
While planning this collection, Zuzana sought a name that would describe the collection in more than one way, hoping to speak about the work as a series rather than a singular object. At its core, the collection touches on many contemporary issues ranging from gender & sexuality to class & status, and the word AUDACE (meaning audacity and boldness) felt appropriate to describe such a grouping of ideas, serving to describe an approach and a method more than just a static theme. For Zuzana, this collection is as much about creating beautiful objects as it is about creating a dialogue, and in hopefully in this collection an audacious conversation emerges.
The collection’s predominantly octagonal shape in the form of emerald cut diamonds is meant to emit a classic feel of the brand, as it utilizes one of the first and oldest cuts of diamonds. The eight sides of an octagonal shape also refer to an idea of balance, an idea that is particularly intriguing given the collection’s emphasis on pinky rings, which have a diverse history linked to both men and women. Zuzana firmly believes that we are each made from both masculinity and femininity, and that there is more fluidity and less of a dichotomy between the two genders.
The AUDACE collection has five different rings with a further set of variations within each type of ring (coincidentally, the pinky is also considered to be the fifth finger of our hands). Each ring in the collection has its own history and inspiration, though they are all derived from the same octagonal form. These five rings are also representative of the designer’s own eclectic tastes and sensibilities, appreciating and drawing from seemingly contradictory things. At its core, the collection hopes to feel both acutely traditional while also being willfully modern. Zuzana hopes that the women and men who approach AUDACE make the rings their own, attaching their own personal histories to them as the designer has, and possessing the freedom to wear them however they want.
When do I feel most audacious?
© Neva Oslo
Jewellery info
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Seamless integration of initial sketching and subsequent detail editing in flower modeling
Takashi Ijiri, S. Owada, T. Igarashi
We present an interactive modeling system for flower composition that supports seamless transformation from an initial sketch to a detailed three-dimensional (3D) model. To begin, the user quickly sketches the overall appearance of the desired model as a collection of two-dimensional (2D) strokes on hierarchical billboards. Then the user iteratively replaces the coarse sketch with a detailed 3D model referring to the initial sketch as a guide. Since a flower model consists of many repetitive components, the system helps the user to reuse 3D components to facilitate the modeling process. The global view of the entire model is always shown in a separate window to visualize how local modifications affect the global appearance. Our system helps the user make appropriate design decisions to keep the model consistent with the initial design, which is difficult in traditional bottom-up plant modeling systems in which the global view only emerges after all of the details are specified.
Computer Graphics Forum
Published - 2006 Sep
Ijiri, T., Owada, S., & Igarashi, T. (2006). Seamless integration of initial sketching and subsequent detail editing in flower modeling. Computer Graphics Forum, 25(3), 617-624. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.2006.00981.x
Seamless integration of initial sketching and subsequent detail editing in flower modeling. / Ijiri, Takashi; Owada, S.; Igarashi, T.
In: Computer Graphics Forum, Vol. 25, No. 3, 09.2006, p. 617-624.
Ijiri, T, Owada, S & Igarashi, T 2006, 'Seamless integration of initial sketching and subsequent detail editing in flower modeling', Computer Graphics Forum, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 617-624. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.2006.00981.x
Ijiri T, Owada S, Igarashi T. Seamless integration of initial sketching and subsequent detail editing in flower modeling. Computer Graphics Forum. 2006 Sep;25(3):617-624. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.2006.00981.x
Ijiri, Takashi ; Owada, S. ; Igarashi, T. / Seamless integration of initial sketching and subsequent detail editing in flower modeling. In: Computer Graphics Forum. 2006 ; Vol. 25, No. 3. pp. 617-624.
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abstract = "We present an interactive modeling system for flower composition that supports seamless transformation from an initial sketch to a detailed three-dimensional (3D) model. To begin, the user quickly sketches the overall appearance of the desired model as a collection of two-dimensional (2D) strokes on hierarchical billboards. Then the user iteratively replaces the coarse sketch with a detailed 3D model referring to the initial sketch as a guide. Since a flower model consists of many repetitive components, the system helps the user to reuse 3D components to facilitate the modeling process. The global view of the entire model is always shown in a separate window to visualize how local modifications affect the global appearance. Our system helps the user make appropriate design decisions to keep the model consistent with the initial design, which is difficult in traditional bottom-up plant modeling systems in which the global view only emerges after all of the details are specified.",
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AU - Owada, S.
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AB - We present an interactive modeling system for flower composition that supports seamless transformation from an initial sketch to a detailed three-dimensional (3D) model. To begin, the user quickly sketches the overall appearance of the desired model as a collection of two-dimensional (2D) strokes on hierarchical billboards. Then the user iteratively replaces the coarse sketch with a detailed 3D model referring to the initial sketch as a guide. Since a flower model consists of many repetitive components, the system helps the user to reuse 3D components to facilitate the modeling process. The global view of the entire model is always shown in a separate window to visualize how local modifications affect the global appearance. Our system helps the user make appropriate design decisions to keep the model consistent with the initial design, which is difficult in traditional bottom-up plant modeling systems in which the global view only emerges after all of the details are specified.
JO - Computer Graphics Forum
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CAP reform and world trade negotiations
McMahon, Joseph A. (1999) CAP reform and world trade negotiations. Amicus Curiae, 1999 (20). pp. 7-10.
Citation: McMahon, Joseph A. (1999) CAP reform and world trade negotiations. Amicus Curiae, 1999 (20). pp. 7-10.
1446-1678-1-SM.pdf
In March 1999 the European Council in Berlin agreed on reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Dr Joseph McMahon of the Queen’s University of Belfast examines these reforms in relation to the European Community’s Agenda 2000 proposals and the next round of WTO negotiations and argues that they may not go far enough. Article by Dr Joseph A. McMahon published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and its Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London.
McMahon, Joseph A. and
European law, European Union, Common Agricultural Policy, World Trade Organisation
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news and events » news
Training focus of Smokejumper story
by Ed Kemmick | posted: July 13, 2003
In his story on Smokejumper training in the Billingsgazette.com, Smokejumpers go to work with flair, Larry Mayer writes:
Two hours before he was scheduled to jump out of an airplane and parachute 1,500 feet into Hebgen Lake, Chris Young admitted he was feeling some anxiety. With more than 200 jumps under his belt, he wasn't worried about the parachuting part. It was the idea of getting out of the lake that he didn't like.
"My technique in swimming is sinking to the bottom and running like hell," he said.
The comment drew a big laugh, some of it nervous, from 14 of Young's colleagues, who would be making their first water landings with him.
Mayer's article talks about PT testing, the first 24 hours, pay, and other aspects of training.
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sega heritage collection
Reviews, Uncategorized
Sonic Adventure 2 (XBLA/PSN): The Retro Review
(SPOILER WARNING: This review contains unmarked spoilers. The game is over a decade old and well-known amongst our readers, so we deemed it unnecessary to refrain from spoilers. If you’ve never played the game before, you’ve been warned.)
In a franchise like Sonic that has been on such a rollercoaster of quality for the past twenty years, Sonic Adventure 2 somehow sticks out in the franchise as possibly the most polarizing game in the series. To one part of the fanbase, it’s the pinnacle of Sonic. Because it was the first major Sonic title on a Nintendo platform, many people cite SA2 as their introduction to the franchise. And yet to others, the game symbolizes the start of everything that nearly killed the franchise forever. So as I review Sega’s recent digital rerelease of Sonic Adventure 2 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, I feel it’s necessary to frame the game in context.
Outside of the broader fanbase context, I – like many others – have my own personal relationship with SA2. I was but a wee child when it first came out for the Dreamcast in 2001, and I spent a frightening number of hours engrossed in the game. It wasn’t my first exposure to the series; that title goes to Sonic 2 on the Genesis, whose predecessor and sequels received a similarly obsessive amount of my attention. In fact, the sole reason I asked for a Dreamcast for Christmas in 2000 was so that I could play the original Adventure. So, being the fanatic little child I was, Sonic Adventure 2 earned a special, fuzzy, nostalgiatastic place in my heart. The question, then, is: eleven years later, can it keep it? Continue Reading
October 14, 2012 by Guess Who
Retro Stream – Sega Heritage Collection
Watch live video from vidyaretro on www.twitch.tv
Later today the Retro crew are going to be hosting a Sega Heritage Collection showcase. We’ve been in contact with Ben K. as to when we can show the games off, and he was kind to let us know that we can go ahead and show off all three games as of this week.
We’ll be taking a look at Nights into Dreams, Jet Set Radio and Sonic Adventure 2. You can expect our fond recollections of all three games and an exploration of each game’s features before their release date. Well, except for Jet Set Radio, you can get that now on Playstation Network, Xbox Live Arcade and Steam. But if you’re still on the fence about any of these titles, be sure to check out our livestream later today at 4PM. You can also check back here for a direct link to the feed as well.
September 21, 2012 by Bartman3010
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20 Feet from Stardom...music from the motion picture...various artists
Among the songs included on this album is a new recording of the classic song "Lean On Me," featuring Darlene Love, as well as an original song, "Desperation" performed by The Voice finalist Judith Hill. The iconic Rolling Stones song "Gimme Shelter," is performed by Merry Clayton, a rare recording from her 1971 debut album of the same name. Also highlighted on the soundtrack are two time-honored backup singer tracks, "Young Americans" performed by David Bowie and "Walk On the Wild Side," performed by Lou Reed.
20 Feet From Stardom shines the spotlight on the untold true story of the backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends of the 21st century. Triumphant and heartbreaking in equal measure, the film is both a tribute to the unsung voices who brought shape and style to popular music and a reflection on the conflicts, sacrifices and rewards of a career spent harmonizing with others. These gifted artists span a range of styles, genres and eras of popular music, but each has a uniquely fascinating and personal story to share of a life spent in the shadows of superstardom. Along with rare archival footage and a peerless soundtrack, 20 Feet From Stardom boasts intimate interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger and Sting to name just a few. However, these world-famous figures take a backseat to the diverse array of backup singers whose lives and stories take center stage in the film.
Although these singers are usually relegated to the margins, and few, if any, become household names, their work has defined countless songs that remain in our hearts and collective consciousness. 20 Feet from Stardom juxtaposes the interviews with industry legends and the relative unknowns who support them like Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, and Judith Hill as they illuminate the art of melding their own distinct voices with lead vocals and reveal their desires for careers as solo artists. It is a celebration of the voices from the edge, which brought shape and style to the soundtracks of our lives.
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Labels: collection, Compilation, contemporary, Movie, Soundtrack, T, US, Various Artists
20 Feet from Stardom...music from the motion pictu...
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Less Arthritis Pain After 8 Weeks Of Yoga
Yoga can make people with arthritis feel better both physically and mentally, according to a study of patients who suffer from knee osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, two common forms of the disease.
Arthritis, a painful inflammation and stiffening of the joints, is a leading cause of disability, affecting one in five adults, most younger than 65. There is no cure, but one important way to manage arthritis is to remain active, researchers say.
Yet up to 90 percent of arthritis patients are less active than guidelines suggest, perhaps due to pain and stiffness, but also because they are unsure of the best way to do so. Susan J. Bartlett, adjunct associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University and associate professor at McGill University, says:
“Yoga may be especially well-suited to people with arthritis. It combines physical activity with potent stress management and relaxation techniques, and focuses on respecting limitations that can change from day to day.”
20% Improvement
The study included 75 patients randomly assigned to either a wait list or to eight weeks of twice-weekly yoga classes plus a weekly practice session at home. Participants’ physical and mental well-being was assessed before and after the study by researchers who did not know to which group participants had been assigned.
Compared with the control group, those doing yoga reported a 20 percent improvement in pain, energy levels, mood, and physical function, including their ability to complete physical tasks at work and home.
Walking speed improved to a smaller extent; there was little difference between the groups in tests of balance and upper body strength. Improvements in those who completed the yoga classes was still apparent in follow-up assessments nine months later.
Clifton O. Bingham, director of the Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center, says the idea for the study grew out of his experiences treating patients.
“I was watching what happened with my patients and the changes in their lives as a result of practicing yoga that got me interested in the first place.
For people with other conditions, yoga has been shown to improve pain, pain-related disability, and mood. But there were no well-controlled trials of yoga that could tell us if it was safe and effective for people with arthritis, and many health professionals have concerns about how yoga might affect vulnerable joints, given the emphasis on changing positions and on being flexible.”
Start With Gentle Yoga
Classes were taught by experienced yoga therapists with additional training to modify poses to accommodate individual abilities. Participants were screened by their doctors prior to joining the study; they continued to take their regular arthritis medications.
The researchers have developed a checklist to make it easier for doctors to safely recommend yoga to their patients. People with arthritis who are considering yoga should-
“talk with their doctors about what specific joints are of concern, and about modifications to poses,” Bingham says.
“Find a teacher who asks the right questions about limitations and works closely with you as an individual. Start with gentle yoga classes. Practice acceptance of where you are and what your body can do on any given day.”
Steffany Haaz Moonaz, Clifton O. Bingham III, Lawrence Wissow, and Susan J. Bartlett
Yoga in Sedentary Adults with Arthritis: Effects of a Randomized Controlled Pragmatic Trial
J Rheumatol July 2015 42(7):1194-1202; doi:10.3899/jrheum.141129
Top Illustration: Shantell Martin/Flickr
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Tag: South Pacific
We are back in the land of changing autumn foliage and endless sporting events. Abraham is back at college; Matiu has taken his PSATs; Dani has just turned 12. Seven is cycling and playing tennis outside while he still can. He and I are renovating my father’s old workshop, turning it into an office so that I can move out of the basement. I have started on the new book. We think, often of our amazing trip, but visions like this:
Have, of necessity, given way to this:
If you are coming late to the story and would like to read this blog—an account of our 27,000-mile journey across the Pacific and back—in its entirety, click the link below and you will be redirected the beginning of the tale. Bon voyage!
Posted on October 30, 2010 September 4, 2018 Categories adventure, Family, Oceania, Pacific Islands, Polynesia, South Pacific, travelTags Adventure, Family, South Pacific, Travel4 Comments on Back to the Beginning
Thank You’s All Round
I could absolutely have gone on, or doubled back, or started over. It’s been an amazing journey and I hate to see it end. My children, I know, feel rather differently, but I think even they know what a long, cool trip it’s been. In June they were just suburban American kids who had never been anywhere. Now they’ve traveled over 27,000 miles and seen everything from an active volcano to a live coral reef, never mind all those fascinating piles of rocks….
Dani says his favorite place was the Mangonui pa in New Zealand; Matiu says his was Mo’orea, or, as he put it, “that house.” I couldn’t even begin to pick; it was all fascinating to me. But one thing I do know is that we got really good at traveling. I was filled with anxiety before we left, both because planning is much the hardest part and because, while Seven and I did travel extensively in the early years of our marriage, we have stayed put for more than a decade now. And I really mean stayed put: with the exception of a trip to Nova Scotia in 2002 we haven’t been anywhere in twelve years. So I just couldn’t remember what this kind of traveling was like, and somehow I had gotten the idea that it would all be harder now, that I just wasn’t the explorer I had once been.
But some things, it seems, just don’t change. It’s like that realization you have at some point about your children: that the personality traits you are seeing in them at 11 or 15 or 19 are the same ones you observed in them when they were 2 or 3.
In some ways this kind of crazy traveling was actually easier than my ordinary life. For one thing, I wasn’t trying to do 10,000 things at once. It was just one foot in front of the other: now we eat; now we sleep; now we catch a plane; now we swim; now we go look at something interesting; now we eat again; now we catch another plane….The simplicity of it all was rather marvelous: so single-minded. I don’t know if you can see it in this picture, but there was definitely something of the well-oiled machine about us by the time we reached our last stop.
So, here we are packed and ready for our very last flight home (note: the bags are still in great shape, though the American Tourister luggage tags all fell apart):
Just to wrap up the story, we left Ann and Joel to continue their journey around the Big Island while we made our way to San Francisco to see our friends Tessa and Daniel, who generously put us up while we went through a couple of days of re-entry decompression, and to meet with Patrick Kirch, whose numerous books on Pacific archaeology constitute the backbone of my reading list.
Pat showed us around his lab, pulling out drawer after drawer of amazing objects, including a cast of a little anthropomorphic carving on a piece of porpoise bone about 3-4 inches long — “God belong ol Lapita,” in the words of the guy who found it. Pat has been tremendously generous to me, helping me think through a number of issues and pointing me in the right direction as I feel my way through this new field. So he is high on the list of people I want to thank as I bring this journey to an end.
There are, however, quite a lot of other people on the list. So, starting at the top:
Thank you to the Australia Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts for supporting my writing and enabling this fantastic opportunity for new research.
Thank you to Shelley Madsen at Aspire Down Under who made our incredibly complex travel arrangements. It all went amazingly smoothly and we always had good seats!
Thank you to Barbara, Katy, Linzee, and Peter for looking after us in Los Angeles. I’ve made a stop at my aunt’s beautiful house in Pasadena every time I’ve passed this way since 1984, and it’s still the best B&B in the Pacific.
Thank you to Rose Corser in Nuku Hiva for help with accommodation and local information. It was especially nice to have a friendly American acquaintance at this early stage of the journey when we were just starting to get things figured out.
Thank you to Bob Hammar in Seattle for the use of his beautiful house on Mo’orea and to Jacques Decottignies for service well beyond the call of duty in sending us the camera battery chargers that we left behind. That was a lifesaver!
Thank you to Marimari Kellum for showing us around her property and telling us about its fascinating history. We hope everything continues to go well with the O Tahiti Nui voyage.
Thanks to all of Seven’s family in New Zealand: to Rina, whose recent loss we feel profoundly, for making time for us; to Bill and Wati and Liza for driving all that way just to have lunch; to Boboy and Piripi for coming to see us in Paihia; to Anaru, Justin, and Bianca for finding us in Auckland; and to everyone else who made us welcome. The kids were amazed not only at how many relatives they have but at the warmth with which they were embraced wherever they went.
Thanks to Ana, Sateki, and Fine Uasike for astonishing hospitality in Tonga. We will hope for an opportunity to repay you in kind!
Thanks to Liv, Neane, and Toby in Melbourne for a beautiful day at the Healesville sanctuary, a fabulous lunch, and general comradeship and good company. We’ll hope to see you back in Cambridge before too long.
Thanks also to Anne, Hilary, Elliot, Mary and Chris for making time to catch up on our absurdly short flyby of a visit; and to Mere for breakfast, among many other things. I wish we could have spent more time with all of you.
Thanks to Matthew Spriggs and Stuart Bedford in Vanuatu for showing us such cool stuff, and to Geoff White in Hawai’i for putting me in touch with Pat who put me in touch with Matthew.
Thanks to Pat Crosby, who hasn’t changed a bit in all these years, for a delightful dinner party, and to Meleanna Meyer for ducking out of something else to come. It was great seeing you both again.
Thanks to Sam Low for connecting me with Laura Thompson, and mahalo to Laura for a chance to meet some of her family, for dinner, and, especially, for the generous loan of the Volcano house (here is a picture of Dani enjoying the microfiber sheets).
Thanks to Scott, Lauren, Danielle, Suzette, and Melissa in Kailua for dinner and friendship over many years. It was great to see all the girls so grown up, I only wish Abraham had been there too. Next time!
Thanks to Ann, Joel, Isabelle, and David for doing all the Big Island planning and for meeting up with us just when we needed it most. And to Ann’s aunt and uncle, Myrna and Lowell, for extending their warmth and generosity to include us; we feel that we too have family in Hawai’i.
Finally, thank you to Tessa, Isabelle, Benjamin, and Daniel, whom we have missed ever since they left Cambridge, and who housed and fed us in Los Altos with characteristic generosity and grace.
Last, but by no means least, thank you to my brother Elliott, my sister-in-law Debbie, my niece Rachel, and my mother, Dorothy, who held down the fort for 8 weeks while we went gallivanting across the sea. I could not have done it without your connivance and I appreciate everything you did to make this trip possible for Seven, Abraham, Matiu, Dani, and me.
Aloha nui, everyone.
Posted on August 29, 2010 September 4, 2018 Categories adventure, expedition, Family, Pacific Islands, travelTags Adventure, Family, South Pacific, Travel18 Comments on Thank You’s All Round
Back in the USA: Hawai’i
It’s not easy getting from one Pacific Island to another: it seems you always have to go somewhere else first. Getting from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus (which is just the next archipelago over) requires a 3-hour flight back to Tahiti and then a 1.5-hour flight back in direction you just came from to Rangiroa. Likewise, Tahiti to Tonga requires that you fly way south to New Zealand and then back north to the latitude you just left (only a bit further west). It’s all about hubs, apparently. Plus, we are being told that fewer and fewer airlines are flying the Pacific’s less common routes; though I don’t think anyone flew Tahiti-Tonga even in the good old days.
Leaving Vanuatu was another case in point. Our next port of call was Hawai’i but we couldn’t go straight there, so we stopped for a night in Nadi, Fiji. For the uninitiated, one of the peculiarities of the Fijian language is an unindicated nasal: thus “Nadi” is actually “Nandi” — “d” should be sounded as if it were “nd” and “b” as if it were “mb.”
Here we are boarding our plane in Port Vila…
And after this there appears to be a gap in the photographic record (all we did in Fiji was eat and sleep; no, I lie, Seven watched a game of rugby on the television in the bar) until we were confronted — rather shockingly after the places we have been — with this:
What can I say? Waikiki and Honolulu in all its glory. The kids were very excited to be returning to America, though I think Seven and I had a little bit of a feeling that the end of the journey was upon us — no more foreign currency, no more curious food. Though, to be fair, there were still some dramatic new sights ahead of us on the Big Island.
Honolulu is another one of those places that, for us, signals “return” rather than “discovery.” It was wonderful to see some of our old friends — dating back not just 12 but nearly 20 years to the time when I was a post-doc at the East West Center. The irony of our stay, however, was that despite having lived here for a whole year (it’s not that big a place) plus the fact that Seven worked as a — wait for it — AAA dispatcher, we got lost every single time we set out in our rental car. We couldn’t find the road to the old house where we used to live; we couldn’t find the shopping center; we couldn’t find the street we wanted in Makiki; we couldn’t find the entrance ramp onto Highway 1; we couldn’t, in the end even find the rental car agency! We did find everything eventually, but we sure drove around in circles a lot.
Part of the problem I think was that we were staying in Waikiki, a part of town we had never been very familiar with (being, you know, kama aina) and also one that is filled with one-way streets. We stayed in a tiny condo with a great view at the Ewa end of Waikiki, here is what it looked like from the lanai:
That roof to the right is some kind of Army Museum that we did not manage to visit, despite the alluring helicopter that was parked outside:
We also made an abortive attempt to see the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, arriving just after the last tour had left. We did get the kids to the North Shore for shave ice (which they said was not as good as it was cracked up to be; though we later found excellent shave ice in Kona) and Seven and I made several trips to the International Market for bead bracelets…
to which I have become addicted….better than vodka I suppose….
One night we attended an entertaining dinner hosted by a friend who works at at UH Press. I think my favorite moment came when, after describing with much comic exaggeration how the University of Hawai’i had declined to hire me back in the 90s, I discovered that almost everyone else at the table was a faculty member in the department in question. We also had an extremely kind invitation to meet various members of the Thompson ohana (no relation to me unless extremely distantly), whose generosity was rivaled only by that of our Tongan friends, and saw some old friends (NZers) who have three girls just about the same ages as our boys. Dani and Matiu were so shy they practically had to be dragged out of the car; mercifully there was a pool table, so no need to make conversation…)
I think what they enjoyed most though was the absolutely wild wind at the top of the Pali — which is the razor sharp ridge at the top of the pass from the leeward (Waikiki) side of Oahu to the windward (Kailua-Kaneohe) — it was like being inside a wind tunnel, as you can perhaps tell from the hair:
And, finally, here they are in another characteristic posture: poor things, we had the only decent bed and they were relegated to couch cushions on the floor…
The Big Island is Amazing
Posted on August 22, 2010 September 4, 2018 Categories adventure, Family, Hawaii, Oceania, Pacific Islands, South Pacific, travel, UncategorizedTags Family, Hawaii, South Pacific, Travel7 Comments on Back in the USA: Hawai’i
Vanuatu II
Apart from the archaeology, which was our entire reason for being there and which was spectacular, our stay in Vanuatu was kind of quiet. We were staying on a little island just off the coast and a few miles out of Port Vila. Here is a picture of us waiting to go out on our first night there:
and here is what it looked like in daylight from the boat:
After all these weeks in the islands, Seven had kind of a negative reaction to being in what was unambiguously a tourist resort — where all the workers were locals and all the tourists were white. To be sure, this is not the first place where this has been true (the Marquesas, for example); but there was something about this place that made it more inescapable somehow.
Maybe it wasn’t even this divide so much as the fact that we have, for the most part, not been surrounded by lots and lots of other tourists, and there is something about the idea that all these people have just come here to soak up the sun and drink cocktails that is kind of dispiriting. I honestly don’t know why this struck him (and me to a lesser extent) so much harder here than, say, Mo’orea, which is filled with tourists, except maybe that in Mo’orea we weren’t staying with them…
Getting in and out of town was a bit of a production involving first a boat (see above) and then a bus. From my point of view this was fine, as it gave us lots of opportunities for curious conversations. One morning I sat next to a schoolteacher who kept instructing the driver to stop and pick up little boys, who were clearly otherwise going to be left by the side of the road! He was the one who explained to me that some of the children go to school in English and some go to school in French. No one goes to school in Bislama, seemingly, though everybody speaks it…
The resort’s secluded setting worked well for our boys, however, who by this time are beginning to burn out. We did get them out to the market one day, and they did do a lot of snorkeling in the marine preserve right off the island (which, incidentally, had live coral unlike everywhere else we’ve been — Seven said it was magnificent, like an underwater flower garden). But most of the time they spent picking up and practicing this useful skill:
In which, of course, they were being coached by their father…
I, on the other hand, whiled away the hours as I have elsewhere, though, I have to confess, I am not doing anything very productive here…
…reading not some foundational archaeological text but—wait for it—Dani’s copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. (Note to those who are following along — we have now sent the first 6 books in the series to Fine and Sateki’s eldest girl, who, according to her auntie, is reading them aloud to her brother and sisters. I might have to drop her a line now that I’ve re-read book 6 and suggest that she keep that one to herself…too sad for small children if you ask me).
Posted on August 18, 2010 September 4, 2018 Categories Family, Oceania, Pacific Islands, South Pacific, travel, VanuatuTags Family, South Pacific, Travel, Vanuatu1 Comment on Vanuatu II
Making the Turn: East to Vanuatu
We have made the turn. After a whirlwind visit to the lovely city of Melbourne, we flew north Brisbane and, for the first time since leaving Boston, turned east. With this leg we were also headed into completely unknown territory. Tonga was an experience, to be sure, and much of French Polynesia was new to us, but (with the exception of Australia) it has all been Polynesian and reasonably familiar by comparison with the place we were now headed to on…
Vanuatu is at the eastern edge of the western Pacific, west of Fiji and Tonga and therefore outside the Polynesian triangle. It has a fascinating, complex culture and is a favorite tourist destination for Australians, but the reason we were there is that it is also has one of the most important archaeological sites in the Pacific.
I have been lucky more than once on this trip and the Vanuatu leg is just another case in point. Matthew Spriggs and Stuart Bedford of ANU have been working a site at Teouma since 2004 which has yielded some of the most spectacular finds of Lapita pottery anywhere in the Pacific. They are now coming to the end of their work there and had expected to be finished by the time we reached nearby Port Vila. This was a great disappointment to me because I was really dying to see an archaeological dig, and particularly this archaeological dig, but there was just no way I could get us there in time. Then, quite unexpectedly, they had to suspend work for a week and that pushed their departure forward so that I could just make it out there before site was bulldozed over.
It was a tremendous experience. Unfortunately for Seven, he had to stay back and mind the children, and I didn’t take any photos because I wasn’t sure I should. But it was absolutely phenomenal. While I was standing there they pulled a 6-inch piece of pottery out of the ground that — I was reliably informed — was 3000 years old!
Lapita, just fyi, is the name given to the ocean-going culture that is thought to have moved rapidly out of island southeast Asia and into the western Pacific some 3000 to 5000 years ago eventually reaching Tonga and Samoa. As such, they are understood to be directly ancestral to the people who colonized Polynesia proper. Lapita sites are identified by a particular type of pottery with a range of decorative styles that correlates pretty directly with age, the most elaborate being the oldest.
Fortunately, Seven and I did get a chance to go together to the National Museum of Vanuatu the next day.
There Stuart and a couple of the guys who work with him showed us a number of spectacular pots, both fragments and reconstructions, which were just being packed and shipped off to an exhibit in Paris — the first of its kind! Here is a picture Seven took of the example that is in the museum along with the accompanying text, which is also interesting for its several translations.
There are a vast number of languages spoken in Vanuatu (including a couple of Polynesian languages, one of which was spoken in a village near where we were staying, as we discovered on the bus ride out there). But the three official languages of the country are French, English, and Bislama, which is not that hard to decode when written but pretty darn hard to understand when spoken fast. Children apparently go to school in either French or English, but I could never figure out how people decide. Mostly people spoke English with us, even on the few occasions on which I spoke French to them :).
The people of Vanuatu are as varied as the linguistic scene suggests and I clearly have to do some more research to find out who they all are and what they speak and where they come from and all of that. But for now I’ll just leave you with a few random shots taken in and around Port Vila. Here are some musicians at the airport (this time it is a guitar):
And here are a couple of pictures from the market:
A couple of street scenes:
And a bunch of the workers going back to the mainland by boat:
Posted on August 15, 2010 September 4, 2018 Categories adventure, expedition, Family, Pacific Islands, South Pacific, travel, VanuatuTags Adventure, archaeology, Culture, South Pacific, Travel, Vanuatu2 Comments on Making the Turn: East to Vanuatu
Melbourne Revisited (but barely)
Seven and I really wanted to show the boys everything about Melbourne that we remembered from the old days. But there’s just something deeply flawed about this idea: kids never want to see the places that are meaningful to you. Why should they? They enjoy discovering places, but they don’t want to revisit places they’ve never been.
So, although we did insist on dragging them to the Vic Market, I don’t think they really appreciated it. They were sort of okay with the fruit and veg; they might have liked the deli section if they hadn’t already been a bit cranky; they hated the meat section; and they only discovered all the non-food stuff when I was so irritated with them that I refused to let them look around.
We had thought about driving the Great Ocean Road, or maybe heading out to the Dandenongs, or even just going to St Kilda, but no, they opted to stay in the flat in Fitzroy watching videos and eating takeout. As we say — whatever. This was where they developed their flashflight photography fetish:
But, lest you think for a moment that this was a kid thing, here is their father throwing a couple of lightning bolts…
It turned out that their exhaustion (which is what I think this was) actually liberated us to do the thing I really wanted to do in Melbourne, which was to catch up with a whole lot of people I hadn’t seen in years — and even then I only saw about half the people I’d like to have seen. So, I spent most of my time sitting in restaurants talking, which is a very Melbourne thing to do (especially in winter, which is what it is now). We did in passing catch a glimpse of some of the parts of Melbourne that have changed, like this curious-looking thing, which, however eccentric, is still an improvement over the Gas & Fuel building that was there when we left.
Here is another quite characteristic shot that suggests how “smart” a city it is. I thought it seemed smarter than ever — more and more clothing stores, more and more restaurants, more and more money apparently. (Australia, btw, seems not to have experienced the recession into which we and everyone else in the world were plunged.)
So, you may imagine how glad I was that I had carried my black jeans and my cowboy boots all the way across the South Pacific and thus did not have to appear in track pants and sneakers on the streets of Carlton and the CBD.
There were also, of course, many things that hadn’t changed. Although we did not bother to revisit any of the (many) houses we once lived in, Seven did pop down to the old Dart headquarters. And I was amused to find this photo among the ones that he took.
I couldn’t quite decide if this was a little skip down memory lane — back to his many years as a Melbourne bicycle messenger — or a hint of what he’d like to be doing. Seven did bring his tennis racquets along on this trip (they’ve gotten about as much use as my cowboy boots), but the bike was out of the question…though I think he seriously considered it….
Posted on August 11, 2010 September 4, 2018 Categories adventure, Australia, Family, South Pacific, travelTags Australia, Culture, Family, South Pacific, Travel7 Comments on Melbourne Revisited (but barely)
Tonga to Australia by way of New Zealand (again)
The guys from Quikpoint (where Seven works) asked a while back where Seven was and the answer is, yes, he’s been behind the camera. He’s made a great record of our trip so far, though occasionally something happens to the camera that no one seems to understand (could it have something to do with the children’s light experiments?). This has, however, meant that he hasn’t been in front of the camera as much as perhaps one would have liked. So I thought I’d post a picture of him looking stylish in his new hat:
I have to say it’s been great traveling with him in this part of the world. Everywhere we go it’s, “Hey, brother” and “Where you from?” And it’s been really interesting to me to have the experience of looking around (most notably, I think, in the Tongan airport) and seeing him surrounded by a sea of people who look just like him — something that does not happen all that often to anyone, really, if you think about it.
A lot of people even in Tonga thought Seven was Tongan and I could see why. I had, incidentally, expected to see a lot of really huge Tongans — they’re so famous for producing big athletes — but the people didn’t seem any bigger there than anywhere else in Polynesia. In fact, Seven still loomed over most of them. His theory: all the really big guys are over in the States and New Zealand playing football and rugby.
I had originally tried to plan our itinerary so that we could follow (more or less) the original Polynesian migration route from west to east, or, failing that, retrace it backwards from east to west. But it turns out that modern air travel routes make that impossible. You can’t fly from Tahiti to Tonga, for example, or from Tonga to Hawai’i. Or maybe you can, but not easily enough to work it into this trip. So we’ve done a certain amount of backtracking. (Dani figured out the other day how many different flights we’ve been on: 8 just getting us in and out and around French Polynesia!).
Tonga was another of these places that is served by a limited number of airlines operating out of a limited number of hubs, so when we left there we had to go back to New Zealand in order to go on to Australia. This meant that we had a one-night layover in Auckland, where, incredibly, still more of Seven’s relatives managed to find us — we weren’t even in the country for 24 hours! This time it was some of his nephews who were all just kids last time we saw them — kids, I should add, that I was particularly fond of, so it was nice to see how they’d turned out. Here’s a farewell shot of us in Auckland.
From here it was on to Australia, where there were still more people to see. I lived in Australia for almost 15 years; Seven was there for about 11. I spent my formative years there as a graduate student; Seven and I were married there; Abraham grew up there until the age of 7 (and had an Australian accent when he arrived in the States); Matiu was born there…Suffice it to say, it was a big part of our life.
We haven’t been back since leaving in 1998 and I had given us, what, 5 days? I knew, heading into it, that it was impossible. But I hadn’t really understood how impossible it was, nor had I understood what the effect of all that visiting in New Zealand, or perhaps just all this travel, would be on the children, who were in a mutinous mood for much of the time.
Two things helped: babies and animals. Our first order of business was a visit to Auntie Mere’s house to see her and her two babies. Mere is the sister who came to live with us in Queensland and moved with us to Melbourne, where she still lives. This was all before Dani’s time and Matiu was too young to remember, though of course she remembers him. Mere has since had two sons, including this little dynamo, who is named after his uncle Tauwhitu, aka Seven:
It took the combined efforts of Big Seven, Matiu, and Dani to keep Little Seven occupied when they came to visit us in the flat we were renting in Melbourne, which was of course not child-proofed. Little Seven is only 2, but can he move! Like lightning, that boy! Reminded me of that escape artist Dani, who was once returned to us by a neighbor when he was just about this age. He had gone out of the house, up the driveway, and down the road before anyone even realized he was missing. My prediction for this child is that he’s going to be a wicked athlete: you should have seen him catch and kick a ball. Lucky, too, because they’re going to need ways to keep him busy. As a wise dog trainer I once knew used to say: “A tired dog is a good dog.” Speaking as the mother of three boys, I would have to say the same is true of energetic toddlers.
The other very successful thing we did in Australia with our boys was to visit the Healesville Sanctuary. It was a beautiful day, with a rapidly changing sky (sun, then clouds, then sun, but no rain) and a stunning landscape of hills and bush and little towns. They’ve had a lot of rain this winter in Melbourne and the countryside was vividly green, which it isn’t often. I had forgotten how gorgeous it all was, and, on the subject of dogs (and babies, ha ha), I had also forgotten how very beautiful this animal was.
We’d been seeing these mangy-looking dogs all over Polynesia (along with chickens and pigs), so it was a surprise to see how lovely a wild dog looked. This, is, of course, a dingo. In fact, I had forgotten how spectacular all of Australia’s creatures are. Here are a few shots from the Sanctuary. I think you will have no trouble identifying this first one:
One of Australia’s many scary snakes:
One of my favorite birds — the galah — common but spectacular:
A flying fox (aka fruit bat):
A monitor, aka goanna. This thing is bigger than it looks in the picture, maybe four feet long, perhaps a bit more, from tip to tip:
A koala — unfailingly adorable:
And the ubiquitous pelican, another great-looking bird:
Ah, Australia. Such a cool place and we had time for such a tiny little taste of it….
Posted on August 9, 2010 September 4, 2018 Categories Australia, expedition, Family, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Polynesia, South Pacific, Tonga, travelTags Australia, Family, New Zealand, South Pacific, Tonga, Travel7 Comments on Tonga to Australia by way of New Zealand (again)
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Miami Hurricanes Football Tickets
Find tickets from 11 dollars to Miami Hurricanes at Kent State Golden Flashes Football on Wednesday February 19 at 5:00 pm at Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field in Miami, FL
Miami Hurricanes at Kent State Golden Flashes Football
Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field·Miami, FL
Find tickets from 5 dollars to Miami Hurricanes at South Florida Bulls Softball on Wednesday February 26 at 6:00 pm at Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field in Miami, FL
Miami Hurricanes at South Florida Bulls Softball
Find tickets from 18 dollars to Miami Hurricanes at Pittsburgh Panthers Softball on Friday March 6 at 7:00 pm at Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field in Miami, FL
Miami Hurricanes at Pittsburgh Panthers Softball
Find tickets from 22 dollars to Miami Hurricanes at Pittsburgh Panthers Softball on Saturday March 7 at 7:00 pm at Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field in Miami, FL
Find tickets from 12 dollars to Miami Hurricanes at Pittsburgh Panthers Softball on Sunday March 8 at 1:00 pm at Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field in Miami, FL
Sun · 1:00 pm
Miami Hurricanes Football Details
Miami isn’t exactly an old-school, blue-blood college football program, but with five national titles since 1983, it’s certainly one of the best.
“The U” has produced a litany of great players, with 35 consensus All-America selections, 10 members of the College Football Hall of Fame, seven inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and two Heisman Trophy winners in Vinny Testaverde (1986) and Gino Torretta (1992). Its famous coaches include Howard Schnellenberger and Jimmy Johnson.
The Hurricanes play home games at Hard Rock Stadium, which is also home to the NFL’s Miami Dolphins. The stadium is 45 minutes from campus, so tailgating takes place at Hard Rock. Make sure to wear green or orange and apply plenty of sunscreen.
When the ‘Canes take the field, they do it through a cloud of white smoke that comes out of the entrance tunnel. Yeah, you’ve seen that elsewhere. But Miami did it first.
The odd-looking bird you’ll see walking around the field is Sebastian the Ibis, who has been Miami’s mascot (both officially and unofficially) since 1926. According to legend, the ibis is the last sign of wildlife to take shelter before a hurricane hits, and the first to reappear once the storm has passed.
Good football on a fall Saturday in warm, sunny South Florida sounds great to us. If you agree, get your Miami football tickets now!
Miami Hurricanes schedule
For upcoming games and additional information, explore SeatGeek's Hurricanes Tickets page. The 2018 Hurricanes regular season begins September 2nd and ends November 24th.
Frequently Asked Questions About Miami Hurricanes Football Tickets and Games
How much are Miami Hurricanes Football tickets?
Miami Football ticket prices on the secondary market can vary depending on a number of factors. Typically, Miami Hurricanes tickets can be found for as low as $7.00, with an average price of $364.00 but can vary depending on the opponent. Buy Miami Hurricanes Football tickets.
Where do the Miami Hurricanes play?
Miami Football home games are played at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, FL.
When do Miami Hurricanes Football tickets go on sale?
Miami Football ticket information for the next season is released towards the end of the current season.
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You can resell your Miami Football tickets on SeatGeek. Just upload your tickets, add a price and get paid. Sell Miami Hurricanes Football tickets.
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Browse the above listings of Miami Football tickets to find a show you would like to attend. Once you find the perfect date and show time, click on the button on the right hand side of the event to see all available tickets for that show.
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Top 5 Games of Last Week (11/10/14 - 11/16/14)
For about the past four weeks, this column could've been a Top 10 list with no significant drop off between games. This week marked the first notable downturn in quality of games. #5. Detroit Lions at Arizona Cardinals I haven't given the Cardinals their due this year, and so I'm giving them the five spot to…
Huskers & Hurricanes Stirring Up Ticket Demand
Before they kick off their Big Ten conference schedule, the Nebraska Cornhuskers welcome an old rival to town. During a 12-year span in the 1980s and 90s, the Miami Hurricanes defeated the Huskers in three of four Orange Bowl matchups which, even before the BCS existed, often represented a major part of the national championship…
Nicholls Colonels Football
Senior Bowl III
1 Upcoming Event
Stephen F Austin Lumberjacks Football
Houston Cougars Football
Playing At
Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center in Notre Dame, IN
Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field in Miami, FL
Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, FL
Cincinnati Gardens in Cincinnati, OH
Events Near Here
American Airlines Arena Concerts
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Weekend Events in Miami
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Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field Seating Chart
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(Redirected from Visible light)
"Visible light" redirects here. For all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be seen by the eye, see Visible spectrum.
Rays of light shine through metal patterns into a railway station
Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength which can be detected by the human eye.[1] It is a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum and radiation given off by stars like the sun. Animals can also see light. The study of light, known as optics, is an important research area in modern physics. When light hits an opaque object it forms a shadow.
Light is electromagnetic radiation that shows properties of both waves and particles. Light exists in tiny energy packets called photons. Each wave has a wavelength or frequency. The human eye sees each wavelength as a different color. Rainbows show the entire spectrum of visible light. The separate colors, moving in from the outer edges, are usually listed as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Other colors can be seen only with special cameras or instruments: Wavelengths below the frequency of red are called infrared, and higher than of violet are called ultraviolet.
The other main properties of light are intensity, polarization, phase and orbital angular momentum.
In physics, the term light sometimes refers to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not.[2][3] This article is about visible light. Read the electromagnetic radiation article for the general concept.
The law of reflection is what allows us to see an object reflected in a mirror.
About light[change | change source]
In a vacuum, light moves at the speed of light, which is 299,792,458 meters per second[4] (or about 186,282 miles per second). This means it takes about 8 minutes for light to reach Earth from the Sun.[5][6] In glass it travels at about two-thirds as fast.
Light moves in a straight line, creating shadows when the path of light is blocked. More solid things will have a darker shadow, things that are more clear have a lighter shadow, and transparent things will have none or very little shadow. Light can pass through transparent things the most easily. When light is not in a vacuum, it travels more slowly than its maximum speed of light. The slowest light ever recorded moved at 39 miles per hour.[7] Our eyes react to light; when we see something we see the light it reflects, or the light it emits. For example, a lamp gives off light, and everything else in the same room as the lamp reflects its light.
Every color of light has a different wavelength. The shorter the wavelength, the more energy the light has. The speed at which light moves does not depend on its energy. Going through partly clear objects can slow light down by a very small amount.
White light is made up of many different colors of light added together. When white light shines through a prism, it splits up into different colors, becoming a spectrum. The spectrum contains all of the wavelengths of light that we can see. Red light has the longest wavelength, and violet (purple) light has the shortest.
Light with a wavelength shorter than violet is called ultraviolet light. X-rays and gamma rays are also forms of light with even shorter wavelengths than ultraviolet. Light with a wavelength longer than red is called infrared light. Radio waves are a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength even longer than infrared light. The microwaves that are used to heat food in a microwave oven are also a form of electromagnetic radiation. Our eyes cannot see those kinds of energy, but there are some cameras that can see them. The various forms of light, both visible and invisible are the electromagnetic spectrum.
When light is refracted in raindrops, a rainbow is made. The raindrop acts like a prism and refracts the light until we can see the colors of the spectrum.
Rainbow in Budapest shows the colors of the visible spectrum.
Color[change | change source]
Light and color are forms of analog information. However, electronic cameras and computer displays work with digital information. Electronic cameras or document scanners make a digital version of a color image by separating out the full color image into separate red, green, and blue images. Later, a digital display uses pixels of just those three colors. Computer screens use only these three colors in different brightness levels. The brain combines them to see all of the other colors in the image.
People think of objects as having color. This is because the molecules that make up the object absorb certain light waves, leaving the other light waves to bounce off. The human eye sees the wavelengths of all of the light that was not absorbed, and the combination of those leaves the brain with the impression of a color.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Light.
The Simple English Wiktionary has a definition for: light.
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Light
↑ International Commission on Illumination 1987. International Lighting Vocabulary. Number 17.4. CIE, 4th edition. ISBN 978-3-900734-07-7.
By the International Lighting Vocabulary, the definition of light is: “Any radiation capable of causing a visual sensation directly.”
↑ Gregory Hallock Smith (2006), Camera lenses: from box camera to digital, SPIE Press, p. 4, ISBN 9780819460936
↑ Narinder Kumar (2008), Comprehensive Physics XII, Laxmi Publications, p. 1416, ISBN 9788170085928
↑ Cox, Brian; Cohen, Andrew (2011). Wonders of the Universe. HarperCollins. p. 43. ISBN 9780007395828.
↑ "Seeing in the Dark · Astronomy Topics · Light as a Cosmic Time Machine". pbs.org. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
↑ "Cosmic Distance Scales - The Solar System". heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
↑ Hau L.V. et al 1999. Light speed reduction to 17 metres per second in an ultracold atomic gas. Nature 397, p594/8. [1]
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Light&oldid=6784200"
This page was last changed on 21 January 2020, at 09:23.
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Bengals look to end two-game slide against Buccaneers
Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick (27) runs onto the field for the start of their game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on October 14 at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati. Photo by John Sommers II/UPI
The momentum from a 4-1 start faded the past two weeks for the Cincinnati Bengals with back-to-back losses.
Now they're trying to get back to where they were before succumbing to the Pittsburgh Steelers 28-21 on the final play of the game and taking a 45-10 beating from the Kansas City Chiefs last Sunday night.
The Bengals (4-3) return home Sunday after falling out of the AFC North lead to take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3-3).
"There is a lot of season left and a lot of things out in front of us," Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton said. "It is just one game. We have another one next week. As much as this one sucks, everything is still right there. We are in a great position. We have to go take advantage of it."
The Bengals struggled against the Chiefs, managing just 239 total yards and one touchdown on offense and giving up 551 yards on defense, the most yards the team had allowed since 2007.
"It's bad. It's a bad look for the whole team to see this happen," Bengals middle linebacker Preston Brown said. "It's such a big score difference. You never want to go out there and get blown out on a Sunday night, (especially) when it's been something we've been waiting to show the whole league what we can do.
"And now, to put up a goose egg like that, it's not a good look. But we've got to go learn from it and find ways to get better."
Offensively, the Bengals' production has declined from 407 total yards two games ago to the meager output against the Chiefs. Part of that could be attributed to the loss of tight end Tyler Eifert to a season-ending knee injury and running back Giovani Bernard, who likely will miss a fourth straight game with a knee injury.
Wide receiver A.J. Green had 117 receiving yards against Kansas City, but Tyler Boyd was relatively quiet (27 receiving yards) and wideout John Ross also may be out for several more weeks with a groin injury.
"We'll have a fire in our (butt)," tight end C.J. Uzomah said. "It's a gut check where we have to really dig deep. This is the biggest game of the year. How we approach this game and how we approach this week going into this game is the key."
The defense also has let the Bengals down. Injuries have had an impact, but missed tackles seem to be a problem. They're averaging 9.5 whiffs per game, with linebacker Vontaze Burfict accounting for seven in two games since he returned from his PED suspension.
"You have to go and you have to tackle," Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said. "You have to do a better job. I wish there was a magic word or button to press, but there isn't."
The Bucs were stuck in a three-game losing streak before their 26-23 overtime win over the Cleveland Browns last Sunday. Chandler Catanzaro kicked the winning field goal from 59 yards after he missed from 40 yards on the final play of regulation.
Tampa Bay's offense could present a challenge for Cincinnati. The Buccaneers lead the NFL in total yards with 449.5 per game and in passing at 376.8 yards per game.
Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston has returned to the lineup. He threw two interceptions and lost a fumble last week but still managed to lead the team to a win. Winston also benefits from a collection of receivers, five of whom have 20 or more catches this year.
"On the run game and the pass game, we've got to attack the ball," Buccaneers defensive coordinator Mark Duffner said. "We had a heck of a week, I thought, in terms of practice last week, doing that. And frankly, thank God, it turned out when a conscious effort by Lavonte David to get the ball off the quarterback when he was scrambling after a pressure.
"The ball in the air, we've got to catch the ones that are thrown to us. We've got to attack the ball in flight. We had a number of pass breakups; I'd like us to come back down with the ball. We're working hard at that."
Sports - U.S. Daily News: Bengals look to end two-game slide against Buccaneers
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KyPXTpiu3vA/W9F73dBHCCI/AAAAAAABFwc/HFR7ZhHB3OEYt0rrudfx1uRK0VlxV5WvACLcBGAs/s1600/10.jpg
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https://sports.dailynews.us.com/2018/10/bengals-look-to-end-two-game-slide.html
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Bruins' Tuukka Rask decides not to participate in NHL All-Star Game
NBC Sports Boston Staff
Boston Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask will be getting some extra rest in the coming week.
According to NHL Public Relations, Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy will replace Rask at the NHL All-Star Game in St. Louis on Jan. 25.
Rask, who is 17-4-6 on the season with a 2.27 goals-against average and a .925 save percentage, could use the time off as he seems to perform better following stretches without playing.
LIVE stream the Celtics all season and get the latest news and analysis on all of your teams from NBC Sports Boston by downloading the My Teams App.
While the NHL's best compete in the All-Star festivities, Rask will be hitting the reset button and gearing up for what could be another deep run into the postseason. Players who forgo the weekend after being voted in are subject to a one-game suspension, either the game before or following the All-Star Game, according to NHL rules.
Rask spoke to the media around 5 p.m. ET Monday and noted that his decision to forgo the All-Star Game was a "selfish one" and that he not only wants to gear up for the second half of the season but wants to spend time with his family as well.
Tuukka Rask said decision to skip NHL All-Star Game was a "selfish decision" to spent more time with his family and get rested for the second half of the season. Will serve suspension in Bruins' first game after All-Star break pic.twitter.com/hE2V6PlMbW
— Adam Kimelman (@NHLAdamK) January 13, 2020
🎥 Tuukka Rask addresses the media in Philadelphia regarding his decision not to attend the 2020 NHL All-Star Weekend: pic.twitter.com/lHAsjXVm2X
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) January 13, 2020
Haggerty: Chara reaching unprecedented milestone tonight
Bruins' Tuukka Rask decides not to participate in NHL All-Star Game originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
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Sports Showcase
The 4 Teams With the Best Odds to Win the 2018 NCAA Tournament
Virginia, Villanova, Michigan State, and Duke are the favorites to capture a national championship
March Madness 2018 tournament
Photo by my bookie.com
Bob Killgore, Sports Editor
As soon as the brackets were released, people began picking who they thought would win the title and strive for a perfect bracket. They could have picked their favorite teams or pick a one seed. Fans hope that their team comes out on top, but no one knows due to the unpredictably of this tournament. So here is the four teams with the best chance to be crowned champions.
Virginia enters the tournament with a 31-2 record and earned the overall #1 seed in the south region. The Cavaliers have a 23% chance to win the tournament according to BPI. Virginia has the best defense in college basketball and posted the most efficient defense in 17 years, according to kenpom. The defense for Virginia also hasn’t let an opponent score 70 points all season long and will look to use that defense to win the championship. They will also rely on sophomore Kyle Guy, who is the leading scorer for Virginia, who averages 14.1 points per game. With an elite defense and an improved offense, then Virginia is primed for a championship.
Villanova enters the tournament with a record of 30-4 and #1 seed in the East Region. The Wildcats have one of the best one-two punch of Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges. Brunson is the leader for Villanova, averaging 19.4 points per game and 4.7 assists per game, both team highs. Bridges averages 18 points per game and 5.4 rebounds per game. The offense is elite for Villanova, shooting 39.8% from the three and the country’s eighth lowest turnover rate. Their defense, however, is a bit concerning due to ranking 22nd nationally. Despite this, Villanova will be a favorite to win the championship.
After finishing 29-4, Michigan State earned a three seed in the Midwest region. The Spartans will rely on Miles Bridges, who averages 16.9 points per game and 6.9 rebounds per game, to be the catalyst for a long tournament run. Michigan State will also need sophomore Nick Ward, who averages 7.2 rebounds per game, to secure a lot of them. Teams standing in the way for a Spartans championship includes #1 seed Kansas and #2 seed Duke.
Duke secured a #2 seed in the tournament and plays in the Midwest region after finishing the season 26-7. The Blue Devils need freshman sensation and future lottery pick Marvin Bagley III to have a major impact in the game. He was one of the best players in the country this year, averaging 21.1 points per game and 11.5 rebounds per game. Duke will also need junior Grayson Allen to play a key role as well. He is a deadly three point shooter and could cause headaches for opposing teams if he gets hot from behind the arc. The Blue Devils will need these two players to play extremely well if they want to win another title.
Even though these teams have the best odds to win the tournament, they could be bounced by the opening week. Upsets and heavily favored teams will lose due to the chaos of March Madness. A underdog could easily take these teams down and ruin their championship dreams, which is the beauty of this tournament.
Bob Killgore - Sports Editor
Bob joined The Flightline in January of 2016. His interests include cross country and track. He enjoys watching MLB baseball and his favorite baseball team is the Arizona Diamondbacks. You can email him at [email protected]
Mr. Cunningham: Teaching Life Lessons As Well as Spanish
Altar’d State: Giving Back While Dressing Up
Mr. Kleinsasser: Playing an Integral Role at Skutt Catholic
Local Band Plays Fundraiser Show for Flood Victims
Senior Retreat Impacts
The Good Life: Service Trips Leave a Lasting Impact
Growing Speech Team Gears Up for State
Foreign Exchange Students Share Holiday Traditions
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Emotionally Tied to Embryonic Stem Cells
Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Now that normal skin cells can be made to mimic embryonic stem cells, you’d think that the big push to keep destroying embryos and the ethical considerations that accompany it would pretty much die out. You’d be wrong. Michael J. Fox, one of the more vocal and visible players advocating embryonic stem cell research, will have none of that.
MENOUNOS: Tell me what that does to Parkinson’s and how exciting that was for you?
FOX: Well any of these breakthroughs are fantastic. And it’s just thrilling. And at the same time too we don’t want to discontinue the embryonic stem cell research that’s being done because one begat the other and, and it all becomes part of a broad canvas that we want to continue to work on.
In the name of some ephemeral “broad canvas”, Fox simply won’t let go of his emotional tie (how else to explain it) to actual embryos. Science could very well get rid of the need to deal with the ethical and moral entanglement, but Fox won’t cut the umbilical cord.
MENOUNOS: Do you think that this will end the whole hot button issue of stem cell research?
FOX: Well I want to make sure that we, that, that doesn’t happen. But I think that the bottom line is whatever happens in the next election, the chances are very good that there’s gonna be a new attitude towards science.
Sounds to me like it’s Fox who needs to new attitude. Science is progressing, George W. Bush’s stand against destroying embryos has been vindicated, but Fox is stuck in his ways and his politics.
FOX: Well just about everybody’s in favor of it with the couple of exceptions on the, on the Republican side. But, but what I did in the last election in the midterm was not about parties but, but about who was in a race where they supported stem cell research and, and were, were opposed by someone who’s not in favor of stem cell research.
MENOUNOS: Who are you backing this election?
FOX: Whoever the most pro-science candidate is that comes out of either primary.
Turns out that Dubya’s faith in science — that it would find a way around destroying embryos — is the most pro-science of them all. Too bad he’s not running for re-election, eh Michael?
[tags]embryonic stem cells,science,Michael J. Fox,abortion[/tags]
Embryonic Stem Cells From Skin
Less and Less of a Need For Embryonic Stem Cells
One Less Reason to Use Embryonic Stem Cells
Two Fewer Reasons to Use Embryonic Stem Cells
One Less Reason for Embryonic Stem Cells
Filed under: Abortion • Culture • Doug • Ethics & Morality • Medicine • Politics • Science • Stem Cells
It’s a shame that Michael J. Fox has to take his frustration, in regards to his truly tragic disease, out on the unborn children in their embryonic state.
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More Coyote Creek Flood Victims Come Forward with Their Stories
Posted byKristin Lam February 12, 2018
Victims of last year’s Coyote Creek flood held a second news conference last week to talk about why they're suing the city of San Jose, Santa Clara County and the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
They shared their stories from the William Street bridge, which was inundated with water after the Anderson Dam overflowed in February of 2017, and demanded compensation for their suffering from the three agencies named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Hien Nguyen (left) and Sinia Ellis (right), both from the Rock Springs neighborhood, listen to other flood victims share their stories at the Feb. 8 press conference. (Photo by Kristin Lam)
Sinia Ellis lived in an apartment on Nordale Avenue in the Rock Springs neighborhood—the one hit the hardest by the flood—when she heard loudspeakers and saw dirty, fast moving water pour onto the street the morning of Feb. 21, 2017. She had no time to plan or pack. The water went up to her underarms before she made it to Senter Road.
“It’s been a year, and I’m barely starting to see myself getting back to where I was before [the flood],” Ellis said. “I’m all for this lawsuit and I really feel that the city, the water district, and the county should take responsibility. ...We needed to be warned. I could’ve saved my van and all my belongings.”
Dulce Mata was living in a garage in Rock Springs when the flood hit. She then stayed in the Seven Trees shelter for about a month with her husband and their three young kids. (Photo by Kristin Lam)
A domestic violence survivor, Ellis had only moved into the apartment in August of 2016. She said she had cherished the feeling of safety that came with finding her own place. The flood, and the lack of warning, re-traumatized her, she said, and and sent her into a depressive tailspin. She lost her job, which pushed her to the brink of eviction, and began getting bombarded by calls from creditors.
“I felt like we were nothing, like we didn’t matter to the city,” Ellis said. “I’m a tax-paying citizen. And I really feel that demographically, we were swept aside like the flood.”
In the claim filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court last week, Ellis observes how predominantly working-class, low-income and non-white neighborhoods bore the brunt of the Coyote Creek flood. She questioned whether the water district would have “let the situation happen if the people it put in harm’s way were affluent? Predominately white?”
"I hope the city understands that because they used panic instead of compassion, they are now left with over 40 families wondering where they will live after Feb. 20, 2017," Chrystie Mariano said in response to news of the litigation. "I am one of those people who is left without a home even after one year." (Photo by Kristin Lam)
Hien Nguyen—a 70-year-old Vietnamese immigrant who has lived in San Jose since 1989—said she remembers first seeing the flood while trying to get back home in the Rock Springs neighborhood. The water completely blocked off her route home, she said.
“I parked the car at the corner of the street and ran to the house because I had one handicapped, disabled roommate,” Nguyen recounted. “If I didn’t open the door on time, he may [have] died.”
When the city-issued warnings finally came out, Nguyen said they were only in English or Spanish—not in Vietnamese.
“If they did care about us, they would have done more,” she said. “They could have prevented the flooding. Even if the flooding was happening, they gave no warning. No chance to save anything.”
The flood ruined Nguyen’s pictures and videos of her deceased parents, ancestors, relatives and friends that she had accumulated over the years.
“No one could ever replace [them] for me,” she said.
For five months after the flood, Nguyen was displaced. She said that many people are still looking for permanent, affordable housing.
To read more about the Coyote Creek flood, click here.
Amanda Hawes, the attorney representing 150 flood victims, talked about the pending litigation against local agencies. (Photo by Kristin Lam)
Posted byKristin Lam February 12, 2018 Posted inNewsTags: Anderson Dam, Coyote Creek Flood, Hien Nguyen, Rock Springs, San Jose Flood, Sinna Ellis
San Jose City Council to Vote on Google Village Pricing Agreement
Santa Clara County Filing Period Opens for June Primary Election
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Cremasteric Reflex
Larry Mellick
Mohammed Al-Dhahir
Superficial reflexes are motor responses that occur when the skin is stroked. The cremasteric reflex is a superficial reflex found in human males that is elicited when the inner part of the thigh is stroked. Stroking of the skin causes the cremaster muscle to contract and pull up the ipsilateral testicle toward the inguinal canal. Like other superficial reflexes, it is simply graded as present or absent. A female counterpart of the cremasteric reflex is the Geigel reflex. In the female, it involves the contraction of muscle fibers along the upper part of the Poupart or inguinal ligament and is sometimes called the inguinal reflex. Similar to the other superficial reflexes such as the abdominal and the normal planter reflexes the cremasteric reflex is not usually tested in contrast to the deep tendon, the brainstem, and primitive reflexes. The cremasteric reflex is most commonly performed in the evaluation of acute scrotal pain and the assessment for testicular torsion that is commonly associated with an apparent loss of the reflex.[1][2][3]
The cremaster muscle is a paired structure made of thin layers of striated and smooth muscle. The muscle name is derived from a Greek word meaning “suspender.” In reality, the muscle has 2 parts, a lateral and medial cremaster muscle. The lateral muscle originates from the internal oblique muscle and inguinal ligament, and the medical cremaster muscle usually originates from the pubic tubercle but sometimes from the lateral pubic crest. The muscles that are covered by a fascia loop over the spermatic cord and testicles and insert into the testicle tunica vaginalis. In the female, the cremaster muscle is found on the round ligament.
The cremasteric artery, a branch of the inferior epigastric artery, along with anastomotic flow from the other arteries supplying the scrotum provides blood flow to the muscles.
The innervation for the cremasteric reflex is provided by the sensory and motor fibers of the genitofemoral nerve that originates from the L1 and L2 spinal nerve nuclei. Stroking of the inner thigh stimulates the sensory fibers of the genitofemoral and ilioinguinal nerves. After these sensory nerves synapse in the spinal cord, the motor fibers of the genitofemoral nerve are activated, and cremaster muscle is caused to contract with resultant elevation of the ipsilateral testicle. Because it is a superficial reflex, it is different from muscle stretch reflexes. For the cremasteric reflex, the sensory signal has to ascend the cord to the brain before descending again to reach the motor neurons.
The cremasteric reflex can be performed in assessing scrotal pain. While some studies report a high correlation of loss of cremasteric reflex and testicular torsion, there are a surprising number of studies reporting persistence of the reflex during verified cases of torsion. Additionally, other studies confirm that it is also absent from significant numbers of males and more so at younger ages. The frequency of the intact reflex has been reported in 61.7% to 100% of boys between 24 months and 12 years of age.
The cremasteric reflex is a protective and physiologic superficial reflex of the testicles. The cremasteric reflex appears to play a role in preserving thermoregulation of the testicles as part of spermatogenesis. The reflex raises and lowers the testicles to control its temperature. In a cold environment, the cremaster muscle causes the testicles to move closer to the body. During fight or flight and sexual arousal, it is responsible for putting the testicles into a more protected location closer to the body.[4][5][6][7]
Issues of Concern
Contraction of the cremaster muscle can play a role in the twisting of the testicle during a torsion event. In the setting of a bell clapper deformity of the testicular anatomical suspension, the muscular contraction can result in excessive twisting and ultimately torsion and death of a testicle. At puberty, as the testicles become heavier and more pendulous, the risk of testicular torsion increases significantly. The heavier testicular bell clapper may be vulnerable to greater motion and subsequent twisting as the cremasteric muscles contract. Some studies suggest that testicular torsion is more common during the winter months when the cremasteric reflex may occur more frequently due to the colder temperatures.
Additionally, the muscle will sometimes undergo severe spasm causing pain and limitation of activity. Treatment with botulinum toxin has been reported as a successful treatment option.
If the reflex is exaggerated, it can lead to a misdiagnosis of cryptorchidism in some children. The reflex can be absent in a significant percentage of normal male children as well as patients with upper and lower motor neuron disorders, spinal injury at the L1 and L2 level or if the ilioinguinal nerve has been cut inadvertently during hernia repair.
Testing of the reflex may be helpful in providing objective evidence of successful spinal anesthesia. The cremasteric reflex appears to disappear consistently following successful spinal anesthesia. In one study of 150 patients, the presence or disappearance of the cremasteric reflex consistently indicated the presence or absence of sensation correctly to pinprick at L1 after injection of a local anesthetic intrathecally.
The cremasteric reflex is performed as part of an evaluation of acute scrotal pain to assess for evidence of testicular torsion. The absence of the reflex is considered to be diagnostic for testicular torsion. The cremasteric reflex has been reported to be absent in 100% of cases of testicular torsion, making it a potentially useful sign in this diagnosis. However, a significant number of case reports and small case series exist demonstrating that the test is not 100% specific, and the reflex can be present in cases of testicular torsion. Doppler ultrasound should be applied liberally to the workup of acute scrotal pain because of the significant overlap of signs and symptoms and lack of specificity of the cremasteric reflex. Over-reliance on signs and symptoms instead of a liberal imaging policy to differentiate between testicular torsion, testicular appendage torsion or epididymo-orchitis will consistently result in a small but significant number of twisted testes that will be missed.
The absence of a cremasteric reflex in significant proportions of males at different ages would greatly impact on the specificity of this reflex in the diagnosis of testicular torsion.
The cremasteric reflex is variable in performance. The definition of a positive cremasteric is unclear and is not well defined. Is a twitch of the muscle a positive response or should the specific distance of testicle movement with the reflex to be considered positive?
Another important practical point related to cremasteric reflex in spinal anesthesia is that while cremasteric reflex absence after spinal anesthesia may be an indicator of efficient anesthesia in adults, yet, it is an unreliable sign of assessing efficient spinal anesthesia in children. [8]
[1] Manohar CS,Gupta A,Keshavamurthy R,Shivalingaiah M,Sharanbasappa BR,Singh VK, Evaluation of Testicular Workup for Ischemia and Suspected Torsion score in patients presenting with acute scrotum. Urology annals. 2018 Jan-Mar; [PubMed PMID: 29416270]
[2] Frohlich LC,Paydar-Darian N,Cilento BG Jr,Lee LK, Prospective Validation of Clinical Score for Males Presenting With an Acute Scrotum. Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. 2017 Dec; [PubMed PMID: 28833896]
[3] Estremadoyro V,Meyrat BJ,Birraux J,Vidal I,Sanchez O, [Diagnosis and management of testicular torsion in children]. Revue medicale suisse. 2017 Feb 15; [PubMed PMID: 28714632]
[4] Schwarz GM,Hirtler L, The cremasteric reflex and its muscle - a paragon of ongoing scientific discussion: A systematic review. Clinical anatomy (New York, N.Y.). 2017 May; [PubMed PMID: 28295651]
[5] Lemini R,Guanà R,Tommasoni N,Mussa A,Di Rosa G,Schleef J, Predictivity of Clinical Findings and Doppler Ultrasound in Pediatric Acute Scrotum. Urology journal. 2016 Aug 25; [PubMed PMID: 27576885]
[6] Sharp VJ,Kieran K,Arlen AM, Testicular torsion: diagnosis, evaluation, and management. American family physician. 2013 Dec 15; [PubMed PMID: 24364548]
[7] Crawford P,Crop JA, Evaluation of scrotal masses. American family physician. 2014 May 1; [PubMed PMID: 24784335]
[8] Okuda Y,Mishio M,Kitajima T,Asai T, Cremasteric reflex is not a useful indicator of spinal anaesthesia in anaesthetised children. Anaesthesia. 2001 Jan [PubMed PMID: 11167458]
Take 8 Question Quiz on Cremasteric Reflex
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ARTIST BIO | CONTACT AGENT | UPCOMING SHOWS | ARTIST WEB SITE
ARTIST BIO:
A ringing 12-string guitar introduction. A dreamlike lyric that seems to hold the cosmos in its hands. It’s still the most recognisable, covered and widely beloved song in the catalogue of a band that’s released a remarkable 26 albums.
And it’s 30 years old this year. The song is Under The Milky Way, from The Church’s most successful album, the undisputed classic Starfish.
In 2018, the Australian paisley underground pioneers are enjoying a year of unique celebrations, which started with a sold-out appearance at the Meltdown Festival in London on the personal invitation of curator, The Cure’s Robert Smith, on 15 June.
Followed by a string of dates in the UK – including a sold-out fan convention in Shepherds Bush which saw the band perform their second album The Blurred Crusade in its entirety for the first time in that country – The Church arrive in the US on 30 September for a month’s worth of shows, with a return early in 2019 planned to complete the US circuit.
Starfish 30th Anniversary Tour USA 2018- 2019
For these shows, Starfish will likewise be performed in its entirety, along with a selection of other gems from the band’s career, which now spans an incredible 38 years.
The band will return briefly to the UK in late October as very special guests of Fields of the Nephilim, a band whose music displays similar spectral soundscapes and whose leader, Carl McCoy, remains a big fan of the band.
From there a flight home to a fast selling Starfish 30th Anniversary National Tour of homeland theaters in Australia awaits to conclude the year.
Starfish remains best known for its iconic singles Under The Milky Way and Reptile. But like all classic albums, it’s a journey – and it starts with Destination, the six-minute epic that opens the album. In between it takes you to all point of the compass: North, South, East and West.
The sound of Starfish is open and uncluttered. That was a change for the band after the dense orchestrations of the previous album, Heyday. All 10 songs are individually memorable, yet speak to one other, making for an entirely cohesive, satisfying listening experience.
From there, the list of hits, band and fan favourites is long. Myrhh, which leader Steve Kilbey described in his memoir Something Quite Peculiar as the definitive Church song. Ripple, from the masterful Priest=Aura. Almost anything from 1982’s The Blurred Crusade.
ExpectsongsfromHologramofBaal,itselfcelebratingits20t hanniversary.And,ofcourse,there’sThe Unguarded Moment, the single that launched the band onto world stages on its release on its release in 1981.
But this is not just a nostalgia trip. The Church have been revitalised since 2014 with the addition of guitarist Ian Haug, formerly of another iconic Australian band, Powderfinger. Haug’s first outing with the band was on the acclaimed Further/Deeper , which yielded a new dynamic set-closer, the infinitely pyschedelic and earth shaking Miami .
Last year’s Man Woman Life Death Infinity strengthened the bond, cementing Haug’s place with long- time fans, as well as with the rest of the band: singer, bass player and songwriter Kilbey, fellow guitarist Peter Koppes and longtime drummer Tim Powles. “Ian is a big part of the band now,” Koppes says. “He’s a consummate, intuitive musician with fantastic tones.”
Koppes goes on to sum up the band. “Music is like inner space and we’re astronauts,” he says. It’s a spellbinding thing, it’s hypnotising. That’s why people like it. It takes them into another world and we’re here to open those doors.”
The Church’s strange journey remains an endless sea of possibilities. In 2018, it’s time for the band to celebrate one of their crowning glories, but always with an eye to the future. Further. Deeper. The Church truly are a rock band for the ages.
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Jimmy McLane
First swimming into the spotlight as a national AAU junior long distance performer for the Firestone Aquatic Club in 1944, McLane established a record of 1:08.8 for the three-mile course. He was selected by the New York Times national sports award committee as the outstanding swimmer of 1946 while at Yale University. In the 1948 Olympics he won the 1,500-meter freestyle and was second in the 400-meter freestyle. In the 1952 Olympics he swam anchor on the winning U.S. 800-meter relay team.
Inducted 1958 | Swimming
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Mahaprajapati with the Infant Buddha Painting
home Mahaprajapati with the Infant Buddha Painting
Mahaprajapati with the infant Buddha painting was an artistic painting by Wang Zhenpeng in the early 14th century. The artist was a Chinese from Yuan Dynasty and was an active artist between 1280 and 1329. (Pratapaditya 23-24). He used ink and color to produce the image of Mahaprajapati nursing the infant Buddha. It should be noted that Buddha was like a god among the Indians, Chinese, Japanese and other people from Asia who believed in his religious and cultural teachings (Pratapaditya 68).
Buddha is the founder of the famous religion in Asia, Buddhism, and is believed to have played a great role in unifying Asian culture through his religious teachings. Consequently veneration of Buddha among religious images became popular among Asian population and there are various artistic images of Buddha since then. Studies on Buddhist legends show that Mahapajapati was a maternal aunt to the Buddha and she became his foster mother after the death of Buddha’s mother Mahamava (Pratapaditya 168).
In this painting Mahapajapati is seen holding infant Buddha in her arms nursing him while her own son is left under the care of one of her attendants. Here the painter wanted to highlight the people’s love for Buddha to an extent that a mother could prefer to nurse him other than her own son. (Pratapaditya 170) Considering the message portrayed in the image, the painting fits in the period that it was created because it represents the culture of the Asian people. Use of ink and color on silk (hand scroll) was common among artists of 12th -15th and this makes the painting to fit well in this period.
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Soul > Southern Soul
30 Greatest Hits (1985)
30 Greatest Hits zeroes in on Aretha Franklin's prime recording period for Atlantic, from her breakout in 1967 with "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)" through the end of 1974, during which the Queen of Soul truly reigned over the charts -- she averaged over one pop hit every two months. This two-disc set delivers all of her classics ("Respect," "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Chain of Fools," "Think," "Spanish Harlem," "Rock Steady"), plus much more excellent material for ... Read More
30 Greatest Hits zeroes in on Aretha Franklin's prime recording period for Atlantic, from her breakout in 1967 with "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)" through the end of 1974, during which the Queen of Soul truly reigned over the charts -- she averaged over one pop hit every two months. This two-disc set delivers all of her classics ("Respect," "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Chain of Fools," "Think," "Spanish Harlem," "Rock Steady"), plus much more excellent material for those who won't recognize much more than the songs (and there are quite a few) that have entered the cultural consciousness ("I Say a Little Prayer," "The Weight," "Spirit in the Dark," "Day Dreaming"). It's a great foundation to any collection that has yet to be equaled by a pair of Rhino sets, the two-volume Very Best of Aretha Franklin from 1994 and Aretha's Best from 2001. ~ John Bush, Rovi Read Less
I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)
Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
Dr. Feelgood (Love Is a Serious Business)
Since You've Been Gone (Sweet Sweet Baby)
Share Your Love With Me
Spirit in the Dark
Don't Play That Song
You're All I Need to Get By
Oh Me Oh My (I'm a Fool for You Baby)
Wholy Holy
Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)
Show Fewer Tracks
Collectible from $99.00
CD, Good
1990, Atlantic
Seattle Goodwill
Good. All our items include the original disc(s) in the original case. If a disc you purchase from us does not play correctly, just let us know.
Cassette, Good
Bookmans
Tapes: 4
Good. This is an audio cassette tape. Buy with confidence-Satisfaction Guaranteed! Satisfaction 100% guaranteed.
Cassette, Fair
Fair. This is an audio cassette tape. Buy with confidence-Satisfaction Guaranteed! Satisfaction 100% guaranteed.
Idaho Youth Ranch Books
Boise, ID, USA
Good. Item appears to be in good condition, but is untested. Shopping with us changes lives. Idaho Youth Ranch sales support therapeutic programs to kids who have been traumatized, victimized, abused, or homeless. Thank you for your support!
New England Booksellers
Greenfield, MA, USA
Very Good. 075678166822 Very light wear to disc. Case and artwork included but clearly used; may not include online digital copy. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders.
Half Price Books Inc
Good. Connecting listeners with great music since 1972. All used discs are inspected and guaranteed. Customer service is our top priority!
HPB-Emerald
Release: Double CD
Goodwill Indust. of San Diego
Two Day Air: $9.99
Good. Download codes are missing or assumed expired. Next Day Processing. Daily shipments M-F from San Diego!
HPB-Diamond
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Soul > Deep Soul
R&B > Southern Soul
R&B > Soul
R&B > Deep Soul
All Releases of 30 Greatest Hits
1990, CD
1990, Cassette
Best of the Doobies
by The Doobie Brothers
The Very Best of Otis Redding, Vol. 1
by Otis Redding
The Definitive Collection
by Stevie Wonder
Every Great Motown Hit of Marvin Gaye
by Marvin Gaye
great if you like Aretha. Quick delivery. Wonderful to listen to.
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15 & 16 February 2011 at the Crowne Plaza, Birmingham
A Report from Tabitha Petchey, NCEC Emergency Responder
Held at Birmingham’s Crowne Plaza hotel near the NEC on 15 and 16 February 2011, this year’s Hazmat event was judged one of the most informative yet. This was the fourth such event, now established as one of the main avenues for Hazmat specialists to share experiences and knowledge. The basis of the event was a series of presentations set over two days and covering a variety of topics, including the various arrangements that have been put in place to assist response to chemical emergencies, such as virtual training and the ChlorAid scheme.
Hazmat Event 2011 audience
All the subjects covered were relevant to people involved in chemical incident response and the setting provided a great opportunity to question and discuss content both in the forum and one-to-one. Delegates were drawn from fire services, police forces, the MOD, chemical industry and bodies such as the Environment Agency, the Health Protection Agency and the Met Office. Bill Atkinson, Emergency Response Knowledge Leader, chaired the event.
Acting Assistant Chief Fire Officer Dave Walton of West Midlands Fire Service (now HazMat lead for the UK Chief Fire Officers' Association, CFOA) opened the event by outlining the key themes for the two days as well as background issues in the current climate, such as budget cuts and the need to do more with less. He illustrated this with a case study of an incident involving the release of chlorine gas at a swimming pool (a relatively common accident), requiring extensive management and incurring high cost – something that could have been avoided by the implementation of a simple chlorine meter of relatively low cost. He also outlined a new scheme to make a team of retained scientific advisors available to attend incidents for the provision of on-scene guidance.
Following on from this, his colleague Rob Mitchell described a new virtual reality training package that West Midlands Fire Service is developing to improve the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of delivering Hazmat training across the Brigade. He walked the audience through the program via the projector and introduced the 'teachers' by way of short video recordings, explaining how both the training and assessment techniques are effective due to their interactive nature.
Day 1 speakers
Some of our day 1 speakers (L to R): Bob Hark (West Midlands FRS), Rob Mitchell (West Midlands FRS), Philip Rodger (Bureau Veritas), Stephen Roberts (ChlorAid), Bill Atkinson (former NCEC), Waldemar Bujalski (University of Birmingham)
Bob Hark, now back in Dorset from his secondment to the Chief Fire and Rescue Advisor (Sir Ken Knight), gave an update on the Hazmat operational guidance manual, which is expected to be published this Autumn. The purpose of this is to reduce risk to fire-fighters and the public whilst promoting effective strategy building. It contains instructions on the handling of incidents involving hazardous materials including CBRN. The instructions, which are not steadfast, provide a good basis to work from; some situations, in particular the approach towards acetylene cylinders, have been reviewed thoroughly for this.
Tim Donovan of the Met Office outlined changes to the CHEMET and Firemet schemes, which help to predict the direction of smoke and gas plumes from fires and chemical releases, including more detailed CHEMET outputs.
Several case studies gave thought-provoking insights into incident management. Notably, Dr. Phil Rodger of Bureau Veritas gave a frank account of the use of chemicals in suicides. He covered various methods used such as reactions yielding toxic gases and the risks posed to the responder on scene. The situation is arising with increasing frequency as the sharing of information becomes quicker and easier via the internet.
Dave Warren, of Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, recounted the impact and some lessons learned from trying to extinguish a large fire in a facility for recycling tyres. A large scale fire like this poses many tactical decisions to be made, in particular what method to use to put out the fire and considering the possibility of performing a controlled burn. This might turn out to be the safest and most cost effective solution but a thick smoke plume will be a cause of concern to the public so there is also PR to be considered.
Greg Bennett of Greater Manchester Police gave the police perspective on a recent chemical leak incident on Junction 12 of the M60. His example portrayed the logistical nightmare caused by road accidents involving chemicals. In this case, a couple of IBCs on a lorry had been shunted so that a leak was caused and the road had to be closed for two hours. It was clear how, on such a busy interchange, this would be very awkward for the police to manage, even for a relatively minor incident with no casualties.
Another theme covered at the conference included sources of help available during incidents. Stephen Roberts outlined assistance available under the ChlorAid scheme, the common myths associated with chlorine gas and the fact that most chlorine gas incidents involve sodium hypochlorite reactions. In particular, he wanted to stress that chlorine gas is only green-yellow at high concentrations and otherwise invisible. It is, however, not usually immediately fatal on one breath
Kathryn Roberts, one of NCEC's emergency responders, spoke about the links and differences between NCEC’s roles as 1st level emergency response provider and as an adviser to the emergency services under the Chemsafe scheme. She particularly highlighted the importance of communicating accurate details of the emergency scene to responders in order to get the most relevant advice, using the example of one of her own calls to demonstrate this.
Steve Wenham talked about the Environment Agency and the importance of its partnership with the Fire Service from the EA’s perspective. He underlined the role of the EA as well as their priorities and the main causes of both accidental and deliberate releases of pollutants.
On transport issues, Clive Dennis from the HSE gave an overview of enforcement issues surrounding the carriage of dangerous goods by road, including enforcement methods and the problems associated with them. This was accompanied by several pictures of malpractice incidents illustrating either apathy or ignorance of the legislation. Similarly, Ali Karim of the Hazchem Network discussed the classification of chemicals, modes of transport and the common mistakes that are made in packing and loading, such as not considering the centre of gravity of a load.
Dr Andy Holton talked about the British Association of Dangerous Goods Professionals (BADGP), which is a non-profit organisation coming into existence to provide support to people involved with dangerous goods. The initiative was well received by the audience, including a Dangerous Goods Safety Adviser (DGSA) working for the MOD.
Colin Fenwick, a DGSA from Wincanton, explained thoroughly the extent to which the company go to ensure that Wincanton drivers are well-trained and well-equipped for an emergency situation. He referenced a recent incident on the M1, for which Wincanton was commended by a Fire Service audience member who had witnessed their actions.
Some of our day 2 speakers (L to R): Nick Bailey (Braemar Howells), Ali Karim (Hazchem Network), Kathryn Roberts (NCEC), Bill Atkinson (former NCEC), Steve Wernham (Environment Agency), Clive Dennis (HSE), Andy Holton (BADGP)
Nick Bailey of Braemar Howells, explained the company’s capabilities as a clean-up company (3rd-level response) and provided examples of several significant incidents including a paraquat tank transfer. Paraquat is a weed killer that has been banned in the EU since 2007, because of its high toxicity, therefore a damaged bulk tanker full of paraquat is naturally a delicate issue.
On a more academic note, Dr. Waldemar Bujalski from the University of Birmingham spoke about the scientific development of hydrogen fuel cells and how improvements in this area are making them a viable alternative to fossil fuels. He illustrated this with a video of a hydrogen powered car developed at the university. This potential new technology holds different hazards from carbon-based fuels in road traffic collisions. Tests so far suggest that a hydrogen tank is less likely to explode than a liquid fuel; in the event of a rupture, the burning gas escapes upwards, whereas liquids will tend to pool beneath the vehicle and heat the fuel tank causing a pressure explosion.
Prior to the main event, a drinks reception and informal dinner allowed all participants to mingle and find common ground. This was a great way to share experiences, particularly in terms of getting feedback from the fire service on their use of NCEC during chemical incidents and practice exercises, hopefully leading to more efficient cooperation in the future.
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The Bill: episodes, 2006 Episodes
Stolen episodes
The mastertapes of Episodes 468 and 469 were stolen, and therefore couldn't be shown. They will be shown at a later date when they have been refilmed.
News article from Digital Spy on the thefts: (10/11/2006)
Two mastertapes for television programme The Bill have been stolen from ITV, along with two editing machines worth £10,000.
The ironic burglary took place at the TV station's studio in Merton, South West London.
The thief was reportedly wearing a high visibility jacket and followed a real worker into the editing room, before taking the machines and being driven off in a van parked outside the studio.
ITV bosses were apparently fuming when they heard the news. An insider told The Sun: "It's not just the expense, it's the disruption to filming. It's embarrassing as we're supposed to have a good handle on how thieves operate."
The police confirmed that no arrests have been made as yet.
Retrieved from "https://thebill.fandom.com/wiki/Stolen_episodes?oldid=4837"
The Bill: episodes
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Tinsel Town News Now
Actress, Film, Television, Uncategorized
Charismatic Actress Scherrikar Bell Goes Viral
December 9, 2019 Lorraine Wilder Leave a comment
British actress Scherrikar Bell’s combination of natural talent, technical skill and intuitive gift for manifesting an emotional reality qualifies her as an extraordinary force. From her 2011 start on stage in London’s West End to her extensive film and television work (credits include roles on BBC’s “EastEnders,” “Famalam,” “Doctors”), Bell unfailingly radiates an engaging quality that profoundly enhances every portrayal.
Her memorable performance as a professional assassin in masked British rapper SL’s “FWA-Boss” music video is a prime example of the inescapable Bell charisma.
With over 100 million streams of his music to date, the enigmatic, teenaged SL is one of UK hip hop’s most important and fastest rising artists, and landing her role in the video (SL’s first single of 2019) was a plum assignment for Bell.
Helmed by the award winning director Myles Whittingham, the deeply cinematic film short showcases the masked rapper’s downbeat, almost nonchalant UK drill sound—a smooth, minimalist mid-tempo style—and Bell’s lead character anchors the video from it’s opening through to its final shot.
As SL’s low key rhymes roll above the track’s glimmering, almost meditative beats, we see Bell donning a nun’s habit, then cut away to an exterior where the Mother Superior calmly approaches an automobile, produces a wicked looking automatic handgun and shoots the vehicle’s occupant at point blank range.
It’s downright startling moment—made all the more so by Bell’s serene demeanor and measured pace—and she draws the viewer in close as we witness a series of similarly deadly encounters.
A subsequent sequence find her clad head to toe in black leather (an updated Emma Peel comes delightfully to mind) and wielding a high powered sniper’s rifle which she uses to coolly dispatch a trio of obvious ne’er do wells before breaking into a lethal Mona Lisa smile and slowly sauntering over to retrieve chrome-plated brief case from one of her victims.
The unforgettable instant when she cracks that malevolent grin is so subtly evil and cold-blooded that it qualifies as an absolutely masterly piece of acting, one that Bell makes look so easy but is, in truth, an example of deep stagecraft.
It’s the ideal set up for the next murderous tableau, a scene straight out of Hitchcock—Bell strolls wordlessly up to an approaching woman, suddenly produces a nasty looking shank from within her sleeve to adroitly deliver a swift shocking stab, another deadly encounter stunning in its almost mechanical precision.
Bell’s comprehensive involvement with the role allows her to inhabit this icy-hearted murderer so convincingly that it made the video a fan favorite, with almost 4.5 million views since its March 2019 release. Intriguingly, the video ends with her appearing in SL’s living room then fades to black with a lingering “To be continued” screen title and an open-ended question as to what she was doing there—reporting to her employer or preparing to dispatch him?
The mood and mystery of the video inspired multiple fan-made reaction videos and cemented SL’s reputation as one of the UK’s fastest rising stars, and there’s no question that Bell (currently featured on the BBC “Teach The Victorians”) and her blood curdling contributions to the video played a significant part in making it such a sensational, feverishly viral internet and commercial success.
ActressFilmMusic VideoTelevision
Producer, Television
Britain’s Ron Carroll on passion for television and advice for newcomers
It seems Britain’s Ron Carroll has always known what he was destined to do in life. As a child in Liverpool, he used to play newsrooms in his bedroom, obsessed with typewriters and tape recorders. Even at that young age, the idea of being a journalist and creating compelling stories for the world excited him. When he finished university, he never felt lost the way so many do, wondering what their next move was. He knew he was going to be a writer, and quickly got his first job working for a newspaper.
Now, as a showrunner and development producer, Ron’s passion for detailed and accurate storytelling is seen on a grand scale. He traded in a pen and notebook for scripts and sets and has never looked back. Once his career in print journalism had taken off, he began wondering what else he could sink his teeth into. Television became the obvious next step.
The transition started when Ron was working as a senior producer on US talk shows. He went back to work in Britain for a while and got a really interesting opportunity, which came to him the moment he stepped off the plane. Sky TV, one of the UK’s largest networks, was launching a new daytime television show. It was live with phone-ins. They asked Ron to develop the format for the show and produce it, and that really put him on the career path he is on today, an industry leader in his country, developing new formats and launching new TV and Digital projects.
“It may not be everyone’s dream job, but it was one of mine. I loved producing talk shows. I still do, if I get the opportunity. Nothing is better than writing a funny line for the host or having a guest share a story and getting an immediate reaction from a live audience,” said Ron. “I get to meet all kinds of people. I have interviewed A-list celebrities, got to produce shows that make life-changing dreams come true for people, and in some small ways made a difference.”
Audiences all around the world have enjoyed Ron’s shows, whether binge-watching Blown Away on Netflix or waiting each week for the newest episode of Canada’s Next Top Model or Game of Homes. Ron knows how to tell a good story, and his roots in journalism only fuel his passion for reality television.
“When I am developing a new show, whether it’s my own idea or it belongs to a production company that hires me to help bring it to life, I am very guttural about it. Over-thinking can be the curse of death. I have witnessed great show ideas get grinded to a pulp because producers over-think. I always say know what you like and make the shows you love. I like to produce shows that have heart, humor and hope. Shows that genuinely make a difference to people’s lives, which is why producing Undercover Boss was so rewarding. At the end of the day, I am a viewer first and a producer second,” he said.
Ron has developed a “3-H formula” based on his success: Heart, Humor and Hope. These characteristics are always at the forefront of whatever he produces. When he looks back on his career, he has had many highlights, but it is making a real difference through his work that fuels him.
“I was the lead story producer on an ITV show that aired live across Britain on Christmas Day, and I had people in tears on both sides of the camera because of surprise reunions, uniting families across the globe. Well-crafted shows should connect with viewers in real and tangible ways,” he said.
So what’s next for this industry titan? Ron has several new shows that are at various stages of development, including the community-uniting format “The Tree” that he is very excited about. He also has several other shows in the works, in conjunction with collaborators, which include an exciting new design competition format, a reno series, and a fun food competition show. In addition, he has a strong and growing reputation as a content consultant. He is in increasing demand, working with production companies in the US, Canada and the UK, helping trouble-shoot their shows and help devise formats, pilots and presentations for both TV and Digital platforms. For those looking to follow in his footsteps, he offers some wise words:
“It worries me that so many people seem to leave media courses and not know how to apply for a job. That’s a problem and they are being disserviced by colleges and universities. Know what you want and network. That’s code for pick up the phone and write emails to heads of departments. CC-in Human Resources if they have them but don’t rely on HR. Reach out and ask for meetings directly with frontline creatives. You have to be bold and tenacious. It’s a tough business and breaking into it is more competitive than ever. Some people will love you and some people won’t, because they don’t get you. There will be times when doors won’t open and you’ll get career-blocked. But, generally, if you don’t have too big an ego and you are willing to listen and learn and work hard, you will be welcomed with open arms, across all departments. And when you finally get to break into the industry, don’t work for free or at a reduced rate. Know your worth. Every time someone works for free or at a reduced rate, they devalue the industry they want to be part of,” he advised.
EntertainmentProducerProducingShowrunnerTelevisionTV
Director, Film
John Wate brings authentic Japanese culture to ‘Samurai Headhunters’ documentary
September 27, 2019 Lorraine Wilder Leave a comment
Whenever John Wate steps onto a film set, puts his eye to a camera lens, and starts making a movie, he is living his dream. Directing is a pleasure he can’t compare to anything else; it allows him to be in tune with what is happening in front of him, and all his senses go into overdrive. He spends every day doing what he truly loves, and this passion translates directly into his beautiful work.
For this German native, making a good movie is all about the research. He always aims to find the perfect story and the right characters, with the singular goal of leaving an impression on his audience. With his work on the Smithsonian’s Epic Warrior Women film series and movies like Samurai Warrior Queens, he does just that, showcasing why he is an industry-leading director in his country.
“I would say as a director you are a storyteller, and the way you have lived and seen the world will organically shape how you tell your stories. I found that the world is a treasure trove that has so much to offer in terms of stories and characters. Once I find that ‘one thing’ that interests me, I can start digging and I usually find gold,” said Wate.
Wate has spent many years directing masterful films and television series, including the TV movie Samurai Headhunters in 2013, that allowed him to explore a unique part of world history. It is a documentary on the dark and brutal side of the samurai warrior clans featuring the life of peasant Masa who is forced into the ruthless world of the samurai.
For over a thousand years, the samurai have been celebrated as an aristocratic warrior class. Exceptionally skilled and loyal until death, their very name has become a byword for honor and dignity. This film reveals the unknown dark side of the samurai – a fascinating tale of greed, treachery, extreme cruelty and violent death. Based on newly discovered samurai war manuals, Samurai Headhunters reconstructs the life of a young peasant farmer who is press-ganged into a warlord’s army. Driven by his love for a village girl of noble birth, young Masa quickly rises through the ranks from simple foot soldier to venerated samurai commander. But his reward is to be one of betrayal, lies and finally forced suicide by his fellow samurai. Interwoven with this dramatic story, two British historians track down remarkable new evidence from ancient war manuals that show the true, dark world of the samurai. The drama documentary also features a living samurai master and his students, as well as CG animation, stunning re-enactments, original costumes and historic locations.
“Everyone knows the samurai as loyal, courageous fighters with a strong moral code – but not many people know that this is only part of the story. During the almost 200 years of civil war in Japan the samurai got rewarded for their deeds in battle, which often meant for the number of heads they had taken. The film explores the unknown dark side of the samurai, how they cheated, lied and murdered to gain favors and advance their careers, the forbidden love between warriors, the atrocities of samurai warfare, and the danger to rise to fame in such an environment. I found all these facts about the dark side of the samurai as grizzly as they were fascinating,” said Wate.
After great success with his previous film, Ninja Shadow Warriors, Wate teamed up once again with Urban Canyons Producer Sebastian Peiter and together with researcher Anthony Cummins, they researched and built the concept for the film. Living in Japan at the time, Wate not only had extensive experience, but he also had direct links to the famous Japanese film studios in Kyoto, and through all his previous other documentaries had direct access to Japanese cultural icons, such as sword masters, swordsmiths or traditional armourers. He was the ideal director for the job.
“You need to have a feeling for Japanese manners and that what they say is not always what they mean. I think a lot of the fascination for the samurai comes from the exotic mixture of stoic readiness, their manners and proper conduct in life and in battle. But if you want to show that, you have to know HOW they did certain things and why. You can’t just use a Western blue-print to invent what the character would do. At that time I lived in Japan, I spoke the language and understood their manners and hints, like that a certain gesture can reveal the opposite of what has been said. The timing, the tempo or movement of people speaking at formal gatherings. These are all subtle things that can build an authentic exotic flavor that is fun to watch,” he said.
Samurai Headhunters has been extremely popular since its release. It has aired in over thirty countries, not only on television channels but also various exhibitions about the samurai culture. It is currently showing in the prestigious Kunsthalle Munich, a German national art museum.
DirectingDirectorEntertainmentFilmfilmmakingMoviesTelevision
Composer, Television
Hong Kong’s Samuel Lam gives musical life to new Chinese television series
June 7, 2019 Lorraine Wilder Leave a comment
Samuel Lam was born with a large birthmark on the right side of his face and spent much of his childhood alone because of it. Growing up in Hong Kong, it was hard for him, being a loner, but when he was 12 years of age, his sister bought him a guitar and his whole life changed. Music became a way to express himself, changing his personality and giving him something to connect with others.
Now, Lam is an industry leading composer and orchestrator is his home country and abroad. He has worked on multi-million-dollar blockbusters, such as Crazy Alien, to award-winning films like Mommy’s Girl. He has scored dozens of short films, and has many exciting projects on the way, including Paramount’s Playing with Fire, starring John Cena, Judy Greer and Keegan-Michael Key, directed by Andy Fickman, and Detective Chinatown, a 12 episode web-series, produced and written by Chen Sicheng, the director of the feature film of the same name, which generated over $600 million USD at the box office.
Lam is known all over the world for his talent, and recently worked on the highly anticipated Chinese series Paratrooper Spirit. The show is about a team of paratroopers with actual combat as their training ground, as they push hard to level up their fighting abilities and complete different missions. Set in the foreground of military reform, the story follows military men like Zhang Qi and Qi Xiao Tian. To develop an air force that can compete in the global stage, a special team called Guo Gai Tou has gathered. After the initial adjustment period, Guo Gai Tou began fighting wars in the North and South and challenging greater enemies. Warriors from Guo Gai Tou who are dispatched to other teams become aces in the field.
“It is a good way to increase understanding and knowledge about the military through the influence of media and entertainment. This show has a really interesting military service theme, the paratrooper,” said Lam.
Working on a series is far different than a feature film, and Lam was eager to work on his first television show with Paratrooper Spirit and working in television in China differs greatly from America. Rather than getting each episode weekly, as the U.S. does things, Lam got every episode of the show at once. Although there is a greater time crunch with this method, Lam likes knowing how the entire story is developed to orchestrate the score accordingly. He was given all 35 episodes of the season to work on and began by watching each one. Then he and his team started developing essential thematic materials such as main theme and melodies for characters that worked with each and every episode and helped to tell the story.
“It is very challenging working on a TV Show. Because of the large amount of content, you have to be very organized, and work at a super-fast pace. I had to arrange all kinds of music genres, from action orchestra, to rock and romantic pop song, and that was really fun,” said Lam.
It takes an extremely broad skill-set to orchestrate for a television show, and Lam possesses just that. He arranged hundreds of minutes of music for Paratrooper Spirit that will continue to be played over the show’s run, with millions hearing his work, and he couldn’t be more excited.
Paratrooper Spirit is currently being promoted in China and will be released in September 2019 on a major television network in the country. Be sure to keep an eye out for it.
Chinese TVComposerComposingEntertainmentFilm ComposerMusicOrchestratorTelevision
Television, VFX Artists
Compositor Ranran Meng takes audiences back to 1970s NYC for HBO’s ‘The Deuce’
March 24, 2019 Lorraine Wilder Leave a comment
For Ranran Meng, compositing is like decorating a building; as the final step of the filmmaking process, her role as a compositor, is to make a scene look complete and beautiful, just as an interior decorator would a room. She makes the footage look the best it can possibly look, ready for audiences all over the world to be taken in by the story, transported to different places and time, and to be purely entertained.
Meng has put her extraordinary touch on many of the world’s most popular recent films and television shows. These include Netflix’s hit rom-com Set it Up, Amazon’s award-winning television series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and the Emmy-nominated film Fahrenheit 451, to name a few. Her talents extend to commercials, collaborating with iconic brands like Microsoft, as well as virtual reality, having worked on the Harry Potter franchise award-winning video game The Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them VR Experience in 2018.
Last year, Meng also worked on the second season of HBO’s Golden Globe nominated series The Deuce, starring James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Based in 1970s New York, this show gives a raw and gritty portrayal of the prostitution business that was so publicly executed at that time. As a result of police crack-down, the characters are forced to venture towards relatively safer and more discrete forms of the same work.
Meng, already a fan of the show’s first season, was happy to use her talents on such an enticing story, even if it meant she would be exposed to some spoilers.
“I have not watched any show talk about the porn industry before, so this was a really unique project to be a part of. The story involves the government and police corruption, the violence of the drug epidemic and the real-estate booms and busts that coincided with the change. It really allows viewers to imagine what 1970s New York City was like,” she said. “I love the old stories and the older looking sets, it’s like seeing something from the past, even if it is not a true story. It gives an idea of what the old society was like, making it real for audiences.”
When working on The Deuce, Meng had a tremendous amount of responsibilities, making sure the VFX would really allow audiences to transport back in time to the 1970s without being noticeable. To do this, she used compositing techniques like 2D tracking, 3D tracking, roto and paint skills. In the original footage, there were modern things in the background that wouldn’t work with the time period, so she used her software to replace this with older images, making every detail work for 70s New York City.
These small details included erasing modern road stripes or signals and replacing them with the older styles, which meant she had to 3D track the scene and simulate a 3D scene of it, and then use paint techniques to paint out a newer, cleaner, no-stripes road image. She would then project the new painted road image on the 3D space and bring in a 2D plate, and then add new render stripes footage. Finally, after bringing back the cars, she used 2D tracking and roto/paint skills to do the motion work and to simulate the exact same traffic lights and shadows to bring them back to the scene. This made the scenes still have the same shooting elements, but with a perfect, older environment. Viewers may not notice things like the road signals in the background of a dramatic scene, but they would notice them if they were modernized, which is why Meng takes such care and pride in her job.
“This project is the story about the 1970s in New York, so it is interesting to make a modern city into an old-time city. I enjoyed the process of seeing how the city changed. It let me know how accurate the scene should be for output, as even a little light sign should be changed back to that period. It really magnified my attention to detail,” said Meng.
Meng’s work allowed The Deuce to be more believable and precise, allowing viewers to have the ideal entertainment experience from the couch of their homes. She used advanced high compositing techniques to achieve photoreal effects, making her indispensable to putting together such a high-end television show.
“I am proud of myself to have been a part of this great project. The post-production did a very good job and presented a real 1970s New York City to the audiences. I had a good experience working with my team and I am very much looking forward to the show’s next season,” she concluded.
The Deuce will return later this year on HBO.
Chinese TalentCompositingCompositorEntertainmentfilmmakingInternational TalentTelevisionVFXVisual Effects
Actress, Television
Canada’s Helena-Alexis Seymour plays her dream role in Amazon’s hit series
January 28, 2019 Lorraine Wilder Leave a comment
Helena-Alexis Seymour
Helena-Alexis Seymour grew up on stage, never having an issue with being in the spotlight, literally. Growing up in the small town of Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, Seymour danced, did beauty pageants, and modeled. She loved the way she could express her creativity through such methods of performing. As she grew and started a successful modeling career, she realized another passion: acting. After booking her first commercial at only nine years old, she knew what her calling was.
“The more I acted, the more I realized that the artform was about more than me being creative, it was about how I was able to make the audience feel. Having someone watch your performance and be moved by it because they can relate, it reassures them that they are not alone. We all want to feel like we aren’t alone in this world so to be able to do that for someone makes it all worthwhile,” she said.
Now, millions around the world have seen Seymour in some of their favorite films and television shows. She is known for films like the blockbuster xXx: Return of Xander Cage starring Vin Diesel, as well as the multiple Academy Award winning film Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). The highlight of her esteemed career however, began last year when she was cast in the title role in Amazon’s award-winning original series Chronicles of Jessica Wu.
“Helena is a woman that exudes positive energy, so naturally she brightens up any room she steps in. She’s hardworking, humble, kind and so down to earth, which allowed for us to not only create great moments on camera, but many memorable moments off camera. It was a very rewarding experience and I hope it’s the first project of many that we get to work on together,” said Jasmine Hester, Seymour’s co-star on the show.
Chronicles of Jessica Wu is a story about a young girl on the Autism spectrum who has mastered martial arts. She becomes a Hero in her city and takes down some of the most ruthless villains in Los Angeles. Jessica’s genius ability and martial arts helps her become the most unique and fascinating Superhero of our time. Chronicles of Jessica Wu is a fun, action-packed, and exciting series for the entire family.
“I love how the story showed a strong, bi-racial, woman on the autistic spectrum living a very normal life. She is highly functional and lives quite like everyone else. Bringing awareness to the autism spectrum is something that we all need to experience. Being more inclusive of each other and more loving to each other. Everyone in this world is different and going through something so the more we can open our minds to it, the more compassionate as a whole we become,” said Seymour.
The character of Jessica Wu is driven, focused, ambitious, strong yet quite shy, and vulnerable all at the same time. She is loyal and expects the same loyalty in return. She believes her autism is a strength and uses it to her advantage. She is an intellectual genius and is always two steps ahead in her mind. She uses her amazing mathematical abilities to solve certain issues in her life as well as in her fighting when acting as the superhero named Equation.
“Helena-Alexis is a complete joy to work with. From her dedication, preparation, and delivery performances on and off set, she is the total package. Helena captures the true essence of an individual not defined by any disabilities or anything else. You will surely see how she brings the character Jessica Wu to a full circle of life. Her preparation and dedication to make our show the very best and to reach its maximum potential is truly appreciated. We couldn’t be more pleased and prouder of her work. Seriously, her performance on this show is must see TV,” said Brandon Larkins, Executive Producer.
Stepping into the show during its second season and taking over for the actress that played Jessica Wu in the show’s first season, Seymour had her work cut out for her; she had to honor a character that had already been established in fans’ minds while still making it her own. To do so, she extensively researched autism and what that would mean for her character. She had a great time recreating the character and experiencing life through her eyes. Seymour discovered what Jessica’s values were, what her strengths and weaknesses were, the type of music she listens to, the type of guy she crushes on and even what zodiac sign she was. With all that knowledge, she used it to mold Jessica Wu’s personality, and essentially, her soul. Luckily, Seymour has a kickboxing/martial arts background, and was able to use those skills when playing Jessica.
“I loved everything about working on this. I loved playing a double life as Jessica Wu and Equation,” said Seymour. “I loved working on set with such inspiring and grounded cast and crew members. When you are surrounded by love, light and greatness you naturally will vibrate to that frequency, so I am so grateful that every day was positive and that we were free to create great art together.”
The Chronicles of Jessica Wu is truly fun for the entire family. Seymour is excited by the show’s success already, and for the future seasons to come. She knows the importance of shows like this and is happy to be portraying a such a unique character that the world needs to see.
“This is only the beginning of major change in the television and film industry. We need more ethnic superheroes on the big and small screen. The world is full of different people with different backgrounds. We must continue to open our eyes to them and the gifts that they have to offer not only to this generation but the younger generations to come. It is up to us to show the youth that they matter and that there is someone just like them on the screen who is strong, capable and worthy. Being able to do that for a young child whether with autism or not means that I have done my job,” she concluded.
Be sure to check out the second season of Chronicles of Jessica Wu on Amazon when it is released on April 2nd.
ActingActressAmazonCanadian ActorsCanadian TalentEntertainmentfilmmakingTelevisionTV
Producer, Television, Uncategorized
Chandra daCosta talks love of producing and finding the best stories
October 26, 2018 Lorraine Wilder Leave a comment
Growing up, Chandra daCosta was inspired watching her uncle on television, an actor in McIver. Though his role was a small one, that made little difference to her. The moment she saw him on screen, she knew she wanted to be part of creating TV content. When watching a movie, she would fixate on the details, watching it over and over again, studying it. She understood that filmmaking was more than just entertaining. It was a way to share a part of herself with the masses, and she set her sights on producing.
DaCosta has worked with top production companies across Canada. She has worked on popular series like A Wedding and a Murder, Biggest and Baddest, and The Stanley Show and most recently docu-series for Lifetime. She has collaborated with some of the industry’s finest and her work has been seen on worldwide networks like Discovery Channel, and BBC.
“As a kid, I would always beg my parents to take me to the movie theatre. I loved the glam of it, the event of it, the popcorn, the lights, the BIG screens. I knew I wanted to live in this world somehow, some way,” she said.
One of daCosta’s highlights on her resume is her work with Dale Wolfe Productions. She currently has two shows in development with Wolfe, Fish Brokers and Water Shock. Fish Brokers is a television series that follows the process of catching, delivering and serving sustainable, fresh seafood to high profile restaurants – “from ship to chef” – on a daily basis. Based on the book Water Rights in Southeast Asia and India by author Ross Michael Pink and published by internationally known publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, Water Shock is a documentary series exploring the paramount human rights issue of our time: clean drinking water.
“Both projects have extremely sensitive subject matter, Water Shock’s message and story are imperative, and I am proud to be working on something that will hopefully have an impact and bring awareness to a very serious issue. The shortage of water is already a reality to so many and yet, here in North America we continue on like the water will last forever,” said daCosta. “Fish Brokers is extremely exciting to work on because everyone loves a good food show! And although this isn’t just about food, that’s a part of it. I am excited to get out there with the fishermen and immerse myself into their daily life. These fishermen are not massive operations, which makes it a personal experience. Further, they are very firm in their desire to fish sustainably and ensure their product is about sustainable seafood. The idea of following the entire process from fish to dish is something I’m passionate about.”
While making Water Shock, Wolfe relies heavily on daCosta to source and secure hosting talent and utilize her contacts for Directors, cinematographers etc. Through her personal and professional relationships, she has many high-profile colleagues she can approach. This is what makes her so good at what she does; the people she works with always want to work with her again. She also works hard on the research side of the show, making sure there is always a primary and secondary story for each episode that can captivate the audience.
“Chandra is the consummate professional. She has the ability to pull together various aspects of a production and ensure it is running smoothly. Her most powerful quality is her networking skills and connections with high caliber industry professionals and the ability to bring people together,” said Dale Wolfe, Producer and Writer.
DaCosta has also been a driving force behind the development of Fish Brokers. Through the casting and the pre-interviews, she has found several companies to come on board for the show. On top of finding funding and distribution, daCosta continues to work with the cast, and source footage for the pilot episode. She continues to look for new and fresh angles, which is why fishermen are eager to participate in telling their stories.
“I worked on various development projects with Chandra. As a development executive at a top tier Vancouver production company, I often collaborated with Chandra on new ideas and pitches for broadcasters. Chandra is fantastic to work with. She was one of the few people I worked with in the television industry who not only was a pleasure to work with but also able to research, network, write and produce show ideas all at once. She is truly a triple (and beyond) threat,” said Nicole Lawson of Force Four Entertainment.
Fish Brokers has changed and evolved over time. From Fish Brokers, to Fish to Dish, to Ship to Chef and back to Fish Brokers, whatever the title, the show continues to impress industry professionals and broadcast executives.
“Working on these two shows has been so much fun. I really have a chance to dive into the different worlds and meet characters. Although both shows are about sustainability, one has a “fun” subject (food) and the other more serious (water shortages worldwide). The food aspect is always fun because part of the research is testing some of the finished product. And the chef’s love watching people marvel over their creation,” daCosta described. “The water shortage is dire, and it’s been really hard to even get myself to acknowledge the severity of our planet’s water shortages. While doing research and through the book, it’s more important than ever to get this story out there. Looking for the right host is key and so right now, I’m really focusing on the right fit for cast and crew.”
Be sure to keep an eye out for both Fish Brokers and Water Shock to see just what daCosta is capable of.
Canadian TalentEntertainmentProducerProducingTelevisionTV
Graphic Design, Television
Graphic Designer Bruna Imai honors veterans with award-winning SYFY campaign
As a graphic designer, Bruna Imai takes a simple idea and turns it into a visual masterpiece. She finds the aesthetic that best suits each project and the most appropriate way to communicate a message with all its potential.
“All kinds of art, music, literature, film, dance, etc. – has its own language, and the role of the designer is to interpret these arts and translate one “language” to another. Any art is about telling a story, a message. I’m a storyteller specialized in the visual language, and I use elements like illustrations, photographs, objects, movies, animation, motion and so on to tell a story,” she said.
It is exactly this attitude toward her craft that has made Imai an industry leading graphic designer. She is known for her contributions to several acclaimed campaigns, including IFC’s “No Brainer” commercial spot, Coca-Cola’s “Coke On” commercial, FIFA’s Women’s World Cup on Fox Sports, and STATE Design’s Statement. Her work has gone on to receive several awards from the most prestigious advertising agencies and awards around the world.
Another award-winning project for Imai was the 2015 SYFY Veteran’s Day campaign. The project was about a holiday spot for SYFY Network to produce a heartfelt ‘Thank You’ to the nation’s veterans. In addition to appearing on televisions all over the country, Imai’s work was also seen online. Parts of the animation were used as the opening and ending of “thank you” videos, featured in many motion graphics related sites.
Imai’s graphic design work led the project to immense success. Not only was it popular with viewers and online, but it took home several prestigious advertising awards. The project won the Channel Holiday/Special Event Spot at PromaxDBA 2016, the most important awards in entertainment marketing and design.
“I am still so happy this campaign was so successful, especially because it shows that all the trust that was placed in me was deserved. I was happy not only with the reaction from the public, but also happy about my performance, knowing that I could make something really interesting,” she said.
Imai had two main roles for this project, the storyboard, which involved transforming the script into the first sketches, and the layout, which she was solely responsible for. The project follows a color palette based on the United States flag and yellow light to add a warmth tone to the message. The entire process was done digitally in Photoshop. Imai received the script from the studio with some images they would like to use – the veterans carrying the flag, the eagle flying and a field of flags, plus some typography references of types and illustrations mixed up. She began sketching thumbnail studies and soon, the storyboard was ready.
As they were working on a tight timeline, Imai came up with the pivotal idea of most of the animation efforts into bold transitions and keeping the layouts simple but captivating in most scenes. She conceptualized the designs, especially the transitions in the theme of “freedom”, representing it with elements of “air”, which audiences can see in the flight of an eagle, the movement of the flag and leaves being carried by the wind. The illustrations were finished with a broad brush and sketchy edges to emphasize this movement and flow, making the animation finalization process easier.
“This project was a very challenging one and wouldn’t be possible to do on time without the studio’s trust in my work, giving me creative freedom. I loved working on a project that I could use my full potential as a designer. Also, the communication with the studio during the project was excellent, and is what made me feel like being part of the team. It would have been impossible to deliver this result without our good relationship,” she said.
As the sole designer for the project, Imai was vital to the Veteran’s Day campaign’s success. She expedited the process, considering the design and transitions even in the process of storyboarding. Because of her talents as a storyboard artist, she also saved the company money in doing multiple roles. Her versatility and vast understanding of her craft is unparalleled. For those looking to follow in her footsteps, she offers encouraging words of wisdom.
“There is a tendency for students to focus on learning the software and tools, but it is essential to study academic subjects of art and design to be able to do a solid project with cohesion. When you study theory, you learn how to “see” images and references. It is a study of how to analyze critically and technically a designer’s choice,” she advised. “Also, I would say to feed on various types of references, not just graphic design. There are so many languages of art in so many senses! Music, dance, photography, movies, sculpture, literature, gastronomy, performing, folk art, everyday experiences and so on. Just as languages are translatable from one to another, all kinds of artistic expression and experiences are translatable between them. We can see a great example illustrating this “translation” in the film Ratatouille, in the part in which the characters describe the flavors of the strawberry and cheese in graphical forms. I believe that it’s essential to be the professional who can see and navigate between different languages, have a fresh mind that continues to play and to experiment.”
AdvertisingArtDesignEntertainmentGraphic DesignGraphic DesignerSyfyTelevision
Editor, Television
Editor Roma Kong shows of beauty of nail art with iconic Disney characters
Editing, to Roma Kong, is like a simultaneous combination of surgery and magic. When she gets footage, she reviews the script and gets an idea for the direction of the story. That is when she starts cutting, splicing things together, and moving things around, until every part is put together, telling a clear story; that is the surgical aspect. When it comes to the magic, Kong believes that part comes in two ways. The first being that each story must evoke a certain feeling in the viewer, so it’s not only cutting and putting things together, but also adding emotion to it, whether this be through the music, the rhythm, the speed of the cuts, etc. The second, more often than not, is transforming the footage that may not tell the story they want and making it what they need, without any reshoots or work from the crew. That is where the real work for a film editor comes into play, and that is when Kong truly shines.
Born and raised in Lima Peru, the in-demand editor has impressed the masses with her work. She often collaborates with renowned production companies like Nickelodeon, with work on their online video series BTS Nickelodeon and Inside Nick, as well as Disney.
With Disney, Kong edited DIY Disney, an online series that allowed audiences around the world to see just what she is capable of. The videos amassed over 11 million views, and featured various crafts that viewers could partake in, offering simple and fun instructions using Disney films and characters. She also created another video titled “Disney California Adventure Food Crawl”, effectively launching the Disney Eats brand. She is quite the formidable editor.
“I would say my style of editing is very fluid, dynamic and fun. As a filmmaker, I strive to entertain the audience, so when I edit, telling a good entertaining story is the priority. I also love for cuts to be seamless, so I pay close attention to movement and try to make really smooth transitions between shots, even when making pop videos. I also work very fast which is something the people I’ve worked with have always appreciated,” said Kong.
Kong has a close working relationship with both Nickelodeon and Disney and is often the companies’ first editing choice when they have an innovative new online project to pursue. In 2017, Kong continued her work with Disney on their TIPS Disney series, featuring different videos showing the intricate work behind nail art, using some of Disney’s most celebrated productions.
“I think these videos really help bring more attention to a form of art many don’t really consider art. They allow the audience to truly appreciate the intricacy of the work these artists do. They give Disney fans great ideas on how to show their love for their favorite characters in very stylish ways, and they inspire other artists to create their own version,” said Kong.
The videos feature many beloved Disney film and television productions, as well as iconic characters. These include High School Musical, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Moana, Coco, Beauty and the Beast, and more. They were published through Disney’s expansive social media platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Together, they gathered over 7.6 million views.
“Seeing the comments from the audience on the videos and realizing how much they love them is heartwarming. Seeing people post about their own versions of what we showed them, is amazing. Reminds you that you’re not only making things for people to watch and forget about, people actually truly love these movies and characters and love showing their love for them and your video can persuade them to make something that they hadn’t thought about before,” said Kong.
Kong’s talent as an editor is evident in the TIPS Disney videos. She is very good at editing with music beats and for Disney Style, the Digital Brand that Tips Disney falls under. Her colleagues and her audience enjoyed the rhythm Kong put into the videos and how, by doing a very musical type of editing, made them fun and entertaining to watch. Because she has a very good eye for art and style, she knew exactly what the best shots were and what made the art look the most stylish and vibrant it possibly could. She understood the vibe of the brand very quickly and knew exactly what the executives wanted before they even knew themselves.
“I loved watching the intricate process of nail art in such a detailed way. I was constantly mesmerized by how hard it is to do, and I found myself with a lot more respect for nail artists. It’s such a great art and they’re all so talented. And also, being able to play with scenes from some of my favorite movies and use them to create something new was so much fun,” said Kong.
Kong worked on TIPS Disney from October 2017 to December 2017. It was an amazing experience for the editor. The Disney Style brand is her favorite out of all the Disney Digital brands. Making multiple videos for it was a great opportunity. The audience loves their content and as a result, the brand has a lot of engagement, and as an editor, making content that a lot of people would appreciate, and love was something that truly made the experience for Kong. It’s a fun brand to work for and it fits her editing style perfectly.
“Disney is the holy grail of the entertainment industry. Working for them is like hitting the jackpot of companies you can put on your resume. Being able to do that and have a Walt Disney Company ID with your picture on it, walking into the Studios with no problem at all is quite the dream come true,” Kong concluded.
DisneyDisney ChannelEditingEditorInternational TalentTelevisionTVWeb Series
Actors, Television
Romaine Waite takes audiences back in time in ‘Frankie Drake Mysteries’
August 1, 2018 Lorraine Wilder Leave a comment
Exploration and research. Those are the two words that come to mind when Canada’s Romaine Waite is asked to describe what he does as an actor. He is required to research humanity and explore every character he plays. As an actor, he wears many different hats depending on the subject of a project. At the surface it is entertainment, but in a way, for Waite, it is therapy.
“I believe as an actor I’m an interpreter of words and ideas manifested through physicality and emotion. We’re also guides into unknown worlds and situations. At the highest level, we are responsible for bringing people together to experience a common idea or emotion,” he said.
Audiences around the world would recognize Waite immediately from his recurring role in the iconic television series Star Trek: Discovery. He has also starred in many successful projects, such as The Mist, and Antisocial. Earlier this year, Canadian viewers also got to see him on the small screen in the hit show Frankie Drake Mysteries.
Frankie Drake Mysteries is a hit television series on the Canadian network CBC. It premiered last November and is currently filming its second season. The show follows Toronto’s only female private detective in the 1920s as she takes on the cases the police don’t want or can’t handle. Along with her partner Trudy, Frankie and the Drake Detective Agency take on cases of all shapes and sizes. From airplanes and booze running to American G-men, Communists and union busters, Frankie’s fearless sense of adventure gets her into all kinds of trouble, but she always manages to find her way out.
“I like that the story is centered around women of the ‘20s. I don’t think many people are aware of the accomplishments and contributions women have made in that time period. It’s amazing to showcase the impact that women have had, but also showing women in a strong positive light, not just for inclusion in the history books but to hopefully inspire young women that watch the show. I think representation is of the utmost importance in media,” said Waite.
In the show, Waite plays Bill Peters. Bill is a genuine man, and his intentions are as pure as they come. He has a simple job, goes to church and tries his best to help with investigations when asked by Trudy Clarke.
From the first season, the groundwork was laid for a potential romance to blossom between Trudy and Bill in addition to providing crucial information for investigations in the show. Waite played the part perfectly, establishing the relationship between the two characters. Through this relationship, audiences get to see a well-rounded character in Trudy.
“The production company for this series, has an amazing reputation of putting together great shows, but more importantly it was the premise of the show. Centred around two amazing women, I wanted to be a part of the narrative that showcases women in a positive manner. I think this show can be empowering for young women,” said Waite.
After working with the director on a previous show, Murdoch Mysteries, Waite was selected for the role of Bill without an audition as they knew he was ideal for the part. The character has now become pivotal for the series and will be featured once again in the shows second season.
Working on the show has been a wonderful experience for Waite. The actor has had a lot of freedom to explore the character and how he interacts in the world. Although viewers don’t know too much about Bill Peters yet, they can see a bit of who he is by the way he treats Trudy. He’s compassionate, devoted, honest, and even at times naive. Playing such a role was natural for Waite, as he found himself to be very similar to Bill in many aspects.
Once Waite researched about the time period, he found it easy to embody the character. This was made easier by the outstanding production design, with the set looking very much like 1920’s Toronto. The costumes fit right in with the time period, as did the props, and Waite describes the experience as being like a “mini history lesson.” Walking around the sets, seeing the detailed work, he found it easy to be inspired.
“I’m always proud of great Canadian content. There is sometimes this notion that good shows only come from the other side of the border, but it’s certainly not the case with this one. From the creators to the leading cast, I think the show is successful on so many levels. But the most relevant to conversations society is having now, is portrayal of independent, forward-thinking women. I think this show contributes to that narrative in a fresh way. I am happy that I can be included in telling this story. My hope is that a young girl watching this show will feel inspired to be who she wants to be in any capacity,” Waite concluded.
Be sure to check out Waite’s next endeavours, Netflix’s new holiday feature The Christmas Calendar and the upcoming indie film Salvage.
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Theiapolis > Cinema > Titles > T... > Th... > The... >
The Girl Can't Help It1956
| Quotes
The Girl Can't Help It
"The Girl Can't Help It" (also known as "Gangster cerca moglie", "Schlagerpiraten") is a Comedy/Musical film directed and written by Frank Tashlin, released on December 01 of 1956 in the USA . Tom Ewell and Jayne Mansfield are starring, alongside Edmond O'Brien, Julie London, Ray Anthony and Barry Gordon.
Who directed "The Girl Can't Help It":
The Girl Can't Help It was directed by Frank Tashlin, an American writer, director, and producer.
Before making The Girl Can't Help It, Frank Tashlin had directed The Lieutenant Wore Skirts, released in 1956, Artists and Models (1955), Susan Slept Here (1954), Son of Paleface (1952), The Lemon Drop Kid (1951). Since, he directed Hollywood or Bust, released in 1956, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958), The Geisha Boy (1958), Say One for Me (1959), and Cinderfella (1960).
What was the release date of "The Girl Can't Help It":
The Girl Can't Help It was first released on Saturday, December 01, 1956, in the United States.. This was sixty-three (63) years ago.
It has been released on Friday, March 08, 1957 in Germany.
What is the cast of "The Girl Can't Help It":
At the casting of The Girl Can't Help It we find Tom Ewell, previously seen in The Lieutenant Wore Skirts (1956) and The Seven Year Itch (1955); Jayne Mansfield (Hell on Frisco Bay (1955), Illegal (1955)); Edmond O'Brien (The Rack (1956), A Cry in the Night (1956)) [ more... ]
Juanita Moore and Henry Jones also appeared in Skin Game, released in 1971.
What is the Storyline of "The Girl Can't Help It":
A slot-machine mobster, Marty "Fats" Murdock (Edmond O'Brien), wants his blonde girlfriend, Jerri Jordan (Jayne Mansfield), to be a singing star, despite her seeming lack of talent; so he hires a press agent to promote her career. He chooses Tom Miller (Tom Ewell) because of his past success with the career of singer Julie London (a fiction of the script) and because he never makes sexual advances towards his female clients.
Miller reluctantly takes on the job and sets to work by showing her off [...]
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17 messages - Does anyone knnow anything about The Last airbender book 2 Earth!...
( 1998 )Girl
Directed by: J. Kahn, starring D. Swain, S. Patrick Flanery, S. Phoenix, T. Reid...
( 1999 )Girl, Interrupted
Directed by: J. Mangold, starring W. Ryder, A. Jolie, B. Murphy, E. Moss...
( 1987 )Can't Buy Me Love
Directed by: S. Rash, starring P. Dempsey, A. Peterson, C. Gains, T. Caspary...
Resources: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, Wikipedia and contributions from movie fans. Anyone can submit additionnal information and corrections, you can post a message into the forum, or you can contact me by e-mail. Information and materials are submitted by users and thus may not always contain up-to-date and correct information, so do not hesite to report mistakes, and submit corrections.Thank you!. Direct editing is no longer available, sorry.
This page includes a "Storyline" from Wikipedia (EN) which is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
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AFP/Getty ImagesAFP/Getty Images
Blocked From Trade Pact By Its Failure on Slavery, Malaysia Suddenly Gets a Passing Grade
July 27 2015, 7:14 p.m.
The State Department on Monday took Malaysia off a list of countries with particularly egregious human trafficking records, clearing the path for the country’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, one of the top political priorities for the Obama administration.
The move to officially upgrade Malaysia from Tier 3 to Tier 2 in the department’s annual report on human trafficking came despite scant evidence that the country has improved oversight of the businesses that enslave workers within its borders. It has raised concerns among some anti-trade activists that the decision was made for purely political reasons.
The trade promotion authority that Congress approved, which was signed into law by President Obama in June, came with a condition: No country on Tier 3 of the human trafficking report could get “fast-track” status for trade agreements signed with the United States.
In other words, trade deals with a Tier 3 country could not go to Congress for a guaranteed up-or-down vote without the possibility of filibuster or amendment. Malaysia is one of 12 countries negotiating TPP. The White House tried on multiple occasions to neutralize this language without success. So the State Department’s upgrade for Malaysia could be seen as a Plan B.
The shift has been rumored for weeks. Malaysia controls a key oil shipping lane to China, and the U.S. sees it as a key strategic partner in efforts to neutralize China’s growing influence in Asia.
The Communications Workers of America, which opposes TPP, condemned the Obama Administration for “placing the completion of the TPP ahead of human trafficking concerns.” Furthermore, CWA legislative director Shane Larson said the change “tramples on our country’s basic values. … We simply should not be rewarding bad actor countries like Malaysia with inclusion in trade deals.”
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who wrote the anti-trafficking provision into the trade promotion authority, pronounced himself “profoundly disappointed” with the change on Malaysia in a statement. He suggested that the report was “subject to political manipulation,” and vowed hearings, investigations and potentially legislation on the issue.
Despite the White House’s contention that trade deals like TPP are “the most progressive in history,” it appears to be overlooking significant forced labor violations to get it passed.
In 2014, the State Department demoted Malaysia to Tier 3 status for being a destination “for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and women and children subjected to sex trafficking.” Malaysia’s 4 million foreign workers are threatened by large smuggling debts and confiscated passports that put them at the mercy of recruiting companies. Women in particular, recruited for hotel or beauty salon work, are routinely coerced into the commercial sex trade. And forced labor runs rampant in agricultural, construction and textile industries, producing the same goods that would get duty-free access to U.S. markets under TPP.
There is little evidence that anything has changed for Malaysia’s foreign workers. Just a couple months ago authorities discovered a mass grave of 139 Rohingya Muslims, who fled discrimination in Burma and were sold into slavery upon their escape. Trafficking enforcement remains weak; in April, U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia Joseph Yun criticized the country for doing too little to stop slavery. The Wall Street Journal found persistent forced labor abuses on Malaysian palm oil plantations in an article published Sunday.
The State Department’s 2015 report reads almost exactly like last year’s with a few words changed, the way middle school students avoid plagiarism for book reports. But they allege that, while “the Government of Malaysia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking … it is making significant efforts to do so.”
The total evidence for this includes amendments to an existing anti-trafficking law that were not passed into law by the time the report was written; a pilot program to aid trafficking victims housed in government facilities; and increased investigations and prosecutions of trafficking operations, even though convictions in 2014 fell by more than half compared to the previous year, from nine to four.
Caption: An abandoned people-smuggling camp in Malaysia.
David Dayen[email protected]gmail.com@ddayen
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Adam Sandler Takes Care of His Boys
Published by Interrobang Staff at September 13, 2013
Say whatever you want about Adam Sandler but if nothing else, he takes care of his friends. His movies have grossed over $3 billion dollars over the last 20 years, he’s been a hit at the box office for what seems like forever. He doesn’t seem caught up in Hollywood hype, you never hear any gossip about him and he cranks out movie after movie that rakes in over $100 million dollars on a reasonable budget. And throughout his insanely successful career he’s brought along his friends and has orchestrated some of the funnest cameos in comedic film.
Allen Covert
You may not know his name, but you know his face. In nearly every film Sandler’s been in, from way back in Airheads to Jack and Jill, Allen’s shown up. He’s been his friend, writing partner and producer since their days together at NYU. He’s a executive producer over at Happy Madison and starred in one film, Grandmas Boy. See him in Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, Airheads, Grandma’s Boy, The Waterboy, Big Daddy, and Little Nicky in the pictures.
Peter Dante
Friend of Sandlers and Allen Covert, Dante usually appears on screen along with Covert, most notably as the drug dealer in Grandma’s Boy and Covert’s gay lover in Big Daddy. Here he is in Big Daddy, Grandma’s Boy, Little Nicky, The Waterboy, Mr. Deeds, Grown Ups 2, and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, He was also in The Wedding Singer, Eight Crazy Nights, 50 First Dates, That’s My Boy and Jack and Jill.
Buscemi has appeared in a large part of Sandler films, always in a memorable role. They first worked together on Airheads, and after that Sandler found roles for Steve in film after film. Who could forget him saving the day in Billy Madison? Also clips from The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy, Mr. Deeds and Grown Ups. He also appears in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry,
Nick Swardson
Their collaboration began 10 years ago when Sandler saw Swardson’s stand up special. He called up Nick and proposed working together and he ended up co-writing and co starring in Grandma’s Boy. Here he is in Grandma’s Boy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Don’t Mess With the Zohan, That’s My Boy, Jack and Jill and Grown Ups 2.
Friends since their days on SNL, Sandler and Happy Madison Productions have been working with Schneider ever since. Happy Madison Productions produced both his Deuce Bigalow films and he’s showed up in most Adam Sandler films since The Waterboy. The last film he was in with Sandler was Jack and Jill, Nick Swardson took his place in Grown Ups 2. Here are scenes from The Waterboy, Little Nicky, 50 First Dates and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
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Home > 2013 > 08/07 > Rob Vollman’s Hockey Abstract
Rob Vollman’s Hockey Abstract
August 7, 2013, 10:31 AM | Cam Charron
The Ottawa Senators will be the best team in the league, the Toronto Maple Leafs were the luckiest in the league last season, Alexander Mogilny is Steven Stamkos’ closest historical match and Toronto is expected to be 28th in the league next season.
This is all buried within Rob Vollman’s first self-published Hockey Abstract, available in print at Amazon or as a .pdf. No e-book version is available, but if you have a tablet or an e-reader that’s comfortable loading .pdf files, you’ll be fine. Vollman says the novella isn’t a textbook, and it makes for a much easier read than anticipated, simply attacking the same problems in a different way rather than attempting to write a treatise between stat-oriented and viewing-oriented hockey fans.
Among the questions answered: “Who is the best defensive player?” “Who is the best goalie?” It’s not anything groundbreaking in that regard, and fans who have been reading Vollman’s work (he’s a major player in the hockey analytics blogosphere) won’t be blown away by too much new data, but it’s a good reference point with how to attack these problems with the data we have in 2013. Hockey Prospectus’ proprietary GVT “Goals Versus Threshold” ranking is leaned on heavily here, as is data from BehindTheNet.ca and HockeyReference.
Consider his section “Who is the best defensive player?” Vollman doesn’t start with a conclusion (“Datsyuk”) and find data to weave around, but looks at a fair number of different methods, tallying up Selke Trophy votes since 2008-2009, counting defensive GVT, and determining the percentage of minutes a player has spent killing penalties for his team. His conclusions in each section are not deterministic, but there’s a lot of evidence to lean towards Patrice Bergeron being the best all-around defensive player, or Henrik Lundqvist the best goaltender or Sidney Crosby as the league’s best playmaker. Much of the data presented shows many ways that the above players are effective, and the tables presented are deep enough that you can find some interesting comparables when looking at players a certain way.
Samuel Pahlsson and Jordan Staal for instance, are noted “defensive specialists” that frequently take on heavy defensive zone and quality of competition usage, but next on the list is Tampa Bay utility-man Nate Thompson and new Leafs acquisition David Bolland. It’s hard to think of Shawn Horcoff as a defensive specialist, but he’s been handling tough minutes in Edmonton for years now with all the rookies and his scoring has suffered.
One thing that this book has that you can’t find many other places just yet is the “passes” statistic that Vollman developed this year, looking at a player’s percentage of overall assists and comparing it with the number of on-ice shots for in an attempt to find the number of times a player set up a shot. At the top of that list sit Sidney Crosby and Joe Thornton. I’m a fan of that statistic and like where it’s going.
There’s no colourful prose to heighten poor arguments and the statistics used are worth more in the “well, if you looked at it this way, you’d find…” which is just as valuable. My own opinion isn’t that analytics are the be-all and end-all of player evaluation, but it’s important to find data that contradicts an assertion you’ve made, since the data at least makes you think about the viability of your own argument.
Consider the unique “quality starts” table found towards the end of the book. Even though both Jonathan Bernier and James Reimer are listed as having the same save percentage (.9150) since 2007-2008, Bernier has quality starts in 64.8% of his appearances while Reimer just 48.0%. I like quality starts as a metric for goaltenders better than wins and losses because it better tracks consistency, takes out some of the team influence of the statistic and also tests a goalie’s longevity where simple save percentage wouldn’t.
It would be a more complete resource if there were additional evidence or arguments or an attempt explanation for quirks like that. Vollman did himself no favours by titling his work “Abstract” like Bill James did for his groundbreaking work in the 1970s and 1980s since that invites the comparisons to the books that changed the way people look at sports. James’ original Abstracts had a brief essay about each team, but Vollman has stayed away from that, focusing on general problems.
There’s a lot of meat and Vollman attempts to attack problems in different ways and offers a lot of tables and illustrations not to prove points, but to introduce another element into the discussion. As a result there were some tables that focused too much on certain statistics (such as GVT, a catch-all stat I’m very iffy on) and glosses over others I’d like to see in more depth, such as penalty differential. At 232 pages, it’s quick to get through, ideal for a flight or a road trip or a freak thunderstorm.
This is a good record of what we have right now in the way of data to judge hockey players, one that blends the objective statistics found online with the subjective opinions of writers and coaches close to the game. If you’re at all interested in hockey data or looking for a resource to summarize the first ten or so years of dedicated analysis, pick it up.
Home page for Vollman’s Hockey Abstract site
Sorted by Trash
Jeremy Ian 6 years ago
Alright, Since I have been asked many times here, Yes, I am That Chazz Bono, formerly Chastity. And Charron, you are Probably as good a hockey writer as I have read in years, Keep up the good work. PS They ranked the Leafs a bit too high.
LMAO, Did it hurt much.
By Cam Charron
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Home > 2019 > 09/16 > Atlantic Review: The Steve Yzerman era begins (again) in Detroit
Atlantic Review: The Steve Yzerman era begins (again) in Detroit
September 16, 2019, 2:00 PM | Cam Lewis
Welcome to The Leafs Nation’s 2019 Atlantic Review in which we take a team-by-team look at the other seven teams in the Atlantic Division. Today, we have the rotting husk of one of hockey’s greatest dynasties, the Detroit Red Wings.
There’s a new (old?) sherrif in town. Steve Yzerman is (finally) the general manager of the Detroit Red Wings.
Prior to the start of the 2018-19 season, Yzerman stepped down as general manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning. This came as a shock because the Lightning that Yzerman built were poised to get over the hump and finally win a Stanley Cup. Tampa Bay, of course, would go on to put together one of the best regular seasons in the salary cap era before getting shocked by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round.
What came next for Yzerman was the worst-kept secret in hockey for the entire year. While it wasn’t said out loud, everyone knew that he was going home. Long-time general manager Ken Holland got promoted to senior vice president and Yzerman was subsequently hired as general manager.
This, of course, was a long time coming. Yzerman is a legend in Detroit. He was drafted fourth overall by the Red Wings back in 1983 when the franchise was a complete disaster and he was the superstar that the subsequent dynasty was built around. Yzerman played 1514 games, put up 1755 points, and won the Stanley Cup three times in Detroit.
The goal now for Yzerman is to bring the Red Wings back out of the dumps and back to glory, this time as a general manager rather than a player.
What did they do this off-season?
Notable additions: Valtteri Filppula, Patrik Nemeth, Calvin Pickard, Adam Erne.
Notable subtractions: Niklas Kronwall, Luke Witkowski, Thomas Vanek, Martin Frk.
It wasn’t a very exciting start to the Yzerman 2.0 era.
At the draft, Yzerman went off the board and selected German defenceman Moritz Seider with the Red Wing’s sixth-overall pick. It seemed random at the time, but maybe Yzerman sees a little bit of Niklas Lidstrom in this kid. He’d know best, right? Who knows!
Moving along… The rest of Yzerman’s first summer at the helm consisted of minor moves, which, given Detroit’s horrendous salary cap situation, isn’t all that surprising.
The Wings are in a bit of a tricky spot right now because the late Mike Illitch made it a priority for Holland to continue the Red Wings’ epic playoff streak regardless of the ramifications it had on their long-term success. Though the Wings likely should have blown it up a few years ago, they kept trying to squeak mediocre teams into the playoffs.
Now, the Wings are fully in rebuild mode. Yzerman let go of Luke Witkowski, Thomas Vanek, and Martin Frk, while captain Niklas Kronwall announced his retirement. All of the additions in replacement were minor ones, as the Wings brought Adam Erne, Patrik Nemeth, and Valtteri Filppula on board.
Again, these moves don’t really matter.
How does this affect the Leafs?
This is a long-term build for Yzerman. He isn’t going to be able to fix the Red Wings in one summer. It took Yzerman four years to turn the Lightning, who already boasted elite building blocks in Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, into a contender and he’s inheriting a more challenging situation here.
The Wings are loaded with bad contracts. Darren Helm is paid $3.85 million for two more seasons, Danny DeKeyser and Frans Nielsen are paid $5 million and $5.25 million annually for three more seasons, and Justin Abdelkader is paid $4.25 million annually for four more seasons.
There are a few quality players on the team and in the system now, but it isn’t the same foundation as Stamkos and Hedman were in Tampa Bay. Dylan Larkin is a good player, but he’s hardly the superstar you want to build a team around. Andreas Athanasiou, Anthony Mantha, and Tyler Bertuzzi are in their mid-20s and might not even be around when the young core of Filip Zadina, Joe Veleno, and Seider really break into the league.
What does it all mean? The Red Wings will continue to be a punching bag in the Atlantic Division yet again this season. They put up 74 points last year, 73 the year before that, and you could bet on that trend continuing and them putting up 75 points this year.
But, as I said when I wrote about the Ottawa Senators earlier, this team isn’t going to be bad for long. It’ll take Yzerman some time, but, given what he did in Tampa Bay, the Red Wings will become mighty yet again. Hopefully, Yzerman takes his time and it doesn’t interfere with Toronto’s Stanley Cup window.
By Cam Lewis
@Cooom More Articles
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#32 – Italy Trip Post 4: Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius!
Travel date: October 15th, 2018
Published: April 5th, 2019
The next morning we got up early and went to breakfast. Our hotel had breakfast included, and the breakfast was on the rooftop so we had some great views!
After breakfast we walked to the train station (the normal metro was broken that morning) to catch the Circumvesuviana train. As you might be able to guess, the Circumvesuviana train goes around (“circum”) Mount Vesuvius! Instead of going all the way around the mountain though, we were getting off at Pompeii! Getting the tickets was a little tricky since we don’t speak Italian, but the real issue was that the train was very crowded. Additionally, some of the signage was a little hard to understand – the train was very late and we weren’t really sure if we got on the right train. The train itself didn’t seem like it was in good condition either – lots of graffiti and the ride felt very rickety. But about 40 minutes later, we made it to Pompeii!
Pompeii is right near Mount Vesuvius, so the first thing we tried to do was to get a bus up to the top of the mountain. We started walking into the town of Pompeii, as I had read that the buses left from there but this was also pretty confusing – luckily, a bus stopped right in front of us, and the bus driver asked us if we wanted to go to “Vesuvio”, and we hopped on the bus. Once we were on the bus, we had to pay the bus fare, and the driver didn’t have exact change, but no problem – he pulled the bus over at a tobacco store, bought some cigarettes, and gave us our change back. It was pretty funny to see. The bus driver then set off for Mount Vesuvius, and made it most of the way to the top. Apparently, there had recently been some rain so there was a chance of landslides, and the top of the mountain was closed. But we still got some great pictures overlooking Naples and the surrounding area.
On our way back down the road, in the middle of a traffic circle, a driver in a car started yelling at the bus driver, and both the bus and the car stopped in the middle of the traffic circle, yelling at each other (it initially sounded like they were about to fight each other). After a few exchanges, the car drove over and parked and the driver of the car hopped on the bus – while we were still in the traffic circle, with cars passing us on both sides. We’re pretty sure the driver was just trying to avoid a few tolls!
We stopped back at the train station, and had lunch at the restaurant there. It was quite good, and there was even a cat wandering around the restaurant, which Kelly enjoyed. We then went into Pompeii and listened to the Rick Steve’s audioguide tour – this was one of the first time we had used the Rick Steve’s audioguides, and it was great! There were so many small things and historical details we would have missed if we just were walking around on our own.
Pompeii was a Roman city that was founded in the 6th-7th century BC. At the time, it was near the coast and had a port for trading. About 11,000 people lived there when Mount Vesuvius erupted. Pompeii is close to Mount Vesuvius, but not close enough that it was covered by lava. Instead, pyroclastic surges – a mixture of ash, rock fragments, and hot air – engulfed the city. There were signs that Mount Vesuvius was going to erupt before it happened, and some people did evacuate the city, but the people that remained had no hope once the eruption started. Pyroclastic surges can reach speeds over 300 miles per hour, and the hot gases can be up to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. When the pyroclastic surge reached Pompeii, it was estimated to be 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of this, only about 4% of the people in Pompeii died because of falling rocks from the volcano – most died when the pyroclastic surge hit – either because of heat shock or because of roofs of buildings collapsing. By the end of the eruption, Pompeii was covered in 80 feet of volcanic material. The eruption added so much material that the coastline moved over a mile!
The city of Pompeii was eventually lost to history. It was finally rediscovered in 1748, and since then, the site has been nearly continuously excavated. Since everything was covered so quickly, many of the buildings remained untouched by weather until they were excavated, meaning they are in very good condition. Not all of the site has been excavated and a new fresco was even discovered after our visit! Pompeii also has a “sister city” nearby – Herculaneum, which was also covered in pyroclastic flows from Mount Vesuvius, and like Pompeii, the city is still in very good condition.
We started our visit near the old port of the city, where boats would come in – you can actually see the small stone pegs where they would tie up boats. Within a few minutes, we walked under the arch to enter the city, and everything looked both strange, and also familiar.
The roads were laid out in a grid (familiar) but the roads were also lower than the sidewalk at had these blocks in them. What we learned from “our friend Rick” was that the roads were also the drainage and sewer system, so often people would walk on the elevated sidewalk next to the road, and the blocks were there so people could cross the street – yet water and carts could still get by as well. There were even some roads where the cart paths were very worn into the rocks of the road.
A few minutes later, we were in what was the public square. The remains of some of the old buildings and a few of the statues were still there. It’s almost eerie, because right behind the old town is a great view of Mount Vesuvius.
One of the buildings housed lots of pottery, and those pots are still there!
One of the most beautiful things about Pompeii are the tile mosaics – this one might not be the most elaborate, but I think it’s my favorite – it’s right at the entrance to someone’s house and below the dog it says (in Latin) “beware of dog”.
We also saw the old bath houses – they used to have public baths with both hot and cold water, and a steam room. Some of the detail on the walls is amazing.
They even heated some of the rooms by building a double wall, and heating the air between the two walls, and in the steam room, they designed the roof with ridges so the condensation would run down the walls and not fall on people in the room.
Outside of the bath house was the remains of a fast food shop – people could come and buy food at the counter, and it would be served directly from the bowl in front of you – the bowl would go into those holes in the countertop. We also saw a bakery – and the oven looked just like a brick oven might look today.
We also saw some of the more famous pieces of art – many were inspired by Greek mythology. It was really interesting to me that during the Roman times they were making art about Greek mythology, just was we might today.
Another interesting note was the amount of erotic paintings and nudity – Ancient Roman sexuality was much more open and sexually explicit symbols and inscriptions were common. There was even a brothel (which we didn’t see because it had a very long line) where various sex acts were painted on the walls. This was actually very embarrassing for King Francis, who ruled after King Ferdinand – in 1821, Francis locked away many of the more explicit items from Pompeii and Herculaneum in a “Secret Museum” which wasn’t open to the public – these artifacts are now in the Naples National Archaeological Museum. Below is one example of this erotic art depicting Priapus, god of fertility (don’t say I didn’t warn you!).
We concluded our visit by walking over to the large Roman theatre.
After a long day, we took the rickety Circumvesuviana back to Naples and ended up finding a great restaurant were the tables were outdoors in an alley – it was perfect!
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California Asked for Money to Fight Wildfires. President Trump Responded by Threatening to Cut Off Funding
By Gina Martinez
Amid a partial government shutdown that is headed into its third week with no end in sight, President Trump threatened to cut off federal funding for California – currently recovering from its deadliest wildfire in history.
Trump claimed that California had not been handling federal funds for forest fires correctly and that they were not utilizing proper forest management. He said unless the state gets “their act together” he would order FEMA to stop sending money.
“It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!” the President tweeted.
Trump’s tweets appear to have been triggered by California’s newly sworn in Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, who yesterday outlined a $305 million budget plan to prepare California for wildfires.
California Man Accused of Killing 3 Teens After 'Intentionally' Ramming Them With His Car
Teachers Sue After Plane Dumps Fuel Over School
Newsom said yesterday he had sent a letter to the President asking the federal government to work with the state to tackle wildfires.
On Tuesday, the governor used his first day in office to announce emergency preparedness plans, focusing on wildfire prevention.
Newsom issued two executive orders, the first directing state agencies to identify and prioritize communities most at risk or unable to escape wildfires in order to offer them protection, the second allowing state agencies to reach out to the private sector for help and advise regarding the newest technology that best detects fires.
But what seemed to have bothered President Trump the most was a request by governor Newsom, Oregon governor Kate Brown and Washington governor Jay Inslee for the President to double the federal government’s funding for managing federal forestlands in California, Washington, and Oregon.
Newsom announced plans for a five-year, $1 billion forest management plan in his next budget. He said the state has already invested $111.3 million in forest health since 2017 but the U.S. Forest Service saw its budget slashed by more than $2 billion since 2016, “reducing the agency’s capacity to manage federal forestland in California.”
Newsom said the letter written to Trump “emphasized that the western states’ significant state-level efforts will not be as effective without a substantial increase to wild land management by our federal partners.”
In November, as wildfires were burning through California, Trump blamed the forest fires on “gross mismanagement” of the forest.
Prior to the wildfires he placed the blame for California’s wildfires on lack of water to put out the flames and the need for logging.
Glen MacDonald, Geography professor at UCLA, said there is a debate among experts in California on whether forest thinning- which includes selective and salvage logging- is a viable solution. He said fire suppression practices have led to an unhealthy build up of fuel in some of the state’s forests, making wildfires easier to spread.
MacDonald said that Trump’s claim that logging would have stopped the California wildfires from spreading were wrong.
“There is no question that that is something we need to tackle,” MacDonald said. “Would that have made a difference at the Woolsey Fire down here in southern California or Camp Fire up in Paradise? No, it doesn’t seem like that would of made any difference there, but it is something that def has to be considered.”
Macdonald said he does not understand President Trump’s logic when it comes to federal funding in the state.
“What I don’t understand is the President belittles the state in terms of our forest management, and yet then threatens to hold back the money to do that management on the federal land,” he said. “Federal forests make up the majority of the forest land in the state. It does not make any sense.”
Write to Gina Martinez at gina.martinez@time.com.
It Is With Heavy Hearts That We Must Face This Announcement That Mr. Peanut Has 'Died'
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Graphic Journalism
The Disaster Capitalism Curriculum: The High Price of Education Reform (Episode I)
Adam Bessie &
Dan Archer
“Education is the civil rights issue of our generation,” presidential hopeful Mitt Romney announced in a recent press conference, where he also claimed that our public schools are in a state of “national emergency.” Former Governor and former Bain Capital CEO Romney is now portraying himself as a civil rights hero, fighting against systemic racism and inequality that provides American children a “third world education.” And the cause of this emergency? It’s not the foreclosure crisis, persistent unemployment, nor the 21 percent childhood poverty rate – after all, the multimillionaire, who made $27 million in 2010, is “not very concerned about the very poor,” as they’re already taken care of. Rather, this grave civil rights injustice has been inflicted by excessively powerful “special interests” and “union bosses” that put their needs in front of the poor, minority children. And Romney plans to be the 1 percent’s very own Martin Luther King Jr., a “champion of real education reform in America.”
Welcome to other side of the looking glass, and into the Bizarro world of so-called “education reform” – an upside-down universe in which up is down, left is right and multimillionaire CEOs are civil rights heroes championing social justice, while public school teachers are corrupt fat cats, maintaining a status quo which oppresses students in poverty and racism.
Romney’s speech on education would be hilarious – that is if anyone seemed to get the joke. Indeed, Romney’s topsy-turvy view has become so commonplace in the corporate media – stated by both Republican and Democratic politicians, along with countless pundits and reporters themselves – that it verges on the cliché.
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And so, we thought, what better way to capture the Bizarro world of education reform than with a serious work of journalism, disguised as a comic? Our three-part series – published over the next three months – is not intended to be funny, but rather, to pull back the progressive propaganda disguising the neoliberal, corporate nature of education reform. Our goal is to expose the free-market policies that really make up “education reform”; how these policies threaten our public education; who supports these policies; and, ultimately, what we might be able to do about the “Disaster Capitalism Curriculum.”
After reading, we hope that you get the joke.
Adam Bessie
Adam Bessie writes non-fiction comics, which have appeared in The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle and of course, Truthout. By day, he is a community college English professor in Northern California. See all his comics: adambessie.com. Twitter: @adambessie.
Dan Archer creates nonfictional, journalistic comics to offer a new perspective on human rights/social justice issues and give voice to stories that wouldn’t otherwise be heard. In 2010, he was awarded the John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists at Stanford University – the first comics journalist ever admitted to the program. His journalistic pieces have been published by American Public Media, Cartoon Movement, The London School of Economics, The Huffington Post, AlterNet, The Guardian UK, Yes! Magazine, Eye See magazine, Graphic Novel Reporter, World War 3 Illustrated, Presente, Operamundi (Brazil), Expressbuzz (India) and Independent World Report, among others. They have also been distributed by the International Organization for Migration, The Coalition for Immokalee Workers and Sparkplug comics. He has also worked with several publishers, including Penguin, Atlantic Books, Abrams Comic Arts (on a collaboration with Harvey Pekar), Random House and Harper Collins. He received his MFA in cartooning from the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont and currently co-teaches the graphic novel project through the Creative Writing Department at Stanford University.
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Moderator Sign in
Game ran from 10/05/2018 08:57 through 11/05/2018 09:51
1st Green Energy Solutions
Managed by: PiTM0N
2nd uwe Transport
Managed by: uwe
3rd Booby Black Transport
Managed by: Booby Black
27 companies participated
Interesting Tidbits
Maximum Company Cash
Maximum Company Stations
Most Loved Vehicle
Company Scoreboard Winner determined by maximum company value
Manager(s)
Operating Period
1 53873 Green Energy Solutions PiTM0N 10/05/2018 09:24 > 11/05/2018 04:35 £2,008,976,994 £56,031,825 £2,013,601,569 39650
2 53871 uwe Transport uwe 10/05/2018 08:57 > 11/05/2018 01:24 £803,913,319 £24,138,155 £802,918,398 18912
3 53872 Booby Black Transport Booby Black 10/05/2018 09:11 > 10/05/2018 18:46 £477,673,887 £14,042,701 £480,957,607 12503
4 53880 calle Transport calle 10/05/2018 14:26 > 11/05/2018 01:37 £339,171,605 £17,776,234 £338,967,420 17872
5 53883 Like Transport Like 10/05/2018 15:21 > 11/05/2018 09:51 £134,314,236 £5,597,489 £134,351,242 21184
6 53888 Alastair Transport Alastair 10/05/2018 17:38 > 11/05/2018 01:10 £109,062,828 £4,955,911 £109,203,619 10667
7 53887 Marble Transport Marble 10/05/2018 16:57 > 10/05/2018 21:03 £75,873,063 £8,909,942 £72,601,584 9956
8 53877 Chinningstone Transport Company Penny 10/05/2018 11:28 > 10/05/2018 23:20 £74,154,812 £2,060,483 £74,210,303 12578
9 53882 Huganix Transport Huganix 10/05/2018 15:07 > 11/05/2018 01:51 £56,302,079 £17,329,335 £56,403,191 5312
10 53884 VDK-TC Transport VDK-TC 10/05/2018 15:34 > 10/05/2018 22:25 £26,048,207 £17,042,369 £26,040,055 1987
11 53886 Golden Company Aska89 10/05/2018 16:57 > 11/05/2018 04:49 £20,660,358 £706,415 £20,593,124 5115
12 53891 10/05/2018 19:41 > 11/05/2018 02:05 £16,277,192 £772,487 £16,198,394 3633
13 53875 Dipplesnapper Transport Dipplesnapper 10/05/2018 10:33 > 10/05/2018 22:12 £12,735,031 £11,361,196 £12,803,309 665
14 53897 11/05/2018 06:11 > 11/05/2018 09:51 £8,173,679 £452,180 £7,390,435 7535
15 53879 Bendinghall Transport MAERSK TRANSPORT COMPANY 10/05/2018 13:58 > 11/05/2018 01:37 £6,602,696 £233,535 £6,959,718 720
17 53874 Ivan Transport Ivan 10/05/2018 09:38 > 10/05/2018 16:02 £4,452,782 £114,671 £4,362,139 3235
18 53885 Pinio Transport Pinio 10/05/2018 16:02 > 10/05/2018 20:36 £2,385,629 £132,868 £2,552,192 555
19 53899 uwe Transport uwe 11/05/2018 09:09 > 11/05/2018 09:51 £2,086,439 £157,191 £1,695,202 7728
20 53892 Player Transport Player 10/05/2018 19:55 > 11/05/2018 00:56 £727,068 £55,325 £834,366 682
21 53896 Orlando Aaron Transport Orlando Aaron 11/05/2018 02:18 > 11/05/2018 08:28 £129,377 £9,081 £355,833 1235
22 53878 HoundUA Transport HoundUA 10/05/2018 11:41 > 10/05/2018 13:04 £41,747 £19,031 £46,446 545
23 53881 HoundUA Transport HoundUA 10/05/2018 14:26 > 10/05/2018 14:39 £1 £-83,589 £16,411 0
24 53898 Player Transport Player 11/05/2018 06:25 > 11/05/2018 06:39 £1 £-191 £99,809 0
25 53893 Misternis Transport Misternis 10/05/2018 21:03 > 10/05/2018 22:12 £1 £63,496 £134,655 585
26 53889 sgap Transport sgap 10/05/2018 18:32 > 10/05/2018 19:00 £1 £-4,442 £6,343 388
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Sil Canyon Heritage Sites
This spot is special not only because of its views and wines, but also owing to its rich historical and artistic heritage. Monasteries, churches, chapels, tombs carved into the rocks... These are just some examples of the history on offer when visiting the Sil Canyon.
The Sil Canyon boasts a wealth of heritage sites in the form of religious buildings. The first hermit monks to settle here led a solitary life, based around meditation and prayer. Over time, they began to form small communities which resulted in the establishment of the first monasteries, which later gave rise to the grand buildings that we can admire today.
Discover the treasures of the Sil Canyon
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Dania Jissel Ramirez (born November 8, 1979) is a Dominican-American television and film actress. Her credits include the roles of Maya Herrera in Heroes, Alex in Entourage, and Blanca during the last season of The Sopranos on television. Her film roles include Alex Guerrero in She Hate Me and Callisto in the feature film X-Men: The Last Stand. She portrayed Rosie Falta on Lifetime's Devious Maids from June 2013 until its cancellation in 2016. In July 2017, Ramirez joined the hit ABC series Once Upon a Time for its softly-rebooted seventh season in a starring role as Cinderella.
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Western Film Recs
“western list”
created by Mizo
Tags: 3:10 to Yuma (1957), 7 Men from Now, A Bullet for the General, A Fistful of Dollars, A Fistful of Dynamite, Appaloosa, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Comanche Station, Companeros, Day of Anger, Day of the Outlaw, Dead Man, Deadwood, Death Rides a Horse, Django, Duel in the Sunday, El Topo, Faccia a Faccia, Firecreek, For A Few Dollars More, Forty Guns, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Hang 'em High, Heaven's Gate, High Noon, High Plains Drifter, Hombre, Hud, Jeremiah Jonson, Johnny Guitar, Keoma, L'uomo di Laramie, Little Big Man, Lonesome Dove, Man of the West, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, My Darling Clementine, My Name is Nobody, Once Upon a Time in the West, One Eyed Jack, Open Range, Outlaw Josey Wales, Ox-Bow Incident, Pale Rider, Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, Persued, Proposition, Red River, Ride in the Whirlwind, Ride Lonesome, Ride The High Country, Rio Brabo, Rio Bravo, Run Man Run, Shane, Stagecoach, Tepepa, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, The Big Gundown, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, The Great Silence, The Gunfighter, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, The Magnificent Seven, The Man from Ladamie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Balance, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Mercenary, The Naked Spur, The Ox-Bow Incident, The Professionals, The Searchers, The Shooting, The Shootist, The Tall T, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Westerner, The Wild Bunch, Tom Horn, Tombstone, True Grit, Two Miles for Sister Sara, Unforgiven, Vera Cruz, Virginia City, Winchester '73, Womcjester '73, Yellow Sky
Categories : FILM, Themed Recs, Western/Period/War
Saetre’s General Film Recs
“saetre !!ggfd/l/glx9”
417 films (4 x 10 x 10)
created by Saetre
Tags: (500) Days Of Summer, 12 Angry Men, 12 Monkeys, 127 Hours, 13 Assassins, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 28 Days Later, 3Iron, A Bittersweet Life, A Boy and His Dog, A Clockwork Orange, A Dirty Carnival, A Fish Called Wanda, A Fistful of Dollars, A History of Violence, A Nightmare On Elm Street, A Perfect Getaway, A Prophet, A Scanner Darkly, A Single Man, Across 110th Street, Adaptation. Ali, Adventureland, Akira, Alien, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Aliens, Almost Famous, American Beauty, American History X, Animal Kingdom, Apocalypse Now, Apocalypto, Appaloosa, Assault on Precinct 13, Assembly, Audition, Away We Go, Back to the Future, Back To The Future II, Back To The Future III, Bad Lieutenant, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Bad Santa, Badlands, Batman Begins, Beetlejuice, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Being John Malkovich, Beverly Hills Cop, Big Fish, Big Jake, Bill & Ted's Bogus Adventure, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Black Dynamite, Black Hawk Down, Blast of Silence, Blazing Saddles, Borat, Bottle Rocket, Boyz N The Hood, Breaking News, Brick, Brief Encounter, Broken Embraces, Buried, Carrie, Cars, Casablanca, Cast Away, Catch Me If You Can, Changing Lanes, Chasing Amy, Chinatown, City Lights, City of God, City on Fire, Clerks, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Collateral, Commando, Cool Hand Luke, Coraline, Corpse Bride, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, Crash, Crazy Heart, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Cube, Danny The Dog, Daybreakers, Dazed And Confused, Dead Snow, Deliverance, Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Dirty Harry, District 9, Dog Day Afternoon, Downfall, Dr. Strangelove, Dracula, E.T., Edward Scissorhands, Eight Club, Elling, Equilibrium, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Evil, Exiled, ExistenZ, Family Plot, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Fargo, Finding Nemo, Fireworks, First Blood, Following, For A Few Dollars More, Frailty, Frankenstein, Friday, From Dusk Till Dawn, Fulltime Killer, Gallipoli, Gangster No. 1, Garden State, Gattaca, Gerry, Ghost Dog, Ghost in the Shell, Gladiator, Go, Gone Baby Gone, Good Bye Lenin, Good Will Hunting, Goodfellas, Green Street Hooligans, Greenberg, Groundhog Pay, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Half Nelson, Halloween, Harry Brown, Heat, High Noon, Hombre, Homicide, Hondo, Hot Fuzz, How to Train Your Dragon, Hud, I Love You Man, I Saw The Devil, I Sell The Dead, I'm a Cyborg but That's Okay, I'm Not There, Ichi the Killer, Idiocracy, In A Lonely Place, In Bruges, In Cold Blood, In The Name of the Father, Inception, Infernal Affairs, Inglourious Basterds, Insomnia, Into the Wild, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jackie Brown, Jarhead, JCVD, Jerry MaGuire, Joy Ride, Kick-Ass, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Kingdom of Heaven, Kops, Kung Fu Hustle, Kung Fu Panda, L.A. Confidential, Laundry, Layer Cake, Le Samourai, Leon: The Professional, Lethal Weapon, Liar Liar, Little Miss Sunshine, Live Free or Die Hard, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Lost in Translation, Magnolia, Mala Noche, Mallrats, Manhunter, Me You and Everyone We Know, Memento, Memories of Murder, Menace II Society, Merry Christmas, Miami Vice, Michael Clayton, Milk, Millennium Actress, Modern Times, Monster House, Mr. Nobody, Munich, My Left Foot, My Own Private Idaho, Mysterious Skin, Narc, Near Dark, Ninja Scroll, North by Northwest, O Brother Where Art Thou, Ocean's Eleven, Office Space, Old Boy, On The Waterfront, Once Upon a Time in the West, Ondine, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Open Range, Out of Sight, Pans Labyrinth, Parenthood, Paths Of Glory, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Perfect Blue, Persepolis, Phone Booth, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Planet of the Apes, Platoon, Predator, Predators, Psycho, Public Enemies, Pulp Fiction, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Rashomon, Rear Window, Reprise, Requiem For a Dream, Rescue Dawn, Reservoir Dogs, Rio Lobo, Risky Business, Rocky, Run Lola Run, Rushmore, Saboteur, Saints And Soldiers, Sanjuro, Save the Green Planet, Saving Private Ryan, Scarface, Schindler's List, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, Scream, Serenity, Serpico, Seven, Seven Samurai, Sexy Beast, Shadow of the Vampire, Shallow Grave, Shaolin Soccer, Sherlock Holmes, Shogun Assassin, Shooter, Silent Running, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Snatch, Somewhere, Sonatine, Sons, Spanking The Monkey, Speed, Speed Racer, Splice, Splinter, Stand by Me, Star Trek, Strangers on a Train, Tape, Team America, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Thank You For Smoking, The A-Team, The Bank Job, The Basketball Diaries, The Big Lebowski, The Birds, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Boxer, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Buttefly Effect, The Chaser, The City Of Violence, The Crazies, The Crow, The Crucible, The Damned United, The Darjeeling Limited, The Enforcer, The Exorcist, The Fighter, The Fly, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Full Monty, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, The Hurt Locker, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Incredibles, The Informant!, The Insider, The Iron Giant, The Jerk, The Keep, The Kid, The Killer, The King and I, The King's Speech, The Kingdom, The Last of the Mohicans, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Lives of Others, The Maltese Falcon, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Matrix, The Messenger, The Motorcycle Diaries, The Night of the Hunter, The Nines, The Orphanage, The Park Knight, The Pianist, The Princess Bride, The Proposition, The Seven-Ups, The Seventh Seal, The Shawshank Redemption, The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, The Social Network, The Sons of Katie Elder, The Terminator, The Town, The Trouble With Harry, The Truman Show, The Untouchables, The Verdict, The Visitor, The Wolf Man, The Woodsman, The Wrestler, The Yellow Sea, There Will Be Blood, Thief, Thirteen Steps, Three Kings, Time Bandits, To Live and Die in L.A., Tokyo Godfathers, Torn Curtain, Total Recall, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, Trading Places, Traffic, Trainspotting, Tremors, Triangle, Trick 'r Treat, Tron, Tron: Legacy, Tropic Thunder, True Grit, Trust, Two Lovers, Unforgiven, United 93, Unstoppable, Up, Up in The Air, V for Vendetta, Vanishing Point, Vertigo, Violent Cop, Waking Life, Walk The Line, Wall-E, Wanted, Werewolf of London, Westworld, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, Where The Wild Things Are, Winter's Bone, World's Greatest Dad, Yojimbo, Youth of the Beast
Categories : FILM, General Recs, Themed Recs
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Crest Hotel
All Room Types Twin roomDeluxe Room
Flat-screenTV
Booking is Non-Refundable
City: Mekhri Circle
Address: #12, Achaiah Shetty Layout, Aramane Nagar, Mekhri Circle, 560080 Bangalore,
Boasting a terrace, Crest Hotel is set in Bangalore in the Karnataka region, 2.9 km from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and 3.9 km from Bangalore Palace. Among the facilities of this property are a restaurant, a 24-hour front desk and room service, along with free WiFi throughout the property. The hotel has family rooms.
All guest rooms come with air conditioning, a flat-screen TV with satellite channels, a kettle, a shower, a hairdryer and a desk. At the hotel the rooms are equipped with a wardrobe and a private bathroom.
Continental and buffet breakfast options are available every morning at Crest Hotel.
The accommodation also provides a business centre and free private parking.
Indira Gandhi Musical Fountain Park is 4.2 km from Crest Hotel, while Chinnaswamy Stadium is 6 km from the property. The nearest airport is Kempegowda International Airport, 30 km from the hotel.
Policies of Crest Hotel
Children of any age are welcome. Children aged 6 years and above are considered adults at this property. To see correct prices and occupancy information, please add the number of children in your group and their ages to your search.
Amenities of Crest Hotel
St. Mary’s Basilica, Bangalore
St. Mary’s Basilica is located in the Archdiocese of Bangalore in the Indian state of Karnataka. It is among the oldest churches in Bangalore and the first church in the state that has been elevated to the status of a minor basilica.[1][2][3] It is famous for festivities held during the St. Mary’s Feast in the month of September each year, attracting devotees from the entire
Innovative Film City
Movie studio & amusement park featuring reality TV set tours & several family-oriented attractions. Innovative Group takes the pride of establishing first of its kind tourism destination in India “Innovative Film City” at Bangalore, operational since a decade with close to a million visitors per annum. Our 50 acres campus with all modern amenities is
HAL Aerospace Museum
HAL Aerospace Museum is India’s first aerospace museum[1] located at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited premises, in Bangalore. Established in 2001, the Museum is part of the HAL Heritage Centre and Aero Space Museum, and showcases the growth of the Indian aviation industry and HAL for six decades.[2][3][4][5] The museum houses displays of various aircraft and helicopters,
Ulsoor Lake’ or Halasuru Lake, one of the biggest lakes in Bangalore, is located on the eastern side of the city. It derives its name from the name of the locality it is situated, namely, Halasuru , close to M G Road. It is spread over 50 ha (123.6 acres)) and has several islands. Even
Bangalore Fort
Bangalore Fort began in 1537 as a mud fort.[1] The builder was Kempe Gowda I, a vassal of the Vijaynagar Empire and the founder of Bangalore. Hyder Ali in 1761 replaced the mud fort with a stone fort and it was further improved by his son Tipu Sultan in the late 18th century. It was
Thottikallu Falls
Thottikallu is a place near Bangalore off the Kanakapura road which is famous for a falls called Thottikallu falls, more popularly known as TK falls. It is also known as ‘SwarnaMukhi’ water falls. SwarnaMukhi translates as ‘Golden-Faced’There will not be much water in summer and hence better to visit in or just after monsoon. This
Bangalore Aquarium
Bangalore Aquarium, also known as Government Aquarium, is the second largest aquarium in India. It is located at the entrance of Cubbon Park in Bangalore, India, and was established in 1983. It has a variety of exotic cultivable as well as ornamental fish on display. It is very near to vishweshwarayya museum. The aquarium is
Government Museum, Bangalore
Government Museum (Bangalore) established in 1865 by the Mysore State with the guidance of Surgeon Edward Balfour who founded the museum in Madras and supported by the Chief Commissioner of Mysore, L.B. Bowring[1] is one of the oldest museums in India[3] and the second oldest museum in South India.[1] It is now an archaeological museum
Lumbini Gardens
Lumbini Gardens is a public park on the banks of the Nagawara Lake in Bangalore, Karnataka, India named after Lumbini of Nepal dedicated to Lord Buddha. It contains an eco-friendly boating park and a 12,500 square foot artificial beach and children’s pool.
ISKCON Temple Bangalore
Sri Radha Krishna Temple has deities of Radha and Krishna located at Rajajinagar, in North Bangalore, Karnataka, India. It is one of the largest ISKCON temples in the world. The temple is a huge cultural complex that was inaugurated in 1997 by Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma. Sri Radha Krishna Temple ( Kannada – ಶ್ರೀ ರಾಧಾ
Visvesvaraya Industrial & Technological Museum
The Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, Bangalore, India, a constituent unit of the National Council of Science Museums, Ministry of Culture, Government of India, was established in memory of Bharat Ratna Sir M Visvesvaraya. The building, with a built up area of 4,000 m², was constructed in Cubbon Park. The Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum,
The Vidhana Soudha located in Bangalore, is the seat of the state legislature of Karnataka. It is constructed in a style sometimes described as Mysore Neo-Dravidian, and incorporates elements of Indo-Saracenic and Dravidian styles. The construction was completed in 1956. Kengal Hanumanthaiah is credited with the conception and construction of the Vidhana Soudha.[4] The foundation
Bannerghatta Biological Park
Bannerghatta National Park, near Bangalore, Karnataka, was fonded in 1970 and declared as a national park in 1974. In 2002 a portion of the park, became a biological reserve, the Bannerghatta Biological Park. Bannerghatta National Park, near Bangalore, Karnataka, was fonded in 1970 and declared as a national park in 1974.[1] In 2002 a portion
Bangalore Palace
Bangalore Palace is a palace located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, in an area that was owned by Rev. J. Garrett, the first principal of the Central High School in Bangalore, now famous as Central College. The commencement of the construction of the palace is attributed to him In 1970, HH Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar is said to
Cubbon Park
Cubbon Park, officially called Sri Chamarajendra Park is a landmark ‘lung’ area of Bengaluru city, located within the heart of the city in the Central Administrative Area. Kasturba Road, Behind High Court of Karnataka Ambedkar Veedhi, Sampangi Rama Nagara, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560001 Area: 297 acres Hours: Open ⋅ Closes 7PM As a mark of honour to Sri John
Lalbagh Botanical Garden
Lalbagh Botanical Gardens or Lalbagh is an old botanical garden in Bengaluru, India. First planned and laid out during the rule of Hyder Ali and later adorned with unique plant species by his son Tipu Sultan, it was later managed under numerous British Superintendents before Indian Independence. It was responsible for the introduction and propagation
Crest Hotel Mekhri Circle, Bangalore
Mekhri Circle, Bangalore
The accommodation also provides a business centre and free private parking. Indira Gandhi Musical Fountain Park is 4.2 km from Crest Hotel, while Chinnaswamy Stadium is 6 km from the property. The nearest airport is Kempegowda International Airport, 30 km from the hotel.
Purple Cloud Downtown
SRT Alpines
TREEBO HSR LAYOUT
The Chevron Brigade
TREEBO TREND STYLOTEL
Treebo Oyster Inn
Townhouse 293 Ramamurthy Nagar
TREEBO TREND ORCHARD SUITES
Euphoria Hotel
Gardeenia Comfortes Suites
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The Witcher is the Most In-Demand Streaming Show in the World
Toss a coin to your Witcher...
By Lauren Gallaway
Updated: 30 Dec 2019 6:16 pm
Posted: 30 Dec 2019 6:09 pm
The Witcher is a bonafide global hit. The Netflix series is now the most in-demand TV series in the world across all platforms.
UPDATE (DEC. 30): As Business Insider reports, per data company Parrot Analytics, The Witcher passed Disney Plus' Star Wars: The Mandalorian as "the top show in the world the week of December 22 to December 28."
"The Witcher was also the top show in the US with nearly 127 million demand expressions compared to The Mandalorian's 115 million demand expressions in the US that week."
The Mandalorian had just dethroned Netflix's Stranger Things as the most in-demand streaming series in the U.S. back in November, breaking Stranger Things' 21-week streak atop of Parrot Analytics' charts.
ORIGINAL STORY: The Witcher hit Netflix on December 20, 2019 and is already one of the most in-demand streaming shows in the United States. Business Insider reported on these statistics, which put The Witcher third in the streaming category. The series is currently sitting in the backseat behind two well-known mega shows: Netflix's Stranger Things and Disney Plus' The Mandalorian. Can you blame Baby Yoda for being so cute?
The Witcher stars Henry Cavill (Man of Steel, Justice League), as the mutant warrior Geralt of Rivia. Throughout the show, he meets minstrels, mages, and majesties, all during his quest to slay monsters and claim his "Child of Surprise". The series, which has been met with mixed reviews, has already been renewed for a second season, with Netflix confident in the show's appeal and success.
Curious what we thought about The Witcher? You can read our official IGN review of the series, as well as our staff review round-up. The Witcher Season 1 is currently streaming on Netflix.
Netflix's The Witcher: Cast vs. Video Game Characters
Lauren Gallaway is a Social Media Coordinator for IGN. She would follow Renfri into battle any day of the week. Catch her tweeting @LaurenGallaway and Twitch streaming @GlimpseGames.
Release DateDecember 20, 2019
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January 6, 2020 / 2:24 PM / 16 days ago
London's Crossrail delayed to autumn 2021, three years behind schedule
Elizabeth Howcroft
FILE PHOTO: People walk through the Crossrail Place Bridge in the Canary Wharf financial district of London, Britain, December 7, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson/File Photo
LONDON (Reuters) - London’s beleaguered multi billion-pound Crossrail project, already years behind schedule, will be further delayed until late 2021, the British capital’s transport operator said on Monday.
The train line, billed as Europe’s most ambitious infrastructure project, has been repeatedly delayed by problems with safety testing and signalling systems and Transport for London (TfL) said last year its cost could rise to $23 billion (17 billion pounds).
TfL Commissioner Mike Brown told the London Assembly Budget and Performance Committee on Monday that the section of the new link between the rail hub of Paddington and Abbey Wood in southeast London was now expected to open between September and December 2021.
Brown said TfL had struck a confidential commercial deal with the Canary Wharf Group to remove the risk of TfL paying damages if the link between the Canary Wharf financial district and Heathrow airport was not completed by December that year.
“We’ve looked at a delay until the later stages of 2021, in terms of our business planning assumption,” Brown said, adding that the project was in “disarray”.
“The assumption we’ve made is I suppose at the pessimistic end but it’s the pragmatic end,” he said.
Brown said a critical issue was making sure the Siemens system (SIEGn.DE) on the tracks was compatible with the system built by Bombardier (BBDb.TO) in the trains.
In November, TfL said the project could cost an extra 650 million pounds and not open until 2021, putting it more than two years behind schedule. It was originally due to be opened by Queen Elizabeth in December 2018..
Rebranded as the Elizabeth Line in 2016, it is expected to carry about 200 million passengers a year and alleviate pressure on London’s 19th century underground network, known as the Tube.
Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft, editing by Ed Osmond
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UMGram
Reclaiming the Melting Pot: A Preview of You, Me, and RumiConfessions of a Bread Junky
31 Flavors of Horror Offered up in “31: An October Collection”
BY Brian Powers /Arts
“It was dark and she was playing dead. Not sure of how to get out of this. Her shallow grave. Her lover’s grasp.”
Last October, author Bridgett Eve Howard began writing short vignettes of horror – one a day – her own spin on the new tradition of Inktober. This year, she published these works alongside some genuinely creepy art by illustrator Flannery Grace Vaught in the book 31: An October Collection.
Like all the best horror, these stories tap into deeper fears and vulnerabilities. It isn’t just the monster that is frightening, but also the human condition.
Bridgett Eve Howard
For the protagonists of many of the various stories in this collection, the horror began long before the narrative; these are survivors of loss, of illness, and myriad other traumas. In one story, the end of a romantic relationship coincides with the literal stopping of the world. In another, a survivor of mental illness fights a toxic version of herself in a self-destructive manner. Yet another sees suicidal thoughts become a physical monster, chasing a young woman her entire life, only to overcome her the moment she’s happy and feels she’s finally free of him for good.
“I like when the trauma comes throughout,” said Howard. “I really feel like that’s a real reflection of life. Most of the time you don’t just wake up like this.
The writing is, at times, a bit rough and in need of polish, but that adds to the charm and authenticity of a document that was built out of complete short stories written in quick fashion.
“I’m more of a storyteller than an author,” said Howard. “I do think the tradition of storytelling is more ‘we’re gonna focus on what the person is saying,’ instead of how well they said it.”
This is a small, personal affair, not a product of a literature machine, but of a determined individual putting her own vulnerabilities on display. That is to say, there is more blood on the pages than in just the scary tales. The stories and the protagonists are more than thin creations from an active imagination; these stories are informed by Howard’s own trauma, laid bare on the paper.
“I lost my mother to cancer at 15. It was a very quick process. She was diagnosed on October 29, 2009. She didn’t tell me until November 1st, because she knew Halloween was my favorite holiday,” said Howard. “She was dead the day before Thanksgiving that year – November 25th – so it was three weeks since she had been diagnosed that she passed away.”
The devasting experience took a toll on her psyche.
“It was awful. Her skin turned black. She turned into something very difficult to see. It really ended up playing on repeat in my life for a long time.”
Writing a horror anthology turned out to be a form of coping with demons.
“Almost every single story is a reflection of trauma, of grief, loss, mental illness. Delving into that was the most therapeutic thing I think I’ve done for it,” said Howard. “I felt like I was in a good enough place to finally reflect on a lot of things in my life.”
The Rabbit | Drawn by Flannery Grace Vaught
In one striking example, a story about a decomposing rabbit in the road takes real-life inspiration from the moment she remembers seeing her mother pick up a dead turtle in the road outside her restaurant.
“She picked it up thinking it was fine, and all these maggots poured out of it,” said Howard.
The elegant and macabre rabbit illustration with that story, as with all the illustrations in the book and cover, is the work of artist Flannery Grace Vaught, a friend of Howard’s from their time at Transylvania University who was tasked with bringing the stories to life.
“This is the first time I feel like I’ve gotten to go in this direction,” said Vaught, praising the free rein given to her to create suitably creepy images in the medium of her choosing. She used ink and gesso and a photocopier to create the images, drawing and then copying the layers of the image to degrade them.
“It gives them that gritty, faux lo-fi quality. I like that grit – that layer of dust and dirt that gives a story beyond the story it’s illustrating.”
She wants her work to get inside the mind of the viewer, bringing an added element of darkness to everything she does.
This is not Vaught’s first go-round with horror, however.
“Most of the stuff I do has some darkness in it,” said Vaught. Much of her work involves agrarian life, which is fraught. On a farm, Vaught said, “You encounter life and death all the time.”
There’s a deeper, layered horror in the stories of 31: An October Collection – one that will ring all too familiar for unfortunately too many: many of the protagonists in these stories experience some form of past or present trauma, violence or horror that is specific to women.
“When I was a kid, I didn’t get to watch scary movies,” said Howard. “My mother constantly watched Lifetime in front of me, which was honestly more traumatizing than watching It, or The Shining, or something, because it was always women in danger. And my mother was also somebody who experienced a lot of violence in her life.”
He is always with me in window | Drawn by Flannery Grace Vaught
A first-time female hitchhiker in danger reflects on how her brother was able to effortlessly make his way cross-country. A teenage girl plays possum while her abusive lover buries her, believing her to be dead. A woman faces down a possibly supernatural stalker. Many of the monsters in this book are scary not because they’re superhuman or supernatural, but because they are the monsters women face every day of their lives.
“That’s always been reflective of me – I’m a woman, I have to be on edge because I’m a woman,” said Howard. “There’s an experience in being not-male that is just vulnerable and unfortunately opens you to more fears. You feel the need to protect yourself more. You feel the need to be on that edge.”
That edge finds its way into the characterization in the stories, a great many of which are told from a first-person perspective.
“I like to have that connection,” Howard said of her protagonists. “I try to make every character its own character, but ultimately it’s just me with different wigs on.”
She hopes that others can relate to the stories she has written.
“But I also decided that if they didn’t…if it wasn’t good, if nobody enjoyed it, then it still served its purpose for me,” said Howard. “Luckily, that’s not been the case.”
31: An October Collection is available via Amazon.com or at Barnesandnoble.com.
31: An October CollectionBridgett Eve HowardFlannery Grace VaughtHalloween
Brian Powers
Brian Powers is a freelance writer, bassist, legal writer and amateur home remodeler originally from Clearwater, Florida. He lives in Lexington with his wife and at least four children, and his favorite band is Def Leppard, for which he refuses to apologize.
UnderMain would like to thank The Great Meadows Foundation for support of our 2019 programming, which will include twelve in-depth studio visits of Kentucky artists. The Great Meadows Foundation is a grant giving foundation whose mission is to critically strengthen and support visual art in Kentucky by empowering our community’s artists and other visual arts professionals to research, connect, and participate more actively in the broader contemporary art world.
We are also pleased to announce that Bobbie Newman has agreed to be our Chief Copy Editor. Bobbie has helped the all-volunteer staff of UnderMain in many tight spots and she is now coming on board in a more regular capacity. Couldn’t do it without you Bobbie, thanks!
UnderMain is also excited that we have begun work with a new webdesigner, Tanya Wlodarczyk. Watch for updates and a brand new look for 2020.
UnderMain thanks you as well for the ongoing support. Remember your contribution is tax deductible.
Make A Tax Deductible Contribution
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Check out our civic engagement parter: CivicLex
© UnderMain, LLC 2013-Forever
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Blitz: The League
Blitz: The League is very similar to previous installments in the Blitz series, as it depicts a dark version of gridiron football. Like previous games in the series, first downs are awarded at 30 yards, not 10; there are eight men to a side (similar to arena football, not 11, Ã la American football); penalties and referees do not exist (although players are somehow prohibited from going offsides); and overly vicious tackles and blocking are the norm. On gaining yards, making tackles for a loss, scoring, or forcing turnovers, players are rewarded with an increased "Clash" meter. When the "Clash" meter is charged up, players may perform "dirty" stiff-arms, dodges, rush avoidance (for quarterbacks), or, most importantly, "dirty hits" on defense. Performing a "dirty" hit or stiff-arm causes opposing players to lose stamina (in essence, reducing their effectiveness) and occasionally become injured (An image of an x-ray would zoom into a specific bone and snap or a ligament tearing). After successfully performing a number of "Clash" moves (or forcing turnovers and scoring touchdowns), players can perform "Unleash" moves which are nearly unstoppable.
When an injury occurs, the player may choose to "treat" the injury normally, or "juice" the injury (inject an athlete with painkillers). "Juicing" causes an injury to be ignored, but increases the risk of more severe injuries. However some injuries are so serious (kneecap fracture, torn ACL, wrist fracture, ruptured Achilles), that juicing is not a possible option.
"Campaign Mode"
In single-player "Campaign" mode, the player is challenged to win championships in all three divisions of the fictitious League. The player begins by creating a new team, designing its uniforms and choosing a team name, then picks one of three defensive veterans and one of three offensive rookies as team captains.
The player must win seven of ten regular-season games in each division, followed by a division championship. Players need to decide on a training program for each athlete, which gradually increases the athlete's skills. Players also earn money for each game based on performance, "dirty hits" performed, etc., and can also earn additional money for "gambling" on the results of a game. With this money, players may purchase superior equipment, training facilities, and drugs (some legal, some not) that can be used to augment performance. Occasionally, players may be asked if they would like to spend money to send prostitutes to the opposing team's room before a game (an option based on the supposed real-life exploits of game spokesman Lawrence Taylor), which greatly reduces their strength on game day.
In "Campaign" mode, the player is also periodically shown cutscenes illustrating a variety of subplots involving the team. The game begins at the end of the previous season, when Quentin Sands of the New York Nightmare lands a devastating, career-ending hit on your team's star quarterback (not unlike Taylor's infamous sack of Washington Redskins QB Joe Theismann), as the team is demoted to Division 3. As the game progresses, the player learns that the veteran captain returned to the game as a result of financial troubles, while the rookie is portrayed as a naive yet talented individual whom Sands has targeted as the next player whose career he'll end on the field.
The story of the "Campaign" mode was partially written by former writers of Playmakers, a controversial show on the ESPN network that was canceled due to the NFL's objections to its portrayal of professional football players. Like in the series, the pro circuit chronicled in the game is simply referred to as "The League".
Released Mar. 11th, 2020
The Walking Dead - A Telltale Series - The Final Season
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Orde
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In a discussion at Grantland with sportswriter Bill Simmons, Malcolm Gladwell explains it all:
GLADWELL: ... How many people do elite professions miss? I think we assume that the talent-finding in the top occupations is pretty efficient. But what always strikes me is the amount of evidence in the opposite direction. There are huge numbers of people who clearly could play pro sports, but don't want to. (Kingston.) And an even greater number who could, but can't. America has one of the highest incarceration rates in recorded history, for example. (We have six times more people behind bars, on a per capita basis, than Europe does.) That works out to about 2 million people — the majority of whom are young men, and a disproportionate share of those young men are young black men. Surely there must be hundreds — if not thousands — of potential professional athletes in that number, not to mention scientists or entrepreneurs or poets. I'm sure you saw that great piece by Jonathan Abrams in Grantland this week where he quotes Stephen Jackson on growing up in Port Arthur, Texas: "There's been a million basketball players to come out of there and I'm the second one to make it to the NBA."
SIMMONS: An organic Grantland plug! Nice!
GLADWELL: And then there is my favorite moment in Michael Lewis's The Blind Side, when Michael Oher says that if everyone from his old neighborhood in inner-city Memphis who could play football got the chance to play professional football, they'd need two NFLs. What he was saying is that the efficiency rate of the football talent-search system in Memphis was less than 50 percent. This is the most popular and most lucrative sport in the United States — and Oher is saying that based on his experience we leave half of the available talent on the table. That's unbelievable!
"A million dollar arm and a five-cent brain" is not a novel insight.
It's kind of hard to get to the pros if you are headed for prison. Granted, it can be done, but it takes a lot of booster elbow grease (see Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full).
Actually, as I've suggested before, it would be interesting to get data on the height of prison inmates (mug shots are often taken standing in front of height markings) to see if tall black men are underrepresented in prisons because of the advantages they get from being sports prospects.
On the other hand, it would also be interesting to estimate what percentage of the NBA and the NFL really deserve to be in prison.
SIMMONS: It's a little different than Canada — where they somehow utilize 147.3 percent of the available hockey talent.
GLADWELL: Exactly right. Not to mention the Kenyans in distance running, and the Dutch in soccer, and the Jamaicans in sprinting. It's the flip side of the same point. In theory, big countries should dominate all sports because they have the biggest talent pool. But they don't, because societies squander their talent. If you are a tiny country you can hold your own against someone 10 times your size just by being slightly more efficient in finding and developing the Battiers and Kingstons of the world.
Because talent-finding and developing in Kenya is so sophisticated. For decades, it mostly involved Brother Colm O'Connel lof St. Patrick's High School in Iten having the lads run around while he fended off interviewers wanting to know his secret.
GLADWELL: ... If our talent spotting in basketball and football is so lousy — and those are two areas about which, arguably, we care more in this country than almost anything else — how lousy must it be in journalism? You and I owe our livelihoods to the fact that this country doesn't have its act together.
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Irma Thomas (born February 18, 1941, Ponchatoula, Louisiana) is a Grammy Award-winning soul and rhythm and blues singer from New Orleans. She is known as the "Soul Queen of New Orleans". Thomas is a contemporary of Aretha Franklin and Etta James, but never experienced their level of commercial success; still, she has a large cult following a… Read More
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Sion Farm Man Arrested in Connection With Castle Coakley Shooting
Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty for Suspects From U.S. Virgin Islands in Murder of Florida Dentist
BREAKING NEWS : Sion Farm Man Arrested in Connection With Castle Coakley Shooting
BREAKING NEWS : Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty for Suspects From U.S. Virgin Islands in Murder of Florida Dentist
Jamaica Sees 1.5 Million Cruise Arrivals in 2019
Tourism Published On January 14, 2020 09:18 AM
Staff Consortium | January 14, 2020 09:18:21 AM
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Ocho Rios, Jamaica
JAMAICA — Preliminary data from the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) indicates that cruise passengers accounted for over 1.5 million of the approximately 4.3 million tourists visiting the island in 2019, the government of Jamaica has announced.
The figure was disclosed by Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, who spoke with Jamaica's government-run news organization following last Friday’s (January 10) arrival of one of the Norwegian Cruise Line’s (NCL) flagship vessels – the ‘Norwegian Bliss’ – which made its maiden voyage to Jamaica, docking at the Ocho Rios Port.
The minister headed dignitaries and officials welcoming the ship’s crew and 5,700 passengers, who each received a complimentary cup of the globally renowned Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee.
The visit marked the second time in as many months that a vessel from a major cruise line was making its inaugural voyage to the island, and Ocho Rios in particular.
The resort town welcomed the “MSC Meraviglia”, which brought 7,200 passengers and crew in December.
In welcoming the figure for cruise passenger arrivals, Mr. Bartlett said this segment of the tourism industry is integral to the Ministry’s overall growth strategy, while highlighting Ocho Rios’ contribution in this regard.
“Ocho Rios has had a phenomenal growth trend for last year, welcoming 197 calls, which represented a passenger count of over 600,000. This has made Ocho Rios the number port for calls in the island,” he outlined, while noting that “there’s more good news” for the town.
“The projection for Ocho Rios, for the first quarter of 2020, is 36 calls that will amount to over 86,000 visitors,” Mr. Bartlett added.
Meanwhile, there is stakeholder concurrence that the Norwegian Bliss’ and MSC Meraviglia’s arrivals have set the stage for a bumper 2019/2020 cruise ship season for the town.
Chairman of the National Cruise Council (NCC) and Mayor of St. Ann’s Bay, Michael Belnavis, said the MSC Meraviglia will be making 10 port calls up to April 2020, “giving Ocho Rios some eye-popping numbers to go along with an already packed itinerary”.
Meanwhile, he described the addition of the Norwegian Bliss as another “feather in the cap” for Ocho Rios, arguing that the town “might easily be enjoying one of its better years in cruise shipping”.
Mr. Belnavis contended that, against this background, “it would not be a stretch to now officially declare the resort town [as] Jamaica’s designated cruise capital”.
“The secret to our success is very simple. We have cleaned up our act to [the point] where the cruise lines are happy with what we have been doing, including our anti-harassment measures,” he outlined.
Additionally, the chairman said “meaningful” employment has been generated for “some of those who were giving problems on the streets”.
Consequently, Mr. Belnavis added, “the guests can now walk the streets freely without being badgered or harassed”.
The Norwegian Bliss is the third ship in the Breakaway Plus-class built by Meyer Weft in Papenburg, Germany, for American cruise operator, NCL.
It is the 16th ship in NCL’s fleet and is home-ported in Miami. Its sister ships include the ‘Norwegian Escape’ and ‘Norwegian Joy’.
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Candle lit tour through Elk River Trailhead to the Headwaters Forest Reserve. Photo credit: Lauren Shea
Halloween at Headwaters
By Lauren Shea on Tuesday, October 31, 2017
By | Lauren Shea
The fog crept in and darkness started to fall as people walked further in the forest listening to the stories of the past.
Over 60 people came down Elk River road to experience their Halloween weekend in a creative and educational way on Saturday night. Halloween at Headwaters Forest Reserve took you through the forest trail guided by candle light on the sides of the trail. The event was based on the living history of the old logging town Falk that use to make up the area.
“We’re going on a spooky hike tonight,” said one of the trail leaders. “Where you can hear the echoes of the past.”
Another character talking about his time in the town Falk. Photo credit: Lauren Shea
People from all ages walked the trail led by people playing characters that were dressed in clothing that were worn in the late 1800’s. They spoke about their life in the town of Falk.
There were many people from the park system volunteering their time to the event. Deja Malone who works for the Watershed and Stewards Program talked about her time with the event.
“Tonight, we are here to celebrate Halloween at Headwaters,” Malone said. “We have a fabulous turnout tonight.”
This is the secnd time the event is being held at Headwaters Forest Reserve.
“It’s a great way to educate the public about this town in a creative way,” Malone said.
One of the characters talking about her time in the town Falk. Photo credit: Lauren Shea
Noah Falk, the founder of the town Falk, purchased 160-acre parcels and started the Elk River Lumber Mill in 1884. The mill was about an hour away from Eureka by stagecoach, so the town was self-sufficient. The town contained a cookhouse, general store, dance hall, post office and many homes. At one point, there were about 400 people that lived in the town of Falk.
The Elk River railroad took lumber and people to the town of Bucksport, where the Bayshore Mall is today. The town was only 2 miles away from the “big city” of Eureka where old town Eureka is today.
Many families went to the event. Erin Ortiz, from Eureka, went with her daughter. She was happy to be able to take her daughter through the trail.
“It was really great,” Ortiz said. “We learned about how to stay away from rivers and how people lived back in the 1900s.”
The mill was abandoned in 1937 because of The Great Depression and the town disappear after the 1950s.
“Deer, bears and cougars started to take over the town after it was abandoned,” one of the characters said.
In March of 1999, the federal government purchased the land that is now Headwaters Forest Reserve.
Volunteer telling stories inside the Headwaters Outdoor Education Center. Photo credit: Lauren Shea
Nicole Hewitt, student at HSU, said it was fun to come out and see the reserve.
“It was pretty awesome,” Hewitt said. “I’ve never been to the Headwaters Reserve. It was interesting to hear some of the history behind this place.”
The tour ended at the Headwaters Outdoor Education Center, a building left over from the town that has since been remodeled as an education center. Another volunteer told stories inside the barn.
The Headwaters Forest Reserve is open all year round to walk the trails and forest of the old remains of the town Falk.
For more information on Headwaters Forest Reserve, visit www.blm.gov.
Published in Life & Arts
Lauren Shea
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Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte, Billy Bob Thornton, Powers Boothe, Jon Voight, Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes
A Wrong Turn
There is no denying Oliver Stone's ability as a director, his collection of movies speak for themselves but even a top director can go wrong and unfortunately with "U Turn" Stone has gone wrong. Wrong maybe the wrong word because "U Turn" is a well put together movie, it takes a familiar storyline of a stranger stuck in an isolated town of quirky individuals and then saturates it with dark humour and style. The trouble is that it feels like Stone has used "U Turn" as a mixing pot for all those visual ideas he has had stored away and they end up dominating the movie with random camera angles, palette changes and characters who are comically quirky. And with the style dominating the movie the actual storyline, which is full of quirky double crosses ends up uninteresting to the point that it struggled to gain my attention let alone keep it.
Having had two fingers chopped off by a bookie who wants his money back, Bobby Cooper (Sean Penn - Carlito's Way) is heading across the desert to get as far away as possible. Unfortunately when his car suffers a problem he has to leave it in the hands of a back water garage run by the quirky Darrell (Billy Bob Thornton - On Deadly Ground). Having strolled in to the nearby town he meets other quirky characters from a blind Indian to an angry young man called TNT (Joaquin Phoenix). He also meets the sexy Grace (Jennifer Lopez - Anaconda) who takes him back to hers only for her husband Jake (Nick Nolte) to return home. And then things take a real strange turn as first Jake asks Bobby to kill Grace and then Grace asks him to kill Bobby.
If you have seen "Twin Peaks" then in many ways "U Turn" is similar at least in having a remote setting and quirky characters and there is nothing wrong with that. And then there is equally nothing wrong in the dark comedy which follows as not only does Bobby get a couple of strange propositions but his encounters with the locals see him becoming increasingly battered and bruised as well as penniless. I am sure this is exactly as Oliver Stone hoped it would be, a dark comedy of twist, turns and double crosses which borders on the wrong side of peculiar.
But the trouble is that whilst it is not inferior film making it is so extreme in being quirky that the style and the quirkiness of characters dominates things. Now some people like erratic camera angles which flick from looking up from the floor too in close on a face, I don't mind them when they are not over used but unfortunately they are over used here. It is the same with the colourful characters because I enjoy quirky characters when their quirkiness is important but in this case it all seems to forced and extreme, as if Stone had been holding on to ideas and characters for a while and then just let everything out in this movie. It ends up dominating the movie to the point that it becomes a struggle to get engaged with Bobby's plight as he is stuck in the quirky town.
To make matters worse it is incredibly difficult to like any of the characters either because they are either stereotypes, such as the sheriff or too quirky such as Darrell. That doesn't mean the acting is inferior in fact every actor delivers a full on performance be it Nick Nolte as Jake or Powers Boothe as the Sheriff. But I will say again it is difficult to engage with any of these characters and that makes it incredibly difficult to get into.
What this all boils down to is that "U Turn" is a well made movie that is if you like an abundance of dark humour and quirky characters but it is a movie which is difficult to get into because of it being so full on quirky.
During the summer of 1975, Dave Boyle and his friends Jimmy and Sean are playing on the pavement of their Boston neighbourhood when Dave is taken by two men pretending to be cops and subjected to sexual abuse for several days till h ...
Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas - The Ghost and the Darkness), a very wealthy investment banker, is happy spending his life alone even when it comes to his birthday. But he gets a surprise when his younger brother Conrad (Sean P ...
The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004)
Samuel J. Bicke (Sean Penn - Mystic River) is struggling with life as his is quickly falling to pieces. His job as an office furniture salesman depresses him especially with his bosses expecting him to lie, his attempts to set up hi ...
So anyway "Milk" basically covers a few years in the life of Harvey as he moved to San Francisco with partner Scott, set up a camera shop and in doing so created the basis of a gay community whilst also having to face prejudice. It ...
TOP TEN DORIS DAY MOVIES
1) Pillow Talk (1959)
2) With Six You Get Eggroll (1968)
3) Young Man with a Horn (1950)
4) Calamity Jane (1953)
5) Love Me or Leave Me (1955)
6) On Moonlight Bay (1951)
7) By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953)
8) Young at Heart (1954)
9) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
10) Move Over Darling (1963)
End of the World (2013)
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Head of School and Professors:
Dr Steve Holmes is Head of the School of Divinity, and Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology. He welcomes enquiries for PhD supervision in in many areas of systematic and historical theology, but particularly in Trinitarian theology; evangelical theology; and Baptist theology.
Prof. Christoph Schwoebel is the 1643 Chair in Divinity. He welcomes PhD applications in the following fields: historical Theology (the history, significance and impact of the doctrine of the Trinity; the theology of the Reformation and 17th century Protestant scholasticism; Protestant and Anglican theology and philosophy in the 19th and 20th century ); systematic theology (Christian dogmatics, especially the doctrine of God, the theology of creation, Christology and theological anthropology); ethics (the theory of justice, the concept of freedom and the understanding of persons); philosophy of religion (revelation and rationality in historical and systematic perspective; theories of communicative rationality); theology of culture; theology in literature (esp. John Donne and Thomas Mann); theology in music (especially Bach, Mendelssohn); the theory of pluralism; interreligious dialogue (the theory and practise of interreligious dialogue, especially with Judaism, Islam and Buddhism).
Prof. Alan Torrance is Professor of Systematic Theology, and the Director of the Logos Institute for Analytical and Exegetical Theology at the School of Divinity, University of St Andrews. He supervises research on central loci in Christian dogmatics and analytic philosophical theology and has a special interest in the interface between these disciplines and contemporary biblical scholarship. His present research is in Christology.
Prof. Judith Wolfe is Professor of Philosophical Theology. She welcomes PhD applications in systematic and philosophical theology, particularly in eschatology and theological anthropology, and in European philosophy in its relation to theology; in Thomas Aquinas and his modern interpreters; and in theology and the arts, especially drama, literature, and imagination in their theological and philosophical dimensions.
Senior Lecturers, Lecturers and Associate Lecturers:
Revd Katrin Bosse is Associate Lecturer in Theology. She specializes in theological anthropology and the theology of religions.
Dr George Corbett is Senior Lecturer in Theology and the Arts. He welcomes PhD applications in Aquinas’ theology, medieval theology, and Catholic theology post Vatican II. Within ITIA, he also welcomes PhD applications in theological aesthetics and theology and the arts (in any period). Outside St Andrews, Dr Corbett is the director of CEPHAS (A Thomistic Centre for Philosophy and Scholastic Theology).
Dr William Hyland is Lecturer in Church History, and Director of Teaching for the School of Divinity. He welcomes PhD applications in many areas of medieval Church history, and in particular monastic spirituality; and Benedictine and Premonstratensian history and spirituality of all eras.
Dr Oliver Langworthy is Associate Lecturer in Patristics.
Dr Andrew Torrance is Lecturer in the Logos Institute for Analytical and Exegetical Theology. He welcomes PhD applications in theology. To date, his research interests have focused on creation, Christology, religious experience, science and religion, Scripture and revelation, and theological anthropology.
Mr Brendan Wolfe is a Principal Research Fellow and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Late Antique Language and Religion. His post-graduate teaching has centred on Late Antique Latin, Patristics, and the influence of the pagan philosophical schools on Christianity, with further research interests in the adoption of Christianity by the Goths and the Gothic Bible. He is the Managing Editor of the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology.
Research Fellows:
Euan Grant is the Gifford Fellow, a two-year research fellow in natural theology funded by Lord Gifford’s bequest. His research interests are in theological anthropology, particularly the question of human finitude, fallenness, and original sin. Posing questions of the plausibility and conceivability of a historical fall within the natural history revealed by the sciences led to a re-evaluation of the highly sophisticated theological treatments of human beings as embodied intellectual creatures in the mediaeval scholastic literature. As Gifford Fellow, he is exploring the possibility of re-integrating these mediaeval structures of thought with the Darwinian paradigm of evolutionary biology.
Joanna Leidenhag is a St Andrews Fellow in Science-Engaged Theology. Her research is located at the intersection between contemporary philosophy of mind and Christian theology, and focuses on the implications of panpsychism within the doctrine of creation in particular. She is the recipient of the 2018 Student Prize of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT).
Other Faculty Associated with the Subject Area
Dr T.J. Lang, Lecturer in New Testament, co-teaches The Origins of Christian Theology (MLitt).
Dr King-Ho Leung is Research Fellow in Philosophical Theology.
Dr John Perry is Senior Lecturer in Theological Ethics.
Dr Eric Stoddart is Lecturer in Practical Theology.
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The Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion
By jsager99 May 1, 2013 Deregulation Environment EPA Regulation Republicans
© Josh Sager – April 2013
On April 17th, a fertilizer manufacturing plant in Texas suffered a catastrophic malfunction that led to a giant explosion. Located near the city of West, Texas, this explosion killed numerous people and is an illustration of just how dangerous poorly regulated chemical manufacturing can be to a community.
The West fertilizer plant explosion was truly gigantic, killing 14, injuring nearly 200 and destroying dozens of structures. To put the sheer power of this explosion into perspective: the explosion left a 93-foot diameter, 10-foot deep, crater where the plant used to stand, and seismologists say that it caused a 2.1 Richter Scale earthquake felt 50 miles away.
Here is an amateur video of the explosion:
While there is no way to quantify the cost of a lost life, the total structural damage and healthcare costs of the explosion are almost certainly in excess of $100 million dollars.
Many may not look at fertilizer manufacture as a dangerous process but some fertilizers are extremely reactive; this makes them unstable and potentially very dangerous if handled improperly. The West Chemical plant was anhydrous ammonia and stored large quantities of ammonium nitrate in its storage space—these two chemicals are both reactive and highly explosive materials.
Anhydrous ammonia—or pure ammonia—is a nitrogen fertilizer used in certain crops. In order for it to be used safely, it must be kept away from air, so that it doesn’t form a highly explosive mixture, and water, so that it doesn’t become corrosive and toxic.
Ammonium nitrate is both a fertilizer and a very potent explosive material. In appearance, it resembles coarse salt and it is commonly used by farmers to fertilize their crops and maintain a proper nitrogen balance in the soil. Unfortunately, in addition to being used by farmers, ammonium nitrate has been used by numerous bombers in combination with other materials (that I am not listing here, for obvious reasons) to create a very potent explosive mixture—it is this mixture that was used by Timothy McVeigh to carry out his Oklahoma City Bombing.
At approximately 7:30PM, on the evening of April 17th, local police and fire were alerted to a fire at the local fertilizer plant. Upon arrival, these first responders had only a few minutes to assess the situation before the explosion ripped the West Fertilizer plant apart, killing ten of them instantly. Currently, we do know that the explosion was primarily due to the over 270 tons of ammonium nitrate present at the plant, but there is no real proof as to what caused the fire that ignited the explosive materials.
While this is simple speculation until more information is available (the disaster scene is a crater and the building is currently spread out over several square miles), it appears that an accidental fire ignited a leak in one of the plant’s anhydrous ammonia tanks, causing a conflagration. As this fire spread, it eventually found its way into the ammonium nitrate storage area and a massive explosion was the result.
This theory of an accidental explosion is supported by several facts:
First, a terrorist attempting to use the plant in an attack would have set the fire in the building with the ammonium nitrate and wouldn’t have left the explosion to chance.
Second, this plant represented tons of poorly regulated explosive material that could have been stolen and converted into many other bombs, thus it is unlikely that a terrorist would have blown the plant in place.
Third, the explosion of a fertilizer plant is in no way unprecedented, and all such previous explosions were due to negligence, accidents, or poor maintenance—other than its proximity to a date significant to right wing terrorists, there is nothing to suggest that this explosion was simply a tragic accident.
Given the fact that the center of the explosion was situated in the space used to house hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate, it appears that the fire migrated into this storage space and set off a chain reaction. Even a small fire, when introduced into a pile of explosive chemicals, can cause a huge explosion. In essence, the entire storage building became a giant pipe bomb and the relatively minor fire was simply the igniting agent.
Unfortunately, it appears that firefighters were not warned about the sheer quantity of explosive ammonium nitrate when they arrived at the sight because regulators had no idea about the scope of the problem and the plant manager had not communicated with the firefighters (according to their dispatch).
While we don’t yet know what caused the explosion, we do know several very worrying things about the plant that indicate extreme oversights in regulation. Numerous regulatory bodies simply dropped the ball in regard to the oversight of this particular fertilizer manufacturer:
The EPA let the owners of the West Fertilizer Plant do their own risk assessment as to the damage of a worst-case scenario plant failure; they made no follow up when the owners came back claiming that such a failure would simply result in an ammonia leak that could easily be cleaned up. Clearly, the report by the West Fertilizer Plant failed to take into account the fact that, in addition to ammonia, the Plant had 270+ tons of highly explosive material stored out back (although they weren’t producing it on-site).
OSHA last conducted a full inspection of the West Fertilizer Plant 28 years ago (no that isn’t a typo).
The Department of Homeland Security had no idea that the West Chemical Plant was storing huge quantities of a restricted and extremely powerful explosive material. Whether this oversight is on the manufacturers or the DHS is unknown but, regardless of who made the mistake, that 270 tons of high explosives could go missing to DHS is extremely worrying.
In addition to the oversights by regulatory agencies, the damage of the explosion was worsened by the fact that it was in close proximity to many other buildings. In addition to homes, the West Fertilizer Plant was near a school and a retirement home.
Put plainly, the fact that the West Fertilizer Plant was next to a school and a retirement home is an unforgivable failure of land management. Fertilizer plants sometimes blow up, and placing two high-risk (children and old people) buildings next to a potential bomb is an unbelievable mistake.
Currently, two lawsuits alleging extreme negligence are being levied against the owners of the West Fertilizer Plant and more may follow soon. The West Fertilizer Plant is owned and operated by West Fertilizer Co., a subsidiary of Adair Grain. Adair Grain is a relatively small company and it is highly likely that it will not survive the coming storm of litigation against them.
Posted in Environmental Issues, Environmental Policy, Law and Order, Policy Discussion, Privatization, Regulatory Policy
6 thoughts on “The Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion”
Did you eat paint chips when you were a kid? You are not even close and your miss information and speculation are only adding to the problem with America. Why dont you get off your ass and go report on Facts.
Either point out where I am wrong or simply admit that you are simply a troll, looking to antagonize somebody who you lack the intellectual capacity to debate on the facts.
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Starting Over – The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
By The Telltale Mind on October 24, 2014 • ( 5 Comments )
The Evil of Frankenstein is the third film in Hammer’s Frankenstein series, and the worst one to date. It can also lay claim to being one of the worst movies that Hammer has ever put out as well. There is little to love in this movie which essentially negates or simply forgets that there were two previous movies before it. Making matters just a little bit worse was the fact that the previous film left the audience with a soft cliff-hanger, almost promising that we would see the Baron again at some point. And so we did, but instead of continuing the adventures and the horror perpetuated by the man we have been following, we instead get this film which heads in an entirely different direction. Whatever possessed Hammer or the producers to go ahead with this film should truly be questioned as it was a waste of time, money and talent. This was a hard pill to swallow after two really well-done films and it was strange indeed to see the studio take a step backward instead of moving forward.
Where The Revenge of Frankenstein ended with the Baron cheating death and having his brain replanted into his own creation to start anew, this film sees him on the run back to his ancestral home. It was almost as if writer John Elder (Anthony Hinds) knew what the producers were doing with the film and decided to write it into the movie. Without money or possessions, Victor decides to stay on, and when he finds his creature frozen in the ice, he decides to revive it along with more trouble than he bargained for.
If it were to stand alone, the film is not all bad as there are some things to like about it, Peter Cushing’s performance for one. Cushing always delivers, even on a bad day and this film is no exception. Victor is portrayed quite well, though it would have been far preferable to see him as he was previously. Here he is not quite so confidant, even a little vulnerable at times which was quite different to see, though the madness that is within him still manages to show itself a few times. Peter Woodthorpe was fairly villainous as Zoltan the hypnotist and Katy Wild, who had no lines, did a very good job as the beggar, Rena. Playing the role of the creature this time around would be a man named Kiwi Kingston, though for all of the makeup, it could have literally been anybody.
It is the creature, not to mention the storyline itself, which is one of the worst things about the movie. Lifting the idea directly from Universal’s franchise, this creature looks quite similar to the one first portrayed by Karloff, though much worse, almost like the makeup had not been finished. It would have been far preferable if Hammer had gone a more original route like they did with The Curse of Frankenstein whose monster was a shambles of a man who looked like surgery gone wrong, or even the second film where the monster itself had advanced to look more human as Victor’s skills progressed. Instead what was presented was just a poor copy of something previously done much better. What was also a little unforgivable was the rehash of ideas from Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Hammer had done a great job up to this point by going in a different direction with their Dracula and Frankenstein films, and seeing this was not something that would have been expected from the studio.
If taken by itself, not having seen any of Universal’s films about the monster, or not having viewed the previous films of this particular series, the film is ultimately, a good little horror movie. But such as it is, it is just a pale reflection of what has come before. Freddie Francis did a good job directing and the players in the film all did a fine job in their respective roles but all in all, it just seemed like a bit of déjà vu, and it would have been much more fulfilling to see something just a bit more original from Hammer, having been spoiled by them before.
Tagged as: Anthony Hinds, Baron Frankenstein, Boris Karloff, Dracula, film horror, Frankenstein, Freddie Francis, Hammer, Hammer Films, Hammer Horror, Hammer Studios, Horror, John Elder, Karloff, Katy Wild, Kiwi Kingston, Peter Cushing, Peter Woodthorpe, The Curse of Frankenstein, The Evil of Frankenstein, The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) review, The Evil of Frankenstein review, The Telltale Mind, Universal, Victor Frankenstein
The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) – The Visuals
Mind Capsules – Amazing Spider-Man #8 and Aquaman #35
Parlor of Horror says:
LOL, the square head looked like some bad paper mache’. And with Universal continuously protecting their trademark on the square head Frankie, I’m not even sure how they were able to make this. (in the Shelly novel, the monster did not have a square head).
Agreed. lol It looks pretty terrible. 🙂
He looks awful judging from pics. Who the hell came up with the idea to go with a square head? I hate when sequels ignore everything that happened in the past. That sort of shit is ridiculous.
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Waupoos Family Farm offers respite to those who need it most. Open to low-income families, Waupoos provides a family camp experience away from the pressures of daily life. Our goal is to provide a safe and welcoming community environment where families can find rest, fellowship, and hope.
The farm is supported by The Waupoos Foundation, a Christ-centered community whose mandate is to integrate prayer, work, and play into their service of families in need.
The Waupoos Foundation was created in 1975 by Fr. Fred Magee of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Fr. Magee and a team of volunteers transformed the Oblate family farm on Waupoos Island (near Picton, Ontario) into a vacation place for low-income families. The name Waupoos is an Ojibway word for rabbit, and was given to the island because of its rabbit-like shape.
In 1980, it was determined that a location closer to Ottawa would be more accessible to families. The island facilities were closed and work began on the Oblate farm on Rideau Road. In 1982, Waupoos Family Farm opened at its current location.
The Waupoos Foundation is run by a volunteer Board of Directors in collaboration with the Farm Management Team. The Farm Management Team is comprised of three families who reside at the farm full-time for a term of 3 years.
Since the foundation of Waupoos Family Farm, over 7000 families have vacationed with us and over 25, 000 people have used our facilities.
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The Last Drop Unveils 50-Year-Old Blended Scotch
February 26, 2014 – It’s been almost seven years since James Espey, Tom Jago, and Peter Fleck unleashed the original Last Drop blended Scotch from 1960 on the world. The men behind Johnnie Walker Blue Label, Chivas Regal 18, and other legendary blended Scotches pledged at the time that they would only release new whiskies when they found casks that they considered to be worthwhile. Since then, the only release from The Last Drop was a Cognac from 1950, and the original 1960 Scotch is now sought after by collectors willing to pay as much as £4,000 ($6,700) when a bottle comes on the secondary market.
Now, they are releasing a 50-year-old blended Scotch whisky from the final remaining stocks of that whisky. In an interview with WhiskyCast’s Mark Gillespie, James Espey explained that they didn’t bottle all of the three casks that produced the 1960.
“We decided to take a chance and put some back into new wood because we wanted to blend it up to over 50 years minimum (the oldest whisky in the original 1960 was 48 years old). It came out brilliantly…now, it was 52% alcohol in the 1960, the new whisky which had another four years in wood is well over 50. The average age is nearer to 60, and the alcohol had gone from 52 to 50.9, but magnificent.”
Only 338 bottles of The Last Drop 50 Year Old will be available in the UK, US, Hong Kong, China, and a few markets to be determined, with a recommended price of £3,000 ($5,000 USD) per bottle. In the US, Infinium Spirits will be the importer, and the recommended price is expected to be in the $4,000 range.
We won’t have to wait another seven years for the next release from The Last Drop, though. Tom Jago’s daughter Rebecca has joined the company, and has identified a single malt Scotch whisky that will be released later this year.
Links: Last Drop Distillers | Infinium Spirits
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Key Passage Commentary on Things Fall Apart
By seopro
In Things Fall Apart
Key Passage Commentary on Things Break Down
Nwoye’s switch to Christianity is highlighted in the very first area of the book. This conversion is the very first huge change in Okonkwo’s life due to the missionaries, and triggers Okonkwo excellent discomfort and suffering. Although Nwoye is the main focus of the section, the first sentence handle the departure of Mr. Brown. The fact that Mr. Brown, perhaps the only white man the non-Christianized Ibos can associate with, is leaving and that he leaves throughout the rainy season is a sign that a huge modification is coming. From there, the passage turns to Nwoye.
He has actually changed his name to Isaac, which symbolizes his complete abandonment of the Ibo culture. That Nwoye took the name “Isaac” as his First name is really interesting. Isaac is the son of Abraham in the bible and is the first born to a brand-new race of people. Possibly Nwoye chose this name due to the fact that he is one of the very first to embrace Christianity, the “new” faith. Likewise interesting is that Isaac was the dad of twins, Jacob and Esau. Nwoye most likely remembers the twins he heard included the Evil Forest and plans to be like Isaac, and protect twins and others that the Ibo think about evil.
Nwoye has likewise end up being an instructor which reveals his commitment to Christianity, higher than any devotion he had in Umuofia, whether to working in the fields, his father, or his culture. Mr. Brown’s friendly nature is also shown in this section. He heard of Okonkwo going back to Umuofia and “immediately paid him a visit” and “hoped that Okonkwo would enjoy to become aware of it,” describing Nwoye. Okonkwo, however, drove Mr. Brown away and threatened him. This treatment of Mr. Brown shows Okonkwo’s authentic hatred of Christianity that stole his first-born boy and any change that has featured it.
The second part of the passage reveals the change in the whole village and their response, or lack of reaction, to Okonkwo’s return. Okonkwo’s preliminary plan was to make his go back to Umuofia bring in the attention of the entire village with 2 stunning daughters, a larger home with space for 2 more spouses, and the initiation of his children into the ozo society. The “ozo” society, an usage of African English to include culture to the novel, is made up of effective and titled males in the town.
To Okonkwo’s dismay, he attracts little attention (it was “not as unforgettable as he had wanted”) because the town is inhabited with the new culture and faith growing in the village. “The clan had gone through such extensive modification during his exile that it was hardly recognizable. The new religion and government and trading shops were very much in individuals’s eyes and minds.” This quote discusses clearly how the town has actually changed and adjusted to consist of the brand-new religious beliefs, government, and stores, which Okonkwo dislikes.
Even the people who think the culture is wicked still speak about absolutely nothing else. Hence, Okonkwo’s return gets practically fully overlooked by the villagers. Once again, the author uses words, “evil,” and “warrior,” that seem to recommend a bigger occasion can be found in the book. This occasion will occur from the modification in the town and Okonkwo’s failure to adjust to it. The last section is the fastest of all 3, though it states just as much as the other two. This part shows Okonkwo’s emotions and attitude towards the surrounding events.
The word that stands out here is “grief.” Inside, Okonkwo is grieving for the past, which he frantically wishes to return to. He is not just sorry for his circumstance, but for the fate of the whole clan. Okonkwo states that the clan is “separating and falling apart,” which can be linked to the title of the whole book, Things Break down. He likewise grieves for the males of Umuofia, which he says were aggressive in the past and now have become “soft like ladies.” Okonkwo frequently explains individuals as being “womanly” if he feels they are weak or afraid.
In exile in his motherland, Uchendu, his uncle, attempts to explain how femininity is essential and, though Okonkwo refuses to think it, just as strong as the masculine side. Okonkwo overlooks this warning and feels that settlement, compliance, and talking things over are woman-like and weak which guys should fight to settle their distinctions. This presumption that the only way to fix these issues with the modification is to fight will lead to bigger problems. The whole section is really essential because it describes the modifications that have taken place in Umuofia given that Okonkwo has actually left.
It demonstrates how the villagers have grown to adapt to the brand-new culture, or even simply deal with it, and how Okonkwo refuses to do either. He feels that he needs to use aggression to return the town to how it was prior to he left. This shows Okonkwo’s complete conservative views and resistance to change. Due to the fact that Okonkwo chooses he should turn to fighting to prevent the modification, he will wind up burning the Christian church in the next couple of chapters, which will cause jail, killing, and committing suicide.
Tragedy in Things Fall Apart
Paradox in Things Fall Apart
The Things They Carried – the Protagonist Tim O’Brien
On January 23, 2020 | In The Things They Carried
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Published WorksIn Whitman's HandLife & LettersCommentaryResourcesPictures & SoundAbout the Archive
Title: Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 5 November [1886]
Whitman Archive ID: owu.00085
Source: The Bayley-Whitman Collection, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 4:53. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schöberlein and Kyle Barton
Cite this page | View XML | Hide/show metadata
Cite this page: "Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 5 November [1886]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 January 2020. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Nov. 5 P M2
Yours rec'd to-day, & glad to get it—I had a bad week last week, gastric & head troubles, but am much better—(Every time lets me down a peg.) I hear nothing from O'C[onnor]3 but fear the prospect is gloomy. Dr. B[ucke]4 is well & busy—I was out driving to-day, 11 to 1—Nothing definite done to my "November Boughs"—May be out in a year—I believe Kennedy has finished his book—
The naturalist John Burroughs (1837–1921) met Whitman on the streets of Washington, D.C., in 1864. After returning to Brooklyn in 1864, Whitman commenced what was to become a lifelong correspondence with Burroughs. Burroughs was magnetically drawn to Whitman. However, the correspondence between the two men is, as Burroughs acknowledged, curiously "matter-of-fact." Burroughs would write several books involving or devoted to Whitman's work: Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and Person (1867), Birds and Poets (1877), Whitman, A Study (1896), and Accepting the Universe (1924). For more on Whitman's relationship with Burroughs, see Carmine Sarracino, "Burroughs, John [1837–1921] and Ursula [1836–1917]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
1. This letter is addressed: John Burroughs | West Park | Ulster County New York. It is postmarked: Camden | Nov | 5 | 8 PM | N.J. [back]
2. The year is conjectural, though Whitman began in 1886 to plan for the publication of November Boughs (1888); William Sloane Kennedy, of course, was actively at work on his book about Whitman. [back]
3. William Douglas O'Connor (1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet "The Good Gray Poet," published in 1866 (a digital version of the pamphlet is available at "The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication"). For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
4. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany. Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
Published Works | In Whitman's Hand | Life & Letters | Commentary | Resources | Pictures & Sound
Support the Archive | About the Archive
Distributed under a Creative Commons License. Ed Folsom & Kenneth M. Price, editors.
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Dark Days for Transparency & Shared Governance at WIU
By Rich Egger
Rich Egger/Tri-States Public Radio
The recording of a closed door meeting held by the Western Illinois University Board of Trustees reveals board members repeatedly violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act (OMA).
The closed session meeting was held June 28, 2018. It began with Cathy Early, who was the BoT chairperson at the time, laying out plans for the public meeting scheduled for later that morning.
“When we go into discussion, I’m gonna call on Joe Rives (WIU’s Senior Vice President for Strategic Planning & Initiatives and Vice President for the Quad Cities campus). And he’s gonna talk, give a little history of where we’ve been, how we’ve gotten to this point. So he’s got a script. Everything is pretty scripted today,” said Early.
The Illinois OMA does not allow public bodies to script public discussions. The public’s business is supposed to be discussed in public, as noted in the very first paragraph of the OMA:
“In order that the people shall be informed, the General Assembly finds and declares that it is the intent of this Act to ensure that the actions of public bodies be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.”
According to the meeting minutes, WIU legal counsel Bruce Biagini was in the room that day. But he did nothing to stop the illegal discussions from taking place. (Note: Biagini was serving as legal counsel on an interim basis – Elizabeth Duvall began work as the university’s General Counsel Attorney in early July).
In the recording, it sounds as though this is business as usual for closed door sessions as board members and administrators talk about issues that are supposed to be discussed in public. You can even hear them making plans to violate the law again.
“For the (board) retreat, if you have a closed session in personnel, that’s an opportunity to continue discussions about programs and program reductions in closed session,” said Joe Rives.
Someone else in the room responds, “Good point,” even though programs and program cuts should be discussed in public.
The Reason for Meeting That Day
Trustees held the closed door meeting at 8:00 a.m. on June 28 for the stated purpose of considering personnel, collective bargaining, litigation, and real estate – all of which are allowed by the OMA. Immediately afterward, they went into open session and authorized the layoffs of two dozen faculty members – including seven tenured teachers -- and two other employees in academic affairs.
The OMA allows boards to go into executive (closed door) sessions to talk about the performance of specific employees. But in this 51 minute recording, the board talks again and again about groups of workers, the school’s budget, programs, and other matters that are supposed to be discussed in public.
The recording also indicates the administration and board have already decided which programs will be cut next year, even before receiving recommendations from the Academic Program Elimination Review (APER) committee that’s supposed to give faculty a chance to weigh in.
“Once they give us a report, whether they agree or dis… – whether they make a recommendation or not, then we will go ahead and invoke and then we’ll go ahead and give the announcements of the layoffs as well,” said WIU President Jack Thomas.
Someone in the room asks, “So we already have an idea, a plan?”
“We do,” replied Dr. Thomas.
The WIU BoT with WIU President Jack Thomas. Seated (left to right): William Gradle, Yvonne Savala, Cathy Early, Carolyn Ehlert Fuller. Standing: Lyneir Cole, Roger Clawson, WIU President Jack Thomas, Todd Lester, Steve Nelson. All except Nelson were at the meeting in question.
Photo Credit: Western Illinois University
Tri States Public Radio Cuts Discussed
The board and administration also talked about the decision to completely cut appropriated funding to Tri States Public Radio. They make it sound like a done deal, though TSPR was not officially notified of the funding cut until mid-August.
And Western still has not provided any documentation regarding the decision even though TSPR asked for the details in a Freedom of Information Act request.
We were sent hundreds of emails that shed a bit of light on the issue but there are no budget spreadsheets, no meeting minutes, no metrics, or any other data demonstrating who made the decision, when it was made, or why TSPR was cut instead of other university offerings.
TSPR was even told that the public radio station was not mentioned in any closed session meeting of the BoT – a conclusion you might come to if you simply looked at the paragraph-long meeting minutes from the June 28 closed session. But in reality, TSPR was brought up multiple times in that morning’s closed meeting.
Doing Governor Rauner’s Bidding
Western has struggled with its finances and student enrollment, especially after the two year state budget impasse. The closed door recording provides some insight into why the board and administration responded to the crisis by choosing a path of program cuts and layoffs.
“We’re doing the things Springfield wants to see done. We’re making the hard decisions. We’re gonna go out there and lay people off. I mean, we’re talking about program eliminations at some point,” said board member Todd Lester.
“These are the things I think Rauner has been beating the drum on since he’s taken office. So in that regard we’re on the forefront of this thing then. Hey, we’re doing what they’ve asked. We’ve got a better story to tell, I think.”
Why the Recording was Released – And the Fallout
The Illinois Attorney General’s office ordered the recording made public upon reviewing it after receiving a complaint from Bill Thompson, President of the WIU chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois, which represents faculty members. The Attorney General’s order was issued on October 2 but WIU was allowed time to consider appealing and to redact parts of the meeting that were allowed to be discussed behind closed doors. So the university did not release the recording and minutes until mid-afternoon on November 5, 2018.
At about the same time the information was released, the university announced Kathy Neumann will be stepping down as interim provost after more than three years in the position. She will be replaced by Billy Clow, the Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication.
And in a brief written statement from current board chairperson Carolyn Ehlert Fuller, Western announced Cathy Early resigned from the BoT.
Also in the statement. Ehlert Fuller said the board acknowledged it did not comply with the Illinois Open Meetings Act. But that’s all she mentions about the matter -- there is no apology or expression of remorse for the board’s transgressions.
Editor's Note: This story was produced by Tri-States Public Radio, which is part of Western Illinois University. This story was not subject to editorial approval by WIU adminisration.
Story source: Illinois Public Radio
open meetings act
crisis of confidence
tri-states public radio
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WIU Details Academic Realignment
Enrollment Down Nearly 9% at Western Illinois University
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6 Ways to Boost Your Immune System
Keeping a healthy immune system is always important, especially during colder months when we’re often indoors, in closer contact with germs.
The link between strong immunity and nutritional intake is clear: More whole foods, fewer processed foods and a balanced intake of essential vitamins and minerals can keep you and the people around you, from getting sick.
Keeping a healthy immune system is always important, especially during colder months when we’re often indoors, in closer contact with germs. Photo credit: Shutterstock
Find these micronutrients in a food near you:
What it is: A nutrient that fosters production of the proteins that break down the cell membranes of bacteria and strengthens cells that maintain immunity for the body. Deficiency can increase infection, while healthy doses are believed to prevent autoimmune diseases.
Where to get it: Sunshine, milk, mushrooms and oily fish such as salmon, tuna and herring.
Did you know? Vitamin D is the only vitamin with its own Twitter account: @VitaminDCouncil.
What it is: Fat-soluble compounds vital to the normal functioning of many immune cells including antibody generation and cellular reproduction; plays a crucial role in maintaining the health of your skin and mucous membranes, which act as the first lines of defense against infections.
Where to get it: Animal livers, dark greens and orange and yellow vegetables such as carrots and sweet potatoes.
Did you know? It is possible to get too much vitamin A. Overdose, known as hypervitaminosis A, can cause nausea, vomiting and dry skin. This was a common problem for Arctic explorers whose subsistence diet included seal and polar bear livers.
What it is: A mineral required for essential proteins and antioxidants that play a major role in maintaining immunity. Zinc also enhances the function of T cells, which detect and eliminate infectious and abnormal cells in the body.
Where to get it: Oysters, dairy products such as yogurt and dark meats.
Did you know? Two oysters contain the full daily requirement of zinc.
What it is: A powerful antioxidant that aids in the production and function of white blood cells, helps prevent cell damage and is needed for the function of essential enzymes.
Where to get it: Citrus fruits and drinks, as well as sauerkraut.
Did You know? Vitamin C is a water-soluble nutrient, meaning it is not stored in cells. Excess amounts pass through the body, so vitamin C can be consumed throughout the day.
What it is: Bacteria for your digestive tract that stimulate the production of antibodies and T cells and help cells communicate as they fight off infections.
Where to get it: Yogurt. Check labels for “contains active/live cultures.” Also kimchi, kombucha and other fermented foods.
Did you know? In contrast to antibiotics, which means “life-killing” in the Greek etymology, probiotics means “for life” because they are organisms that stimulate growth.
What it is: An essential antioxidant helping protect cell membranes from atoms that damage cells.
Where to get it: Fatty foods such as seeds, nuts and oils. Add sunflower seeds—one of the best sources—to salads, yogurt or stir-fries.
Did you know? Studies show that 90 percent of Americans don’t meet the recommended daily value for vitamin E.
Previous articleFresh vs Frozen Fruit and Vegetables – Which are Healthier?
Next articleUses For Peppermint Essential Oil
http://ecowatch.com/
EcoWatch is a leading news website reporting on environmental news, green living and sustainable business. We also feature content from renowned environmental and business leaders via our Insights blog. EcoWatch is a dedicated platform for environmental news that helps transform the ability of individuals to learn about environmental issues and take action. EcoWatch provides timely access to relevant information that educates and motivates individuals to become engaged in their community, adopt sustainable practices and support strong environmental policy.
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Executive (government)
Executive may refer to:
Executive (government), branch of government that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy
Executive (senior management), senior manager in a corporation
Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators
Executive director, the senior manager of an organization, company, or corporation
Executive education, term used for programs at graduate-level business schools that aim to give classes for managers or entrepreneurs
Executive officer, high-ranking member of a corporation body, government or military
Business executive, a person responsible for running an organization
Music executive or record executive, person within a record label who works in senior management
Studio executive, employee of a film studio
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Executive
The executive is the organ that exercises authority in and holds responsibility for the governance of a state. The executive executes and enforces law.
In political systems based on the principle of separation of powers, authority is distributed among several branches (executive, legislative, judicial) — an attempt to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a small group of people. In such a system, the executive does not pass laws (the role of the legislature) or interpret them (the role of the judiciary). Instead, the executive enforces the law as written by the legislature and interpreted by the judiciary. The executive can be the source of certain types of law, such as a decree or executive order. Executive bureaucracies are commonly the source of regulations.
In the Westminster political system, the principle of separation of powers in not as entrenched. Members of the executive, called ministers, are also members of the legislature, and hence play an important part in both the writing and enforcing of law.
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Executive_(government)
An executive officer (often abbreviated XO) is generally a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization.
While there is no clear line between executive or principal and inferior officers, principal officers are high-level officials in the executive branch of U.S. government such as department heads of independent agencies. In Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), the Court distinguished between executive officers and quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial officers by stating that the former serve at the pleasure of the president and may be removed at his discretion. The latter may be removed only with procedures consistent with statutory conditions enacted by Congress. The decision by the Court was that the Federal Trade Commission was a quasi-legislative body because of other powers it had, and therefore the president could not fire an FTC member for political reasons. Congress can’t retain removal power over officials with executive function (Bowsher v. Synar). However, statutes can restrict removal if not purely executive (Humphrey’s executor), but can't restrict removal of purely executive officer (Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926)). The standard is whether restriction "impedes the president’s ability to perform his constitutional duty" (Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988)).
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Executive_officer
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Executive, Cicada
He spoke up now for a little while.
Couldn't let his life slip away.
He spoke up now just for a little while
but couldn't find words to say.
He spoke up now with an open file
to put his plan in place.
He spoke up now and all the while,
the colour drained from his face.
Too tired to sleep at night,
working the day,
can't find an appetite, no time to play.
He spoke up now, threw his pencil down,
wiped a tear from his cheek.
He spoke up now,
all his colleagues frowned.
He wasn't made for the working week.
He spoke up now
as the walls came in
and stared defeat in the eye.
with an evil grin
and bid his job goodbye.
(He spoke up now)
working the day.
Can't find the appetite, no time to play.
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Loyola University Recognizes Surprenant’s Public Service, Alumni Support with Glass Honoree Award
Mark C. Surprenant
The Loyola University New Orleans College of Law paid tribute to the public service and alumni support of Adams and Reese Partner Mark Surprenant with the Glass Honoree Award at the 73rd Louisiana State Bar Association’s annual meeting Tuesday, June 3rd, at John Wehner’s Village Door.
Surprenant is a Loyola Law alumnus, Class of 1977, and also adjunct professor of law for the university. Surprenant has served as the president of both the Loyola Law Alumni Association and the Loyola University Alumni Association. He and his wife, College of Law alumna, Monica Surprenant, J.D. ‘78, established the Mark and Monica Surprenant Scholarship, awarded to civil and common law students at Loyola’s College of Law every other year. Mark also led the effort to create the Law Class of 1977 Scholarship.
“Forty years ago, Loyola admitted me as a law school student and thus provided me with a much appreciated opportunity to be a lawyer,” Surprenant said. “I was very thankful to Loyola then, and I am even more thankful today for this fantastic honor which Loyola has bestowed upon me. During the years, my relationship with Loyola has enriched my life in numerous ways for which I am forever grateful.”
Surprenant established HUGS, Adams and Reese’s corporate philanthropy program, in 1988, and also CA&RE, the firm’s official pro bono program in 2000. In 2002, he co-founded the statewide organization Support of Lawyers/Legal Personnel All Concern Encouraged (SOLACE). The organization consists of 8,500 volunteers throughout Louisiana and has chapters in 18 other cities across the country. It reaches out to assist judges, lawyers, court personnel, paralegals, legal secretaries and their families who have experienced some significant, potentially life-changing event in their lives. The program is coordinated in Louisiana by the Louisiana State Bar Association/Louisiana Bar Foundation's Community Action Committee.
Surprenant serves as President of the New Orleans Bar Association.
He received The Times-Picayune’s 2012 Loving Cup award as well as the Louisiana State Bar Association’s 2014 David A. Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award, both given for his pro bono legal work and long history of volunteerism.
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About Our Courts
Bolder Advocacy
Building the Bench
Supreme Court Cases
Join the Fight
On February 1, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court.
To aid the Senate—and the public—in its task of evaluating this nomination, this report assesses Judge Gorsuch’s judicial record, outlook, and views about the law. Importantly, in considering his record—as with any nomination for a lifetime seat on the judiciary—it is not the Senate’s job to merely rubber stamp a nominee based on a review of a resume or academic record. The Supreme Court at any time, but particularly now, is essential in protecting our rights. It is vital that anyone confirmed to the Court has a demonstrated commitment to ensuring that the Constitution and our nation’s laws protect all Americans. Thus, the Senate must carefully examine the nominee’s record to ensure our nation’s next Supreme Court justice shares a commitment to critical constitutional values and legal protections and can be a fair and open-minded jurist.
Alliance for Justice has reviewed an extensive portion of Judge Gorsuch’s record—most notably cases, but also writings from the period before he joined the Tenth Circuit as well
as during his tenure as a judge. The report focuses primarily, although not exclusively,
on cases that split the court. We have not, however, reviewed decisions he made while serving at the Department of Justice; papers from this period of his career have not been made public.
After a thorough review of his record, the primary conclusion is that, on the merits, Judge Gorsuch is not qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.
More on Gorsuch
The Gorsuch Record
New AFJ Report Finds Gorsuch “Not Qualified” for Supreme Court
Gorsuch Doubles Down on Anti-Civil Rights Stance in First SCOTUS Year
Gorsuch’s views on women disqualify him for a seat on the Supreme Court
Shadow of Gorsuch nomination hangs over LGBTQ-rights ruling
Gorsuch Nomination Should Not Go Forward
Alliance for Justice Launches Digital Ad Campaign Featuring Gorsuch “Frozen Trucker” Case
Yeomans Work
SCOTUS – Gorsuch Enters the Ethics Free Zone
Judge Gorsuch a “Disastrous” Choice for SCOTUS
Join us in the fight for justice for all.
Join us for an event – from conversations with thought leaders to rallies to trainings!
Public Webinar: Social Media Rules for 501(c)(3) Organizations
Support our work so we can continue the fight.
Our strength is rooted in our membership of over 120 organizations who share a commitment to a just, free, and equitable society.
Creating a just, free, and equitable society for all.
This organization is an international nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. © 2019 Copyright Alliance for Justice.
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Life And Luxury
Banker's magic mushroom experiment pays off
Peter Hunt, the former chairman of Greenhill, flew to the Netherlands to take psilocybin. He says "it was like pushing a reset button" on his brain. With partner Tania de Jong, they are funding the use of psychedelics to treat mental illness.
Tania de Jong and Peter Hunt have launched Mind Medicine Australia to develop regulatory-approved and research-backed psychedelic assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of mental illness in Australia. James Alcock
Jill MargoHealth Editor
Updated Oct 18, 2019 — 11.33am, first published at 10.13am
A few years ago, two Australians found themselves sharing a seat on a bus in Tel Aviv. They fell into easy conversation and became oblivious to the other passengers who were also delegates on a trade mission to Israel.
“We started sitting together and talking whenever we were on the bus,” says Tania de Jong. “There just seemed to be some coincidences in our lives that were more than coincidences.”
They didn't know it then, but those coincidences would lead them to the cutting edge of medicine and the use of mind-expanding drugs.
De Jong is a professional soprano and at a reception for the mission at the Australian embassy, she rose and sang Somewhere (There’s a Place for Us).
"I was aware there were things that were holding us back from our full potential,” says de Jong. Luis Enrique Ascui
As she sang this old song from Westside Story, something within her bus companion shifted. “It’s a beautiful song and as I listened, I saw another side of Tania,” says Peter Hunt, a retired senior investment banker and philanthropist.
On that promising note, the Australian Israel Chamber of Commerce’s mission on social entrepreneurship ended and delegates went their own way.
De Jong went back to Melbourne to look after her charity, Creativity Australia, which includes, With One Voice, a series of community choirs bringing the "haves" and "have nots" together in song.
She is also founder of The Song Room which improves self-esteem and learning among disadvantaged children from diverse backgrounds.
Hunt went to France for a holiday before popping into Melbourne to see de Jong and returning to Sydney where his business and philanthropic activities are based.
At the time, Hunt was chair of Greenhill, the independent investment bank he co-founded, and had advised on some of Australia’s biggest corporate deals. He retired from the bank in 2018.
He is also the founder and remains on the board of Women's Community Shelters, which provides temporary crisis accommodation and support for homeless women and children.
It wasn’t long, however, before the two delegates were living together, splitting their time between Sydney and Melbourne.
“I’m a control freak and although I wanted very much to let go, I was afraid of relinquishing control," says de Jong, pictured in 2012 with one of the choirs she founded. Nine
“While we were very lucky and had a good relationship, I was aware there were things that were holding us back from our full potential,” says de Jong.
Both had experienced trauma: Hunt's father died by suicide when Hunt was 13 and de Jong is the child and grandchild of Holocaust survivors. "So I began searching for a way to create more interior substance, to deepen our relationship,” she says.
Hunt was willing to explore whatever she found. “I had never meditated, done yoga or consulted intuitive healers, but I was open to it, especially as we were still in the courtship phase.”
Her search eventually took them to psychotherapy assisted by mind-expanding drugs.
These drugs emerged into the mainstream in the 1940s, were used by hippies in the 1960s and banned in 1970. This brought most research to a halt, except in Switzerland.
But by 2010, there were signs of a renaissance. Researchers returned and about 100 trials have since been completed or are now underway, mainly in people with major depression or post-traumatic stress. Some remission rates have been promising.
With no major advances in the pipeline to treat these conditions, these drugs, if they work, have the potential to disrupt current practice and change the treatment paradigm.
Interest is now high and universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Kings College London, UCLA, Harvard, New York University, Yale and the universities of Zurich and Basel have active psychedelic research programs.
And centres of excellence are popping up too. In April, London’s prestigious Imperial College opened the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research.
Psilocybin, or magic mushrooms, have shown promise in the treatment of mental illness.
Then in September, leading United States medical complex Johns Hopkins followed suit and opened The Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.
These psychedelics, or mind-revealing drugs, temporarily create changes in brain function which shift perception, thinking and feeling.
The best-known are psilocybin (magic mushrooms), mescaline, LSD, ayahuasca and dimethyltryptamine. Although not a psychedelic, MDMA (ecstasy) is often included because of its psychoactive effects and profound impact in treating trauma.
De Jong was keen to try psilocybin, and when she and Hunt didn’t meet the criteria for any trials, she booked them into a private clinic in the Netherlands.
On the flight over, she was petrified. “I’m a control freak and although I wanted very much to let go, I was afraid of relinquishing control.
“I’d never been drunk; I’d never done drugs and although this seemed like a safe way to lose control, these drugs had been so stigmatised; I was afraid my brain would be damaged.”
Hunt had read a couple of articles and was relaxed. “Tania had done the research and she wanted us to do this,” he says. "I went with no preconceptions."
They were taking a leap of faith in the hope this would help to clear some of their background trauma.
“We all have a default pattern of thinking and reacting,” says de Jong. “We consciously try and behave differently, but inevitably fall back into the default position.
“Unlike traditional philanthropy which helps small groups of people, this was an opportunity to create a benefit at scale,” says Peter Hunt, pictured in 2015. Nine
“The mechanical actions of the medicine are supposed to bypass the default-mode network. Rather than reverting to the same old patterns, you start to create new brain networks and these persist.”
Psilocybin therapy has three phases: preparation, the psychedelic experience and integration. The psychedelic part would take a day under full supervision.
“A therapist prepared us, there was a sense of ceremony, and we set some intentions,” says de Jong. “Then we drank it. It tasted just like chamomile tea.”
They waited. Nothing happened for 30 minutes.
“Then colours come before you in psychedelic shapes and suddenly you are in a completely new world,” says Hunt. “You get taken and are in a different plane of reality, very present and conscious, but de-identified, without ego.
“I know some people get anxious and a few have a bad trip, but I didn’t. It was like pushing a reset button. I emerged feeling very thoughtful and needed a long time to integrate the experience.”
Afterwards they felt connected with everything and each other. “We knew we had a real bond,” says de Jong. "It had been there all the time. This brought it to the fore."
Over the next six months, the experience deepened. As a line from de Jong's song at the embassy says, they had moved towards "a new way of living".
Wanting to take this further, they began seriously investigating the medicinal use of these drugs, looking for a philanthropic opportunity.
It is very unusual for a government system to take over a philanthropic project.
— Peter Hunt
It was significant that the US Food and Drug Administration had fast-tracked research and development into psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression and into ecstasy (MDMA) for post-traumatic stress disorder.
“The FDA designated them as 'breakthrough therapies' and it seemed pretty clear there was something substantial here, something with potential to benefit the broader society,” says Hunt.
“Unlike traditional philanthropy, which helps small groups of people, this was an opportunity to create a benefit at scale.”
If, with philanthropic support, these drugs were proved effective, then legalised and medically regulated for the treatment of mental illness, the health system would take over and make treatment available to those in need.
Given that mental illness is the leading cause of disability in Australia, Hunt and de Jong decided to do something.
In February this year, they launched Mind Medicine Australia, MMA, to develop regulatory-approved and research-backed psychedelic assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of mental illness in Australia.
They intend to build a centre of excellence to fund research, train therapists, produce an international summit, educate people and build awareness.
They don't advocate for the recreational use of psychedelics or for micro-dosing psychedelics, an emerging fashion in professional circles.
These drugs are not a panacea and are not given alone. They are bundled up with a sophisticated psychotherapeutic intervention.
— David Castle, professor of psychiatry at St Vincent’s Health and Melbourne University
MMA is, however, part-funding a trial of psilocybin at Melbourne's St Vincent's with people suffering depression and anxiety at the end of their lives.
David Castle, professor of psychiatry at St Vincent’s Health and Melbourne University, says psychedelic-assisted treatments offer “enormous potential” as an alternative to current therapies, particularly for severe treatment-resistant depression and end-of-life anxiety.
In severe depression, conventional anti-depressants are only modestly successful whereas trials have shown drugs such as psilocybin are far more powerful in ameliorating depressive symptoms.
“These drugs are not a panacea and are not given alone. They are bundled up with a sophisticated psychotherapeutic intervention. It sounds a bit poetic, but they appear to open the mind.”
He says neurobiology is showing their impact on brain networks, on how they dampen the default network and increase other connections.
Professor David Nutt, a pioneer of the resurrection of psychedelic medicine, performed the imaging that demonstrated this impact.
It put some science behind psychedelics and the psychiatric profession is now more open-minded about these drugs, says Nutt, head of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College in London and an ambassador for MMA.
But people have rightly cautioned against becoming too enthusiastic. Their main concerns are that study sizes have been small and haven’t been blinded, although that is difficult do when people are tripping. Bigger controlled studies are now underway.
"If trials do pan out, psychedelics will be a medicine in the next few years," he says.
Jill Margo is an adjunct associate professor at the University of NSW Sydney.
Weekend Fin
Drug reform
Jill MargoHealth EditorJill Margo writes about medicine and health from the Sydney office. Jill has won multiple prizes including two Walkley Awards and is an adjunct associate professor of University of NSW, Sydney. Connect with Jill on Twitter. Email Jill at jmargo@afr.com.au
Wild weather hurts power grid ahead of demand surge
Most Viewed In Life and luxury
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New York Studio School (NYSS)
Introduction Locations Gallery Programs FAQ
The New York Studio School is committed to giving a significant education to the aspiring artist that can last a lifetime. Our aim is to reveal to the entering student appropriate questions about drawing, painting and sculpture and to encourage them to work hard and think rigorously at all times, enabling them to construct an ethical and philosophical framework for their life's work.
The graduating Certificate or MFA student leaves the School with a developed understanding of the language of art; an enlarged imagination stirred by an established work ethic, with the passion and ambition to be an artist for years to come.
Dean's Statement
The New York Studio School is where drawing, painting and sculpture are studied in depth, debated energetically and created with passion. Our goal for young artists is for them to find their own personal vision through the investigation of art and the visual world around us. Abstraction and figuration rub shoulders and often interchange. Perceptual deeds and conceptual ideas cohabit. We encourage the development of that unique vision pushed to an extreme, found slowly and without guile.
In order to assist in the making of art, the School endeavors to make readable the 'language' of art from the far past to the recent present. Knowledge of that language, when attained, gives the artist the ability to use it, transform it, reject or discard it, or re-invent it at will. We believe in the power of the simplest means, and its ability to contain and convey the most profound and complex ideas, feelings and meanings. Our enthusiasm for paint, charcoal, clay and wood connects us with the synergies of the first shaman who crushed berries into pigment, the first painter who used oil on canvas, the first sculptor who molded clay into the human form. Firm believers in the uniqueness of our own contemporary time, we also research the complexities of our own century's discoveries. Though we celebrate painting and sculpture, we are not nostalgic for the past. Powerful expressions will find their own conduits. We strongly believe in drawing. It is the most direct means of describing an experience or an idea. Drawing is the most crucial pathway to understanding in art, and is the common bond between the disciplines of painting and sculpture. There are few places where drawing is so intensely investigated. It is during their time at the School that we believe a student develops the ethics, philosophy and work habits that continue into later life as an artist. We expect our students to discover that the dedication of the artist is a lifetime's commitment. Significant knowledge gained early on and absorbed can be used over a lifespan. The humility to learn, coupled with an ambition to make compelling work are powerful attributes for the young artist. The School is not for the faint-hearted. It is for the student with a deep involvement in the desire to be an artist, an intensity of temperament and vision, and an integrity of purpose. It is for those who like to work rigorously, think smart and keenly, and those who are prepared to look hard and long in order to see. A true student is always 'looking'; a real artist begins to see. We urge those students to apply who genuinely wish to learn and who are bold enough to take on the challenge of painting and sculpture in the twenty-first century. We offer the chance to translate the metamorphosis of life into art's metaphor. The New York Studio School is a place where the power of images is still searched for, the philosophy of drawing still present, and the quest for tangible form still engaged. We believe in the strength of art and its ability to change one's life.
Graham Nickson, Dean
The New York Studio School welcomes all qualified applicants regardless of age, sex, religion, race, color or creed, national origin, or disability. Applicants must show innate qualities of mind and sensibility, and a commitment to serious work. The student who comes to the New York Studio School has a real need for the questions of art, rather than desire for prosaic answers. Enrollment is competitive, limiting the student body to permit a creative relationship between students and faculty and to promote a lively situation without overcrowding.
New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
8 W 8th St
10011 New York, New York, USA
http://www.nyss.org/
Masters of Arts (1) MASTERSTUDIES
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Princes Street, Edinburgh. 55.9518N, -3.2002W
Women are nearly £5k worse off in retirement than men
Women stopping work this year will have an average expected retirement income £4,900 lower than men.
This has emerged in new research from financial services group Prudential.
But it adds that the good news is that the expected retirement income of females has hit a record high - and the UK gender gap is shrinking.
Prudential has, for the last 11 years, tracked the finances, future plans and aspirations of people planning to retire in the year ahead.
Men are anticipating they will retire in 2018 with a typical annual income of £21,800 compared to £16,900 for women - a difference of 29%.
Prudential says the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s minimum income standard states the income for a single pensioner should be at least £9,998.
The financial services group adds that it has found that one in six women will be retiring with an income below this standard - compared to just one in 10 men.
But the retirement income gender gap is now the second lowest on record.
Furthermore, both men and women are now retiring on a higher average annual income in 2018 than any other time over the last 11 years.
Females retiring this year will be £2,600 a year better off than in 2017, while males will be £1,150 better off.
Kirsty Anderson, a retirement income expert at Prudential, said: “The retirement income gender gap is still too wide, at nearly £5,000, with women struggling to match the incomes generated by men.
“However, it is really encouraging to see that the retirement income gender pay gap is shrinking over consecutive years and women are starting to close the gap on men. It is also extremely positive news that expected retirement incomes this year are the highest on record.
“As working patterns continue to change and become more flexible and shared parental leave is more widely encouraged by the government agenda and employers, the future looks positive for narrowing the retirement gender gap.
“It can be difficult to justify any extra expense when taking a career break, but it is extremely important for anyone taking time out of work to maintain their pension contributions. Saving as much as possible as early as possible is the best way to secure a good quality of life in retirement.”
It can be hard to plan for tomorrow when we’re busy living for today, but if you begin planning and saving now you’ll have more options in the future.
Our independent financial advisers can help you devise the correct investment and saving strategy to allow you to enjoy the lifestyle you want when you retire.
LBTT calculator
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Announcing the 2018 ACLS Project Development Grantees
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is pleased to announce the inaugural recipients of the ACLS Project Development Grants. The $5,000 seed grants are a new component of the longstanding ACLS Fellowship program, and are designed to provide support to humanities faculty at teaching-intensive institutions. This year’s 15 grantees were selected from the pool of applicants who had advanced to the final stage of the ACLS Fellowship competition. Though not among the few awarded the year-long fellowships, the grantees distinguished themselves as especially promising scholars who were likely to advance their research projects with the grants.
"Recognizing academic excellence in all sectors of higher education is essential for the future of the humanities," said ACLS Program Officer Valerie Popp. "These new grants extend the reach of our longest-running fellowship program and enrich the humanities landscape on campuses where scholars typically have fewer institutional resources to carry out their scholarship. We hope that these grants not only allow faculty at teaching-intensive institutions to advance their research but also encourage them to apply for further funding in the future.”
ACLS Project Development Grant recipients and their project titles are listed below; for more information about the grantees and their research, click here.
Candace Lea Bailey (Professor, Music, North Carolina Central University) Women, Music, and the Performance of Gentility in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century South
Jason David BeDuhn (Professor, Comparative Cultural Studies, Northern Arizona University) The Manichaean Soul
Karen M. Cook (Assistant Professor, Music History, University of Hartford) Non est minimo dare minus: The Fracturing of Rhythm in the Late Medieval Period
Jorge L. Giovannetti (Professor, Sociology and Anthropology, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras) Rural Life, History, and Anthropology in the Post-World War II Hispanic Caribbean
Alison Griffiths (Professor, Communication Studies, City University of New York, Baruch College) Nomadic Cinema: A Cultural Geography of the Expedition Film
John Gruesser (Senior Research Scholar, English, Sam Houston State University) Man on the Firing Line: The Literary Life of Sutton E. Griggs, 1872-1933
Eleanor Helms (Associate Professor, Philosophy, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo) The Structure of Imagination: Belief, Perception, and Thought Experiment in Kierkegaard
Audra Jennings (Associate Professor, History, Western Kentucky University) Insecurity: Disability, the Great Depression, and the New Deal State
AnaLouise Keating (Professor, Multicultural Women's and Gender Studies, Texas Woman's University) Bridges, Borderlands, Nepantlas: Gloria Anzaldúa’s Decolonial Philosophy
Emily Susan Lieb (Adjunct Assistant Professor, Matteo Ricci Institute, Seattle University) “The City’s Dying and They Don’t Know Why”: How Baltimore Suffocated a Neighborhood and Sabotaged its Future
Derek C. Maus (Professor, English and Communication, State University of New York at Potsdam) The True (Black) North: Surveying the Contours of African Canadian Identity through Contemporary Fiction
Alexander Olson (Assistant Professor, History, Western Kentucky University) Before Creativity, 1860-1940
John W. Ott (Professor, Art, Design, and Art History, James Madison University) Mixed Media: The Visual Cultures of Racial Integration, 1931-1954
Allyson M. Poska (Professor, History, University of Mary Washington) Contesting Equality: Smallpox Vaccination in the Spanish Empire, 1803-1810
Arne Spohr (Associate Professor, Musicology, Composition and Theory, Bowling Green State University) "Like an Earthly Paradise": Concealed Music in Early Modern Pleasure Houses
Contact: Valerie Popp, fellowships@acls.org
ACLS NEWS
Fellowship and Grant Competitions
Fellow and Grantee News
ACLS Member News (learned societies, affiliates, associates, Research University Consortium)
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Mary McColl - Executive Director
Mary McColl is Actors' Equity Association's Executive Director.
Appointed Executive Director in 2011, Ms. McColl oversees the collective bargaining process for more than 40 national and regional contracts and supervises Equity's nationally-based professional staff. She works closely with Equity's Council, the Union's governing body, to develop and implement national policy, establish goals and work with the staff to carry out Equity's strategic plan. She is the Union's representative and lead spokesperson with the media, labor, bargaining partners and government officials.
During her tenure, Ms. McColl has overseen negotiations on three of the Union’s top contracts – in 2015 the Production contract used on Broadway, in 2016 the Off-Broadway contract and in 2017 the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) contract.
Ms. McColl serves as 2nd Vice President of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and as a Trustee for the Actors Fund. She also serves as a Vice President of the AFL-CIO’s Department for Professional Employees (DPE) and as a Vice President of the Associated Actors and Artistes of America (4As).
Prior to joining Equity, Ms. McColl served as the Executive Director of the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts in Minneapolis. In that role she oversaw the renaming of the organization and the creation of a new branding and identity campaign as well as initiated improvements to the new theater's production spaces and finalized design details for the theater and the lobby. Prior to that position, Ms. McColl was the Director of Labor Relations for The Broadway League. She has been the Vice President of Operations for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and began her career at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, where she held several positions including a five year stint as the Vice President and General Manager.
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Publications, Statistics, and Library
Apply for Council Membership
Doreen Paris: lives lived
Doreen Paris was a strong leader in working to ensure equality, dignity and fairness for all Nova Scotian women.
She was member of the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women, 1994-2011, and served as Chair April 1, 2003 - March 31, 2005. She was the third person living outside of Halifax to serve as Chair.
Doreen Paris on becoming Chair of the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women in 2003: “I am honoured and excited by the opportunity to lead the council. I am committed to empowering women to escape the traps of poverty, violence and racism, and will do my best to serve the advisory council and its members."
Building a provincial action plan
Over the next few years, government will work with community organizations and groups to build a provincial plan to break the harmful cycles of domestic violence in our homes, workplaces and communities. The plan, called Standing Together, will be informed by learning, innovation and evidence.
Doreen Paris
Click here to hear Doreen speak about her time on the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women (beginning at 1:38).
About Status Of Women
Girl's Site
Crown copyright Government of Nova Scotia, all rights reserved © 2012. Comments to: women@gov.ns.ca
Government of Nova Scotia Government of Canada
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Books by Isi Leibler
Global Jewry
Rosh Hashanah: Challenges and Optimism
On the eve of Rosh Hashana 5775, traditional Jews are engaged in teshuva — reviewing the past year and soul-searching with a view to enhancing our moral standards for the coming year.
While we indulge in self-criticism, we must also condemn the pessimism of the prophets of gloom in our midst and remain optimistic and positive about the future. Last year was indeed an annus horribilis, but we successfully confronted our challenges and with the help of the Almighty will continue doing so.
Of course we are frustrated that, because of a variety of valid external factors, the Israel Defense Forces was inhibited from unleashing its full might and we could not totally eliminate Hamas. Indeed, unless the global community determinedly cooperates in the demilitarization of Gaza, we may soon face another round of hostilities.
But the fact remains that, notwithstanding the tragic loss of 66 soldiers, the IDF achieved its goals and Hamas failed to achieve its key objectives. We should appreciate that by destroying the Hamas tunnels, the IDF forestalled massive casualties and abductions of Israelis civilians. We should, above all, be thankful for the miraculous success of Iron Dome which prevented major Israeli casualties on the home front.
It has become clear to the nation that if Israel ceded the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority, Hamas would take control — either by an election or by a coup — and extend Hamastan to the entire area. Clearly, in the absence of defensible borders and total demilitarization, a Palestinian state is — currently — off the agenda.
Another positive outcome of the war is the unprecedented potential for realignment or a working relationship between Israel and a number of Arab states in combating Islamic terrorism.
This prospect has gained momentum in the context of the regional chaos and explosive military successes of ISIS and other barbaric Islamic fundamentalist groups that have superseded al-Qaida. They represent evil incarnate and their beheadings and carnage shocked much of the Arab world, as well as the U.S. and the West.
We were disappointed with the negative diplomatic stances adopted against us by the Obama administration during the Gaza war. However the achievements of ISIS further highlight the failure of U.S. policy in the region but may hopefully result in a more rational U.S. policy in relation to global jihad. It will undoubtedly reinforce support for us by the American people and Congress and deter President Barack Obama from future political forays against our interests.
The existential threat we would face from a nuclear Iran still remains grounds for grave concern and we continue to hope that it can be averted. However, the Iranians have sufficient reason to be deterred by the devastating consequences to their country were they to act against us.
The recent tsunami of anti-Semitism, especially in Europe, in which anti-Israelism has now become a surrogate for traditional Jew-hatred, has created an even more hostile environment for Jews than in the 1930s, which then at least, was vigorously condemned by the Left and liberals but who today represent a major contributing factor.
The current situation has parallels in the Middle Ages when Jews were held responsible for plagues, famines, draughts, and all the natural disasters. Today, the Jewish nation state occupies that role and is perceived by many Europeans, as one of the greatest threats to world peace and compare Israelis to Nazis.
The silver lining is that after 2000 years of dispersion, the Jewish state today offers a haven for all Jews. The desperation of the Jews in the 1930s when they were denied entry visas to any country and perished in the Holocaust will never be repeated.
Many Jews, especially in Europe, unwilling to live like pariahs and seeing no future for their children in such societies, will emigrate. Diaspora Jews committed to Jewish continuity are also aware of the intermarriage rates ranging from 50 percent to 70 percent and the effect on whether their grandchildren remain Jewish. Hopefully, many will choose Israel where they can fully express their Jewish identity.
On the local scene, we can take pride at the extraordinary unity displayed by all sectors of society during Operation Protective Edge. The noble demeanor of the mothers of the three kidnapped youngsters and other bereaved families led to unprecedented national solidarity and transformed the nation into one big family.
We remain frustrated with our dysfunctional political system and were appalled during the war by the outrageous behavior of cabinet ministers, including the foreign minister, who made public statements contradicting the policy adopted by his own government.
Most of us now realize that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy of restraint achieved the best result possible considering the difficult and complex circumstances. The majority of Israelis, including these strongly opposed to some of his policies, recognize that Netanyahu is head and shoulders above any other candidate to lead the nation during this period.
And despite the dysfunctional political system, Israelis are probably more cohesive today than at any time since the Oslo Accords, which divided the nation. Seventy percent have no desire to rule over Arabs or annex territories that would double the number of Arabs in Israel and ultimately result in a binational state. At the same time, we accept that a quick fix is not on the cards and that a separation cannot be achieved unless we have genuine security and a credible peace partner.
The ongoing series of corruption trials, culminating with the conviction of our former prime minister, were deeply distressing. Yet there are few nations in the world where leaders are treated with greater severity than the citizen. This says something positive about Israeli democracy and society.
On the religious front, there has been progress. More ultra-Orthodox Israelis are joining the workforce and there is increasing pressure for haredim to be drafted into the military or engaged in National Service. There have been minor but important developments in the conversion process, despite the opposition of the Chief Rabbinate, which is still dominated by the haredim.
Although the war will impact on the economy, according to a recent Pew Research poll, most Israelis (59 percent) are happy with their lot and, while in the U.S. 33 percent of the public express satisfaction with the direction the country is going, Israel’s satisfaction rate is 49 percent. The evidence from repeated polls suggests that Israelis are among the highest ranking nations to express happiness and satisfaction with life in their country. Our extraordinary high-tech startup nation is still only surpassed by the United States.
So when we review our situation, both external and internal, we should be grateful that despite ongoing challenges, we are enjoying a golden age which we should not take for granted.
We have lost the support of many of the nations of the world which were willing to weep on our behalf when we faced annihilation in 1967. Today, thank God, the IDF has the power to defend us from the surrounding barbarians . None of us would choose to return to powerlessness in order to regain global sympathy.
As we move into 5775 we must thank the Almighty that we are the generation blessed to live in a Jewish state, which emerged like a phoenix from the ashes of the Holocaust, enabled the ingathering of the exiles from all corners of the world and unquestionably became the greatest success story of the past century. But we must not become blasé and take for granted the fact that we have a Jewish state that has empowered the Jewish people and is capable of defending itself against all its adversaries combined.
Shana Tova and Am Yisrael Chai.
Isi Leibler’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com.
He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com
This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom
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The changing world of people analytics and digital ethics in the workplace 0
by Ian Ellison • Flexible working, Podcasts, Premium Content, Technology
This year’s Think FM conference at the Science Museum may prove to be a watershed moment for the global facilities management and workplace sectors, as its focus was on connectivity, data and the Internet of Things. The event’s keynote speaker was Ben Waber, one of the world’s leading thinkers on the ways in which this unprecedentedly connected era relates to people and the workplace. Ben is the president and CEO of people analytics firm Humanyze, an alumnus of MIT and a visiting scientist at MIT Media Lab.
I was fortunate to be able to sit down with him recently to discuss the characteristics of this new age of connectivity and the changing nature of digital ethics and ask him whether the future of HR, IT and FM is at the mercy of people data analytics, amongst other things. This is becoming a common theme for the Workplace Matters podcast as we see a more widespread realisation that the workplace is no longer a merely physical entity and our attention shifts to people and how they interact with each other and the places they work. Subscribe and listen to this and all episodes on Acast or iTunes, on any mobile device.
Ian Ellison is one of the UK’s foremost commentators on workplace and facilities management issues. He is a Partner of consultancy 3edges (@_3edges) and the host and creator of the Workplace Matters podcast (@wpmpodcast). Prior to that he was a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam the University and had a ten-year career in operational FM in both in-house and outsourced roles. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future episodes – contact him @ianellison or at www.3edges.co.uk.
Employees think Internet of Things will be most important workplace technology trend
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The 2nd Bai Meigui Competition: Non-fiction
Petula Parris Translation
In this section: Competition
The 5th Bai Meigui Translation Competition: Genre Fiction
Competition Text 2018-19
The 4th Bai Meigui Competition: Picture Book
The 3rd Bai Meigui Competition: Poetry
Competition Poems to Translate
Competition Text
The Inaugural Bai Meigui Competition: Fiction
Last year’s competition text 繁體字
Karen Curtis Translation
Seth Griffin Translation
Kristen Robinson Translation
Andrew Wormald Translation
One day, a screw will come loose
Prior to resigning from my last job, I worked as a legal affairs correspondent for eight years. Three of those years were spent filing reports from the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court. Sometimes, a criminal hearing might last a mere two or three hours, with the final ruling being announced in a fifteen-minute session several months later. I saw all sorts: from drug lords trying desperately to protect their wives, to couples venomously pinning the blame on one another to escape punishment. In particular, I will always remember the moment an African defendant was served a ten-year jail sentence for trying to carry a few hundred porn DVDs out the country. A translator had to repeat the court’s verdict several times before the man could believe what he was hearing. When he finally understood, he broke down in tears, whimpering like a small animal.
The air-con inside the courthouse was always set so low that I and the other female journalists carried long-sleeved shirts with us to keep warm. I often spotted relatives of the defendants and victims sitting ghost-like in the lonely corridors, yet never quite knew how to approach them. As a result, there was always something missing from my reports. Everything I experienced during those years left me with an image of the Chinese courtroom as a cold and unforgiving place. Little did I expect that, several years later, I would take solace in the fact that at least this coldness was visible to the real world — that at least us clueless Chinese journalists were watching from the sidelines.
During my career as a journalist, I covered five annual sessions of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). At the 2008 NPC, I also attended Premier Wen Jiabao’s official press conference. Despite queuing outside the Great Hall of the People from six thirty in the morning, my colleague and I had to scramble for seats at the very back of the hall. Though Premier Wen’s voice sounded very far away, I remember him saving his final question that day for a French journalist. Instead, a Reuters correspondent stood up to ask about Hu Jia, a Chinese citizen on trial in Beijing for ‘inciting the subversion of state power’. That was the first time I ever heard Hu Jia’s name. One month later, Hu was sentenced to three and a half years in jail. During Hu’s time in prison, I got to know his wife and daughter, who lived just across the canal from me in Tongzhou. They often came to visit — Hu’s daughter tried her first Magnum ice cream at my home and loved my home-cooked cola and honey BBQ chicken wings. She even taught herself to shell sunflower seeds while I chatted away to her mother. One year, I bought Hu’s daughter a pretty white chiffon dress as a Children’s Day present. Even though I bought the smallest size, the dress was still too long, so Hu’s wife hung it in a wardrobe for safekeeping. Every now and again, the little girl would pester her mother for another look at the ‘wedding dress’ that I — her ‘aunty’ — had given her.
To start with, Hu’s daughter believed her daddy had ‘gone away to study’. But she became suspicious as time went on. Much as we tried, we adults were unable to sustain a sanitized world home only to cartoon characters like McDull and Garfield. Children grow fast, and it did not take long for ‘guobao’ — the Chinese word for national security officers or secret police — to pop up in her everyday vocabulary. This was the first tear in the veil we had tried to throw over the real world, and from that point on there was no stopping that world from unfurling itself in front of her. Now Hu’s daughter is living in Hong Kong, it makes me happy to think that her windows open out onto the waters of Victoria Harbour, with their salty tang. In her old home in mainland China, her view was of black sedans and blackclothed men – the guobao – permanently stationed outside.
It took me a while to accept that ‘they’ do in fact exist, and are not just characters confined to the clumsy plot of some Eastern European or Soviet era film. Now I have had the dubious honour of actually meeting several of ‘them’, I am still little closer to understanding what makes them tick. I think of them as tightly bound screws that, on being fastened so quickly, become giddy and disoriented, and then morally desensitized in their work over time. On Christmas Eve in 2009, I invited a few friends to my home, one of whom was under the care of two national security officers — or, as we joked, his ‘chauffeurs’. It was a freezing night in Beijing, at almost minus ten degrees and with force five winds blowing. When my friend’s ‘chauffeurs’ dropped him off outside our building, my family and I decided to invite the two men up to our apartment, where our enclosed balcony had both heaters and an electric fireplace. Sometimes even fake flames can bring real warmth, and who knew whether that warmth might help a rigid screw discover a softened heart?
At midnight, as my friends embraced, I exchanged a gentle hug with one of the strapping national security officers. It was only when our bodies met that he melted from a dutybound screw into a normal human being. Of course, I have no way of knowing if he felt the same — perhaps he was just going through the motions. Another time, national security officers came to search my apartment while my parents happened to be staying with me in Beijing. In her Sichuan dialect, my mother timidly asked one of the officers if he might like a cup of tea. Although the officer declined, his official persona seemed somewhat shaken when confronted with an old lady offering him a simple drink. Sadly, every such moment is fleeting and, within an instant, ‘they’ have returned to their duty as faithful screws. ‘We’ are still us — the dissidents who, in the words of China’s former Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Ma Zhouxu, ‘do not exist’.
Not so long ago I watched the Les Misérables film in New York. As the end credits ran, sobs and applause filled the cinema around me. I will never forget Javert’s decision to kill himself on discovering that the law, in which he trusted so deeply, was incapable of delivering a truly just interpretation of the world. How I would love to invite ‘them’ to watch that film. Although I am not one to hold unrealistic expectations when it comes to human courage, I would still hope that the film might help ‘them’ to quietly unwind just a little, and then a little more… The undoing of a world does not have to entail the tragedy of a Les Misérables-style revolution. Sometimes the loosening of a few screws is all it takes.
I consider myself reasonably well read, and no writer has influenced me more than Hannah Arendt. In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt introduces the ‘banality of evil’, a now familiar concept that, in my opinion, is best summed up by two phrases from her book:
the essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them
in politics obedience and support are the same.
In 2010, The Kindly Ones, a novel penned by Jonathan Littell — an author of Jewish ancestry[1] — was published in Chinese. In The Kindly Ones, Littell uses almost one thousand pages[2] to expound on the concept of the banality of evil:
the machinery of State is made of the same crumbling agglomeration of sand as what it crushes […] It exists because everyone — even, down to the last minute, its victims — agree that it must exist. Without the Hösses, the Eichmanns, the Goglidzes, the Vishinskys […] a Stalin or a Hitler is nothing but a wineskin bloated with hatred and impotent terror.[3]
Just as Oscar Schindler concealed himself in Nazi Germany, I believe that, in China, there must also be a loosened screw somewhere among ‘them’. Just when the mammoth machine of state appears to be operating in all its glory, this screw will detach itself. As it awakens and regains its senses, this screw will be shining brightly, unperturbed that the world around it is still dark as night.
[1] Li Jingrui refers to Littell here as ‘犹太作家’ [Jewish author]. According to Littell’s Wikipedia page (which quotes a 2008 interview published in the major Israeli newspaper, Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/the-executioner-s-song-1.246787): ‘Although his grandparents were Jews who emigrated from Russia to the United States at the end of the 19th century, Littell does not define himself as a Jew “at all,” and is quoted as saying, “for me Judaism is more [of] a historical background.”’ I therefore chose the phrase ‘of Jewish ancestry’ to reflect this point accurately.
[2] The English edition of The Kindly Ones contains 992 pages, and therefore reviewers frequently refer to Littell’s ‘nearly 1,000-page novel’. The Chinese edition contains 788 pages, so Li Jingrui refers to ‘700 pages’. As this article is aimed at English readers, I have used the number of pages from the English edition to avoid confusion.
[3] Jonathan Littell, The Kindly Ones: A Novel (London: Vintage, 2010), 21.
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AHC Inc. Welcomes Ginger Brown and Terron Sims to Board of Directors
October 25, 2019 /in News, Press Releases, Volunteers, Partners and Programs /by AHC Inc.
Arlington, VA (October 25, 2019) – AHC Inc., a nonprofit developer of affordable housing in the mid-Atlantic region, is delighted to announce Ginger Brown and Terron Sims have joined AHC’s Board of Directors.
“AHC is fortunate to have such committed community leaders serve on our Board,” said Walter D. Webdale, AHC Inc. President and CEO. “Both Ginger and Terron have extensive experience building local partnerships and advocating for affordable housing and educational opportunities.”
Ginger Brown is a long-time community planner and strategist. She has held a variety of Arlington County leadership positions, including chair of the Planning Commission’s Long Range Planning Committee, vice chair of Community Facilities Study and member of the Housing Commission. She helped found the Lee Highway Alliance and currently serves as the group’s Executive Director.
Ginger graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a B.A. in Environmental Studies and Cultural Anthropology. She received her Masters in Public Policy concentrating in public budgeting and finance from the George Washington University, where she worked for the Institute of Public Policy.
“A diversity of housing options is critical to a community’s success, and I’m delighted to contribute to the conversation about affordable housing as a member of AHC’s Board,” Ginger said.
Terron Sims, II is a community and education activist with a long history of public service. He has volunteered with AHC’s Teen Tutoring Program for nearly 15 years, and works closely with a range of local organizations, including the NAACP and Green Valley’s Revitalization Organization and Civic Association. He is currently the Executive Director of the Warrior Centric Healthcare Foundation.
A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Terron has served on nomination committees for Congressman Moran and Senator Tim Kaine, while currently helping Senator Warner. Among his many professional endeavors, Terron is the executive director of the Warrior Centric Healthcare Foundation and served on Secretary Clinton’s National Security Policy Team, on the Veterans and Military Families (VMF) Policy Working Group where he wrote the intergovernmental agency policy.
“As a long-time community activist, I’ve seen how important it is to provide access to affordable housing and education for all,” said Terron. “Being on AHC’s Board is a way for me to be on the front lines of these key issues.”
The AHC Inc. Board of Directors also includes Justin Oliver (Chair), David Barsky (Secretary), C.C. Jenkins (Treasurer), Robert Bushkoff, Wanda L. Pierce, Catherine Saadat, Rachael Schroeder, and Walter D. Webdale (President). Ginger and Terron replace retiring Board members John Snyder and Jason Dalley, who both served nine years on AHC Inc.’s Board.
Founded in 1975, AHC Inc. is a nonprofit developer of affordable housing that provides quality homes and education programs for low- and moderate-income families. Based in Arlington, VA, AHC has developed more than 7,000 apartment units in 50+ properties in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC. AHC’s Resident Services program reaches 3,000 children, teens, adults and seniors each year through onsite education and social service programs and activities.
Tags: Education, Graduation
https://www.ahcinc.org/wp-content/uploads/Ginger-and-Terron-710.jpg 451 710 AHC Inc. https://www.ahcinc.org/wp-content/uploads/AHC_logo_new-norule-red-1-300x229.png AHC Inc.2019-10-25 18:02:572019-11-15 10:37:21AHC Inc. Welcomes Ginger Brown and Terron Sims to Board of Directors
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Home » Israel » Jewish World
Anti-Semitism in Sign Language
Sep 18, 2019 | by Dr. Yvette Alt Miller
The recent controversy over an online sign language dictionary shines a spotlight on anti-Semitic signs.
European Jews are calling on the University of Ghent, Belgium, to remove an offensive video from its online dictionary of Flemish Sign Language vocabulary.
The online dictionary includes signs for thousands of words. “Jew” is depicted by five different signs, each with its own video. Two show a person signing Jew by stroking an imaginary beard, which is a widely used sign for Jew in many nations’ sign languages. (The thinking behind this sign is that a common image many people have for a Jew is a man with a beard.)
A woman gesturing a hooked nose on the website if the University of Ghent, Belgium.
One video shows a woman indicating the outline of a large nose. Another video of the same woman exaggerates the outline even more, indicating a huge nose over her own. Both, the online dictionary explains, mean “Jew”. (The dictionary does indicate that these signs carry a negative connotation.)
These grotesque signs using exaggerated hook-noses are “simply racist and demeaning to Jews” notes European Jewish Association Director Menachem Margolin, who has urged the university to remove the offensive videos.
Flemish Sign Language isn’t the only national sign language to contain offensive signs denigrating Jews. Like other languages, sign languages vary from country to country, and evolve over the years. Contemporary sign languages were generally developed within the past 400 years and contain vast regional differences. One major development has been the elimination of racist and demeaning signs, replacing them with more neutral or positive signs.
“Miming a hook nose to refer to Jewish people is...now deemed unacceptable by signers, who have replaced the old sign with one involving a hand resting against a chin and making a short movement down, in the shape of a beard,” one British newspaper noted several years ago, referring to British Sign Language.
One way to sign Jew is using a sign that also means “misery”.
Mark Zaurov is an expert in sign languages, culture and life of deaf and hard of hearing people, a doctoral student at the University of Hamburg, and a former research fellow at Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Museum. In an Aish.com interview, he explained that the origin of several sign languages’ words for Jew and Jewish-related terms have anti-Semitic origins.
For instance, in French and Spanish sign languages one way to sign Jew is using a sign that also means “miserly”. Mr. Zaurov describes it as moving two fingers under the chin, moving from left to right while the signer brings their fingers together. “Deaf people can see immediately the metaphor for miserly. It’s also used in Morocco and Algeria.”
Mr. Zaurov notes that in Ukrainian sign language one way to sign Jew is to depict a horn coming out of one’s head.
Signing a horn coming out of a head used to exist in American Sign Language as well, where the sign was used to refer to Moses. (This echoes Christian translations of the passage in Exodus 35:29 that depicts Moses radiantly coming down from Mount Sinai holding the two tablets. Whereas the Hebrew says he had “keren or”, rays of light emanating from his face; in some Christian versions of the Bible this was changed to the word for horn in Latin, leading some people to say that Moses - or even all Jews - had horns.) It has since been replaced by a sign emphasizing Moses’ role as a law-giver.
Russian and Estonian sign languages sign Jew by making a squiggly line down the side of one’s face, like a sidelock. In Ukrainian sign language, this movement seems even more exaggerated, featuring a dramatically long and curly imaginary sidelock. While not overtly anti-Semitic, these signs seem to stress the otherness of Jews and emphasize peyot in an extreme way.
The use of a beard in depicting Jews also gave rise to using a similar sign for “stingy”, tapping into a long-standing anti-Jewish stereotype. In American Sign Language, “stingy” was once signed by making a beard-like sign for Jew, then grasping with a fist. While many sign language users have made efforts to become more sensitive and politically correct in recent years, some signs for cheap or stingy still feature a beard-like tugging movement at the chin.
In Swedish sign language, the sign for stingy can be even more overtly Jewish, showing a hand miming a curly sidelock down the side of one’s face.
Some countries describe Jews in more creative or positive-seeming ways. In Turkish sign language, Jew can be signed by cupping a hand over the head like a kippah. In many sign languages, the sign for Israel is similar to that for Jew, but in Brazilian Portuguese sign language, Israel is signed by making a triangle with fingers against one’s chest, first upside down then right side up, then down again, like making the Jewish star on Israel’s flag.
It’s time for the faculty at the University of Ghent to retire the offensive hook nose signs to depict Jews. Doing so will be another step in the continuing evolution of sign languages to be more sensitive to Jews and other groups.
Dr. Yvette Alt Miller
More by this Author >
Yvette Alt Miller earned her B.A. at Harvard University. She completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Jewish Studies at Oxford University, and has a Ph.D. In International Relations from the London School of Economics. She lives with her family in Chicago, and has lectured internationally on Jewish topics. Her book Angels at the table: a Practical Guide to Celebrating Shabbat takes readers through the rituals of Shabbat and more, explaining the full beautiful spectrum of Jewish traditions with warmth and humor. It has been praised as "life-changing", a modern classic, and used in classes and discussion groups around the world.
Understanding Anti-Semitism Today
Anti-Semitism in 3D
European Anti-Semitism
Combating Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism in America
(14) Jim, November 8, 2019 1:08 AM
All sign language in the world use racist slurs.
I've been fluent in Sign Language for many years and why, yes; we are racist bigots. The reason is that when we see other people and perceive them so we create our signs to describe these people. It's been going on for years and years and we will never change our sign language. That's the way it is. Whether you like it or not. It's our language, not yours. Mind your business and move on.
(13) Harriet Pearson, September 23, 2019 7:05 AM
The article was very informative. I never knew how the word jew was depicted. Good luck on getting it changed.
(12) Debra King, September 22, 2019 11:17 PM
I found the article very enlightening since I’m not trained in sign language. Thanks for sharing. Shalom
(11) Timothy (TRiG), September 22, 2019 7:10 PM
You can't censor the dictionary
The purpose of dictionaries is not to lay out how language *should* be used, but to describe how language currently *is* used. If you wish to change these signs, your first step is to thoroughly understand the language and the community (Deaf people are a minority subject historically to a great deal of oppression, especially in terms of their language rights, and they don't take kindly to ignorant hearing people telling them how to communicate), and then to take up a campaign *within the community*, not against the dictionary, which is just doing its job. The arrogance of privileged hearing folk telling oppressed Deaf people how to use their own language, which they are all too often not given the right to use at all, cannot be overstated. If you want to approach this, you'll need to do so very carefully, and start with educating yourselves a lot. Addressing entrenched anti-Deaf prejudice within the Jewish faith is a separate. but related, issue.
(10) Richard Dworsky, September 21, 2019 1:36 AM
what we didn't know causes pain
Being unaware of specifics of-sign language, I feel demeaned, yet hopeful. How brazen and self-righteous certain cultures are in their standardization of such inhumane symbols.
Anonymous, September 21, 2019 12:24 PM
For deaf Jews Jewish community only slowly opening up
Here are related articles of interest, that give a more complete picture. The first about how the Jewish community remains inaccessible to its thousands of Deaf American Jews, "traditionally the deaf were not treated as full members of the community."
The others going back decades about changes to old signs, now outdated and no longer used. ASL is a visual language and changes were made once the realization was made for many signs, India, Chinese, Japanese, and yes, Jew. Hatred was not the underlying premise.
https://www.jta.org/2010/12/21/united-states/for-deaf-jews-jewish-community-only-slowly-opening-up
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9594543/Sign-language-users-drop-politically-incorrect-signs.html
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-01-03-1994003110-story.html
(9) Dvirah, September 20, 2019 9:03 AM
Clarity Needed
Considering that large noses, beards, peyot & even kippot are NOT universal to all Jews and that some of these are also not exclusive to Jews (nor is a reputation for miserliness), none of them are really appropriate. The Star of David, which for many generations has been associated exclusively with Jews, is much more unambiguous.
(8) Anonymous, September 19, 2019 8:09 PM
What's in a Nose?
I think the nose of Jews are great looking, but even if some don't, so what? Do we really need to join the PC group where we can't admit it and laugh about it? The funny thing is, the images that come to my mind for other nationalities and groups. We need to have fun with this. It hurts nobody except snowflakes who have been taught to melt at every perceived slight. There are acts we do that we might be ashamed of, but not our God-given looks. Google Nick Vujicic - he is not ashamed of his looks but is thankful.
I have a big nose - it's not really so terrible to have a big nose! Some people even think I'm pretty.
Annie, September 20, 2019 5:00 AM
I was always jealous of Barbra Streisand's big nose. Mine is a blob by comparison. I love big hooked noses; many Indians have them too.
American Sign Language (ASL) in USA
As the Second-Generation Italian-American citizen who is Sephardic Jewish, ASL words now are changed in Judaism however negative and anti-Semitic ASL words are outdated and old-fashioned but recently omitted as we now live in our 21 st Century American Society in a fact. Respect to our Jewish people in different cultures indifferent branches of Family of Judaism should be taught and educated to our American public as it’s so important as I highly have recommended with strong emphasis. Christa D’Auria
(5) Christa D’Auria, September 19, 2019 3:55 PM
As the Italian-American who is Sephardic Jewish, some of ASL words now are positive after being changed in years later, then we now live in our 21 st Century. The anti-Semitic ASL words now are outdated and omitted in USA in a notice. Respecting to our Jewish people should be taught and educated to our American public as it’s important in a concern. I highly have recommended in strong emphasis. Christa D’Auria
(4) Shelley Squires, September 19, 2019 3:30 PM
Stereotype Signs for Jews
The Brazilian Portuguese Star of David sign seems the most appropriate and least offensive sign for a Jew, of which I am. All of the others mentioned in the article a negative stereotypes, even if they weren’t intended to be anti-Semitic. I’m curious to know what sign is currently being used in American Sign Language.
Rachel, September 19, 2019 6:49 PM
Star of David should be adopted universally
Some of the other signs suggest male appearance only, such as a kipah, beard or sidelocks. A non-gendered sign is preferable.
Anonymous, September 20, 2019 5:02 AM
I agree; the beard, kippah and sidelocks are all right for a Jewish man, but totally inappropriate for women. It's as if the sign for a person was the hands making a curve over the chest gesture !!!
(3) Nancy, September 19, 2019 3:14 PM
To commenter #1 Laura
YES! I agree with you 100%!
(2) Jeanette, September 19, 2019 3:11 PM
Sign language for Muslim
If an imaginary beard is used as a sign for Jews, what is the sign for Muslims that has many more men with beards than Jews.
The same, I suppose :D
(1) Laura, September 19, 2019 9:22 AM
Hate in any language needs to stop now!
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When Aleppo's widows speak
Al-Jumhuriya Fellowship for Young Writers
Mustafa Hazouri
Mustafa Hazouri is a writer and poet from Aleppo.
Al-Jumhuriya
أحياء حلب الشرقية - حلب - ريف حلب - Aleppo - Widows - women - NGO - Aid - ISIS - Jabhat al-Nusra - Drugs - Addiction - PTSD - The Islamic Dawn Movement of the Levant - Islamic State - assad - Turkey
Al Jumhuriya Fellowship for Young Writers
Culture & Politics
Da'esh
AlJumhuriya.net
For each husband killed in Aleppo, there is a widow struggling to provide for her surviving family. Our writer heard dozens of these women’s stories first-hand; an experience that sent him into an "abyss" of drugs and mental disturbance.
I returned to it, and was determined to rebuild my relationship with it. Was I broken at the time? Why? I don’t know, and perhaps it doesn’t matter. What matters is these earnest intentions of mine were one-sided, as I would learn.
From the end of 2014 to the end of 2015, the city was not a place, in the wider sense of the term, not for me at least. Nor was it a home. I felt that emptiness that exists when a place means nothing to one at all. More than anything, I felt estrangement, a concoction of feelings I can’t explain now, which made hashish and pills of Tramadol and Baltane urgent necessities in helping me retain some balance.
I would leave the house at every massacre. I would see blood and body parts lying about, and take a few photos before starting to help the wounded. I wanted to feel fear; or what they call timor mortis; but alas, the depraved numbness of the drugs coursed arrogantly through my veins.
Around that time, I met a person who irritated me at first, but soon became my only acquaintance in Aleppo. We were sitting around on a day like any other when some friends played a prank on an old man with a shaggy beard and dirty djellaba, telling him with mock-gravity that the jihadists of Jabhat al-Nusra were looking for him due to rumors he was a “secularist.” Paying no heed to this childish talk, he let out a booming laugh and replied, “Show them to my house.”
When I asked one of the others in a whisper who this man was, he pointed to him and said, “You don’t know him? That’s Abu Adnan the Secularist.”
Records of the dead
Perhaps I’ll tell the story some other time of Abu Adnan, that most noble and poor man, who I later came to know well. Here, however, I’ll recount the experience that brought me to him in the first place.
I participated in statistical fieldwork for an NGO in the spring of 2015. The NGO ran a social program that supported orphans, each according to their circumstances and needs, and required my help in compiling profiles of each family, in order to determine what was needed in each case. A questionnaire was drawn up to gather information about the families’ lives.
This questionnaire went into such details as names of family members, living and deceased, and their ages; levels of education; previous job of the deceased father and current job of the mother. The paper probed the families’ social statuses and the houses and areas where they resided, and whether they owned, rented, or “borrowed” their accommodation.
At the very bottom, there was one wretched section asking about the parent’s cause of death. “You’re in a war zone, what do you expect the cause of death to be?!” I asked myself. What a stupid question; obviously they died from the bombing, or the clashes, or hunger. I didn’t think up other possibilities; I imagined death was more decent than to take viler forms than these.
We agreed with local councils on dates for orphan families to be present, and on a list of documents each family would have to provide for us to avert the chance of fraud, which had become a full-time profession for many in Aleppo, as elsewhere.
To process applications, we were given a room with two tables, one for me and the other for Abu Adnan, and chairs packed tightly around us to make the space less crowded.
Each application would take at least fifteen minutes to complete, during which time we’d ask the widow, usually accompanied by one of her orphaned children, about her husband’s death. They would reply, as if it were normal, with sentences like, “His head exploded in an airstrike on al-Halwaniyeh market;” or, “A barrel bomb landed on our home, killing him along with our two sons, and I unfortunately survived with our three daughters,” caressing the head of one of these daughters as she says it; or, “He was sniped at the Bustan al-Qasr crossing point;” or, “He was tortured to death in prison.”
I would listen to these stories with a deeply cold expression. Some women prefer to stay silent in such situations, but those I met were generally keen to share these traumatic details with anyone who would listen.
There were women who spoke about things wholly unrelated to why they were at the office. Others would jump from one story to another until eventually complaining of their hardship and asking for assistance. Had I anything to offer them at the time I would have done, though that would open floodgates not easily closed again, and so had to be firmly resisted. Abu Adnan, on the other hand, who would often go days without being able to feed his own children, asked to borrow 200 Syrian pounds (US$0.40) from me on the first day to give it to a widow in the office. Only with time and difficulty did he learn to resist his compulsion to help those in need, as his generosity far outstripped his means.
Two days of these non-stop death stories passed without instilling any semblance of fear in me. I tried to affect shock; tried to focus all my attention and feel as much as possible; but I failed, until the Bedouin woman arrived, and with her simple narrative style stirred the immobile glaciers within me.
Originally from Aleppo’s southern countryside, she had been forced by the dire situation there to relocate to Aleppo City. When she arrived at the office, she wasn’t alone—she brought her whole family along.
“I had nine children, two were killed, and here are their children,” she told me as she found her seat. I scanned the children’s faces and saw their young mothers, not one of them older than twenty. I began a new application and recorded some of their personal details. When I reached the dreaded blank space to be filled with the death story, I lit up a cigarette and passed another to the woman at her request.
“God has blessed us,” she began. “Our situation was great, my children worked in many professions; laborers, merchants, teachers, and state employees. We lacked for nothing. My home filled up with an army of grandchildren. Were it not for the fickle wheel of fortune, you’d never have seen me here.”
Ahmad, 35, was an employee in a government department. He left his job when he enlisted in the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo, thinking this was best for him, on the basis that from time to time people would provide him with the salary from his previous job. Yet his salary was soon cut off, and in mid-2014 he was killed, leaving behind his wife and children. When I asked who killed Ahmad, his mother replied, “The Islamic Dawn Movement of the Levant—or, more accurately, his brother.”
There had been a dispute between the brothers over a small plot of land in a village in southern Aleppo province. When the Islamists began imposing themselves over certain parts of Aleppo, Ahmad’s brother seized the opportunity to accuse his sibling of being a shabbih, or Assad regime agent, on the grounds that he had technically been a state employee. Ahmad was murdered straight away, without the briefest investigation or inquiry into the truth of the allegation.
Did my anger show on my face at the time? I don’t know, but I did ask her more questions trying to find an answer that made sense of this fratricide. Yet all she said was the brother fled to Turkey afterwards, leaving his children with her as well. When they confronted the Dawn Movement about this unjust summary execution, the latter responded, “We have nothing to do with it; if he was lying [about his brother’s allegiance to the regime] then the blood is on his hands.”
Such is life: one can’t expect it to be fair or logical. This has always been the way. At the height of euphoria, life raises its spear, poised to strike. In the darkest of places, a hope springs eternal. You turn to try and anticipate whence the daggers will fall, only to be surprised with a gentle and rejuvenating breeze. It’s a stroll followed by slips and falls, then momentary recoveries, and so on until death.
I looked at the family Ahmad left behind; his children and wife. One by one, I got to know them. Then the mother started telling me about another of her sons.
His name was Khaled; he was twenty years old. In his short life, he experimented with various different lines of work until settling on the sale of diesel. Diesel was unavailable in East Aleppo’s neighborhoods, and most of the oil fields in eastern Syria were under Islamic State (ISIS) control. ISIS in turn was in need of gas in its own territories, which opened a profitable trade corridor whereby cars would drive northeast from Aleppo to the ISIS-controlled town of al-Bab laden with gas, while others would make the reverse journey back to Aleppo with diesel.
Khaled was taking this trip on a daily basis until ISIS stopped him one day in al-Bab and searched his car. After he was made to exit the vehicle, one of the ISIS members slipped a weapon inside it while talking to him, so as to accuse him of smuggling arms to “apostate” territory.
When his mother went to collect his corpse, they refused to hand it over, telling her they’d left it for some “hungry dogs.”
As she stood up, marshalling her army of children to the door, a shiver ran through my body.
How could the noose have closed round that throat?
“What’s your name?” I asked her. She didn’t respond right away. She handed me the family document, and I filled in the necessary details on the application. “How did he die?” I asked her. She looked at a random point in the distance, and, after a few seconds’ pause, said, “He hanged himself.”
The mental image of a lifeless body hanging from the ceiling alarmed me. What an idiot! Why would he hang himself when death was being distributed for free all around?
“Okay... but how?” I asked. With the great unease of one who’d already told the story hundreds of time with nothing to show for it, she began to narrate.
“He was emotionally unstable in the last two weeks of his life. Sometimes he would get angry and shower us with insults, banging his head against the wall. Other times he’d cry with such intensity his eyes would turn to glowing charcoal. Now I understand why. How could he stay in control of himself when seeing me and his three daughters going door to door begging for loaves of bread, or whatever else people could spare?”
“Our house was in the Ardh al-Hamra neighborhood; the neighborhood most intensely bombed in all of Aleppo, almost entirely reduced to rubble.”
“My husband was a butcher. He was in his store when the shrapnel maimed his foot, leaving him completely incapacitated. From there we sought refuge in the Tariq al-Bab neighborhood, settling in a house built without an official permit, abandoned by its owners, who’d fled the area. Given my husband’s condition, I had to take up the duty of providing for the family.”
“I knocked on the doors of aid organizations of every kind, and when they gave me nothing, I became the beggar you now see before you. One day he surprised me by insisting I go immediately to look for food, telling me to take the children with me too. After a heated argument, I complied. When we returned in the afternoon, I saw him suspended in the air.”
“So are you going to give me something now, or later? Let me know when I should come back.” This was what she asked me, as I stared into her eyes with complete numbness.
Grave-digger, why didn’t you dig your own grave?
I was in front of a face brimming with astonishment. She looked into my eyes like she wanted to understand something, her own eyes asking me the question a dozen ways: “Why?”
I began to feel my whole body react to every application I had to process. I developed an intuition for the level of pain each case would bring me.
“Tell me,” I said to her. So she told me.
“He was a blacksmith, and took up grave-digging because of some silly conversation we had. He left smithery because it no longer brought in enough money. We talked once about fleeing Aleppo for Turkey, but he refused. I spoke to him about the death all around us, and suddenly the idea came to him to take up grave-digging.”
“Is death ever intimidated by those it meets regularly? I wish I knew. My husband’s new profession boosted our standard of living to an unbelievable extent. Within a short space of time we had all the luxuries people in our community dreamed of—certainly, this was opulence for wartime. I was happy then, so happy I forgot about leaving for Turkey with him. Then in February 2015, I was told my husband had died. It came to me as an odd and impossible idea; how can a grave-digger die?”
“I learned the details later on; he was digging a grave for someone, and at the moment he finished, he stood upright and looked around, only to fall in the grave he’d just dug. A piece of shrapnel pierced his skull and killed him.”
Futility everywhere! I was thinking at the time of writing a report on graves in Aleppo, especially since, because of all the death, there was no more space to bury new bodies. As a result, a fatwa had been issued permitted the opening of old graves in order to add new bodies to them.
I imagined Yusuf before his death there, resting his ax on his shoulders while wandering around the cemetery he knew grave by grave. I pictured him feeling the soil to ascertain which grave was oldest, then digging it up again with his ax, to lay another corpse over the crumbling bones that were all that remained of the old one beneath. I imagined all this, and forgot to ask the woman who ended up digging the grave for her husband.
The child widow
The stories above, and others I’ve not included here, formed a mix of deep sadness and intense fear within me that threatened to explode any moment. Later, they would transform into nightmares of a sort different to the normal ones; these were nightmares made of words.
At the same time, I noticed I began to be heavily invested in the orphans that frequented my office. I used to try to make them laugh and talk to them more, developing a sort of “maternal” tenderness towards them, as though learning for the first time the catastrophe to which they were witness every day and the trauma that would accompany them for the rest of their lives.
One time, I was at work, trying to hide the anxiety and agitation building up in me while a woman and her young daughter holding an infant took their seats.
I talked to the young girl first, asking her about her school, her friends, and her favorite games and toys. Her fretful answers were dismissive. I called her habibti (“my dear”), trying to make her relax; trying to put my “maternal tenderness” to use.
While doing this, I noticed something wrong in her mother’s glances, which I took to be annoyance with their present circumstances. I went back to my conversation with her daughter; “Habibti, do you like chocolate?” Her mother’s looks grew sharper still, and I knew there had to be something wrong I didn’t know about, but I didn’t think it could possibly be the way I was speaking to her daughter. For one, she was a young child, and secondly, she must have seen I spoke to all the kids the same way. My tone of voice and innocent smile suggested no wrongdoing on my part. I stuck to my earlier conclusion that she was frustrated by her situation, and moved on to recording their information.
Husband’s name; age; former job; cause of death (clashes on one of the Aleppo frontlines): I wrote these down quickly and turned to the mother, asking for her name, present situation, education history, and other details. Then I asked for her year of birth. Her tone of voice was vanquished, hardly so much as mumbling as the sounds escaped her mouth. I complained to myself about others never appreciating the effort you put in to help them, then reminded myself I knew nothing, really, about her life.
When her reply came, it was patently absurd; she said she was born in 2002. I smiled and clarified that I meant her age, not her daughter’s. “Why do you want to know my age?” she snapped. “What do you want with me?”
I tried my best to maintain composure and explained I would take the information about her young daughter after I was finished taking hers, since she was the widow.
“The girl you’ve been flirting with is the widow,” she said.
Blood rushed to my head, and my face went hot as bread fresh out the oven. My lower lip went numb, and I slipped downwards.
I remembered all the incidents I’d personally seen of women being exploited, especially widows: in the crowded bakeries; at the aid organizations trying to get food packs. I remembered how a widow once gave me her address and phone number and signaled to me that I could talk to her, setting aside her conceptions about noble virtues and resorting to taboos to hasten the receipt of aid.
I imagined myself as one of those disgusting sexual predators that prey on vulnerable women in war. This must be how she saw me too!
I was in a state of total blindness; for many seconds I was oblivious to all around me. Everything was spinning. I looked again at the small child, the widow, her gaze locked onto her infant. I flicked my eyes to the mother, who was still glaring at me with that expression I’ve been unable to this day to fully comprehend; an expression that made me feel the guiltiest person on the planet.
“Why did you keep quiet till now, do you see me holding a gun to your head?” I asked the mother indignantly, after which further words failed me. I finished her application as quick as I could and rushed outside the crowded office.
Without doubt, I became a bona fide addict in the wake of this experience. The only way I could keep going was with Tramadol pills (cheap and always readily available); without these, I wouldn’t last two hours of the day.
Yet the larger problem was the abyss inside me. At first, it took the form of completeness numbness about everything; then an excessive sensitivity to certain things. How is one supposed to deal with that?
In addition, my nightmares took on an intensely symbolic and strange character. They would comprise a short word or sentence whispered by an unknown voice, its echo reverberating in dark corridors. Gradually the sound would transform, and with it my sense of rhythm, until it became so dreadful I longed to wake up from it.
I was not well at all—not only due to this experience, but all the additional circumstances that made Aleppo seem as limited as the range of its bullets. I was unable to build anything out of so stifling an environment, and so I took the first opportunity to leave.
At the end of 2015, as I left Aleppo behind me, I saw the rows of villages lining the road to the northern countryside, as well as the checkpoints, and sellers of diesel and petrol that stood in for the gas stations that no longer existed.
“Let’s go, brother?” The smuggler’s voice pricked me out of my stupor, and we set off to the nearest part of the Turkish border. The stories of Aleppo’s widows walked with me, as did their faces, especially that child with the furious mother. Borders are not soft things, and nor was the faraway city I left behind.
[Editor’s note: This article was produced as part of Al-Jumhuriya’s Fellowship for Young Writers. It was originally published in Arabic on 25 January, 2018.]
Read more about When Aleppo's widows speak
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The return to Martyrs Square: An interview with Michael Young
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Home / Publications / Connection to Country: Review of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) (ALRC Report 126) / 2. Framework for Review: Historical and International Perspectives / The framework: Mabo [No 2]
2.37 Mabo [No 2] built upon the common law jurisprudence on continuity,[62] pre-Mabo precedents[63] and the general attention directed to traditional laws and customs.
2.38 The High Court’s decision in Mabo v Queensland 1988 (‘Mabo [No 1]’) [64] was a necessary precursor to Mabo [No 2]. In turn, it relied on developments at international law that had given rise to Commonwealth anti-discrimination laws.[65] After the Meriam Island plaintiffs had lodged their statement of claim, the State of Queensland passed the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985 (Qld). A majority of High Court justices held that the Queensland Act was inconsistent with s 10 of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) and by operation of s 109 of the Commonwealth Constitution, thereby invalid.[66] The Racial Discrimination Act has continued to have an important role in the protection of native title rights and interests under the Native Title Act.
2.39 In Mabo [No 2], the majority of the High Court declared that the pre-existing rights of the plaintiffs survived the annexation of the Meriam Islands by Great Britain.[67] Brennan J held that, although Australia was settled under the doctrine of terra nullius, it was not ‘desert uninhabited’ in fact.[68] The notion that Indigenous Australians were ‘barbarous’ or ‘without a settled law’ was rejected.[69]
2.40 Brennan J further noted:
Until recent times, the political power to dispose of land in disregard of native title was exercised so as to expand the radical title of the Crown to absolute ownership but, where that has not occurred, there is no reason to deny the law’s protection to the descendants of indigenous citizens who can establish their entitlement to rights and interests which survived the Crown’s acquisition of sovereignty.[70]
2.41 The majority in Mabo [No 2] thus recognised ‘a form of native title which, in cases where it has not been extinguished, reflects the entitlement of the indigenous inhabitants, in accordance with their law and customs to their traditional lands’.[71] The acquisition of sovereignty did not require that all land vested beneficially in the Crown.[72] Rather, the Crown acquired a radical (or ultimate) title ‘burdened’ by native title:
Where a proprietary title capable of recognition by the common law is found to have been possessed by a community in occupation of a territory, there is no reason why that title should not be recognized as a burden on the Crown’s radical title when the Crown acquires sovereignty over that territory.[73]
2.42 Brennan J stated that ‘a mere change in the sovereignty does not extinguish rights to land’.[74] However, the judgment stressed the co-extensive sovereign power of extinguishment in relation to those pre-existing rights.[75] Toohey J held that the fact of the presence of indigenous inhabitants on acquired land precludes beneficial title in the Crown: ‘It is presence amounting to occupancy which is the foundation of the title and which attracts protection, and it is that which must be proved to establish title’.[76] Occupancy as the foundation of native title has not been generally accepted by Australian courts.[77]
2.43 Brennan J held that a clan or group has to continue to acknowledge and observe traditional laws and customs in order that their traditional connection with the land is substantially maintained.[78] While acknowledging that the proof of such acknowledgement of laws and customs may involve practical constraints, the judgment contained the statement that when ‘any real acknowledgment of traditional law and any real observance of traditional customs’ has ceased, ‘the foundation of native title has disappeared’.[79]
2.44 Sean Brennan, Brenda Gunn and George Williams note:
Mabo (No 2) left the ‘settlement’ theory for the acquisition of Crown sovereignty undisturbed. But traditional law and custom—an additional source of law in Australia that does not derive from the Crown—was newly recognised as a coherent system. Native title adjudication henceforth would become an ‘examination of the way in which two radically different social and legal systems intersect’.[80]
Native title: continuity and proof
2.45 There is an inextricable relationship between the rules of recognition and the rules on proof. Brennan J’s judgment as adopted in s 223 of the Native Title Act set the initial rules as to what must be proved for a native title determination. In Sampi, French J (as he then was) referred to these as the rules of recognition: ‘the common law and the Act establish the rules for determining whether native title rights and interests exist under non-indigenous law. These are the rules of recognition’.[81] The rules of recognition determine which of the rights and interests that pre-existed sovereignty will be recognised by the new sovereign. They are the interface between the common law and indigenous laws and customs.
2.46 In Mabo [No 2],Brennan J had indicated that native title ‘has its origin in and is given its content by the traditional laws acknowledged by and the traditional customs observed by the indigenous inhabitants of a territory’.[82] This statement, strongly affirmed in later case law, marks the adoption of the ‘laws and customs’ approach to ‘continuity’ in the recognition of native title. As Dr Paul Burke comments,
the most fundamental choice was to adopt a ‘laws and customs’ approach in which ideas of ‘laws and customs’ become universal, cross-cultural means of recognition.[83]
2.47 In Fejo v Northern Territory, the High Court stated:
Native title has its origin in the traditional laws acknowledged and the customs observed by the indigenous people who possess the native title. Native title is neither an institution of the common law nor a form of common law tenure but it is recognised by the common law.[84]
2.48 This was a hybrid model of the doctrine of recognition and continuity.[85] Secher notes that by ‘combining aspects of the continuity and recognition doctrines, Brennan J’s conclusion on the effect of the change in sovereignty on pre-existing land rights in Australia effectively reconciled these two formerly distinct doctrines and replaced them with a singular doctrine: continuity pro tempore’.[86] The hybrid model meant that English land law did not apply upon sovereignty to the pre-existing rights and thereby placed stronger emphasis on the need to demonstrate continued acknowledgement of laws and customs than the doctrine originally derived from British Imperial law.[87] The doctrine of continuity had originated in the Imperial law context as principles that allowed two legal systems to co-exist, albeit with one system having supremacy. The rules that the existing laws continued until abrogated, had evolved to require positive proof of the factual existence of laws and customs.
As to proof of native title, there was no presumption of continuance and a requirement was imposed that particular traditional laws and customs must continue to be observed …[88]
2.49 This requirement for factual confirmation of the ‘continuity of laws and customs’ is embedded in the proof of native title in the Native Title Act. Thus, while Mabo [No 2] provided an important foundation for recognising native title within Australian law, it set in place a model that was susceptible to introducing particular stringencies with respect to proof. The emphasis on the need for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander claimants to provide evidence of the acknowledgment of traditional laws and customs, was to develop into strict requirements for continuity from the pre-sovereign period, and in emphasising ‘normativity’ in Yorta Yorta.[89]
2.50 The jurisprudence also set up an implicit problem of the degree of change or evolution that may be possible in traditional laws and customs. Subsequently, the doctrine of continuity was further reshaped under statutory construction of the Native Title Act,[90] which would lead to extensive judicial analysis of what constitutes a substantial interruption to the acknowledgment of law and custom. This reshaping has amplified the requirements for proof of native title. These issues are considered in greater detail in Chapters 4–7.
After the Mabo decision
2.51 The Mabo [No 2] decision remains remarkable in that it navigated a path between extremes:
On the one hand, the implications of sovereignty and the demand for a coherent skeleton of principle in the law prevented a wholesale reappraisal of Australian land law. On the other hand, the demands of justice prevented a simple confirmation of the extinguishment of all Indigenous rights to land.[91]
2.52 The decision retained central principles of the Australian land law, resources and property law systems,[92] and the constitutional basis of the Australian nation,[93] while allowing the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples native title rights and interests in lands and waters.
2.53 The Western Australian Government acknowledged its significance in that
the present concepts of native title derive from Mabo No 2, and, in turn, from Australia’s unique political and legal history, including its history of European settlement. Any proposed changes to the native title system, especially any changes to s 223(1) of the NTA, must take into account these historical foundations of native title.[94]
2.54 The recognition model drawn from Mabo [No 2] and common law jurisprudencebut refocused upon traditional laws and customsset the basis for the subsequent development of native title law.[95]
Mabo v Queensland [No 2] (1992) 175 CLR 1, 55–57.
For example, Milirrpum v Nabalco (1971) 17 FLR 141; Walden v Hensler (1987) 163 CLR 561; Administration of Papua and New Guinea v Daera Guba (1973) 130 CLR 353.
Mabo v Queensland [No 1] (1988) 166 CLR 186.
Young, above n 7, 16.
Mabo v Queensland [No 1] (1988) 166 CLR 186, 214–216.
Mabo v Queensland [No 2] (1992) 175 CLR 1, 75–76 (Brennan J), 115–116 (Deane and Gaudron JJ), 192 (Toohey J). Note that Mason CJ and McHugh J agreed with Brennan J on this point.
For discussion see Gerry Simpson, ‘Mabo, International law, Terra Nullius and Stories of Settlement: An Unresolved Jurisprudence’ (1993) 19 Melbourne University Law Review 195.
Accordingly, ‘the preferable rule equates the indigenous inhabitants of a settled colony with the inhabitants of a conquered colony in respect of their rights and interests in land’: Mabo v Queensland[No 2] (1992) 175 CLR 1.
Ibid 53.
‘[I]f the land were occupied by the indigenous inhabitants and their rights and interests in the land are recognized by the common law, the radical title which is acquired with the acquisition of sovereignty cannot itself be taken to confer an absolute beneficial title to the occupied land’: Ibid 48 (Brennan J).
Ibid 63 (Brennan J); 110 (Deane and Gaudron JJ). See also Melissa Perry and Stephen Lloyd, Australian Native Title Law (Lawbook Co, 2003) 14–15.
Mabo v Queensland [No 2] (1992) 175 CLR 1; Richard Bartlett, ‘Common Law Aboriginal Title’ 15 University of Western Australia Law Review 293.
For a discussion of alternative bases see Noel Pearson, ‘Land Is Susceptible of Ownership’ in Marcia Langton et al (eds), Honour Among Nations? (Melbourne University Press, 2004) 83.
Mabo v Queensland [No 2] (1992) 175 CLR 1, 59.
Ibid 60. See also Perry and Lloyd, above n 75, 22–23.
Brennan, Gunn and Williams, above n 55, 325.
Sampi v Western Australia [2005] FCA 777 (10 June 2005), [951].
P Burke, Submission 33.
Fejo v Northern Territory (1998) 195 CLR 96, [46] (Gleeson CJ, Gaudron, McHugh, Gummow, Hayne and Callinan JJ).
Secher, above n 19, 29.
Ibid 107. Ch 3 provides an extensive overview of the reception of land law in Australia.
Richard H Bartlett, Native Title in Australia (LexisNexis Butterworths, 3rd ed, 2015) 984.
Members of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Community v Victoria (2002) 214 CLR 422.
Secher, above n 19, 324.
Alex Reilly, ‘From a Jurisprudence of Regret to a Regrettable Jurisprudence: Shaping Native Title from Mabo to Ward’ (2002) 9 E Law Journal: Murdoch University [21].
See Brennan, Gunn and Williams, above n 55, 314.
Western Australian Government, Submission 20.
Young, above n 7, 234.
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Gender Equality in Tunisia: Still A Long Way to Go
Sunday 1 September 2019, by Messaoud Romdhani
August 13, is a milestone in the history of women’s emancipation in Tunisia. In 1956 and just a few months after the independence of the country, the new government promulgated the code of personal status that abolished polygamy, set up a judicial procedure for divorce and required that marriage would be performed only through mutual consent. Also, since the 1960’s Tunisian has been providing health access for women and it was the first Muslim country to legalize abortion, two years before its legalization in France.
After the January 14, 2011 uprising, Tunisian women occupied public spaces, rallying and protesting to resist the first Islamist –led government attempt to degrade her status and to ask for much more deserved rights, so as to reach for total gender equality. Is the game worth the candle?
Certainly, it is.
First, the 2014 New Constitution stipulates that the State is committed to protect women’s established rights and ought to strengthen and develop them. Besides, article 20 clearly states that all male and female citizens have the same rights and duties. “They are equal without discrimination,” it clarified.
Another significant achievement. In 2017, Tunisian Parliament adopted a law meant to eliminate violence against women, a law that combines prevention of violence, criminalization of offenders and assistance for victims. Compared to other countries in the region, Tunisia is much advanced in terms of women’s rights. However, despite important progress towards gender equality since the independence of the country, much remains to be done.
One problem is the rise of conservatism. Abortion was legalized in 1973 and was a part of Bourguiba’s strategy, not only to promote women’s rights but also, to enhance family planning. This has led to an important decline in fertility and maternal mortality. Nowadays, more and more voices, within the medical profession, are being raised against the act, arguing that a child is “a gift of god” and “killing a fetus at whatever month of its growth is a crime.” This is both unfair and dangerous, as refusing abortion is not only denying a moral right of a woman to decide what to do with her body, but also it puts her life at risk as she might resort to illegal abortionists.
The battle for equality in inheritance is another challenge. The current interpretation of the Quran, based on the traditional idea that the man is the head of the family, entitles him to inherit twice what the woman gets. Bourguiba, though considered as a pioneer of women’s rights, was unwilling to take the risk of opposing conservatives both in Tunisia and in the Muslim world and take a step in that direction.
The Special Commission appointed by former President Caid Essebsi in 2017 was tasked with giving suggestions on how to promote individual freedom and equality. The report it published suggested, among other things, equal inheritance between men and women. Should the draft law pass in the Assembly of People’s Representatives (APR), it would set a precedent in the Islamic world and Tunisia would be the first Arab country to approve gender equality in inheritance.
However, opposition came this time, not only from conservative groups, but surprisingly from other secular parties, which for purely political reasons do not like to “offend” the traditional people’s beliefs. Some other secularists gave a lip service to the draft law without any concrete action to support it.
In formal politics, women have not yet shattered the glass ceiling. Although their participation has increased since 2011 thanks to considerable pressure from civil society, a pressure that led to the introduction of gender parity in electoral lists, only 16% of women are heading them in the coming elections. Besides, women are still excluded from most executive leadership. According to the Ministry of Women, Family and Children Affairs, women who occupy decision-making positions represent only 4%.
Equal pay is another hard-fought issue. According to the National Institute of Statistics, women are 25.4% less paid than men in the private sector and the unequal pay could reach -44.4% in the industrial sector.
Complicating things further, multinational manufacturing companies, encouraged since the 1970’s by government facilities and the removal of customs barriers have most of their workers women, who are usually deprived of permanent contracts and fear joining trade unions. Once these companies feel that the working climate becomes tense, they usually move to other countries where social and environmental standards are neglected.
The government seems to be aware of the gender gap and has established a plan to ensure 35% of women in the labor force by 2020, through providing facilities such as kindergarten and nurseries so as to provide women with more time for paid work and investment credits for young women to start their own businesses. In short, economic empowerment is a sine qua non condition to women empowerment.
“And therein lies the rub.” Without being economically disenfranchised, women have no incentive to get their rights and their economic independence is at stake. Female rate unemployment is almost the double that of men (22.5 to 12.4%), according to the World Bank, and it is higher, especially in southern and western underprivileged parts of the country. Worse still, the more educated she is, the less chance the woman has to get a job. That’s because most required jobs for young women (and youths in general) are low quality and do not require many skills.
How can we overcome this disparity between the Constitution that guarantees gender equality in all fields and the narrow political calculations of parties?
To my mind, a resilient and sharp Tunisian civil society has still a lot of work ahead. One should remember that for the last decades, it has proven to be effective and efficient in dealing with every human rights issue and one may dare say that even political parties would not have such substantial freedom today without the role that has been played by civil society.
Beyond the celebration of the giant steps taken by “state feminism” decades ago and beyond the general acknowledgement of the role played by women before, during and after the Tunisian uprising, especially in the drafting of the constitution, it is high time to take effective actions to full equality, including that of equal inheritance.
Messaoud Romdhani is a regular contributor to the Alternatives International Journal. He is a Tunisian human rights activist and member of Euromed Rights.
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The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy is often credited with kicking off the streamliner revolution in the United States. While its Pioneer Zephyr, also often referred to as the Zephyr 9900 was not the first streamliner introduced to the public, that historical status belongs to the Union Pacific's M-10000 which beat the Burlington with its debut a few months earlier, it did garner the greatest public attention with its shiny, stainless steel carbody and incredibly fast speeds. While originally only a three car trainset and much shorter than the M-10000, the Pioneer was such a hit with the public that the CB&Q was not only forced to add cars to the consist but also order new trainsets (which carried various Zephyr names). All of the railroad's early articulated trainsets were retired by the late 1950s as newer, non-articulated locomotives and cars replaced the aging Zephyr fleet. However, their legacy has certainly not been forgotten and the original remains preserved today.
This photo was quite famous at the time but has since faded into relative obscurity. It was taken by the Chicago Tribune, directly after the train completed its historic non-stop run from Denver to Chicago on May 26, 1934. Featured in the picture were those aboard, as well as the mascot burro "Zeph."
The Burlington Route's Pioneer Zephyr was the concept of the railroad's then president Ralph Budd. Interestingly, after barely joining the company Budd began to brainstorm on the idea of building a lightweight, fast, and stylish passenger train that was powered by a diesel engine. As it turns out the new streamliner would go down in history as the first ever powered by such a prime mover. Budd's idea for using a diesel dated back to the 1920s where he first saw them employed in early small switchers of the time (probably one of the first boxcab models). In any event, soon after Budd arrived at the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy he began talking with the Winton Engine Company, the first true pioneer and successful builder of diesel engines for railroad applications, about designing such for a new passenger train. For more information about this train please click here.
Related Reading...
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, "Everywhere West"
California Zephyr: (Chicago - San Francisco)
Denver Zephyr: (Chicago - Denver)
A History Of The Streamliner
However, the Burlington Zephyr (as it was originally called, named after the Greek god of the West Wind, Zephyrus) also needed a sleek carbody in which to dazzle the public and passengers. The streamlined look of the Zephyr would never have been possible without the recent development of shotwelding, another patented concept the Budd Company mastered. This version of welding enabled stainless steel to be welded together using high amp electric current that actually created a bond stronger than the steel itself. Now able to mold, bend, and form stainless steel into whatever shape it wanted Budd could design an endless types of railroad equipment. And it certainly exploited this advantage as much as possible allowing Budd to become a major competitor against Pullman, as it was the only company producing flashy stainless steel equipment.
A Chicago, Burlington & Quincy's "Zephyr" trainset is seen here at rest in Lincoln, Nebraska, circa 1944. As the story goes the train was given its name by CB&Q president Ralph Budd, who read Geoffrey Chaucer's, "The Canterbury Tales," and learned Zephyrus was the Greek God of the West Wind.
Officially, the CB&Q placed an order from Budd for the Zephyr on June 17, 1933 for a three-car, articulated trainset that would be powered by a 660 horsepower model 201-A prime mover from Winton. While Budd could fabricate the carbody, somebody actually had to come up with a design. That was tasked to Albert Dean, an aeronautical engineer who worked for the company. His design featured a shovel nose power car that included a significantly raked lead windshield. The entire train was sheathed in stainless steel and one could barely even see the wheel assemblies. If the train itself looked stylish and futuristic it was in large part due not only to the lead power car and fluted stainless steel but also because of the observation car. A completely new way to give a passenger train a "finished" look the observation was a round-ended affair, completing the streamlined look.
Inside the train the features were subtle but elegant due to the fact that the train was meant to be a "dayliner", regional train only. Much of its interior was of Art Deco design and the observation car was largely decorated by John Harberson of Philadelphia. Overall, the train was 197 feet long and could hold 72 passengers, 44 fewer than the Union Pacific's M-10000. Its consist included a Railway Post Office (RPO), baggage-coach, and a coach-parlor observation. It is somewhat fascinating that for a train that was only supposed to be regional in nature that the company since so many resources on its development. Of course, while extremely expensive in comparison to a traditional train of the time it not only proved to be widely successful but also offered much lower maintenance costs.
No date of information was provided with this photo but it was likely taken soon after the "Zephyr 9900" trainset rolled out of Budd's plant near Philadelphia in April, 1934.
On April 7, 1934 the Burlington Zephyr exited Budd's plant near Philadelphia and two days later on April 9th made its first test runs of the Reading Railroad reaching speeds as high as 104 mph. Nine days later on April 18 the train was debuted to the public at Broad Street Station in Philadelphia and the public was awestruck. About a month later, on May 10th the train reached Chicago although along the way it toured Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Buffalo, and Washington, D.C. After returning to Burlington's rails the train continued to be featured to the public, wowing audiences as it went. Much of the success of the Pioneer, and its historical fame, can be greatly attributed to its incredibly popular public appearances it made during the spring of 1934 (much more so than the UP's M-10000). Its legendary status was further cemented by the events which occurred on the morning of May 26th at 5:05 A.M. At that time the Zephyr officially left Denver on its way to Chicago.
The "Pioneer Zephyr" was an immediate public sensation and the affluent CB&Q spent heavily advertising its "Zephyr" fleet, which enjoyed many years of strong patronage.
Averaging a speed of 78 mph it arrived in the Windy City at 7:10 P.M. that same evening covering a distance of 1,015.4 miles. The public was further amazed and it didn't hurt that that very evening the Progress World's Fair Exposition was ongoing. In September, 1934 the train was used in the filming of Silver Streak and did not actually begin regularly scheduled service on the Burlington until November 11 of that year. According to Mike Schafer and Joe Welsh's Streamliners: History of a Railroad Icon when touring had completed of the Zephyr it had traveled 30,437 miles, been featured in 222 cities, and was seen by over two million people. After the train entered service it even defied the railroads expectations, earning a profit when the Burlington believed that it never would. In June, 1935 a dinette-coach was added to the train, which increased ridership to 112.
This particular advertisement provided the general public with a great deal of technical data regarding its new "Zephyr" streamliner.
Pioneer Zephyr/Zephyr 9900 Timetable
(The below Pioneer Zephyr timetable is dated effective June 5, 1938. For additional timetable and consist information please click here.)
Read Down Time/Leave (Train #21)
Read Up
Time/Arrive (Train #20)
2:30 PM (Dp) 0.0 Kansas City, MO (Union Station) 12:55 PM (Ar)
2:58 PM 26 East Leavenworth, MO 12:20 PM
3:24 PM 46 Armour, MO 11:58 AM
3:47 PM (Ar) 64 St. Joseph, MO (Union Depot) 11:34 AM (Dp)
3:53 PM (Dp) 64 St. Joseph, MO (Union Depot) 11:28 AM (Ar)
103 Bigelow, MO 10:49 AM
110 Craig, MO F 10:40 AM
116 Corning, MO 10:34 AM
4:50 PM 126 Langdon, MO 10:23 AM
5:10 PM 143 Hamburg, IA 10:05 AM
5:21 PM 150 Payne, IA 9:55 AM
6:03 PM 192 Council Bluffs, IA 9:14 AM
6:09 PM 193 Council Bluffs Transfer, IA 9:14 AM
6:20 PM (Ar) 196 Omaha, NE 9:00 AM (Dp)
7:00 PM (Dp) 196 Omaha, NE 8:25 AM (Ar)
7:55 PM (Ar) 251 Lincoln, NE 7:30 AM (Dp)
Notable photographer Jack Delano captured a World War II-era "Zephyr" trainset under Chicago Union Station's enormous covered platforms in January, 1943.
As mentioned above the Burlington Zephyr was renamed as new trainsets were purchased giving it the Pioneer Zephyr moniker (or known as the Zephyr 9900 by its original numbering). In total, eight more trainsets were purchased, #9001-#9008: #9001 and #9002 were referred to as the Morning Zephyr and Afternoon Zephyr (or the Twin City Zephyrs); #9003 as the Mark Twain Zephyr; #9004 and #9005 as additional Twin City Zephyrs; #9006 and #9007 as the Denver Zephyrs; and #9008 as the General Pershing Zephyr. Of course, there were other trains with the Zephyr name as well such as the California Zephyr, Nebraska Zephyr, and Kansas City Zephyr which were standard-diesel powered/passenger car trains. Today, the original is on display at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
Home › Streamliners › Zephyr 9900
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New Google Assistant on Pixel 4 will soon support English in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Singapore, and the UK (Update: Arriving)
Update 1: 2019/12/12 9:16pm UTC
Back on December 9, Google advised us that we'd be seeing the new Assistant come to those additional nations in the near future. As it turns out, we didn't
Google's Assistant newest iteration, which launched with the Pixel 4, has a few tricks up its sleeve, but accessing it has been restricted by some draconian requirements. You need to have a Pixel 4 with gesture navigation, no G Suite account on the same user profile, and everything has to be set to US English. That last limitation will soon be lifted with five new English variants joining in.
As was previously expected, Google is starting to relax the language requirement around the new Assistant. The company says that the digital helper will "soon" be available on the Pixel 4 in these five English variants: Australia, Canada, Ireland, Singapore, and UK. These come in addition to US English.
Keep in mind that you don't need to live in one of these countries to activate the new Assistant; you just need your phone and Assistant language to be set to a supported language.
Update 1: 2019/12/12 9:16pm UTC by Stephen Schenck
Back on December 9, Google advised us that we'd be seeing the new Assistant come to those additional nations in the near future. As it turns out, we didn't have very long to wait at all.
Beginning today, the new Assistant in English will start coming to users in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and Singapore.
End of Update
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Jan Moolman
Home / Jan Moolman
Women's Rights Programme co-manager
Internet rights
@endvaw
Jan Moolman has led the Women's Rights Programme’s (WRP's) work on online gender-based violence since 2009 when she joined APC as coordinator of a 12-country project, which was the first of its kind to explore the intersections of violence against women and technology focusing specifically on the global South. Jan has provided leadership to WRP’s impactful policy advocacy to secure recognition for online gender-based violence through engaging and influencing multiple rights-based policy processes, including with treaty bodies, special procedures and in relation to internet governance.
In another life, between 2002 and 2004, Jan was the editor of Agenda, an African peer-reviewed academic journal of feminism, which was established in 1987 as a volunteer project in South Africa and is currently published by UNISA Press in collaboration with Routledge. Jan has extensive experience in the women’s rights and feminist movements in South Africa and the region and is particularly interested in the intersections of gender, race and class. When not at APC, she spends her time chasing a toddler.
Purpose of position
Provide vision and strategic leadership for and overall management of APC's Women’s Rights Programme. Develop programme activities and projects to ensure that the programme remains financially sustainable, strategically relevant and that it effectively contributes to the achievement of APC's strategic priorities.
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A young adult shares a laugh with a priest in Panama City Jan. 23, 2019, at FIAT, the largest English-language World Youth Day event. Musical performances and testimonials were mixed with frank discussion about the clergy sexual abuse scandal. (CNS photo/Chaz Muth)
Bishops address abuse scandal with U.S. pilgrims at World Youth Day
Rhina Guidos
Feature, News, World News, World Youth Day Panama 2019
PANAMA CITY — As Pope Francis was arriving in Panama Jan. 23, bishops from the United States wasted no time addressing the sex abuse scandal back home during a popular event aimed at American and other English-speaking World Youth Day pilgrims.
“It’s not easy being Christian, it’s not easy being Catholic … especially today when things in the church are difficult,” said Bishop Edward J. Burns of Dallas, addressing the sex abuse scandal in a room of hundreds of U.S. young adults attending the FIAT Festival for U.S. pilgrims at Panama’s Figali Convention Center. The event was sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Knights of Columbus and FOCUS.
“How often do we hear our friends say to us: I’m done, I’m bowing out. I will have no more of this, ” Bishop Burns said. “My friends, I want you to tell your friends that you’d never separate yourself from Jesus because of Judas. You’d never do that!”
Many in the room applauded.
“Yes, you look at the church today,” he continued, “and there have been some who have betrayed us, some even in church leadership.”
But he told the pilgrims to “stay strong, stayed focused, stay steady.”
The message was well received by those in the room, including Kennedy Horter, 16, of Indiana.
“I don’t let people come between me and God,” said Horter, wrapped in a U.S. flag.
She said she was not going to judge priests and other good people in the church by the actions of men who likely were never priests “spiritually.”
Like other pilgrims, she did not seem to be bothered by the open conversation, which was mixed in with accounts by other young people who spoke of overcoming difficulties, of lives of prayer, and challenges in life. But the situation in the U.S. church seemed to weigh on the minds of many, and the bishops stressed that, in this situation and in other moments of difficulty, Christ must be the anchor.
Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, also addressed the scandal while speaking to the pilgrims; he spoke to them about choices. He said there’s one choice in life, most important above all others.
“There can be only one person who sits at the center of your life — and mine,” he said. “That person is Jesus, and anyone and anything that takes his place is not a choice worth making today. I ask you, don’t be afraid to choose Jesus. Don’t be afraid to choose light!”
Sister Lucia Richardson of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration said she was glad the bishops had addressed the “elephant in the room” and discussed “this ugly reality,” one that she hears concerns about from young Catholics who speak with her.
Bishop Caggiano said he was deeply sorry for the times the church has “failed you, and anyone in the church has failed you. I am deeply sorry,” he said.
“I ask you in this time of shadows and darkness to join with me and all others who wish to move forward and allow our church to be healed and transformed and purified,” he said.
But members of the church are facing choices, he said.
“It seems to me, in the time in which we live in the church, it is a time of spiritual twilight,” he said. “For there are shadows, there are sins in our midst.”
The sin and crime and abuse of young people has deeply destroyed many lives and broken trust with the leadership of the church, he said.
Brian Florin, 24, a seminarian at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, told Catholic News Service it was important to be open and to talk about the scandal, even at World Youth Day, because it’s a point of pain for those in the church in the U.S.
Bishop Caggiano said this is the time when many are considering choices, and he continually referred to the image of dark and light during the day.
“What do we want? The dawn or the dusk? Do we want the dawn where you and I seek holiness of life lived in ordinary ways and bring the light of Christ to whomever we meet? Or will we sit back and say ‘the darkness is here and I surrender to it,'” he said. “What is it that you or I will choose? I can say to you, as my family in Christ, I stand before you, with every ounce of energy and grace God has given me, and say that I will choose the dawn and I ask you, are you ready to choose the dawn?”
Bishop Burns reminded pilgrims that the church had lived with scandal from the beginning, including the betrayal of Jesus, but reminded them of Peter and Jesus.
“We’re going to survive this. Our Lord promised ‘on this rock I will build my church.’ Step up and continue to have the strength,” he said to great applause.
Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Catholic News Service is a leading agency for religious news. Its mission is to report fully, fairly and freely on the involvement of the church in the world today.
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hp-sliderLatest NewsWomen's Match Reports
100 Years of the Inter Service Rugby Championship Concludes with Service Womens Rugby Twickenham Stadium Debut
By Kimberley Fowke November 26, 2019 No Comments
In 2020 the Army Women and Royal Navy Women will run out from the West stand on to the hallowed Twickenham turf for the first time in history. Since the first Women’s Inter Services match in 2003, the goal of playing at Twickenham Stadium has been held by many of the pioneers of the Service Women’s game.
1920 was a very special year for Service rugby. With the end of the Great War the newly formed Royal Air Force Rugby Union joined with the Army and Royal Navy to compete in the first Inter Service Rugby Championship. Both the matches involving the Royal Air Force were played at The Queen’s Club, London, but the Army v Navy match (which had been played at the restricted capacity Queen’s Club since 1907) made its move to a new venue, one that would be hosting its first ever Service rugby match: Twickenham Stadium. Who knew then that it would later become known as the Home of England Rugby. The Men’s annual Army v Navy match has taken place at Twickenham Stadium every year since 1920, with the exception only of the World War II years.
Fast forward 100 years from that monumental move, and we see Twickenham Stadium playing host to the 2020 Army v Navy Match; a match that brings the curtain down on a centenary of Inter Service Rugby. In past years the Women’s Army v Navy match has been played at locations different to the Men’s matches; often at Kneller Hall (a pitch adjacent to Twickenham stadium) and last year at HMS Excellent in Portsmouth. But in 2020, 100 years since the Men’s match moved there, the Army Women and Royal Navy Women will also play at Twickenham Stadium, and just as with the Men’s match in 1920, it is the Army v Navy rivalry that will take centre stage at what is now a very different Twickenham Stadium.
The Army Women and Royal Navy Women will be realising something that is a dream for so many rugby players of all ages and abilities; the chance to walk out into the glorious Twickenham ground, with its exhilarating atmosphere and unparalleled rugby spirit. The two sides will be following in the footsteps of Maxine Edwards when she led her England side out to play the first Women’s International held at Twickenham Stadium, in 2003. Her comments before that first game remain true today and will no doubt be shared by many of the Army and Navy players: “Just as everyone in football always wanted to play at Wembley, so everyone in rugby wants to play at Twickenham. It is awesome to think we are playing there.”
Those thoughts are likely to be mirrored by Royal Navy player Susan Badger who was brought up with football, playing for England Colleges, before the switch to rugby. And yes, Twickenham has replaced Wembley as her field of dreams. “Every day in my Naval role I work with sailors who are recovering from injury, and I know that having a goal is essential to the success of that process. It is the same for me with rugby and for all of the Royal Navy squad. So many have worked so hard to grow the women’s game in the Royal Navy for over twenty years and now finally to have the opportunity to play at Twickenham is just fantastic.”
Susan’s thoughts are echoed by the Army’s (Ireland International) Sarah Mimnagh. “Playing international rugby is amazingly special, but to be able to represent my Service at Twickenham Stadium as well really is a unique and humbling opportunity. Wearing the Army red has always filled me with immense pride. It is going to be a great day.”
A great day indeed and for the Army Women, the goal will be to regain the Inter Service title (currently held by the Royal Air Force). For the Royal Navy Women they know that they asked some difficult questions of the Army team last year without quite getting the victory they wanted. Will the occasion lift their performance further still? Perhaps for both sides the encouraging words of Maxine Edwards, shared before the test against France 16 years ago, will hold true: “I’ll tell the girls to savour the occasion but, to remember the day, we have to win well.”
Army v Navy
Date: Saturday 2nd May 2020
Venue: Twickenham Stadium
Men KO: 2:00PM
Women KO: 4:30PM
Tickets on sale 13th January 2020.
One ticket provides access to both the Men’s & Women’s matches.
Adult: £35 category 1 | £30 category 2 | £25 category 3
Concessions: £20
Family packages from £50
www.armynavymatch.org.uk
The Army v Navy Match is sponsored by Babcock International Group, the UK’s leading engineering support services organisation.
Proceeds from the match go to the Army Rugby Union Trust, registered charity no. 1149105 and the Royal Navy Rugby Union, registered charity no. 1165153.
Images: Army Navy Match © Alligin Photography
Kimberley Fowke
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