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If you have unpredictable tastes, but only focus on one show at a time, it might be most cost efficient to just buy all your television a la carte. For the price of a year of cable, the average viewer can buy 26 seasons of TV. Assuming these are all 45 minute shows with 14 episodes, that’s almost 300 hours of content. If you can’t ever imagine yourself watching more than that, then this plan is for you. Don’t forget to grab a TV antenna for major live events like the Oscars or the Super Bowl, or if you just want the option of kicking back and watching prime time now and then.
Bundles that include television service are offered by cable and phone companies. Since fiber-optic is only available in limited areas, the phone companies usually also offer a bundle where the TV component is delivered by a partner satellite TV company. In any case, bundling TV with some combination of home phone and Internet can yield monthly savings. Click below to see and compare bundle offers.
Amazon has already taken steps toward this idea. Its customers can subscribe to different content providers through Amazon Video Channels, including traditional television providers like HBO and Showtime as well as streaming content providers like Britbox and IndiePix Unlimited, then view them all through Amazon Prime Video. Individual accounts and payments are still required, but the notion of one killer app or portal that allows access to everything is such an enticing idea that it’s difficult to imagine that companies aren’t already discussing the possibility. And Xfinity’s deals with Netflix and Amazon suggest that even guarded companies with a strong proprietary interest in their original content are willing to come on board.
(It’s worth noting that Sarah’s not really a television addict, but that she likes to have the TV on in the background while she’s doing busywork, of which she has quite a bit from her job. You can often find her in the late evenings with about 70% attention on some low-intensity work task and about 30% attention on something on the television. Personally, I prefer to listen to white noise when working, but to each their own.)
The major network channels are all broadcast in HD. And you'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that the quality of uncompressed HD video in an antenna feed is actually superior to what you've been getting with your cable box. Cable operators have to deliver hundreds of channels, plus broadband and phone service over a single connection to your home, so the TV signal is usually compressed to conserve bandwidth. Not so with your OTA feed. The difference is immediately noticeable. Outside of a Blu-ray movie, this is the best output I've ever seen on my TV. And did I mention the channels are free?
PlayStation Vue plans aren’t that much cheaper than traditional cable or satellite, so it’s probably not the best option if you‘re cutting the cord to save money. It does offer a 5-day free trial, so you can test it out (two days shorter than any other streaming service), but make sure to cancel by day five, or you‘ll be charged for the whole month.
If you’ve ever doubted the excellence of YouTube, perform this simple exercise. Pick a favorite band or musical act, type in its name followed by “live” or “in concert”. It doesn’t matter what era we’re talking about, you’re going to find something amazing to watch – and it won’t be a program that you’ll ever find offered by Comcast, Spectrum or any other cable TV or satellite company.
I hate to be a downer but I think I see some things coming that are a continuation of manipulation of the content consumers (us) get, with how we can view and how we will still have what we pay maximized over us. I think that the content providers are likely going to give us a complete on demand service so we won’t have to mess with a dvr system. But guess what, that then gives the providers full control over what exactly is provided. What I mean is they are going to make sure we cannot move to where we want timewise in a program easily and we certainly can only avoid some of the commercials if any of them. The content providers are going to make sure any deal they make requires this kind of thing and allows for no in house dvr systems. I have to watch some programming on the nbc sports site (on demand) and it is an eyeopener as to how awful and controlled that viewing experience is.
We mentioned before: YouTube TV is not YouTube Red. Red is more like an advanced, commercial-free version of regular ol' YouTube. The YouTube TV option costs more and has a lot of catching up to do to rival the other live TV streaming services. It's in limited cities, has limited channels, and is available on limited devices (Chromecast, Android, iOS, LG and Samsung TVs, Xbox One, and browsers on PCs). It doesn't even bundle in YouTube Red as part of the service—you'd have to spend another $10 a month on Red to keep ads out of your regular YouTube streaming. Premium channel add-ons include $11-a-month Showtime, $5-a-month Shudder, and $7-per-month Sundance. The big plus: unlimited storage in the cloud-based DVR option.
Cable TV was once the ultimate entertainment necessity. The over-the-air days of VHF/UHF television signals couldn't keep up with voracious viewers who needed more, more, more channels. Having a cable directly pumping all that content into your home became the norm, and the cable providers—which likely provide your high-speed broadband internet access as well—knew they had you on the hook.
Then take a look at that list you’ve been putting together. How is it looking? Chances are it may appear a little messy with many side notes and some networks scribbled out. If so, good. Maybe for the first time in your life, you’re taking a hard look at what you are spending on a channel by channel basis. That’s essentially the worst nightmare of cable TV operators.
There are plenty of cable service providers in the country and most of them offer attractive packages or plans to their customers at affordable prices. However, customers who are in search of a cable service provider commonly asks, “who is the best cable service provider in the country” and “how can I acquire a cheap cable TV deal from the providers”.
In broadcast television, cord-cutting refers to the pattern of viewers, referred to as cord-cutters, cancelling their subscriptions to multichannel subscription television services available over cable, dropping pay television channels or reducing the number of hours of subscription TV viewed in response to competition from rival media available over the Internet such as Amazon Prime, Sling TV, Crunchyroll, Hulu, Netflix and YouTube Premium. This Internet content is either free or significantly cheaper than the same content provided via cable.
I get asked about the best cable TV alternatives on a regular basis by readers so I wanted to write a post that outlines some of the cheaper alternatives to cable TV that still let you watch the shows you like. If you want to cut the cord and wonder what channels you can get without cable, this post shows the best cable replacement services to consider.
Not only do you have access to stream over 40,000 hit movies and TV shows, but you get free music, books, and unlimited photo storage as well. Your membership also includes free 2-day shipping from Amazon.com regardless of the order size. Some metropolitan areas offer 2-hour shipping. For more information, check out all the benefits you receive with Amazon Prime.
CableTV.com makes it easy to pick an Internet and TV service provider in Dallas. We have the scoop on Internet and TV provider options in Dallas, TX, including product reviews and prices for packages available in your area. With all that information readily available, you can quickly compare your options and determine which Internet and TV services fit your needs and your budget.
It could be true that choosing one of these options won’t get you all of shows you could get with cable. However, if you truly want to get rid of cable, knowing what some of the options are can help you choose the BEST one. Then you can make the decision of whether or not it is worth it to spend the additional money to get the extra one or two channels through cable OR sacrifice one or two shows to save a BUNCH of money. It just depends your priorities.
If you don't feel like paying exorbitant cable or satellite fees, but still crave the sweet pablum of basic cable programming, you can always try a cable-replacement service. These online streaming subscriptions deliver live (and on-demand) channels over the internet, and while they're not cheap, they're not as hellaciously expensive as traditional cable or satellite fees. If streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Video aren't enough for you, read on to find out how you can reintroduce live TV into your home without signing your life away to an onerous cable contract.
My plan is to use sling and alternate between Amazon Prime and Netflix for certain things. I don’t need them all year. Amazon Prime will be a month around xmas, and then 6 months later. Then 1 month for Netflix to catch things I want to watch there in between. No need for a full year. I may use sling. Depends on what all channels and shows I can find there. I have never had much luck cutting a deal with comcast though, and I will still be dependent on them for internet.
Parks Associates estimated that in 2008, about 0.9 million American households relied entirely on the Internet for television viewing; by 2017, this figure had increased to 22.2 million.[2] Leichtman Research Group found that six percent of Americans watched at least one show online each week in 2008, a figure that grew to eight percent in 2009. The number of Americans subscribing to cable service increased two percent in 2008, but the growth had slowed. Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. found that in the fourth quarter of 2008, the increase was seven-tenths of one percent, or 220,000 homes, the lowest ever recorded.[3] A Centris report showed that 8% of Americans expected to cancel their pay television service by the third quarter of 2009. About half of Americans tried to get a better deal from a provider other than the one they were subscribed to. Amazon Video, Hulu, iTunes, Netflix, Sling TV and YouTube, made cancelling service possible for those who would be unable to see their favorite programs over the air. Sports programming was a big reason for not cancelling pay television service, although online options existed for many events. Another problem was the inability to watch many programs live, or at least soon enough in the case of a television series.[4]
I am now paying a total of $184/month to Spectrum for my 3 in1 package! I am a 67 year old woman. I really need to lower my expenses for all three services. This is the best most detailed article I have found. But I still don’t know where to begin. I need is to know what steps to take. Is it possible to talk to you so you can walk me through. Thank you.
I am really excited that I found this site. I am beginning our quest to cut the cord. First, I plan to make the indoor DIY antenna that was demonstrated in the video. Next, I will be calling Verizon to strong-arm them into a serious reduction. We currently pay close to $180 a month for Fios service (cable TV, phone and internet) we do not use DVR service and only have 2 TVs (one with an HD box and one with a standard box. I wish to keep only the phone and internet service. We have an Amazon Fire Stick and are looking to get the most out of it. Wish me luck… momma needs a new pair of shoes!!!
Sony PS4 (starting at $299.99) / Microsoft XBox ($299 to $499): One of the biggest unexpected players in this space has been the major video game console companies. The Sony PS4 and Xbox One X are state-of-the-art in terms of their streaming capabilities, and they’re even creating their own services that attempt to serve the same functions as traditional cable TV. (More on that later.) The Xbox One S, Microsoft’s previous model, was still for sale as of August 2018, at $200 less than the One X. Click here to compare the two on the Xbox website.
DIRECTV is the go to satellite TV provider for sports fanatics. Get exclusive access to every live game every Sunday with NFL Sunday Ticket. Watch your favorite teams on your TV or stream the games on your laptop, phone, tablet, or gaming console. NFL Sunday Ticket also comes with the DIRECTV Fantasy Zone Channel, so you can get all the stats you need on your fantasy team. You'll also have access to Player Tracker, which lets you keep tabs on the stats of your 20 favorite players. Have too many live games going on at the same time? The DIRECTV Red Zone Channel lets you watch multiple games at once, on the same screen. You'll never miss a touchdown again.
With the exception of Sling TV and HBO Now, the latter of which is available for $15 per month, prices for these services start at under $10 apiece. It’s easy to mix-and-match providers as none of these companies require contracts. You can even share login info with a friend down the block or sibling on the other side of the country, without worrying about anyone getting on your case.
The newest leg of CBS’s digital effort is a free sports streaming service called CBS Sports HQ. There is no games or any other sporting events. CBS Sports aims to be a destination for game highlights and talk about your favorite teams. It will be interesting to see where CBS takes this platform in the months ahead. CBS Sports HQ is available on the web or within the CBSN app.
Offer(s) valid with 12 month Promotional Discount. Local TV regularly $25.95/month.Wave digital equipment required on every connected TV. $2.72/month Interactive Equipment Fee on first digital or HD receiver. STARZ and STARZ ENCORE regularly $12/month each or $17/month for both. MOVIEPLEX regularly $5/month. After 12 months, Roku regularly $5/month. $100 Visa gift cardand Free Installation offer good with online order of High Speed 100 and up at 12-months, with offer code “CYBER100”. Customers must be in good standing for 90 days in order to be eligible for the Visa gift card. After 90 days, customers will receive an email with instruction on how to redeem the gift card online. Free Installation, regularly $60, is good for online orders with offer code “CYBER18”, and includes set-up for up to 2 TVs on existing outlets. Additional outlet and special wiring fees may apply. Serviceable areas only. Prices subject to change. Not valid with other offers. Certain restrictions and additional fees may apply. Call for complete details. WASHINGTON RESIDENTS: The base rates listed are subject to a 2% Regulatory Recovery Fee, which added together determines the total price.
The first thing you may want to consider is an HD antenna. This doesn't provide a way to watch streaming videos, but if you want to watch live TV, it's the cheapest and simplest solution. You may remember having rabbit ears on your hand-me-down TV as a kid — an HD antenna is basically the modern-day version of that. You hook the device into your TV, put it somewhere near a window and watch as the free channels roll in.
Happily, the NFL has remained committed to airing local market and national games on free broadcast TV networks, so your TV antenna is going to provide ample football coverage! You'll get Sunday games, Sunday Night Football and Thursday Night Football. The only thing missing is Monday Night Football, which is only available on ESPN. There's now a great solution for cord cutters to get ESPN at a low cost and we'll explain more in the Streaming Services section below.
Bonuses Unlimited internet data, HD channels, access to AT&T Wi-Fi network, 3 months of free premium channels Free Contour HD receiver, free premium channel of your choice for 1 yr 24/7 customer support team, comes with HD DVR service to record up to 2,000 hours High internet speeds, unlimited internet data, free HD, free Spectrum TV App for multiple device viewing Optional DVR and premium channels, can customize cable package to your family Highest internet speeds for the lowest monthly price
Many cord cutters opt for online streaming services to save money on TV. But in reality, those cord cutters often end up spending more money than they would for a cable TV package. To get all of your favorite shows and networks, you would probably need to get subscriptions from multiple streaming services. Add up the combined costs of Hulu, Netflix, and Sling TV, and you're at about $40. For the same price, you could get a DIRECTV package with over 155 channels and thousands of on demand titles to access on the go. Why limit yourself to just a few networks and deal with the hassle of paying for multiple streaming services?
Your Local Library: Your local library will most likely have a decent selection of DVD movies that you can check out for a week or more. In fact, many libraries will actually buy copies of new releases that you can reserve. My local library tends to be a bit picked over, but if you get on a waiting list you can usually find movies or TV shows you’d enjoy watching.
Adam… there are countless options and opinions out there on what’s “best” but it all boils down to what the readers want and need. The wife and I cut cable completely about 6-7 years ago. We have internet only for $50/mo. We now have a $4 a month (taxes only) VOIP phone (Ooma) for home phone, cut our cell phones down to bare minimum $5/mo. plans and rolled the savings to an amazing 55″ OLED SmarTV television on an open box deal. Between the apps on that, the computer attached by HDMI, the over the air antenna and free apps and web sites, we don’t need any of the devices or subscriptions to have it all… and then some. There’s no need for Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Sling, Philo, Fire Stick or anything. Our motto is keep it simple. We get library access online 24/7 and instead of asking “what’s on TV tonight?” the question is “what do you WANT on TV tonight?” … $54/month total… we’re good!
I ‘Cut the Cord’ a few months ago on National Cord Cutting Day (it was coincidence). YouTube TV through Chromecast for my older TV’s. Called and threatened to cancel the internet and phone from Comcast until I got hte Retention Specialist. Now I got the cheapest and fastest internet and phone and I’m still saving just over $100 a month. Sad thing is my wife already figured out how to spend those savings and then some…
Netflix ($7.99/mo., $10.99/mo., $13.99/mo.): What HBO has been to premium cable, Netflix has been to subscription streaming services, offering buzzed-about programming that anyone who wants to be “in the know” regarding contemporary television needs to see. It got a head-start on its competitors by producing must-see original content, and it continues to expand its library every month with new series and movies that generate a lot of buzz. (Think “Orange Is the New Black,” “Stranger Things,” “BoJack Horseman” or “Jessica Jones”) The service has been licensing fewer older TV shows and films in recent years, but it still offers a lot of high-quality product from those realms, including great British television, recent CW and Fox series and a surprisingly healthy amount of contemporary foreign cinema.
I put a couple of units to the test and found that the new breed of antennas really work as advertised. In an environment like New York City with numerous obstacles to transmission towers, a major selling point of cable TV in the analog era was that it was the only reliable way to get a clear signal from the free network channels. But today, on a lower floor of my Brooklyn brownstone, I can get 60 OTA channels with a small tabletop antenna like the $50 Mohu Curve, which has a 30-mile antenna range. It did take a bit of trial and error to find the spot in the room with the strongest signal for most stations, but I got the best results by placing it near a window.
Some providers have both TV and internet available to bundle. Other providers sell TV only or internet only. Companies that offer only one service often partner with TV-only or internet-only counterparts to provide a complete service. For example, satellite TV can be paired with DSL or fiber internet to save you time and money. Using our handy comparison tool, you can look at all TV-only, internet-only, and TV-and-internet options available in your area.
Let’s get some of bad news out of the way. If your goal in cord-cutting is to save money — but you’d prefer not to lose access to anything you’re currently watching via your cable or satellite subscription — then you should be aware that the money you save on one bill may be immediately redistributed to another. Additionally, unless you want your “Game of Thrones” episodes to look blurry and choppy, you’ll want to make sure you have the proper internet package.
Television manufacturers have been moving toward “smart TVs” that connect to the internet and provide access to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and the like. The selection of apps on these sets vary depending on licensing agreements made between the manufacturers and the O.T.T. services. (O.T.T. is short for “over the top,” a term applied to any streaming media provider to which a consumer can subscribe directly.) Also, not all of them will let you plug in and get a seamless, cable-like TV experience without any other hardware. The technology and interfaces are certain to improve in the years ahead, but for now, for the best results, you’re better off just investing in a set-top box.
The comments about Spectrum DVRs are not accurate based on our experience. We have Spectrum (previously Time Warner) and our DVR allows us to record 4 channels simultaneously (not 2) while watching a fifth channel. Also, our DVR can store substantially more than 21 hours of HD content as the review claims. I’m only guessing, but I’m sure we are able to store at least 100 hours of content. Overall, we’ve been satisfied with the Gold package. There are lots of channels including premium channels (HBO, Showtime, NFL Network, etc.) and there are decent mobile viewing capabilities. The Spectrum app allows you to watch all content and manage DVR settings when you’re connected to your home Wi-Fi. Substantially fewer channels are available on the Spectrum app when accessed via the internet; however, this is shortfall can largely be made up by downloading the apps for individual channels such as HBO Go, Show Anytime, Max Go, etc. On the negative side, Spectrum is expensive and the internet speeds never measure up to what they advertise. Instead of getting 100Mbps we get about 50 down/35 up. In fairness, most people I talk to all seem to have the same complaint about their service provider. And, of course, the customer service generally stinks.
All services may not be available in all areas. Subject to change without notice. Some restrictions may apply. Installation fees may apply. Offers valid for new residential customers only. Promotional rates apply for 12 months. After 12 months, standard local rates will apply. All prices exclude applicable taxes, fees and one time charges. See other applicable terms and conditions below. To receive all services, Digital TV, remote and lease of a Digital set-top box required. Some services are not available to CableCARD customers. Not all equipment supports all services. HD set-top box and HDTV set required for HD service. All services may not be available in all areas. Subject to change without notice. Some restrictions may apply. Installation fees may apply. Offers valid for new residential customers only. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners TM and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Time Warner Cable and the Time Warner Cable logo are trademarks of Time Warner Inc. Used under license. ©2014 Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC. All rights reserved.
Here at Providers By Zip, we’re fully aware that analyzing and comparing television and internet service providers can be a lengthy, complex process. With so many different television and internet providers per zip code, it can be an incredibly tough choice to make. That’s why we’ve made it our mission to make the decision easier for you and eliminate any unnecessary hassle. Your days are busy enough without the additional stress of having to conduct research into numerous different service providers. Our helpful service is now known to be one of the leading internet and television comparison tools.
We haven’t mentioned customer service with other cable TV providers, but we think we should emphasize that Xfinity customer service is known for being especially terrible. We understand if you’re not surprised—Xfinity has earned its reputation. However, many of us still use Xfinity because it’s the best of what’s available (most people have access to only one or two cable TV providers in their area).
Cable TV is fairly easy to install, but it can also be time-consuming. Cable companies will send someone to install the system of cables and cable boxes for you. However, these appointments can eat up a lot of time and cost extra. Cable companies generally don’t give a specific price quote for their installation services, but installation service can often run as high as $200 depending on the provider.
No cable service truly offers a la carte cable TV. However, through VUDU, iTunes and Amazon (even if you’re not a Prime Instant Video subscriber) you can buy episodes of entire seasons of shows a la carte. This includes shows currently airing. At first, that might seem expensive, but shows are $1.99 an episode and you can get a discount on the season pass. I saved a ton of cash this way when my family cut the cord. My family purchases only 3-4 season passes a year, keeping it under $10 a month.
However, customers who do not have a cable TV service at their home will also be able to subscribe to a cable internet service, as most cable TV providers offer standalone internet service to customers. However, if you are planning to bundle either two or three of your services, get in touch with your preferred cable TV provider, as they will also be able to help you with that. Below are a few factors that you need to consider before subscribing to a certain cable internet service provider.
Many rely on their cable provider for home phone service. Like most of their services, it can be replaced with a much cheaper internet based service. For those who need a little more than a cell phone after they ditch their cable TV subscription, I recommend PhonePower (formerly BroadVoice.) They are an affordable and reliable phone service provider that uses your existing internet connection.
The first change is time. TV can suck you in and not let you go. It’s easy to justify killing 15 or 20 minutes when you have a few minutes of down time. But sometimes that 15 or 20 minutes can turn into an hour or two. We are now more intentional with what we watch and when we watch it. Channel surfing is a thing of the past. I find TV much more enjoyable when I plan my viewing time – that way I don’t feel guilty or feel like I could be doing something more productive.
Once tuners that could receive select mid-band and super-band channels began to be incorporated into standard television sets, broadcasters were forced to either install scrambling circuitry or move these signals further out of the range of reception for early cable-ready TVs and VCRs. However, once all 181 allocated cable channels[which?] had been incorporated, premium broadcasters were left with no choice but to scramble.
Bear in mind that, if you’re on the ball, there’s also plenty you can watch for free — with no need to subscribe to anything. This may change in the future as major media companies put more of their products behind a paywall, but for now, some major channels (like ABC, Fox, the CW and PBS) make select episodes of their shows available online for nothing, for a limited time after their original broadcasts. You can watch them through a web browser or through an app on your set-top box.
Overall, Amazon is still playing catch-up when it comes to Netflix and other streaming services just because they don’t have as much content. However, at technically $8.25 / month it is a bit cheaper than your typical $8.99 or $9.99 package, and you get free, 2-day shipping as a perk. If you shop online a lot, that could end up swinging your choice.
Cable-replacement streaming services work exactly the same as having cable — live channels presented in real time — except they come streaming over the Internet rather than via an analog wire. The upside is that you don't have to give up the channels that you love. Sling TV carries multiple ESPN stations, plus Cartoon Network, TBS, Bloomberg, CNN, History and dozens of others. PlayStation Vue offers SyFy, Spike, USA, VH1, Fox News, Nickelodeon and more. You can also record programs to watch later on PS Vue, just like you would with a cable DVR box.
One of the advantages of unplugging from the physical cable sticking out of a socket in your home is that you’re free to enjoy the entertainment you’re paying for on any screen you happen to have handy, be it a laptop, tablet or mobile phone. Many streaming services, like Netflix and Hulu, keep track of what you’re watching and will let you pause a show or movie on one device, then pick it up later on another device.
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Amazons incredible plant-filled biospheres open in Seattle
Filed under Eco, Green, Recycle
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Amazon has finally opened its stunning new downtown Seattle office and it’s unlike any workspace we’ve seen before. Amazon Spheres, which celebrated its grand opening yesterday, is part greenhouse and part office housed within three glass geodesic domes. Designed by NBBJ , the $4 billion “mini-rainforest” campus will house over 800 Amazon employees in addition to more than 40,000 plants in an ecosystem built to emulate a verdant cloud forest. Located at the corner of Lenora Street and 6th Avenue, Amazon’s giant geodesic domes are made with a steel frame holding 2,643 laminated glass panels made up of four-layered low-iron glass to minimize heat loss. The largest of the three domes measures 90 feet tall and 130 feet in diameter with five floors (and a four-story-tall living plant wall that grows 200 plant species). Retail space occupies the ground floor and part of the first floor. Over 400 species of plants from more than 30 countries are represented in the domes and are cared for by a full-time horticulturalist. Nearly all of the plants were grown in a suburban greenhouse for the Spheres project. The flora centerpiece is a 55-foot-tall Ficus tree (nicknamed Rubi) that weighs almost 36,000 pounds and was craned into the space through the roof. The plantings are mostly organized in either the Old World garden that features African and Asian plants, or in the New World garden with a focus on the Americas. An architectural highlight is undoubtedly the “bird’s nest,” a timber treehouse suspended 30 feet in the air that serves as an intimate meeting space. Related: Amazon’s biospheres spring to life with first planting in Seattle The interior temperature will be stabilized at 69 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit with 60 percent humidity, and the climate will vary throughout the space. Recycled heat from the nearby data center is used to heat the Spheres. The project is on track for LEED Gold certification. The public is welcome to take a free tour of the facilities but must first book with Spheres Discovery at Understory . + NBBJ Via Bloomberg Renderings via NBBJ, photos via Amazon
Tags: amazon, amazon spheres, architecture, climate, Eco, garden, nbbj, space
Ruins of Swedens oldest church put on a new A-frame shelter
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Medieval history meets modern architecture at Kata Farm, a ninth-century church that now serves as a shelter and exhibition hall in Varnhem, Sweden. Designed by Stockholm-based AIX Arkitekter AB , a new 300-square-meter timber A-frame structure sits atop the remains of Sweden’s oldest Christian church that’s also thought to be the country’s oldest building. Glue-laminated timber was used as the primary material for the new structure. Located on the grounds of Varnhem Abbey, Kata Farm was named after the woman who ruled the farm and allowed the church to be built. The new timber structure, which was built to protect the farm foundations from the elements, is raised on a series of pillars to minimize site impact . An elevated walkway with a glazed railing and signage wraps around the exposed stone ruins and is punctuated by glass panels allowing for top-down views of the burial sites, including Kata’s tomb that dates back to the mid-1000s. Related: Stunning chapel in Japan brings a fractal forest indoors The glue-laminated timber trusses are exposed and timber left unpainted for a minimalist look to complement the excavated grounds. In contrast to the light-colored interior, darker tar-treated pine planks clad the sloped exterior. The building can be accessed via a staircase that leads up to an outdoor deck or a glazed elevator on the opposite side of the building. + AIX Arkitekter AB Via ArchDaily Images © Antonius van Arkel
Tags: a-frame, aik arkitekter ab, amazon, amazon spheres, garden, kata farm, nbbj, ruins, space, sweden, tar treated pine, varnhem, varnhem-abbey
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By Dorothy Guerrero in March | April 2013, Scholarships, TXEX on March 1, 2013 at 9:00 am | No Comments
How the Texas Exes became a scholarship powerhouse.
The word “ex” can be profoundly misleading. For Texas Exes members, The University of Texas is not a bygone experience—it’s a living, breathing commitment. A great university like UT faces different challenges in different times, and throughout its history the Association has rallied members to do for the University what it could not do for itself. The scholarship program grew out of a need to reach the brightest students who may have otherwise been left behind.
As the Texas Exes celebrates the second class of the game-changing Forty Acres Scholars Program, it’s worth taking a look back at how the Association’s giving program came to be. The Texas Exes scholarship program goes back more than 114 years. In the beginning, the need was straightforward: how to make it possible for every student who wanted a university education to receive one? Early members of the Texas Exes endeavored to create a large student-loan fund for that purpose.
Through the years, members have continued to recognize the pivotal role the University has played in their own lives by creating scholarships to help students from all over the world experience the same first-class education. The Association’s unique and ever-evolving scholarship program awards about $2 million a year to almost 700 students.
An early scholarship founded in 1966 was called the “Return of the Favor.” The Association matched various scholarships given by clubs, then asked recipients to repay them after graduation when they could afford to.
Texas Exes chapters around the country became fundraising machines. Through events— like student-faculty mixers, dinners, auctions, lectures, and chili cook-offs—the chapters have joined forces to raise money for their hometown students. In 1988, 70 participating chapters gave scholarships to 185 students. In the 2012-13 academic year, chapters awarded 336 students with $449,095.
‘Yes’ is the response that scholars will often hear, ‘Yes, try it. Yes, I’ll connect you. Yes, come see me. Yes, we’ll recommend you. [The Forty Acres Scholars Program] is student services on steroids.”
Chris Hardesty, BBA ’08, vice president of scholarships for the Texas Exes Dallas Chapter, says that over the past 25 years, the chapter has given $1 million to more than 400 students in the Dallas area. “Our scholarship committee is trying to take it to the next level,” Hardesty says. “People are really starting to understand the impact they have on these students’ lives.”
A major turning point for the scholarship program came in 1996. That year, the U.S. Fifth Circuit ruled in Hopwood v. Texas that an admissions policy at The University of Texas School of Law that factored in race was illegal. As a result, UT was no longer allowed to use affirmative action in admissions.
Larry Temple, BBA ’57, LLB ’59, Life Member, Texas Exes President from 1997-98, asked alumni to step in, and the Association in turn asked key private donors to help do what the University could not: target minorities. Among the donors were Joe, BA ’51, LLB ’58, and Teresa Lozano Long, BS ’48, MEd ’51, EdD ’65, Life Members, Austin philanthropists who have given millions to the development of education, arts, and culture throughout Texas.
In response to the Hopwood verdict, the first Texas Leader Scholarships were awarded in 1998 to 134 recipients for a total of $837,125. In the years since, Hispanic and African-American UT students have received 1,520 Texas Leader Scholarships totaling more than $10.7 million.
“The students that I’ve been particularly impressed by,” Joe Long observes, “are from very small communities. The fact that they have been able to come to the University is outstanding. Even though they come from small schools, they do very well.”
Teresa Lozano Long, formerly a health and physical-education teacher in Alice, Texas, says, “Working with minority students and knowing that they had no hope of ever dreaming of going to college really has created an interest to help students.”
In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court abrogated Hopwood with its decision in Grutter v. Bollinger. Since then, UT has reintroduced a new admissions policy that considers race as part of a holistic review. The battle over affirmative action continues with Fisher v. The University of Texas, currently before the Supreme Court.
In many ways, the Forty Acres Scholars Program is the culmination of the tireless work of the Association. UT’s first full-ride, merit-based scholarship focuses on connecting the University’s most talented students with distinguished faculty and alumni. The program’s emphasis on community and stewardship was passed on from its predecessor, the Texas Excellence Awards for Scholarship and Leadership, first endowed in 1982 by Lowell Lebermann and Mike Myers. They had a vision of a program that would appeal to elite Texas high school students.
Generous alumni like the Longs and chapters like Dallas have endowed Forty Acres Scholarships. Having played a huge role in the scholarship program’s history, alumni see the enormous potential in this innovative scholarship.
Ann Howard, BA ’85, MPA ’88, JD ’88, Life Member, who has been involved in creating the program’s content, says that with this scholarship, “yes” is the response that scholars will most often hear. “‘Yes, try it. Yes, I’ll connect you. Yes, come see me. Yes, we’ll recommend you.’ It’s student services on steroids, with a focus on engaging the experiences of alumni with the curiosity of scholars.”
Students and donors ultimately get the same thing from the Texas Exes scholarship program: flexibility. Many funds are University-wide—the money can be applied to any college or program at UT. Donor and scholars are able to focus on their unique needs and goals, while benefitting from a full-service program that nurtures the donor-scholar relationship before and after a student’s time on the Forty Acres.
The Texas Exes has been working toward the ideal scholarship from the very beginning—one that lives up to the promise of the University and cultivates future leaders and guardians of higher education. The combined power of matching, named, and chapter scholarships, and the Forty Acres Scholars Program is making generations of dreams come true.
Photo by Brett Bowlin.
Tags: Chris Hardesty, Fisher v. The University of Texas, forty acres scholars program, Joe Long, Teresa Lozano Long
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IOC Creates Refugee Olympic Team Tokyo 2020
There will be a refugee olympic team at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. The decision was taken today by the membership of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the 133rd IOC Session in Buenos Aires.
The initiative is a continuation of the IOC's commitment to play its part in addressing the global refugee crisis and another opportunity to continue to convey the message of solidarity and hope to millions of refugee and internally displaced athletes around the world.
The IOC Session has mandated Olympic Solidarity to establish the conditions for participation and define the identification and selection process of the team. These elements will be carried out in close collaboration with the National Olympic Committees, the International Sport Federations, the Organising Committee Tokyo 2020 and the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.
The announcement of the Refugee Olympic Team Tokyo 2020 members will be made in 2020.
IOC President Thomas Bach said:
“The IOC Session has once again endorsed this initiative. In an ideal world, we would not need to have a Refugee Team at the Olympic Games. But, unfortunately, the reasons why we first created a Refugee Olympic Team before the Olympic Games Rio 2016 continue to persist. We will do our utmost to welcome refugee athletes and give them a home and a flag in the Olympic Village in Tokyo with all the Olympic athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees. This is the continuation of an exciting, human and Olympic journey, and a reminder to refugees that they are not forgotten.”
UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi commended the decision:
“In 2016, the Rio refugee team captured the imagination of people around the world and showed the human side of the global refugee crisis through sport. I’m delighted that this tradition is to continue in Tokyo. Giving these exceptional young people the opportunity to compete at the very highest levels is admirable.”
Back in 2015, the first-ever Refugee Olympic Team was formed by the IOC. Ten athletes were chosen to represent people who are too often forgotten. It was a historic moment in Brazil when a team consisting of refugees participated for the first time ever in the Olympic Games at Rio 2016. As they marched in the Opening Ceremony, two swimmers, two judokas, a marathon runner and five middle-distance runners who originally hailed from Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo became instant role models for the 68.5 million or so refugees and internally displaced people, and true global ambassadors for the values of Olympism.
Since the Olympic Games, the IOC has continued to support these 10 Refugee Olympians, as well as a number of other refugee athletes across five continents via Olympic Solidarity’s Refugee Athlete Support Programme. Through scholarships, which come in the form of monthly training grants and fixed competition subsidies, Olympic Solidarity and their host National Olympic Committees help these refugee athletes to prepare for and participate in national and international competitions. UNHCR, through its long term collaboration with the IOC, plays a crucial role in all stages of selection, approval and follow up of the athletes.
Furthermore, in September 2017, the IOC launched the Olympic Refuge Foundation to support more broadly the protection and empowerment of vulnerable displaced people through sport and through the creation of safe spaces; again, partnering with UNHCR and local implementation partners in the field.
For the last 20 years, and with the collaboration of UNHCR, the IOC has been providing relief to refugees and internally displaced people by using the power of sport to promote youth development, education, social integration and health. These actions have brought the joy of sport and the related psychological healing to refugee populations in many camps and settlements around the world.
As a service to our readers, Around the Rings will provide verbatim texts of selected press releases issued by Olympic-related organizations, federations, businesses and sponsors.
These press releases appear as sent to Around the Rings and are not edited for spelling, grammar or punctuation.
25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com, for subscribers only
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Day of Remembrance for Raud the Strong
This month, we focus on a hero of the folk by the name of Raud the Strong. To start out to tell his story and why he is important to the folk, we need look no further than the first virtue: Courage. These days are trying times with many outside pressures- men and women of courage such as Raud the Strong are needed now more than ever. Whether this be by our fighting men on the fore front of danger, or our fellow folk making everything work in our communities and families.
His deeds come to us in the reading of the Heimskringla (The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway) by Snorri Sturlason. He is described to us as a man astute in his dedication to Odin and Thor, whom was also a well-known practitioner of the art of Seiðr. Hailing from Godey in the Salten Fjord of Norway, he quickly became a target of King Olaf Trygvason during his reign as King Olaf had recently acquired control of Norway from Jarl Haakon. With his new-found power in Norway, King Olaf set out to convert and baptize by the sword whomever he could to consolidate control over the region.
Hearing of King Olaf’s plans, Raud quickly assembled a force of men on ship and foot to confront King Olaf whom was coming from the south in Halogaland, which he had previously proselytized. A good friend Thorer Hjort joined Raud’s host adding another ship and many more men. When the two forces met, a fierce sea battle ensued. Raud’s ship was renowned as a large ship, with a gilded head formed like a dragon. He sailed the ship with extreme skill which was attributed to his use of Seiðr and being a powerful Wizard. He and Thorer were forced to retreat however, with Thorer being killed. Raud was able to escape that day, but he stood up to King Olaf and confronted him on his own terms.
King Olaf continued onward to continue to search for Raud. Sailing into the Salten Fjyord where Raud was said to be, he encountered a terrible storm which delayed him for a week, of Thor’s doing no doubt. He then encountered a Bishop by the name of Sigurd, which gave him counsel and advised him to continue baptizing and of Raud’s whereabouts.
Coming to Godey where Raud’s home was, King Olaf and his men disembarked their ships and made for the home. Immediately upon entering Raud’s property and home everyone staying there, including Raud were bound and arrested. Some men and servants were killed by Olaf’s men, and some were not. Raud was spared and brought before King Olaf. King Olaf demanded that Raud renounce the Gods and be baptized- Raud would have none of this. Standing true to his faith and the Gods, Raud exclaimed against the Christ and made a mockery of the false God by saying he would never believe in Christ. Naturally, King Olaf did not take a liking to Raud’s proud defiance.
King Olaf ordered that Raud was to die by the most terrible means. He was bound on a beam of wood, and a pin of wood affixed in his mouth to keep it open. There are different versions of how Raud was put to death for his bravery resisting conversion, but the most popular was that an adder was fashioned to be put down his throat. It is said that the adder would not go into his mouth- and that a drinking horn was placed, and the adder forced down the horn with a hot piece of iron. Raud died from the adder chewing through his side after being forced down his throat. King Olaf took Raud’s property, baptized his men whom were willing, and killed the rest. For this martyrdom we know Raud the Strong as a hero to our folk.
This is a very important story telling the importance of standing true and strong to your convictions, values, beliefs and ultimately our faith in the eye of adversity. You will encounter many challenges throughout life where your values are tested- will we stand the ground as Raud did in direct opposition of the Tyrants in life such as Olaf? Life presents us with these challenges day by day. Live up to the example set forth by Raud the Strong and see what richness the power of conviction can add to your life. Let us all give remembrance to the courage in this example! The Gods expect no less of us, and the character of our folk deserves no less either!
Hail Raud the Strong!
Rocco Urman, Three Rivers Kindred
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Sammy Fain
Big Circus, The (1959) July 23 (ET) - REMINDER
Swing Fever (1943) August 06 (ET) - REMINDER
Two Girls and a Sailor (1944) August 06 (ET) - REMINDER
Two Sisters From Boston (1946) August 28 (ET) - REMINDER
With a Song in My Heart (1952) August 30 (ET) - REMINDER
FOR Sammy Fain YOU CAN
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Also Known As: Samuel Feinberg, Samuel Fain Died: December 6, 1989
Born: June 17, 1902 Cause of Death: heart attack
Birth Place: New York City, New York, USA Profession: composer, pianist, songwriter, radio performer
Academy Award winner Sammy Fain built himself an incredible career as a musician. In 1928, he appeared in vaudeville with Artie Dunn. Fain began his entertainment career with his music featured in films like the musical "Footlight Parade" (1933) with James Cagney, "Goin' to Town" (1935) and the Kathryn Grayson musical "Two Sisters From Boston" (1946). His music also appeared in "Peter Pan" (1953) and the Danny Thomas drama "The Jazz Singer" (1953). In addition to his music, Fain appeared in "Dames" (1934) with Joan Blondell. Fain was nominated for a Music (Song) Academy Award for "April Love" in 1957 as well as for a Music (Song) Academy Award for "A Certain Smile" in 1958. Fain won a Music (Song) Academy Award for "Calamity Jane" in 1953 as well as a Music (Song) Academy Award for "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing" in 1955. In the seventies, Fain's music continued to appear on the silver screen, including in films like the Alejandro Rey drama "The Stepmother" (1972), the action picture "The Teacher" (1974) with Angel Tompkins and the thriller "The Parallax View" (1974) with Warren Beatty. His work was also in "The Specialist" (1975). Fain won an Academy Award for "The Stepmother" in 1972...
Academy Award winner Sammy Fain built himself an incredible career as a musician. In 1928, he appeared in vaudeville with Artie Dunn. Fain began his entertainment career with his music featured in films like the musical "Footlight Parade" (1933) with James Cagney, "Goin' to Town" (1935) and the Kathryn Grayson musical "Two Sisters From Boston" (1946). His music also appeared in "Peter Pan" (1953) and the Danny Thomas drama "The Jazz Singer" (1953). In addition to his music, Fain appeared in "Dames" (1934) with Joan Blondell. Fain was nominated for a Music (Song) Academy Award for "April Love" in 1957 as well as for a Music (Song) Academy Award for "A Certain Smile" in 1958. Fain won a Music (Song) Academy Award for "Calamity Jane" in 1953 as well as a Music (Song) Academy Award for "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing" in 1955. In the seventies, Fain's music continued to appear on the silver screen, including in films like the Alejandro Rey drama "The Stepmother" (1972), the action picture "The Teacher" (1974) with Angel Tompkins and the thriller "The Parallax View" (1974) with Warren Beatty. His work was also in "The Specialist" (1975). Fain won an Academy Award for "The Stepmother" in 1972 Fain's music was most recently featured in the Angelina Jolie blockbuster family adventure "Maleficent" (2014). Fain passed away in December 1989 at the age of 87.
Harold Teen (1934) Piano player
Dames (1934) Songwriter, Buttercup Balmer
Music Makers: An ASCAP Celebration of American Music at Wolf Trap, The (1987)
Johnny Carson Presents the Sun City Scandals '72 (1972)
Hollywood Newsreel (1934)
Appeared in vaudeville with Artie Dunn
First contribution to feature score, "Young Man of Manhattan"
Broadway debut as composer, "Everybody's Welcome"
Feature acting debut, "Buttercup"
Sally Fox. Married in 1941; divorced in 1949.
Frank Fain.
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Following Multi-State Tour, Ohio Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan Mulls 2020 Run
April 2, 2019 April 1, 2019 Andrew Shirley
Saturday evening, Ohio Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan made one of his last appearances in a multi-state blitz tour of early presidential primary states. When Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown decided not to run last month, most Ohioans thought that would be it for Ohio politicians entering the 2020 race. Yet Rep. Ryan, despite not announcing his candidacy or forming an exploratory committee, seems to be making all the moves one would expect from a 2020 candidate.
The nine-term representative from Ohio’s 13th district (formerly 17th), has been prominently featured at several Iowa events. Saturday, he appeared at the Heartland Forum. The event was organized and sponsored by the Huffington Post, several Iowa state papers, and Open Markets Action. Ryan was joined by declared and potential candidates; “former U.S. HUD Secretary Julián Castro, Rep. John Delaney, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Rep. Tim Ryan, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.”
While he has found positive support at this and most of his campaign events, some of his recent comments seem to clash with the direction of the Democratic party in 2020. At an event in New Hampshire, the potential 2020 candidates said to Fox News:
I think we’ve got to be very careful. We come off sometimes as hostile to business… we’ve got to come together. And that includes being engaged with the business community. You can be hostile to greed, you can be hostile to income inequality, you can be for raising raises … but you can’t be hostile to businesses because 98 percent of businesses are small business people. We can’t green the economy without the power of the free-market system.
While the majority of the 2020 democratic candidates have attempted to distance themselves from the “socialist” handle, these comments may bristle the more vocal elements of the democratic coalition that wish to see their party unequivocally embrace socialism.
In interviews and meetings, of Rep. Ryan has expressed what he sees as his key political advantage: the ability to win over the President Trump voters who left the Democratic party in the 2016 election. In a local interview, Jeremy Dumkrieger, the Woodbury County Democratic Party Chair specifically stated of Rep. Ryan:
I think being from Ohio and someone who can win and trump districts especially, he knows how to relate to folks who are working those industries who are just devastated by the tariffs situation and he knows how to win and fight for those people.
This strategy is not far off from the one almost enacted by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D): make a progressive case that emphasized healthcare, unions, and protections for blue-collar workers in the hope of harmonizing the socialist and blue-collar voters into one coalition. It’s worth noting, however, that Brown, who outlined this approach, declined to run after testing it in key battleground and early primary states. Many speculate that the reason he declined to run was that this message failed to resonate with the more pragmatic blue-collar voters.
As of Sunday, he has returned home to Ohio and his announcement is expected in the coming weeks.
Andrew Shirley is a reporter at Battleground State News and The Ohio Star. Send tips to aashirley1809@gmail.com.
Photo “Tim Ryan Campaigns” by Tim Evanson CC2.0.
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Home » News » Posts » Put Video Ads Where User Attention Truly Resides
Put Video Ads Where User Attention Truly Resides
“Viewability is kicking brands and agencies in the gut,” said Mark Yackanich, CEO of Genesis Media, in a recent extensive interview. Genesis Media recognized problems associated with fraud and viewability as early as 2010, when the company was founded. With ever increasing demand for video ad inventory (which eMarketer has estimated will reach $7.5 billion in the U.S. this year, up about 42% from the year before) Yackanich believes his company can give advertisers the video ad inventory they want with the viewability relief they need.
Genesis Media calls itself “the attention platform,” with a technology that can put out-of-stream video ads in places where viewers will want to see them. “If you understand where attention truly resides, then you can place ads there,” explains Yackanich. The company officially launched the product that is gaining traction — PAR or Page Attention Rank — more than four years after it was founded, in May 2015. In recent months, they have gotten help from a strategic partnership with NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. “The math itself has been in development for anywhere between 12 and 18 months,” said Yackanich. “We tried multiple roads before we finally got to this idea of content attention, because it’s the content that carries attention–the ad doesn’t carry attention. It’s all about the content and that was an important realization.” The company has applied for a patent for their core proprietary technology that “allows us to collect, synthesize, calculate, store and target individual URLs and users.”
Genesis sits between agencies and publishers, but Yachanich thinks that they are “much more publisher-oriented. For example, we might say ‘we have now integrated with your platform, we’ve looked at your traffic, we’ve looked at your audience. We think that if we were to tune our platform in the following ways, we believe that you’re going to achieve the best results.’ It’s very consultative.”
According to the company, Genesis has added 700 newspaper publishers over the last several months. “Anyone who owns great content that’s editorialized by a professional editor, that has a brand that is seeking audience, those are the places where our products are resonating most right now. And that’s where we seek the greatest pull from our partners from the agency side.”
One advertising customer using Genesis as their primary out-of-stream provider is Aria, the resort casino. Carl Cohen who was VP of Marketing (until October 2015) said in an email interview that Aria started testing the platform for ad campaigns starting in June 2014. Of the current 2015 digital domestic plan, approximately 28% of Aria’s budget is video, using video advertising primarily as a brand engagement vehicle. They started to work with Genesis because, said Cohen, “We are open to testing new formats and technologies as they arise and maintain an evergreen campaign with those that beat industry benchmarks and shine in terms of delivering the ARIA experience in the digital space.”
Beyond out-of-stream
The company has received about $17 million in funding, with the most recent, a Series B round in mid 2014. Yackanich ideally sees Genesis’ PAR product as “that foundational element that allows the ecosystem to optimize the delivery of their media.” He sees the “next frontier” for the company as going beyond out-of-stream video advertising and “influencing the way that display is spent, that more rich media is spent, that other ad units are employed on the page. We have all of the data tools to tackle those challenges.”
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MP responds to concerns regarding adverse childhood experiences.
On 11 May 2015 I wrote a blog post entitled ‘welfare isn’t just about being a decent human being’. It was mainly about the impact of adverse childhood experiences and the need for the government to invest in a more preventative approach. I was encouraged today to receive a letter from my newly elected Conservative MP, Mary Robinson, in response to the concerns I outlined.
She stated that she shared my “view that raising children out of poverty and giving them more life opportunities at an early age will do more than can ever be achieved through simple welfare”. I think that is the heart of the problem. Welfare isn’t simple.
"Welfare" spending, according to the government’s public expenditure statistical analyses, accounts for 25% of the total and is defined as "social protection". It includes £28.5 billion on "personal social services". It includes spending on a range of things, such as looked-after children and long term care for the elderly, the sick and disabled. Unlike other elements of "social protection" it is not a cash transfer payment and in many ways has more in common with spending on health than spending on social security benefits. Another £20 billion of the spending counted under welfare is pensions to older people other than state pensions. That includes spending on public service pensions – to retired nurses, soldiers and so on. In addition to state pensions a further £28 billion is spent on pensioners, of which £15 billion goes on benefits specifically for that group, such as pension credit, attendance allowance and winter fuel payment, while the remaining £13 billion is largely spent on housing benefit and disability living allowance. So of the £205 billion or so spent on tax credits and social security benefits about £111 billion is spent on those over pension age and £94 billion on those of working age.
The welfare state has changed a lot over the years and it is easy to lose sight of the principles upon which it was founded. Welfare, in my mind, is not just about cash payments but a whole system that works to protect and care for its citizens. In 1942, the Liberal politician William Beveridge, who the government set the task of discovering what kind of Britain people wanted to see after the war, declared that there were five "giants on the road to reconstruction": poverty, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness. To defeat these giants, he proposed setting up a welfare state with social security, a national health service, free education, council housing and full employment. Whilst the needs of the nation have changed over the years the general premise is still tangible in the Liberal Democrats constitution: no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.
Here are my thoughts in response to the points raised by Mary Robinson MP in her letter:
'The Government remains committed to its goal of eliminating child poverty by 2020'
According to Mrs Robinson, the government remains committing to not just reducing but eliminating child poverty by 2020. This is a tall order for any government, particularly when all the current research points to increased child poverty by 2020. The Joseph Rowtree Foundation estimates that by 2020 one in four families will be in poverty and if this were to happen it could cost the UK £35bn in today’s terms.
'300,000 fewer children are in relative poverty'
While one measure suggests Mrs Robinson is right, another can as easily be used to say she’s wrong.
There’s no single definition of ‘child poverty’ in the UK. Official bodies measure it in three main ways. The first, takes a certain ‘low’ level of income and counts how many children live in households at or below that level. The second finds out the ‘middle’ income nationally and counts children who live in households earning less than 60% of it. This is known as the ‘relative’ poverty measure and is the one the Mrs Robinson was referring to. The other way is to count children in families which have poor living standards. For example, where there’s no safe place to play outdoors or they can’t afford things like school trips.
So, there are 300,000 fewer children living in ‘relative’ poverty but this isn’t always a useful measure. As the government itself has conceded, when everyone’s income falls, this can mean poverty falling as well, which isn’t very intuitive.
'A record 31.1 million people in work'
This latest round of figures put the employment rate at 73.5 per cent, it’s highest since records began in 1971. However, of the current 31.1 million working people in the UK at the end of March, only 53% are full time employees on someone’s payroll. The other 47% are what are referred to as ‘Self Drive Workers’ who are not dependent on one employer for their total income. In broad terms, this 47% have to find their own work. The UK has been moving away from this traditional work model for some years - and now it has become significant.
Furthermore, data also shows us that there were 697,000 people on zero hour contracts in October-December 2014, compared with 586,000 in October-December 2013. The proportion of workers on a zero hour contract in October-December from 2000-2012 was under 1%. In 2013, it hit 2%. In 2014, it was 2.3%. A provision in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, which was passed under the Liberal-Conservative coalition government and came into force on 26 May 2015, intended to ban clauses that allow employers to block zero-hours employees from holding jobs elsewhere; however, it has been described as toothless by lawyers.
'Poor children are doing better than ever at school'
Research shows that of those eligible for free school meals in 2008/09, 73.3% did not achieve at least 5 GCSEs A* to C (including English and Maths) compared to 45.5% of pupils not eligible for free school meals. In 2013/14, 63% did not achieve at least 5 GCSEs A* to C (including English and Maths) compared to 35.8% of pupils not eligible for free school meals. However, the Joseph Rowtree Foundation warns that it is not possible to directly compare 2013/14 figures with earlier years due to the changes in methodology. Nevertheless, I would credit some of the improvement, whatever it might be, with the introduction of the pupil premium.
'The Pupil Premium is supporting poor children in reaching their full potential and helping to close the attainment gap'
While, there is no doubt that the pupil premium was included in the Tory manifesto before the 2010 election, it has widely been accepted that the idea for an additional sum of money to go to students in receipt of free school meals not only came from the Lib Dems, but was the idea of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Indeed, it is understood Mr Clegg first put forward the idea of a pupil premium back in 2002.
'The personal allowance has been raised to £10,600'
Raising the personal allowance was a Liberal Democrat red line in 2010, which they delivered despite David Cameron telling the nation it was ‘unaffordable’.
Indeed, increases in the personal tax allowance have improved the circumstances for many families in in-work poverty, but the most recent increase will not help those most in need who already have earnings below the tax threshold. Furthermore, under Universal Credit, 65% of any additional income recipients get from an increased tax allowance they will lose through reduced entitlement to Universal Credit.
In March, the Chancellor set out in his budget the path of income tax bands from 2015/16 to 2017/18; raising the personal tax allowance to £11,000, and the higher rate threshold, to £43,300. This sounds great, but because tax bands are up-rated by inflation anyway, delaying the £11,000 by two years substantially reduces the benefit to taxpayers. In the absence of any policy intervention, the personal tax allowance would be expected to rise to around £10,760 in 2017/18 anyway. This means the announced measure is a rise of just £240, and a benefit of £48 in reduced tax for basic rate taxpayers, rather than the £80 they would receive had it been implemented this year. Conversely, the rise in the higher rate threshold is £400 higher than where it would fall if increased in line with inflation.
Universal Credit will lift around 300,000 children out of poverty thanks to increased entitlement
Universal Credit is a single monthly payment for people in or out of work, and will merge together some of the benefits and tax credits that they might be getting now. Universal Credit was launched in October 2013 with a gradual transition to be complete by 2017, replacing:
Housing Benefit
The good news is that it’s supposed to be simpler and there are no limits on how many hours a week people can work if they’re claiming Universal Credit. Instead, the amount they get will gradually reduce as they earn more, so they won’t lose all their benefits at once. You can find out more at the Money Advice Service.
It is thought that Universal Credit will lead to an increase in employment due to improved financial incentives, simpler and more transparent system, and changes to the requirements placed on claimants. Overall, it is said, this could lead to the equivalent of up to 300,000 additional people in work from improved financial incentives. This is not the same as lifting 300,000 children out of poverty.
There is cross-party support for the theory behind the benefit, but its delivery has been delayed and criticised. Unite union has claimed that it creates a division between a "deserving" and an "undeserving poor". In its initial estimate of the new system, the Institute for Fiscal Studies have said that the poorest are likely to do better, especially couples with children. However, the second earner in a family is likely to lose out in the long-term in many cases. Some charities have argued that, because of a broad-brush approach that universal credit takes, those with more complex benefit claims may lose out, such as some people with disabilities who go to work. Also, those without a bank account, or who do not have internet access, will have to seek advice to prepare for the new way this benefit is run and paid.
Minimum wage increased by the largest amount in six years
The 2014 increase in the adult rate lifted the real value of the minimum wage for the first time in 6 years through the biggest percentage increase since 2008. Great!
Speaking at the Liberal Democrats party conference in Glasgow on 14 September 2013 it was Vince Cable that pressed for an increase in the minimum wage amid concerns that the lower-paid workers were still not benefiting from the “burgeoning economic recovery”. George Osborne on the other hand spoke on the 10 January 2014 to warn that a “self-defeating” increase to the minimum wage could cost jobs. Thankfully, on the 16 January 2014 he had a change of heart. Perhaps it was the Lib Dems that told him the “economy can now afford” to raise the rate?
I agree that “there remains much work to be done”. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is currently developing an anti-poverty strategy for the UK. As a part of this four year programme they have undertaken a review of effective strategies across the EU to determine their key characteristics. This review suggested that key to an effective strategy are clear mechanisms of responsibility and accountability, implementation plans and a monitoring and review process. It also found that clearly linking strategies to economic policy made them more effective. They assert that the Child Poverty Strategy 2014-17 (referred to in Mrs Robinson’s letter) does not sufficiently meet these criteria. In particular, while it does include some steps necessary to address child poverty, it neither assesses the impact of these measures upon child poverty, nor does it include milestones by which it can be held accountable during the course of its three years. In short, it does not offer any mechanism of accountability beyond achieving a reduction in the total number of children in poverty by 2017. Furthermore, it does not account for the impact of further reductions to welfare budgets over the coming year, which research for JRF by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows is likely to significantly increase the number of children in poverty. The JRF report suggested that the impact of changes to personal tax and benefit policy announced by the coalition government is likely to increase both relative child poverty by 200,000 in 2015/16 and absolute child poverty by 200,000 in 2015/16.
It would seem there is indeed much more to do. I concluded my previous post by saying that Local Authorities need greater funding to hire more social workers so that caseloads are at a manageable level where they have the time to undertake intensive direct work with families again. The government needs to fund preventative and outreach services that can directly tackle problems before children become at risk of significant harm. Instead, proposals have been tabled to jail social workers who fail to prevent neglect, despite the necessary infrastructure to properly address it; and the shock result of a Conservative majority victory signals deeper, faster cuts than ever before. None of these points were addressed in Mrs Robinson's letter. Perhaps this was an oversight and I would welcome further dialogue. Communitycare has urged Social Workers to channel whatever they are feeling about the election result into something that isn't apathy. I have only just begun...
Thanks for reading! Follow me on facebook and twitter to see future posts.
What is ACE and why is it important to you?
Whitney was right in 1985 when she sang “the children are our future” but does the government believe this only applies if you’re from a certain background? I recently read an article by Dr. Charles Lewis where he asks if the US is witnessing a new wave of social Darwinism. Perhaps the UK should also reflect upon this question. What kind of future will the most vulnerable children in our society have unless we invest in them and their families both financially and emotionally?
The shock result in the UK general election was a wakeup call and we need to re-examine how social issues are discussed within the media if they are to be seen as relevant to the electorate. Labour are reportedly “soul searching” whilst the Liberal Democrats have launched a “fightback” but we should all be engaged in the debate.
Many people believe that the core tenet of democratic voting is that we should vote for those that best represent our personal interests; however, we should all have a vested interest in the welfare of those living in poverty and with adversity, and we know that the socially excluded are less likely to vote and have their interests represented.
In my post on the 11 May 2015 I described how poverty is considered to be the best predictor of mental health disorders because it is a predictor of all the other things that are causal. I explained how adverse childhood experiences (ACE), many of which are compounded by poverty, are strongly related to adverse behavioural, health and social outcomes; creating a cyclic effect where those with higher ACE counts have higher risks of exposing their own children to ACEs.
These childhood experiences place a huge burden on the NHS, social care and judicial system. Surely it is plain to see that investing in services earlier will not only improve the life chances of the most vulnerable children in our society, but it will also alleviate some of the pressure on other services. The government needs to invest in an infrastructure that can be preventative as well as reactive. We would all benefit from it.
If we are concerned about crime, we might want to look at the causes of crime. Childhood adversity is associated with adult criminality and it has been recommended in a 2013 study that to decrease criminal recidivism, treatment interventions must focus on the effects of early life experiences. Indeed, a UK ACE study found that preventing ACEs in future generations could reduce levels of violence victimisation by 51%, violence perpetration by 52% and incarceration by 53%.
If we are concerned about the NHS, we might want to look at the causes of the negative health outcomes that place a burden on its service. Previous studies have found that there is a dose-response relationship between adverse childhood experiences and health outcomes. For a person with an ACE score of four or more, the relative risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was around two and a half times that of someone with an ACE score of zero. For hepatitis, it was also two and a half time times. A person with an ACE score of seven or more had triple the lifetime risk of lung cancer and three and a half times the risk of ischemic heart disease.
In 2014 a Bulletin of the World Health Organization described how people in the UK with at least four adverse childhood experiences were at significantly increased risk of many health-harming behaviours. They said modelling indicated that prevention of adverse childhood experiences would substantially reduce the occurrence of many health-harming behaviours. But that's not all... they also found that preventing ACEs in future generations could reduce levels of early sex (under 16 years) by 33%, unintended teen pregnancy by 38%, smoking by 16%, cannabis use by 33%, heroin/crack use by 59% and poor diet by 14%.
Until we see political and social reform Social Workers can help the vulnerable groups they support by working in preventative ways, rather than concentrating solely on crisis intervention; act as advocates for people that encounter injustices; empower people to become involved in decisions that affect them; challenge oppressive working practices; and most importantly, advocate for political and social change.
It is important for social workers to engage in the current debate about how to prevent harmful childhood adversity and challenge structural inequalities that compound them. If you would like to learn more, I've added some recommended books at the end of this post. You should also take a look at this video of Mark Bellis at the World Health Organisation:
Welfare isn't just about being a decent human being.
I read in the Guardian today that Downing Street have announced Iain Duncan Smith will remain Work and Pensions Minister following the Conservatives electoral win last week. They reported that he will “continue with his task of “making work pay and reforming welfare” as the government implements the universal credit reforms and imposes £12bn in cuts on the welfare budget”. This will be in addition to the £30bn that the Institute of Fiscal Studies say the Tories will also need to find in real-terms cuts from ‘unprotected’ departments, including social care and defence. The news of a Tory win last Thursday didn’t go down well with some. There were large demonstrations in London over the weekend; although it was only the violent clashes with riot police outside Downing Street that seem to have made the headlines. However, the arrests don’t seem to have deterred them; and the anti-austerity group behind the protest are planning another demonstration outside the Bank of England next month.
Like many, I am genuinely worried about the proposed cuts and what that means for social work. I posted last week that Peter Kinderman, Professor of Clinical Psychology & Head of the Institute of Psychology, Health & Society at the University of Liverpool, has said that one of the best predictors of mental health disorders by far, whether it’s depression, suicidality, psychosis, are all life events. The strongest predictor all by itself is poverty. Not because poverty by itself causes depression, but because it is a predictor of all the other things that are causal. So poverty has been described as the causes of the causes. And those other causes are a whole raft of things – childhood neglect, childhood abuse, loneliness, and problematic parenting, which is usually inter-generational. It’s not about bad parents, it’s about who themselves haven’t perhaps had the sort of childhood that predisposed them to good enough parenting. And so the cycle continues…
There are currently 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK. That’s almost a third of all children. 1.6 million of these children live in severe poverty. But what the Conservatives don’t want you to know is that 63% of children living in poverty are in a family where someone works. This is why welfare, preventative services, family support and intervention are so vital. We need to break the cycle by providing welfare that brings children out of poverty. Services need to be funded and available to support the most vulnerable and improve parenting so that children can be safeguarded in the care of their family. However, services that were once available have been decimated through cuts over the course of the last parliament and they look set to get worse by 2020.
But welfare isn’t just about being a decent human being; it also makes economic sense.
In the mid-'90s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered an exposure that dramatically increased the risk for seven out of ten of the leading causes of death in the United States. In high doses, it affects brain development, the immune system, hormonal systems, and even our DNA. People that are exposed in very high doses have triple the lifetime risk of heart disease and lung cancer and a 20-year difference in life expectancy. It’s not about eating GM foods. It's childhood trauma: things like abuse or neglect, or growing up with a parent who struggles with mental illness or substance dependence; things that we know, according to Peter Kinderman, are strongly linked to poverty. Take a look at this 2014 TED talk by Nadine Burke Harris.
The Adverse Childhood Experiences study found that there was a dose-response relationship between ACEs and health outcomes: the higher your ACE score, the worse your health outcomes. For a person with an ACE score of four or more, their relative risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was two and a half times that of someone with an ACE score of zero. For hepatitis, it was also two and a half times. For depression, it was four and a half times. For suicidality, it was 12 times. A person with an ACE score of seven or more had triple the lifetime risk of lung cancer and three and a half times the risk of ischemic heart disease, the number one killer in the United States of America.
Now, you might be thinking – this is interesting but it’s about a study conducted in the United States. Can we rely on the findings to support welfare as a public health initiative in the UK? Well…. In 2014 Mark Bellis and colleagues published a retrospective study to determine the impact of adverse childhood experiences on adult health behaviours and health outcomes in a UK population. They also found that increasing ACEs were strongly related to adverse behavioural, health and social outcomes. Compared to those with 0 ACEs those with 4+ ACEs had a greater risk of poor educational and employment outcomes; low mental wellbeing and life satisfaction; recent violence involvement; incarceration; recent inpatient hospital care and chronic health conditions; and early unplanned pregnancy. All of this suggests a cyclic effect where those with higher ACE counts have higher risks of exposing their own children to ACEs.
There are more studies here, here, and here.
It’s clear that these childhood experiences place a burden on a UK population’s health, NHS and judicial system; and there is a strong case for the government to invest in effective interventions to prevent them. That’s why the World Health Organization and global health partners are promoting research into the extent and impact of them around the world. So, why is it that during this time of growing evidential support for preventative work, is the government promoting a false economy through welfare cuts and dismantling the welfare system???
In 2007 Lynne Wrennall identified failures in the UK’s work with vulnerable children. She believes that the morale of a “great many caring, compassionate, highly competent, and creative social workers” would be “vastly improved if their primary function was again focused on assisting, rather than dismantling, families, upon working creatively toward this end with the resources and the legislative and managerial support to do so”. However, she also acknowledges that sometimes “an out-of-home placement is unavoidable”, and that in those instances “a programme leading towards re-unification and rehabilitation must be implemented”. She advocates for a “European model” that “strongly favours an educative role for social workers and a primary task of maintaining family unity, utilising and coordinating services toward this end and focusing on `educating’ the parents and family in social norms and values”.
But for this to happen the conservative government would first need to reframe the way it thinks about the most vulnerable people in our society and invest in their future wellbeing and health. Local Authorities would need greater funding to hire more social workers so that caseloads are at a manageable level where they have the time to undertake intensive direct work with families again. They would need to fund preventative and outreach services that can directly tackle problems before children become at risk of significant harm. Instead, proposals have been tabled to jail social workers who fail to prevent neglect, despite the necessary infrastructure to properly address it; and the shock result of a Conservative majority victory signals deeper, faster cuts than ever before. Communitycare has urged Social Workers to channel whatever they are feeling about the election result into something that isn’t apathy, because the profession looks set to be needed like never before and I have to agree.
P.S. Please follow me on facebook and/or twitter to see posts as they're added to my site
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What 4 of HubSpot’s Recruiters, Hiring Managers, & Executives Say About Being a “Jack of All Trades”
When Karla Cook, the current Editor of HubSpot’s Marketing Blog, first joined the team as a staff writer in July 2016, she realized she had more in common with most of her new teammates than she originally thought.
As a rhetoric major at Bates College, a liberal arts school in Maine, Karla spent more time analyzing political speeches and honing her debate skills than studying marketing methodologies. She had also just spent the last year and a half working as a Support Engineer at HubSpot and was working her way through a masters degree in Corporate Communications.
In other words, she was what most corporate folks would call, a “jack of all trades”. But, as a pleasant surprise to her, so were many of her teammates at HubSpot.
On the Blog Team, five of the seven total members were liberal arts graduates with majors spanning from theatre, communications, psychology, government, and international relations. Most of the bloggers didn’t begin their careers in marketing either. Grant writing, admissions, business analysis, production, and journalism sparked most of the team’s journey into the working world.
A year after Karla joined the team, Cobloom (a SaaS growth marketing agency) released a research report about the SaaS blogs who attract the most organic search traffic in the world. HubSpot’s blog was ranked number one.
With a team full of generalists who never studied or specialized in marketing, they still generated three times more organic traffic than Google’s own blog. So is the old saying that a jack of all trades is a master of none actually true? And why is there so much suffocating pressure put on college students to specialize in only one discipline?
As jobs become more specialized in today’s workforce, it seems logical to hone a specific skill set, especially during school.
But only learning the skills that match the exact requirements of a job today might not prepare you for your job tomorrow.
According to a study conducted by researchers from LinkedIn and the World Economics Forum, majoring in specialized subjects like marketing, finance, IT, and computer science don’t teach students the necessary skills to adapt to sudden industry changes and other fields of work, whereas broad majors like literature, history, political science, and economics do.
Mark Cuban, a billionaire investor, has also called liberal arts majors free thinkers who can quickly adapt to the rapid evolution of most industries nowadays.
Marketing is one of the ever-evolving industries that Cuban says liberal arts majors thrive in. Fifteen years ago, content marketing didn’t even exist. But, today, it’s the top hiring area in the creative job market, with 25% of executives planning to grow their team this year.
Meghan Keaney Anderson, a Vice President of Marketing at HubSpot, believes content marketing’s swift evolution will continue to accelerate. And the only way to keep up is by being adaptable.
"The world changes incredibly quickly in our industry. What is today a central skill, channel, or strategy may not be tomorrow. We need people who are adaptable and, more than that, who are fascinated by change and have a mental framework and curiosity to learn new approaches,” she says. “I've found that liberal arts majors in particular have a great disposition for that kind of work -- critical thinking, diverse interests, and a strong inclination to understand new areas."
Keaney Anderson suggests there may be some essential content marketing skills today that will be rendered superfluous in the future. There could even be roles sprouting up that don’t even exist right now. This isn’t intimidating to liberal arts majors or jack of all trades, though. They’ve learned how to learn and feel comfortable grasping new skills and concepts.
But one skill the industry will always need and marketers constantly need to keep honing is storytelling -- neuroscience proves that it's the best way to capture people’s attention, bake information into their memories, and forge close, personal bonds. We’re programmed to pay our undivided attention to a great story -- that’ll never change.
For a story to be compelling, though, it needs good writing behind it. But writing well in the marketing world doesn’t mean scribbling the most flowery and poetic prose possible. It means logically presenting or dissecting an argument in a clear, concise, and compelling way.
According to Emma Brudner, HubSpot's Director of both the Blog and Community Teams, diversifying your education or skillset will arm you with the critical thinking abilities needed to write well.
“Liberal arts teaches students to not only write, but also to think critically. David McCullough, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, once said ‘Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly.’ I love this quote and I think about it a lot when hiring writers.” she says. “For the type of writing my team does, being able to organize thoughts and information clearly is imperative -- even more important in my experience than the specific knowledge a more specialized degree, like marketing or advertising, might instill.”
While Brudner speaks to the importance of sharpening your critical thinking skills to write compelling content, developing your creativity is just as crucial for marketing success. According to neuroscience, it’s what drives innovation.
Creativity happens when you mash seemingly unrelated concepts together to form a new idea. Neuroscientists call this synaptic play, and the more incongruent the concepts are, the more synapses occur in your brain.
Studying a variety of disciplines or working in different fields supplies you with a bank of diverse knowledge and experiences to pull from to make these creative connections. And Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot’s Chief Marketing Officer, believes a brain full of diverse inputs will lead to much more inventive ideas.
“Connecting the dots is where so much of the success in marketing comes from. When you have a marketer who has done various aspects of marketing, they are able to understand how everything works together, which helps them accomplish much more than if their focus was isolated to only one deep discipline.”
Bodnar is describing something called cognitive diversity, where having a lot of different inputs in your head lets you connect dots that have never been connected before, giving you an entirely different perspective on things. This not only enables you to be more creative, but it also allows you to challenge the status quo and push your team to do better work.
Liberal arts majors and jack of all trades tend to have more cognitive diversity than their specialized peers, which is a huge reason why Sara DeBrule, the International Marketing Recruiting Team Lead at HubSpot, believes a jack of all trades can be a vital asset to any type of team.
“For a team where the majority of people are specialized, the case for hiring someone who is a jack of all trades is that they have enough perspective on the different types of marketing that they can test the assumptions of a team, push a team to operate in a more cross functional capacity, and round out the overall experience,” she says. “Jack of all trades can also be crucial for an early stage company where it's an all hands on deck effort and people need to leverage disparate skill sets on a daily basis and context switch.”
The Jack of All Trades Can Be a Master of All
When I was a freshman in college, skeptically studying economics at a liberal arts school, I spent countless hours scouring the internet for every article that weighed the pros and cons of a general and specialized education. Every liberal arts critic said I was going to lag behind my specialized peers at work. Every proponent said I was going to propel past them.
So after hours on the phone with my dad and getting his blessing to transfer to a school where I could major in finance, I decided to go with my gut. I took a chance on the arts. And it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.
My liberal arts education taught me how to learn, think critically, and, most importantly, write. And those skills got me a job at HubSpot. If I had taken the other route, who knows what I’d be doing. Odd are, I’d be wearing a suit to work everyday and crunching numbers in a spreadsheet, not knowing what I’d do with my career if an algorithm started doing my job better than I could.
Topic: Marketing
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Brian Greene still plugging string theory
Sam Harris interviews Brian Greene in this two-hour video.
Greene is indignant when Harris says that string theory has failed to deliver the goods. Greene says that the theory has made great progress, and has merged gravity and quantum mechanics. The only trouble is that we do not know what that merged theory is, and it has made any testable predictions. That is not much of a criticism, he says, because no quantum gravity theory will ever make any testable predictions.
Someone asked about Bohr saying that physics is about observables. Greene prefers a wider view, and says that physics should look behind the curtain and tell us what is really going on.
So Greene can justify a string theory with no testable predictions.
Greene also defended many-worlds theory and Bohmian mechanics, altho he has not fully adopted them because the measurement problem is unsolved.
Harris points out that Bohmian mechanics is nonlocal, so doing something in one place can have an instantaneous distant effect. Greene agreed, but said that quantum mechanics is nonlocal anyway.
Greene is very misleading here. It is true that in textbook QM, if you make a measurement and collapse the wavefunction, then your knowledge of some distant particle can be immediately affected. You can say that is nonlocal, but classical mechanics is nonlocal in the same way. Bohmian mechanics is different in that it says that an electron is in one place, but its physical effects are in another place. That is a fatal flaw, since no such nonlocality has ever been observed in nature.
And any defense of many-worlds is nutty.
He gives this argument, common among many-worlds advocates, that it is a simpler theory, and thus preferable under Occam's Razor. He gives an example. Suppose a simple quantum experiments results in an electron being in one of two places, symbolized by his left hand and right hand. Suppose you then find the electron in his left hand. Under Copenhagen, you would deduce that the electron is not in his right hand. But that deduction is an extra step, and the many-worlds theory is more parsimonious because it skips that step and posits that the electron is in his right hand in a parallel universe.
It is amazing to see an educated man make such a silly argument with a straight face. The argument really doesn't even have much to do with quantum mechanics, as you could use it with any theory that makes predictions, and concoct a many-worlds variant of the theory that does not make any predictions.
Besides many-worlds, Greene defends physical theories in which anything can happen. If you assume infinite space, infinite time, infinite universes, etc., then pretty much anything you can imagine would be happening somewhere, and happening infinitely many times. In particular, Jesus rose from the dead.
Greene agrees with Harris that humans have no free will. Greene rejects Harris's determinism, but says that the laws of physics have no room for free will.
At least Greene did not go along with Harris's wacky consequentialist vegetarian philosophy.
It is too bad that Physics does not have better spokesmen.
Labels: quantum, strings
CFT January 11, 2019 at 2:26 PM
If I said I had a solution, and you asked where, and I said it was located somewhere in a haystack of 10^500 (this is now a very low estimate) solutions... I don't think you would consider my answer a 'solution' even remotely useful for finding a working answer.
Nothing we can actually measure is infinite, invoking it in a relationship or ratio with anything finite is meaningless. Scientists should stay away from using the term infinite in arguments as it is untestable and resolves nothing.
MD Cory January 13, 2019 at 6:29 AM
"You can say that is nonlocal, but classical mechanics is nonlocal in the same way."
Again, not sure you understand the significance of nonseperability. Can you show me a classical physics example that gives the same results as Bell's test experiments?
As I said before, there is a physically real correlation at a spacelike separation. It doesn't matter if you think the wavefunction is ontic or not or that Bohr's distinction between the classical and quantum holds because you have a macro-level correlation in the world beyond the speed of light that anyone with eyes can observe. It really has nothing to do with false counterfactuals given that we are not trying to talk about unobserved measurements but the very ones we actually made. You can't use hidden variables, so what is the common cause? Perfect anti-correlation of spins at equal angles rids separability and correlations at unequal angles destroys hidden variables.
Roger January 13, 2019 at 10:20 PM
MD Cory, fair question. I will post an answer.
Yes, there are real correlations.
The perfect anti-correlation of spins at equal angles is just what you expect from a classical theory, if a conservation law applies. If two identical particles get ejected from one point, then we expect conservation of energy, momentum, angular momentum, etc. So measuring one tells you what to expect from measuring the other. If you consider that nonlocal, then classical mechanics is nonlocal.
Yes, correlations at unequal angles destroy local hidden variables. Okay, but saying that there is no local hidden variable theory allows the possibility of other local theories.
The common cause is physical, and not described by hidden variables.
The derivations of Bell inequalities always use something like spin, where measuring spin in one direction disrupts what would have been measured in another direction. It only seems fishy if you start making some assumptions about counterfactuals.
MD Cory January 14, 2019 at 7:42 PM
Bell is a statement of mathematics. Bell: "Let this more complete specification be effected by means of parameters λ. It is a matter of indifference in the following whether λ denotes a single variable or a set, or even a set of functions, and whether the values are discrete or continuous." Lambda can be psi, so QM is nonlocal. If you reject the concepts of quantum mechanics then you are overrating the accomplishments of quantum mechanics to explain the world, let alone the newfangled nonsense they are talking about now.
Roger January 14, 2019 at 8:02 PM
Bell only proved that his classical alternative to QM is nonlocal. He didn't prove anything about QM, except that it differs from his classical alternative.
Nonsense. QM is a nonlocal theory, whether reality is or not. Lambda can be psi! Furthermore, there is nothing statistical in the Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger experiment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GHZ_experiment
No, lambda cannot be psi. The Bell inequality has been tested experimentally. The QM of psi was confirmed. The lambda was disproved. The whole point of Bell's theorem was to show that it is not possible to have both.
Whether or not there is anything statistical in GHZ is irrelevant.
Yes, lambda can be psi. Good God, go read the paper! Bell simply conditionalizes on it. Bell's inequality isn't strictly about quantum mechanics. QM predicts the violation, so it's nonlocal. Your point about counterfactuals is what is irrelevant.
"Indeed, Werner’s conceit that Operational quantum physics is some newfangled theory, the likes of which never occurred to Einstein and Bell (and me) is a complete fabrication: Operational quantum physics is just plain-old vanilla Copenhagen quantum physics, the very theory that Einstein derided for its spooky action-at-a-distance. He derided it for exactly the reason illustrated in Werner’s own presentation: by taking the physical state just to be the epistemic state, the theory already commits itself to violating EPR-locality in an EPR situation. The predictive state ascribed to S1 is changed after observing the distant system S2. So if the predictive state is the physical state, then the physical state changes. The geometry of the state space plays no role at all in this argument."
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1408/1408.1828.pdf
Non-realists simply don't have a theory and there's nothing convincing about their arguments that such a theory would not need to revamp quantum mechanics to get anywhere.
"At the end of the day, it may be that the lesson of Bell’s theorem is that the world is causally non-local. Or it may be that the lesson is that measurements have multiple equally real outcomes. Or it may be that effects can come before their causes. Or it may even be that no description of the quantum world can be given—although this latter conclusion seems to me to be a last resort."
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/11372/
MD Cory January 16, 2019 at 12:45 PM
"As should be clear from a fair reading of the Bell original article, the Bell theorem starts exactly from the alternative established by the EPR-Bohm argument—namely, locality and completeness cannot stand together—and goes for the proof that, whatever form the completability of quantum mechanics might assume, the resulting theory cannot preserve the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics and be local at the same time: this means that neither a pre-existing property assumption (or ‘Objectivity’ or ‘Classicality’ or whatever synonymous one likes to choose) nor a determinism assumption are assumed in the derivation of the original Bell inequality...
Suppose in the actual world the experimenter has chosen the axis z: if her measuring operations cannot affect by definition what axis is chosen – and what outcome has been obtained – on the other side, this holds naturally for whatever choice and this makes it invalid to claim that in an ordinary EPR argument we have adopted a conterfactual definiteness assumption in addition to locality"
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1705/1705.01356.pdf
You provide examples of people who refuse to accept quantum mechanics. It is like finding people who are hung up on the twin paradox, and refuse to accept relativity.
Funny, they would say the same about you. You have no argument but ad hominems. Here is Bell: “THE paradox of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen [1] was advanced as an argument that quantum mechanics could not be a complete theory but should be supplemented by additional variables. These additional variables were to ***RESTORE*** to the theory causality and locality [2]” https://cds.cern.ch/record/111654/files/vol1p195-200_001.pdf
The only position localists have left is a mystical anti-realism they can't even explain. Consistent histories just abandons logic: "But a physical theory is not simply a game for which one can impose arbitrary rules about what reasonings are permitted for the propositions of the theory; if a physical theory implies both P and Q then the logical consequences of both P and Q will hold in a world governed by that theory and there is nothing that the proponents of the theory can do to prevent that. One might try to find an actual objection against the reasoning leading to inequality (1), but one cannot simply state as a ‘rule’ that the reasoning is forbidden." http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Bell%27s_theorem#Consistent_histories
Ronde (2015) says Griffiths "framework" theory is contrived: "Unfortunately, still today the problem remains with no solution within the limits of the orthodox formalism. There is no physical representation of the process without the addition of strange ad hoc rules, unjustified mathematical jumps and the like. These rules 'added by hand', not only lack any physical justification but, more importantly, also limit the counterfactual discourse of the meaningful physical statements provided by the theory" https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.05396
I don't find these kinds of ad hoc explanations even remotely convincing.
Roger January 17, 2019 at 9:29 AM
No, the hidden variables are not intended to restore either locality or causality. They have nothing to do with either one. They are to replace quantum theory with a classical theory.
Let me refine the point: to somehow who doesn't project paranoia onto certain physicists, a local hidden variable theory is certainty meant to restore locality. I would certainly believe that is why Bell said this and not what you said.
When you just make logic up as you go along, I guess I can simply profess to not understand what you are saying. The point about counterfactuals simply doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever: Bell cites exactly the EPR correlations (for any chosen direction a to measure spin) and a locality condition ("if two measurements are made at places remote from one another the orientation of one magnet does not influence the result obtained by the other") and concludes ("it follows that") that the theory must postulate an initial state for the particles that predetermines the results of all possible spin measurements and therefore must assign a more complete state than the singlet state. No invocation, either explicit or implicit, of any assumption of counterfactual definiteness appears in this argument. Rather, a form of counterfactual definiteness, i.e. the claim that the initial state of the particles must determine what the result of any spin measurement would have been, follows from the argument. For if the initial state of the particles predetermines the outcome of spin measurements made in any direction, then the initial state determines what the outcome would have been had any specific measurement been made. What Bell would have said about counterfactual definiteness is just what he said about determinism: to the limited extent that counterfactual definiteness plays any role in the argument, it is not assumed but inferred. What is held sacred is the principle of "local causality"—or "no action at a distance".
https://scinapse.io/papers/2071535262
Is some research too politically dangerous?
Belief in infinite doppelgangers
No need for new collider
The Black Hole Singularity
Psychiatrist blogger tries Kuhnian paradigms
Atomic laws are not deterministic
IBM announces quantum computer
Paper argues QM is about determinables
The characteristic trait of quantum mechanics
The Mind Body Problems
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Healthbase customer: From Indiana to India: Dyer woman seeks health care abroad
Healthbase customer talks to nwi times regarding her upcoming spine surgery medical travel:
In less than a week, Erin Tacke will fly 8,500 miles for surgery that could be done five minutes from her house. Stuck with an insurance plan that won't cover the procedure and without $100,000 handy to pay out of pocket, the 37-year-old Dyer woman will have a minimally invasive spinal fusion in Bangalore, India. "I feel really good about the decision," she said. "It's a little scary, but that's OK." The fear is quelled by hope that the ever-present pain, pinching and numbness will be gone in hours and that a healthier life will come after physical therapy. The married mother of two, who also is a breast cancer survivor, is among the growing number of people seeking cheaper medical treatment overseas. She arranged the surgery through medical tourism company Healthbase Online Inc.
Healthbase started with hospitals in five countries and now works with 21. The company links patients with doctors who offer medical, cosmetic and dental procedures. Facilities and doctors must meet local and international standards. The company does cost and doctor comparisons, and the patient chooses one.
Tacke had a conference call with her neurosurgeon, who often travels to the U.S. to give medical talks and even did his clinical fellowship at Wayne State University in Detroit. "It's not like I picked a name out of a hat," Tacke said. Tacke, who had a discectomy in 2007, is covered by her self-employed husband's insurance policy. But the discectomy — the surgical removal of herniated disc material that presses on a nerve root or the spinal cord — puts her in a "pre-existing condition" category. She signed a document stating medical treatment to her spine would not be covered. In 2009, the pain returned, and an MRI showed things had worsened. She tried cortisone shots and physical therapy, to no avail, and has leaned on narcotic painkillers and muscle relaxers since then.
She said going abroad for care is the best option for her. The 2010 major federal health care overhaul, often called Obamacare, does not fully take effect until 2014. "To be asked to hold on for two more years, it's not a way to live," she said. Tacke said in the U.S. she would have paid up to $100,000, not including physical therapy, for her surgery. In India, it will cost $16,000, including the surgery, meals, airfare, transportation and the post-surgery hotel stay for her and her mother-in-law. The hospitals have a separate wing for international patients. The rooms have an extra bed for the patient's companion, as well as Internet access, TV and DVD player. Some people picture the impoverished parts of India when Tacke mentions her trip, but she is quick to show them websites for the modern hospital and upscale hotel where she will recover.
More at:
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/dyer/from-indiana-to-india
-dyer-woman-seeks-health-care-abroad/article_8ab9efe8-d614-5d4c-b510
-32f763366c1e.html
Posted by Healthbase Blog at 6:25 AM
Healthbase customer: From Indiana to India: Dyer w...
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Table Reflection: Handling Player Character Death
Most tabletop games take place in a world where death is a daily or weekly risk; they are glimpses of adventure, action, and risk rather than merely consisting of experiences with safety and security of an organized and regimented society. As such, characters tend to die, and many of these characters will be important. Some are meant to die, and others are not, but there’s a few general rules for the death of player characters that will keep GM’s and players happy.
A core element of player death should be consent. This doesn’t necessarily have to be on a case-by-case basis, but even just a simple acknowledgment that a certain game is likely to kill characters. Obviously, it’s not always practical to ask players if they will let their characters die after an event which precludes recovery happens, such as their unfortunate transformation into chunky tomato paste, so there has to be some middle-ground. A lot of this can be sidestepped in systems that allow player narrative control, such as Savage Worlds, in which a Bennie can be used to change the course of play and prevent death. In many cases it will be necessary to roll back time to avoid players’ characters demises, though this is not always more desirable.
Should death happen, however, the question arises of how to let players resume play. In some games, death is a method of preventing character unbalance; in Shadowrun it’s often better to kill off a character than to let them hit the immortality-style power levels that come with 750 or 1000 Karma (or even 250, depending on who you ask), at least from a GM’s perspective. In addition, a game like Dungeons and Dragons can be kept from going into epic level content this way, if a game master wants to keep the same feel for the whole campaign.
In these cases it is advisable to start characters again from scratch. This has the unfortunate downside of creating characters less powerful than the rest of the group, which, again, shows more in an inflexible regimented system like Dungeons and Dragons where characters are given explicit levels than in something like Shadowrun or Savage Worlds where characters are built from points and have aptitudes and flaws that allow them to have power beyond what would normally be a “level’s average” in exchange for being less powerful in other ways, and players may be locked into the same archetype across multiple lives.
However, in many games you can run constantly advancing characters and catch players back up to where they were, especially early in a campaign or if the players are encountering goals that are always designed for their level. The caution about this is to make sure that it doesn’t become a way for players who are merely bored with their characters to play a new guy every week. Although this is not always undesirable, it does mean more effort for the GM and can cause unforeseen consequences with party role interaction.
One of the key elements of all player character death, however, is to make sure that it’s fair. As a GM or a player, you do not want to inconvenience the group with constant deaths without a good cause, and as a GM you are also responsible to not pick on individual players, since group unity is a major part of having a good experience at your table.
Author KylePosted on September 13, 2013 September 12, 2013 Categories Table ReflectionTags Characters, Death, Table Reflection
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Why Legalization Matters for Cannabis Research in Canada
Nov 13, 2018 10:00:00 AM / by Alex Goldberg, Ph.D
Canada has recently passed new legislation legalizing cannabis throughout the country. Lineups at government-regulated stores were seen all over the country, with people eagerly awaiting legally sold marijuana for the first time ever in Canada. The demand is high, with many shops around Canada quickly selling out of many popular products on day 1. As the market is set to explode, the Canadian government has begun to invest heavily towards cannabis research, with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research funding around $20 million worth of projects within the last 5 years and ready to dole out another $3 million in the next few months.
Currently, the Canadian government has set tight restrictions and regulations on the sale of cannabis. There is an age limit, a carrying limit of 30 grams per person, and restrictions on promoting the use of cannabis, particularly to those under 18 years of age. To sell cannabis, you must be licensed by the government; however, there are currently 129 producers allowed to distribute the plant, making it highly accessible. You can buy from in-person or online stores, where cannabis products are classified into two strains: indica, which gives a typically calming high, and sativa, which has more invigorating effects. Each strain can be purchased individually, as a hybrid, or as a blend in either flower, ground, pre-rolled, oil, spray, or pill form.
The cannabis plant is renowned for its trichomes, small structures on the epidermis of the cannabis plant that release compounds with strong odors that deter animals from eating them. The two chemicals that cannabis primarily secretes are tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is responsible for its mind-altering effects, and cannabidiol (CBD), which has anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety properties. These compounds exert their effects by binding to endogenous cannabinoid G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and activating downstream mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling. The two most characterized receptors are cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1) and cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2), which are distributed throughout the body, including in the brain, peripheral nervous system, gut, immune system (in macrophages, lymphatic tissues, and the spleen), arteries, heart, lungs, and endocrine glands. Because of this, ingestion of cannabis can have widespread physiological effects, ranging from increased appetite to cytokine release and dampening of pain.1,2
While the main attraction of legalizing cannabis lies in its recreational use, marijuana plants have also been studied extensively for both their therapeutic potential, giving rise to a global medical marijuana industry. Though cannabis itself is still not approved by the FDA for any specific use, CBD was approved this year for patients who suffer from two rare forms of epilepsy, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome, that can cause frequent and severe seizures. Two other synthetic cannabinols, dronabinol and nabilone, were approved many years ago for the treatment of nausea and vomiting related to chemotherapy in patients with cancer (dronabinol is also approved to treat anorexia in patients with HIV). With cannabinoid receptors found in the digestive system (one of the reasons people get the munchies after smoking cannabis), much current research has gone into monitoring the effects of cannabinols on gut-associated diseases, like Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and gastric ulcers. These compounds have also been studied as therapeutics for chronic pain and inflammation, ocular pathologies (e.g. glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa, and diabetic retinopathy), and neurodegenerative diseases.1
Unfortunately for scientists, the Canadian government has yet to rescind its regulations on using cannabis for research purposes. An exemption must still be requested prior to performing any study on the plant, though several prominent researchers are asking the government to ease the current restrictions, with the hopes that more data can be gleaned from cannabis’ legalization that would address both the risks and potential benefits of the plant and the compounds it produces.
Maurya N, Velmurugan BK. Therapeutic applications of cannabinoids. Chem Biol Interact. 2018;293:77-88.
Vadivelu N, Kai AM, Kodumudi G, Sramcik J, Kaye AD. Medical Marijuana: Current Concepts, Pharmacological Actions of Cannabinoid Receptor Mediated Activation, and Societal Implications. Curr Pain Headache Rep. 2018;22(3):1-10.
Topics: Science, Clinical Trials, Cannabis
Written by Alex Goldberg, Ph.D
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Happy July 4th!
Happy July 4th, Everyone!
Today is supposed to be a day to celebrate our nation's independence (if you're from the United States).
Many of us like to use it as an excuse to get together with family or friends and barbeque. Although, I'm in the North, and IT IS HOT!
I don't know the temperature, but reports indicate that it could reach 100 degrees, and we're in the "cold" part of the country. So I don't know how much outdoor partying will be happening. Then again, there are always people who like to try staring down Mother Nature--only to lose, every time! So there might be plenty of outdoor parties--even on a scorching day like today.
Taken from Wikipedia, here is some background on July 4th, the Independence Day of the United States.
Independence Day (United States)
"Fourth of July" and "4th of July" redirect here. For the date, see July 4. For other uses, see Fourth of July (disambiguation).
Displays of fireworks, such as these over the Washington Monument, take place across the United States on Independence Day.
Observed by
The day the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress
Fireworks, Family reunions, Concerts, Barbecues, Picnics, Parades, Baseball games
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, and political speeches and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the national day of the United States.[1][2][3]
2 Observance
3 Customs
4 Unique or historical celebrations
During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain.[4][5] After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. Congress debated and revised the wording of the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4. A day earlier, John Adams had written to his wife Abigail:
The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.[6]
Adams's prediction was off by two days. From the outset, Americans celebrated independence on July 4, the date shown on the much-publicized Declaration of Independence, rather than on July 2, the date the resolution of independence was approved in a closed session of Congress.[7]
Historians have long disputed whether Congress actually signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, even though Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all later wrote that they had signed it on that day. Most historians have concluded that the Declaration was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is commonly believed.[8][9][10][11][12]
In a remarkable coincidence, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only signers of the Declaration of Independence later to serve as Presidents of the United States, died on the same day: July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. Although not a signer of the Declaration of Independence, but another Founding Father who became a President, James Monroe, died on July 4, 1831, thus becoming the third president in a row who died on this memorable day. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President, was born on July 4, 1872, and, so far, is the only President to have been born on Independence Day.
An 1825 invitation to an Independence Day celebration
In 1777, thirteen gunshots were fired in salute, once at morning and once again as evening fell, on July 4 in Bristol, Rhode Island. Philadelphia celebrated the first anniversary in a manner a modern American would find quite familiar: an official dinner for the Continental Congress, toasts, 13-gun salutes, speeches, prayers, music, parades, troop reviews, and fireworks. Ships were decked with red, white, and blue bunting.[13]
In 1778, General George Washington marked July 4 with a double ration of rum for his soldiers and an artillery salute. Across the Atlantic Ocean, ambassadors John Adams and Benjamin Franklin held a dinner for their fellow Americans in Paris, France.[14]
In 1779, July 4 fell on a Sunday. The holiday was celebrated on Monday, July 5.[14]
In 1781 the Massachusetts General Court became the first state legislature to recognize July 4 as a state celebration.[14]
In 1783, Moravians in Salem, North Carolina, held a celebration of July 4 with a challenging music program assembled by Johann Friedrich Peter. This work was titled "The Psalm of Joy".
In 1791 the first recorded use of the name "Independence Day" occurred.
In 1820 the first Fourth of July celebration was held in Eastport, Maine which remains the largest in the state.[15]
In 1870, the U.S. Congress made Independence Day an unpaid holiday for federal employees.[16]
In 1938, Congress changed Independence Day to a paid federal holiday.[17]
In addition to a fireworks show, Miami lights one of its tallest buildings with the patriotic red, white and blue color scheme on Independence Day
New York City's fireworks display, shown above over the East Village, is sponsored by Macy's and the largest[18] in the country
Patriotic trailer shown in theaters prior to the July 4, 1940
A festively decorated fourth of July cake.
Independence Day is a national holiday marked by patriotic displays. Similar to other summer-themed events, Independence Day celebrations often take place outdoors. Independence Day is a federal holiday, so all non-essential federal institutions (like the postal service and federal courts) are closed on that day. Many politicians make it a point on this day to appear at a public event to praise the nation's heritage, laws, history, society, and people.
Families often celebrate Independence Day by hosting or attending a picnic or barbecue and take advantage of the day off and, in some years, long weekend to gather with relatives. Decorations (e.g., streamers, balloons, and clothing) are generally colored red, white, and blue, the colors of the American flag. Parades are often in the morning, while fireworks displays occur in the evening at such places as parks, fairgrounds, or town squares.
The night before the Fourth was once the focal point of celebrations, marked by raucous gatherings often incorporating bonfires as their centerpiece. In New England, towns competed to build towering pyramids, assembled from hogsheads and barrels and casks. They were lit at nightfall, to usher in the celebration. The highest were in Salem, Massachusetts (on Gallows Hill, the famous site of the execution of 13 women and 6 men for witchcraft in 1692 during the Salem witch trials, where the tradition of bonfires in celebration had persisted), composed of as many as forty tiers of barrels; these are the tallest bonfires ever recorded. The custom flourished in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and is still practiced in some New England towns.[19]
Independence Day fireworks are often accompanied by patriotic songs such as the national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner", "God Bless America", "America the Beautiful", "My Country, 'Tis of Thee", "This Land Is Your Land", "Stars and Stripes Forever", and, regionally, "Yankee Doodle" in northeastern states and "Dixie" in southern states. Some of the lyrics recall images of the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812.
Firework shows are held in many states, and many fireworks are sold for personal use or as an alternative to a public show. Safety concerns have led some states to ban fireworks or limit the sizes and types allowed. Illicit traffic transfers many fireworks from less restrictive states.
A salute of one gun for each state in the United States, called a “salute to the union,” is fired on Independence Day at noon by any capable military base.[20]
In 2009, New York City had the largest fireworks display in the country, with over 22 tons of pyrotechnics exploded.[18] Other major displays are in Chicago on Lake Michigan; in San Diego over Mission Bay; in Boston on the Charles River; in St. Louis on the Mississippi River; in San Francisco over the San Francisco Bay; and on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.. During the annual Windsor-Detroit International Freedom Festival, Detroit, Michigan hosts one of the world's largest fireworks displays, over the Detroit River, to celebrate Independence Day in conjunction with Windsor, Ontario's celebration of Canada Day.
While the official observance always falls on July 4th, participation levels may vary according to which day of the week the 4th falls on. If the holiday falls in the middle of the week, some fireworks displays and celebrations may take place during the weekend for convenience, again, varying by region.
The first week of July is typically one of the busiest American travel periods of the year, as many people utilize the holiday for extended vacation trips.[21]
Unique or historical celebrations
Originally entitled Yankee Doodle, this is one of several versions of a scene painted by A. M. Willard that came to be known as The Spirit of '76. Often imitated or parodied, it is a familiar symbol of American patriotism
Held since 1785, the Bristol Fourth of July Parade in Bristol, Rhode Island is the oldest continuous Independence Day celebration in the United States.
Since 1868, Seward, Nebraska has held a celebration on the same town square. In 1979 Seward was designated “America’s Official Fourth of July City-Small Town USA” by resolution of Congress. Seward has also been proclaimed Nebraska’s Official Fourth of July City” by Governor James Exon in proclamation. Seward is a town of 6,000 but swells to 40,000+ during the July 4 celebrations.[22]
Since 1912, the Rebild Society, a Danish-American friendship organization, has held a July 4 weekend festival that serves as a homecoming for Danish-Americans in the Rebild section of Denmark.[23]
Since 1916, Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City supposedly started as a way to settle a dispute among four immigrants as to who was the most patriotic.
Since 1959, the International Freedom Festival is jointly held in Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario during the last week of June each year as a mutual celebration of Independence Day and Canada Day (July 1). It culminates in a large fireworks display over the Detroit River.
Numerous major and minor league baseball games are played on Independence Day.
The famous Macy's fireworks display usually held over the East River in New York City has been televised nationwide on NBC since 1976. In 2009, the fireworks display was returned to the Hudson River for the first time since 2000 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's exploration of that river.[24]
Since 1970, the annual 10 kilometer Peachtree Road Race is held in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Boston Pops Orchestra has hosted a music and fireworks show over the Charles River Esplanade called the "Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular" annually since 1973.[25] The event was broadcast nationally from 1987 until 2002 on the A&E Network, and has aired since 2003 on CBS.[26][27]
On the Capitol lawn in Washington, D.C., "A Capitol Fourth", a free concert, precedes the fireworks and attracts over half a million people annually.
1776 (musical)
Constitution Day (United States)
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS: JULY 4TH
Taken from the www.FamousBirthdays.com site, here are some birthdays of celebrities and other famous people.
MALIA OBAMA 14
Oldest daughter of 44th U.S. president Barack Obama
Birthplace: New York
Profession: Other
About: Oldest daughter of 44th U.S. president Barack Obama
Did You Know: My sister is Sasha, my mother is Michelle, and my Portuguese Water Dog is Bo.
Associated with: I am the daughter of Barack Obama.
MITCH MILLER (1911-2010)
Bandleader popular for men's chorus "Sing Along with Mitch"
Profession: Musician
About: Bandleader popular for men's chorus "Sing Along with Mitch"
Did You Know: During the 50's & 60's, I headed Colombia records.
Associated with: I have performed with George Gershwin before.
GERALDO RIVERA 69
Ambitious TV personality, news reporter, and talk show host.
Profession: TV Actor
About: Ambitious TV personality, news reporter, and talk show host.
Did You Know: Cheech Marin, a long-time friend, did a parody naming me, "Horrendo Revolver". Also, although some reporters peg me as a "trash journalist," I have been a reporter for Fox News and NBC.
Associated with: John Lennon and I did a benefit concert once
MIKE THE SITUATION SORRENTINO 30
Muscle-bound reality star of "Jersey Shore" on MTV
Profession: Reality Star
About: Muscle-bound reality star of "Jersey Shore" on MTV
Did You Know: I'm an Italian-American reality star better known by my nickname, The Situation, and I love to "GTL" and "fist pump".
Associated with: I have been on 'Conan' with Conan O' Brien.
GEORGE STEINBRENNER (1930-2010)
Irascible owner of the New York Yankees starting in 1973
Birthplace: Ohio
Profession: Entrepreneur
About: Irascible owner of the New York Yankees starting in 1973
Did You Know: People thought I was a jerk, but my baseball team won more than anyone else.
Associated with: I was in one episode of 'Seinfeld' with Jerry Seinfeld.
GINA LOLLOBRIGIDA 85
Voluptuous actress made movies in Italy and America
Birthplace: Italy
Profession: Movie Actress
About: Voluptuous actress made movies in Italy and America
Did You Know: I'm Italian and an actress, and in the 50's I was considered the world's most beautiful woman.
Associated with: I was in 'Hotel Paradiso' with Alec Guinness.
ANN LANDERS (1918-2002)
Advice columnist, twin sister of Abigail Van Buren
Birthplace: Iowa
Profession: Journalist
About: Advice columnist, twin sister of Abigail Van Buren
Did You Know: My real name is Ruth Crowley, but I used a pen name for my column.
Associated with: Abigail Van Buren is my sister.
GLORIA STUART (1910-2010)
Actress since the 1930s played Old Rose in "Titanic"
Birthplace: California
About: Actress since the 1930s played Old Rose in "Titanic"
Did You Know: I'm a third generation Californian and was in "The Invisible Man".
Associated with: I was in 'Titanic' with Kate Winslet.
NEIL SIMON 85
New York playwright of "The Odd Couple" and "Biloxi Blues"
Profession: Author
About: New York playwright of "The Odd Couple" and "Biloxi Blues"
Did You Know: I won a Pulitzer prize for my play "Lost in Yonkers".
Associated with: I was once married to Marsha Mason.
ABIGAIL VAN BUREN 94
Advice column writer of "Dear Abby", which solved newspaper readers' personal problems
About: Advice column writer of "Dear Abby", which solved newspaper readers' personal problems
Did You Know: My legacy and column is now carried on today by my daughter, Jeanne Phillips.
Associated with: I got my last name by taking it from President Martin Van Buren.
CALVIN COOLIDGE (1872-1933)
30th U.S. president (1923-1929)
Birthplace: Massachusetts
Profession: Politician
About: 30th U.S. president (1923-1929)
Did You Know: Despite meeting with reporters more often than any other president, I'm known as a quiet man.
Associated with: Ronald Reagan shared in my view that the size of government should be reduced.
FLOYD LITTLE 70
I am a Pro Football Hall of Fame running back who played for the Denver Broncos.
Birthplace: Connecticut
Profession: Athlete
About: I am a Pro Football Hall of Fame running back who played for the Denver Broncos.
Did You Know: My nickname was 'The Franchise'.
Associated with: Troy Aikman was also a College Football Hall of Fame inductee.
EVA MARIE SAINT 88
Known as Brando's girl Edie Doyle in "On the Waterfront"
Birthplace: New Jersey
About: Known as Brando's girl Edie Doyle in "On the Waterfront"
Did You Know: I worked with Hitchcock and Brando, and received an Emmy in the 90's.
Associated with: I was in 'North by Northwest' by Alfred Hitchcock.
LEONA HELMSLEY (1920-2007)
I am a business woman focusing on the real estate industry, but was later convicted of tax evasion.
About: I am a business woman focusing on the real estate industry, but was later convicted of tax evasion.
Did You Know: My tyrannical behavior got me the nickname Queen of Mean.
Associated with: I once created a huge scene with a misbehaving waiter in front of lawyer, Alan Dershowitz.
RUBE GOLDBERG (1883-1970)
Cartoonist drew complicated inventions to do simple tasks
About: Cartoonist drew complicated inventions to do simple tasks
Did You Know: I was born in San Francisco and founded the National Cartoonists Society.
Associated with: An episode of 'X-files' with Shia LaBeouf was named after me.
GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI (1807-1882)
Italian politician and general,considered to be one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland".
About: Italian politician and general,considered to be one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland".
Did You Know: I was a central figure in the Italian Risorgimento and fought many military campaigns to form a unified Italy.
Associated with: Many of the greatest intellectuals of my time, such as Victor Hugo, admired me.
TAKAHISA MASUDA 26
I am a Japanese idol and singer signed under Johnny's Entertainment's group, News.
About: I am a Japanese idol and singer signed under Johnny's Entertainment's group, News.
Did You Know: I used to be a backdancer for senior groups like KAT-TUN.
Associated with: I was a part of the group News with fellow member, Keiichiro Koyama.
JIN AKANISHI 28
I am a Japanese singer/songwriter, actor, and radio host who previously sang with the group KAT-TUN.
About: I am a Japanese singer/songwriter, actor, and radio host who previously sang with the group KAT-TUN.
Did You Know: I left KAT-TUN to study abroad in America.
Associated with: KAT-TUN was able to top all three Oricon charts, being only the second artist to do so besides Ayumi Hamasaki.
GINA GLOCKSEN 28
I placed 9th in the sixth season of American Idol.
Birthplace: Illinois
About: I placed 9th in the sixth season of American Idol.
Did You Know: I appeared in season 5, where I was cut in the Hollywood round.
Associated with: I chose fellow American Idol star, Jordin Sparks, to be one of my eight bridesmaids.
BECKI NEWTON 34
I am an American actress best known for playing Amanda Tanen on Ugly Betty.
Profession: TV Actress
About: I am an American actress best known for playing Amanda Tanen on Ugly Betty.
Did You Know: I did TV commercials for Olive Garden.
Associated with: I work with America Ferrera on Ugly Betty.
GEORGE MURPHY (1902-1992)
Dancer, actor, U.S. senator from California
Profession: Broadway Star
About: Dancer, actor, U.S. senator from California
Did You Know: I starred in Broadway Melody of 1938 & Broadway Melody of 1940 in addition to serving in the U.S. Senate.
Associated with: I was a U.S. Senator during the era of Richard Nixon.
American novelist and short story writer who focused on dark romanticism.
About: American novelist and short story writer who focused on dark romanticism.
Did You Know: One of my most famous works is my novel, The Scarlet Letter.
Associated with: Edgar Allan Poe often critiqued my works harshly, but in the end, he recognized the brilliance of my work.
KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND 61
I am an attorney who was the sixth Lieutenant Governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003.
About: I am an attorney who was the sixth Lieutenant Governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003.
Did You Know: I am a member of the famous Kennedy family.
Associated with: I was succeeded by Michael Steele as Lieutenant Governor of Maryland.
EMERSON BOOZER 69
Played entire career with the Jets, helped the Jets defeat the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
Birthplace: Georgia
About: Played entire career with the Jets, helped the Jets defeat the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
Did You Know: I ran for over 2,500 yards in college at Maryland Eastern Shore, and in 2010, I was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Associated with: My quarterback that led us to victory in Super Bowl III was the great Joe Namath.
SAM FARR 71
U.S. Representative for California's 17th congressional district.
About: U.S. Representative for California's 17th congressional district.
Did You Know: My father was a California state senator for many years.
Associated with: I participated in and served for the Peace Corps, like astronaut Mae Carol Jemison.
EDWARD CRAVEN WALKER (1918-2000)
Inventor of the Lava Lamp.
Birthplace: India
About: Inventor of the Lava Lamp.
Did You Know: I was a pilot in World War II.
Associated with: I took Thomas Alva Edison's idea of the light bulb to a whole new level.
STEPHEN MATHER 145
Millionaire and owner of Thorkildsen-Mather Borax Company.
About: Millionaire and owner of Thorkildsen-Mather Borax Company.
Did You Know: I suffered a severe episode of bipolar disorder in 1903.
Associated with: I became a dedicated conservationist, following in the footsteps of the influential John Muir.
HISTORY-FUN FACTS ABOUT JULY 4TH
As presented by www.PurpleTrail.com...
Independence Day – Fun Facts, History & Trivia about the 4th of July
Here are some Independence Day fun facts, history and trivia. On July the 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress. Thereafter, the 13 colonies embarked on the road to freedom as a sovereign nation. This most American of holidays is traditionally celebrated with parades, fireworks and backyard barbecues across the country. As you send out your July 4th party invitations, take a minute to think about how much you really know about what we are celebrating.
4th of July History & Trivia -Did You Know…
The major objection to being ruled by Britain was taxation without representation. The colonists had no say in the decisions of English Parliament.
In May, 1776, after nearly a year of trying to resolve their differences with England, the colonies sent delegates to the Second Continental Congress. Finally, in June, admitting that their efforts were hopeless; a committee was formed to compose the formal Declaration of Independence. Headed by Thomas Jefferson, the committee also included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Philip Livingston and Roger Sherman. On June 28, 1776, Thomas Jefferson presented the first draft of the declaration to Congress.
Betsy Ross, according to legend, sewed the first American flag in May or June 1776, as commissioned by the Congressional Committee.
Independence Day was first celebrated in Philadelphia on July 8, 1776.
The Liberty Bell sounded from the tower of Independence Hall on July 8, 1776, summoning citizens to gather for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence by Colonel John Nixon.
June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress, looking to promote national pride and unity, adopted the national flag. “Resolved: that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”
The word ‘patriotism’ comes from the Latin patria, which means ‘homeland’ or ‘fatherland.’
The first public Fourth of July event at the White House occurred in 1804.
Before cars ruled the roadway, the Fourth of July was traditionally the most miserable day of the year for horses, tormented by all the noise and by the boys and girls who threw firecrackers at them.
The first Independence Day celebration west of the Mississippi occurred at Independence Creek and was celebrated by Lewis and Clark in 1805.
On June 24, 1826, Thomas Jefferson sent a letter to Roger C. Weightman, declining an invitation to come to Washington, D.C., to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It was the last letter that Jefferson, who was gravely ill, ever wrote.
Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on Independence Day, July 4, 1826.
The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence did not sign at the same time, nor did they sign on July 4, 1776. The official event occurred on August 2, 1776, when 50 men signed it.
The names of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were withheld from the public for more than six months to protect the signers. If independence had not been achieved, the treasonable act of the signers would have, by law, resulted in their deaths.
Thomas McKean was the last to sign in January, 1777.
The origin of Uncle Sam probably began in 1812, when Samuel Wilson was a meat packer who provided meat to the US Army. The meat shipments were stamped with the initials, U.S. Someone joked that the initials stood for “Uncle Sam”. This joke eventually led to the idea of Uncle Sam symbolizing the United States government.
In 1941, Congress declared 4th of July a federal legal holiday. It is one of the few federal holidays that have not been moved to the nearest Friday or Monday.
Read more on the Declaration of Independence.
Independence Day Trivia & Facts – An Inspired America:
Thirty places nationwide with “liberty” in their name. Liberty, Missouri (26,232) boasts the highest population of the 30 at 26,232. Iowa has more of these places than any other state at four: Libertyville, New Liberty, North Liberty and West Liberty.
Eleven places have “independence” in their name. The most populous of these is Independence, Missouri, with 113,288 residents.
Five places adopted the name “freedom.” Freedom, California, with 6,000 residents, has the largest population among these.
There is one place named “patriot” — Patriot, Indiana, with a population of 202.
And what could be more fitting than spending the day in a place called “America”? There are five such places in the country, with the most populous being American Fork, Utah, with 21,941 residents. Check out American Fact Finder.
-The Declaration of Independence 4 of July, 1776.
Shop our gorgeous patriotic design collection of July 4th Party Invitations
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U.S. Markets- Week in Review
September 24, 2018 | IN Insider, Education, Expert | BY Trading Central
What's new in U.S. markets? Get up-to-speed quickly with our brief rundown of last week's key market movement written by our North American research desk. It only takes five minutes to learn about the biggest movers, significant technical events, earnings preview and notable corporate news.
The S&P 500 gained 0.85% for the week, with the Nasdaq ending the week slightly negative. The real story was the strong performance of the DOW closing up 2.25% on the week.
On the economic data front, Initial jobless claims reached 201k in week ended September 15th (estimated 210k) from 204k in the previous week. In addition, the Philadelphia Federal Business Outlook increased to 22.9 in September (expected 18) vs. 11.9 in August. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index improved to 60.2 in week ended September 16th from 59 in the prior week. In addition, the Leading Index improved by 0.4% in August (estimated 0.5%) vs. 0.6% in July. Finally, existing home sales remained unchanged MoM at 5.34M in August (expected 5.37M).
We remain bullish the S&P 500 with a cautious tone as the index sits at record highs inside a rising wedge pattern. Our stop-loss pivot is set at 2873 to match the previous record high set back in January. Our short term targets are set at 2971.75 and 3000. The rising wedge pattern is a warning sign of a possible market top forming. Look for a close below the 20-day simple moving average to confirm the bearish wedge pattern. A small pullback is warranted at these levels before a continuation higher beyond the record high. The RSI remains above its 50 level supported by a short-term rising trend line indicating positive momentum is still in play.
70% of S&P 500 stocks are trading above their 50-day moving average. Historically when this level reaches the 75% to 80% zone there has been a dip in the markets.
The VIX is now bullish above key support at 10.45. We anticipate a gradual increase in volatility as we are currently at historic low levels. A pullback in the markets is anticipated within the next few weeks as we approach VIX support.
Looking at relative strength of the majors, The DOW vs the Nasdaq index had been underperforming throughout the year until this month where the ratio broke above the long term declining trendline. For the month of September, the DOW leads all U.S. indices. Technology stocks have been under pressure and this trend may continue until the end of the year.
Notable technical events:
50D MA cross over: Booking Holdings (BKNG +0.46% to $1956.74), Chevron (CVX +1.43% to $121.13).
Relative strength stock/S&P500 50D MA cross under: NetFlix (NFLX -1.14% to $361.19).
Key corporate news,
On the corporate front, Texas Instruments (TXN +4.45% WoW to $110.05) boosted its quarterly dividend by 24% YoY to $0.77 (estimated $0.75) and announced that its Board has authorized a repurchase of an additional $12B of its common stock over time.
Adobe Systems (ADBE -5.03% WoW to $260.88) has entered into a definite agreement to acquire Marketo, the cloud platform for B2B marketing engagement, for $4.75B. The transaction is expected to close in 4Q2018.
McDonald's (MCD +2.77% WoW to $165.3) raised its quarterly dividend by 15% to $1.16 and boosted its cash return to shareholders to $25B for the three years ending 2019.
Red Hat (RHT -9.57% WoW to $134.62) reported 2Q adj. EPS of $0.85 (estimated $0.82) vs. $0.77 a year ago on revenue of $822.7M (forecasted $828.1M) from $723.3M in the previous year. Net income diminished by 10.5% YoY to $86.9M. The Co released its 3Q guidance of adj. EPS at $0.87 (estimated $0.92) and expects revenue to range between $848M and $856M (expected $862.1M). Finally, the Co sees FY adj. EPS at $3.45 - $3.49 (forecasted $3.47) and revenue reaching $3.36B - $3.4B (expected $3.4B).
Bank stocks like Citigroup Inc (C +5.12% WoW to $74.15), JPMorgan Chase (JPM +3.83% WoW to $117.85), Bank of America (BAC +2.17% WoW to $31.03), Goldman Sachs (GS +2.66% WoW to $235.34) and Morgan Stanley (MS +2.53% WoW to $49.41) were the top movers of the S&P500 as the 10-year and 30-year yields rose to the highest level since May 18th.
Copart (CPRT -18.9% WoW to $52.58) reported 4Q adj. EPS of $0.42 (estimated $0.48) vs. $0.35 a year ago on revenue of $449.2B (forecasted $448.5M) from $378.6M in the previous year. Net income jumped 56% YoY to $109.7M.
Unumprovident (UNM +9.78% WoW to $40.51) has finalized its reserve review for its long-term care block of business and expects to boost its long-term care GAAP reserves in 3Q2018 by appx. $590M after-tax ($750M before-tax).
Twitter (TWTR -5.38% WoW to $28.5) fell during trading hours after a MoffettNathanson analyst cut the Co's price target to $21 from $23 and warned that expenses are expected to rise later in 2018 and 2019 given its "dire need" to improve the safety of its platform and its video initiatives, according to Bloomberg. In other news, the Co dropped as TechCrunch reported that a bug may have sent users' private direct messages to the Co's developers without authorization. The issue started in May 2017 but was only resolved once the Co discovered it on September 10th 2018.
Fedex (FDX -3.18% WoW to $247.32) reported 1Q adj. EPS of $3.46 (estimated $3.8) vs. $2.51 a year ago on revenue up 11.75% YoY to $17.1B (forecasted $16.87B). The Co raised its FY guidance on adj. EPS in a range of $17.2 - $17.8 (expected $17.37) from the previous forecast of $17 - $17.6.
General Mills (GIS -6.89% WoW to $44.46) announced 1Q adj. EPS unchanged YoY at $0.71 (estimated $0.64) on net sales up 8.6% YoY to $4.09B (forecasted $4.12B). Gross margin on an adjusted basis decreased by 160bps YoY to 33.6%, lower than expectations of 34.3%. The Co reaffirmed its FY2019 targets including adj. EPS growth between remaining flat and increasing by 3% vs. FY2018.
Union Pacific (UNP +4.82% WoW to $164.99) unveiled its Unified Plan 2020 which consists of implementing "Precision Scheduled Railroading principles". This initiative is expected to help the Co reach its 60% operating ratio goal by 2020. According to Bloomberg, the PSR principles are taken from the "railroading legend" Hunter Harrison.
U.S. Earnings Preview for next week
NKE US
On Tuesday in after-hours, Nike is expected to report 1Q EPS of $0.625 vs. $0.57 a year ago on higher revenue of $9.9B from $9.1B in the previous year. Recently, the Co's price target was boosted to $100 from $90 at Guggenheim. From a chartist point of view, the RSI is above 50 while the MACD is positive and above its signal line. The configuration is positive. Moreover, the stock is trading above both its 20 and 50 day MA (respectively at 82.36 and 80.09). Nike is currently trading near its 52 week high reached at 85.85 on 19/09/18. We are looking at the next target of $90.4 with a stop-loss of $82.2.
CTAS US
On same day, Cintas is likely to post 1Q EPS of $1.8 vs. $1.48 a year ago on revenue of $1.7B vs. $1.6B a year earlier. From a technical point of view, the RSI is below 50 while the MACD is below its signal line but remains in positive territory. The MACD must penetrate its zero line to expect further downside. Moreover, the stock is trading under its 20 day MA (213.71) but above its 50 day MA (208.68). Finally, Cintas has penetrated its lower daily Bollinger band (210.62). Cintas is currently trading near its 52 week high reached at 217.34 on 07/09/18. We expect to reach our lower target of $201.5 with a stop-loss set at $217.2.
KMX US
On Wednesday, CarMax is awaited to announce 2Q EPS of $1.22 vs. $0.98 last year on revenue of $4.6B compared to $4.4B in the prior year. The Co was recently cut to "sell" from "hold" at Morningstar. Looking at the chart, the RSI is above 50 while the MACD is positive and below its signal line. The stock could retrace in the short term. Moreover, the stock is above its 20 and 50 day MA (respectively at 78.29 and 76.4). CarMax is currently trading near its 52 week high reached at 81.67 on 22/06/18. The stock is likely to hit our target of $82.5 with a stop-loss set at $76.8.
CCL US
On Thursday, Carnival is anticipated to unveil 3Q EPS of $2.31 vs. $2.29 last year on revenue of $5.8B from $5.5B in the previous year. Recently, the Co was downgraded to "hold" from "buy" at Morningstar. Technically speaking, the RSI is above 70. It could mean either that the stock is in a lasting uptrend or just overbought and therefore bound to correct (look for bearish divergence in this case). The MACD is above its signal line and positive while the configuration is positive. Moreover, the stock is above its 20 and 50 day MA (respectively at 62.68 and 60.49). Finally, Carnival is trading above its upper Bollinger band (standing at 66.32). Our next target is set at $69.9 with a stop-loss set at $65.1.
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A Dip Into History: Rebuilding The Furniture Game
Kara Miller
Credit: Mikel Ortega / Flickr / Creative Commons
And now a dip into history… For the story of Ingvar Kamprad, a man who loved his Volvo. He loved the idea of holding onto it year after year, as the number on the odometer got steeper and steeper.
Eventually, he did get rid of the car, but not until he had owned it for more than two decades and squeezed every bit of life out of it.
Ingvar is legendary for that kind of hard-core thriftiness. He likes to eat at low-priced restaurants and even apparently plans his trips to the supermarket at times when the store starts slashing prices to get rid of merchandise, just to save a bit more money.
Ingvar isn’t in denial about being cheap – he’s said that’s just the way he is. He also happens to be a billionaire, with his current net worth estimated at $3.5 billion.
He began building his fortune many years ago by buying matches in bulk and then selling them to individual customers so he could pocket the difference. That was when he was six. At 17, Ingvar started the company that made him famous.
It’s a company that revolutionized the sales of something pretty basic, that made its name in large part by being cheap. Ingvar Kamprad named the company after his own initials and the area he’s from – Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd – resulting in “I.K.E.A.”
IKEA’s notion that you could put furniture together yourself – which would save money in both labor and shipping – marked a huge change in the way furniture was sold, and who could afford to buy it.
Today, Ingvar is almost 90 and lives near IKEA’s offices in Sweden. He’s still very involved in the company and, reportedly, has no plans to retire.
This segment originally aired on October 16, 2015. It was rebroadcast on September 30, 2017.
IKEA, Business, Culture, WGBH, furniture, pri
Can Politicians Reach Across The Aisle?
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CART FedEx Championship Series: Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio
Topics: Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio
Patrick Carpentier
Cristiano da Matta
Christian Fittipaldi
LEXINGTON, OHIO
MERRILL CAIN: Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. We'll go ahead and get started with our top three press conference following provisional qualifying for Sunday's CART Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio. We'll begin with Christian Fittipaldi, to my immediate left, driver of the #11 Lilly Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone, he was third quickest in today's session with a best lap of 1:07.436 seconds, a speed of 120.541 miles per hour. Christian has yet to earn a Top 3 starting spot in his six previous visits here to Mid-Ohio, although he does have a podium finish of third to his credit, that coming in the 2000 event. Christian, if you would, talk about your qualifying effort today. Seemed like it was tough for everybody to get a clear lap out there today.
CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: I think it's pretty obvious when people wait until the very last minute, they go out, they have a huge, I would call it, domino effect. And to be quite honest with you, no one -- it isn't anyone's fault. But at the end of the day it is, because everyone is screwing everyone's lap there. If I have a car in front of me that's slowed down because of two cars that are in front of him that also slow down, it creates a huge chain reaction, and there's nothing you can do. So I think everyone should be mad at everyone right now, unless if you're slowing down, you should get out of the way. That's what common sense tells you. But unfortunately, it doesn't go that way. No one is playing that game out there. I'm not doing it. Shorty's is not doing it. None of the other 16, 17 drivers out there are doing it. So this is what happens in such a turbulent session. First run of tires, I had to pass people on my quickest lap, so the whole day I never did like two laps in the row where the tires got better. Definitely without touching the car, there's a lot more in the car yet to come. I'm pretty sure the young man here is going to say the same thing, there's a lot more in his car. We'll wait and see until tomorrow. I'm pretty happy. The car ran well this morning. I think we're going to be up there again tomorrow.
MERRILL CAIN: Our CART FedEx Championship Series points leader Cristiano da Matta qualified second in provisional qualifying session. Driver of the #6 Havoline Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone, he claimed the second spot in today's session, putting up a lap 1:07.095 seconds, a speed of 121.154 miles per hour. Cristiano will be looking to earn his best ever starting spot in Mid-Ohio. He's yet to earn a grid position in the first three rows in any of his previous three starts. As we mentioned, the series points leader, Cristiano has won three consecutive poles and five of the last six poles overall. Cristiano, if you could talk about your qualifying effort today.
CRISTIANO DA MATTA: I think everybody is probably going to be complaining about the same kind of things. But as Christian was saying, it's a game you play. You wait until the very end for the better track. You got more traffic. You might got a red. So we played it -- of course, we don't have a crystal ball to see when the track is going to be clear or not. But today happen exactly the same thing that happen in Vancouver two weeks ago on the Friday session when everybody went out on the same time with like 20 minutes to go, and then everybody still had two runs to do with 20 minutes to go. Of course, that makes the track very busy. I'm sure everybody is going to be complaining about the same thing, clear laps and all. But, of course, I felt like I had the car to fight for pole, and I think somebody told me I was on pole until 15 seconds to the red flag. So I'm not happy with my grid position, but on the other hand I'm very happy with my car, very happy with the engine, very happy the way everything has been working for us this week. We just have to try to find a better way, not only us, but like everybody together, to play this qualifying a smarter way.
MERRILL CAIN: Thanks, Cristiano. We're joined now by Patrick Carpentier, driver of the #33 Player's/Indeck Ford/Cosworth/Reynard/Bridgestone. He wins the provisional pole for Sunday's race with a best effort of 1:07.040 seconds, a speed of 121.253 miles per hour. He earns one championship point and guarantees himself a front row starting spot. The point gives Patrick 73 points in the season and moves him to within one point of Bruno Junqueira and Michel Jourdain, Jr., who are tied currently for third with 74 points. Pat, has to be a great feeling for you. As we were talking, there's been a lot of speculation concerning your future. I guess this provisional qualifying effort couldn't have come at a better time for you.
PATRICK CARPENTIER: Yeah, no, I'm pretty happy. I've been lately out of many team and into many other team. Actually, none of that's happening right now. We'll see what's going to happen. But I'm really happy today. Like Cristiano said, sometime you need a bit of a break to get it. And we put a good lap in. And I passed the start/finish line. I heard "P1." Then the next thing I heard, "Red flag." I said, "Am I still P1?" They said yeah. That was it. I'm really happy, it gives me a front row start for the race tomorrow. I know it's going to be a really long race. They lengthen it a little bit. It's going to be important to be at the front. Team Player's did a good job. My engineers changed the car pleat completely from this morning to this afternoon. They make the right decision. So was good.
MERRILL CAIN: The red flag that prematurely ended the qualifying session came about with a minute 30 left on the clock, we can verify that. We'll open it up for questions for our top three provisional qualifiers.
Q. (Inaudible)?
CRISTIANO DA MATTA: In Vancouver, we were more worried than here. In Vancouver, of course, you're hitting all kinds of curbs. This track is not a track that use a lot of curb, so not the same kind of needs.
CRISTIANO DA MATTA: Well, 1:05 seems pretty far away right now. It's strange. This track, I think it changes so much sometimes from one day to the other. When we tested here like one month ago, we did like 1:06.0. Today with the same car, we are doing 1:07.0. It's just one second off. Nothing different in the car. It depends so much in the track. Of course, there's a lot of others series running here as well, so it puts lots of different rubbers. We never know exactly if that's going to be good or bad for us. Historically, usually there's a big improvement on the track on the second day of qualifying.
CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: I think pole time tomorrow is going to be between 1:06.0 and 1:06.5 .
CRISTIANO DA MATTA: Don't go faster than that (laughter).
PATRICK CARPENTIER: I don't know what it's going to be tomorrow. We tested here. There was a lot of rubber. We ran 1:05.7 during the test. I'm not sure tomorrow we're going to be go as fast. I think Christian is right about the time, I think it's going to be up at the front tomorrow.
PATRICK CARPENTIER: For the first one, I have no idea why Bruno came to me pissed off like that. I think it was Kenny that was in front of me that kept slowing down to get a gap, so I did the same thing. I was trying to slow down to get a gap. My team said that there was no space available behind me. So I was just trying to get a gap early on. At the end, I just ran all my laps as fast as I could to try to do the lap time. So I'll have to look at the tape because I didn't see. Maybe I blocked him, maybe I did not. I have to look at it, I don't know.
CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: Adding to that question a little bit, I think everybody is wrong after. There isn't one driver out there that is right. If you're slow, you have to get out of the way. But no one wants to lose their track position. And that's why people keep on running and slowing everyone else. I would love to have that performance, but unfortunately we don't have any tire warmers in the series. It's impossible for you to post your time, your quick time, on the first lap. If we did have any tire warmers in the series, it would make qualifying a lot more nice to watch because everyone knows that once you went out of the pits, it would be only one lap and then in. I can guarantee you, we wouldn't have half of these traffic problems that we have right now because right now we need to build a pace for us to do a lap.
PATRICK CARPENTIER: We're pretty confident actually here. I think it's a track that suits the Reynard pretty well. The faster racetrack, like here, Elkhart, Laguna Seca, Portland, these types of track, Cleveland, seem to suit our car better. What we're struggling more is more on the street circuits. We seem to be having a problem to produce downforce at low speed when the car needs to be a bit higher from the ground. I'm pretty happy here, but we tested fast. We're hoping we're going to be fast. Team Player's is working really, really hard to keep developing the chassis, keep making it better. I think so far they've done a pretty good job.
PATRICK CARPENTIER: I didn't think there was going to be that much traffic at the end. I thought on this type of track would be kind of more by ourselves. But it seems like everybody was kind of around the same pace, and traffic played into it a little bit also. But from the time we did on the first set of tires to the second set of tires, that indicates to me it was better to wait today. It's always a risk you take. Sometimes it's better to get a clear lap than to get a little bit more rubber on the track.
CRISTIANO DA MATTA: Yeah, I think this track, for a road course, is a little bit more sensitive than other road courses. I'm not sure if it's because of the concrete patches. But I always feel like, even throughout the weekend, is bigger difference here on lap time from Friday to Saturday to Sunday in this track than you usually see in other ones. So maybe that's why everybody was waiting all the way to the very end. I think maybe there's a place, a road course, that makes it a little bit more different. I think this is the place.
CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: That's a good point. That's what we did in the last race. I don't know if you noticed, both of us went out in the beginning of the session - I can't remember - five or 10 minutes into the session. I think that made also everyone else come out after us. So it changed the whole format of how it was last time from Friday to Saturday. But here I think the difference in the track from the beginning of the session until the end is a little bit bigger than in the last race. Historically in this place, the more rubber you have down, a lot quicker you go. It's not a matter of picking up one-tenth, sometimes without even touching a car, just because you run about 10 or 15 minutes later, there's a lot more grip out there, you go up to half a second quicker.
MERRILL CAIN: Cristiano, will the tactics change tomorrow?
CRISTIANO DA MATTA: I don't know. I wish it changes, but I don't want to be the first out (laughter).
PATRICK CARPENTIER: It's always a bit of a distraction when you're into the unknown. But I think that's life in racing. I think there's a lot of guys in the same situation. I think a lot of us won't know what's happening until later in the year. I just got to drive the car the best I can and do the best job I can. Right now I'm trying to focus on getting as many points and going up in the championship more. That's about the only thing that is going to work for me. Besides that, I kind of been talking, a lot of people have been talking lately, but I don't know nothing and I think it's a bit early. I'm just going to drive the car and try to win races and get some points. We're going to see I think what happens more later in September and October.
CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: The latest and greatest rumor out there, I heard Pat being linked to a Newman/Haas drive. That is true or not?
PATRICK CARPENTIER: Next question.
PATRICK CARPENTIER: We're going to work hard. We're going to try to get another point. If we can do that, to confirm it, that would be fantastic. If not, we're starting on the front row. We're going to try. It's going to be a long race, so the tires are important to be in good shape, too. We're going to try to improve the car. I mean, if I'm second tomorrow, but I'm a second and a half off of the Top 10, then it's going to be a long race. We've got to keep working hard and try to get the pole again tomorrow.
CRISTIANO DA MATTA: Distance on the race? Personally, I think the races are getting a little too long. A race like Cleveland, for example, you see after the fourth pit stop, everybody was pretty much just waiting for the race to finish. I would prefer to have the races a little shorter like used to be in the past. I think we talked about that on the drivers meeting. Most of the drivers actually prefer it, too, because we have road races with more than two hours, two hours and 10 minutes. Normally the time for those things is an hour and a half, an hour and 45. It makes a difference for equipment, for reliability on the cars, engines and everything. It changes it a little bit. Not so much of a sprint.
PATRICK CARPENTIER: The thing is that Cleveland was really, really tough. Here I think is one of the toughest race we get all year because we're always turning, elevation changes, hard braking, heavy G-load. If it's really hot on Sunday, I think it's going to be a really tough race. It's a longer race. The pace, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be coming down at all. It's like every lap's like a qualifying lap. You run pretty hard. We have a stretch of four races. It's tough on the cars and everything.
CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI: I'm not the best guy to answer you that question because my short races from next year onwards are probably going to have three hours and a half. So I'll pass on that one (laughter).
CRISTIANO DA MATTA: We talk. In race, for example, was supposed to be a hundred and something laps.
CRISTIANO DA MATTA: That's the same expression everybody used in the drivers meeting. They shortened the race 92, 93. It's a little bit better. Wally is taking care of us (laughter).
MERRILL CAIN: Gentlemen, thank you very much. Good luck in the final round of qualifying tomorrow.
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Person of the Year 2008
Runners-Up
People Who Mattered
Fond Farewells
Person of the Year Videos
Pictures of the Year 2008
In one of the craziest elections in American history, Barack Obama overcame a lack of experience, a funny name, two candidates who are political institutions and the racial divide to become the 44th President of the United States
By Steven SpielbergWednesday, Dec. 17, 2008
Michael Caronna / Reuters
On the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008, 2 billion TV viewers and thousands in attendance in the now famous Bird's Nest were treated to an unforgettable spectacle at the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games.
Behind it all was the creative genius of Chinese film director Zhang Yimou. Drawing from the depths of the cultural heritage and ingenuity of the Chinese people, showcasing ancient Chinese inventions paper, printing, gunpowder, ceramics and the compass that have shaped civilization and channeling the sensibility and spirit that unite his fellow 1.3 billion citizens, Zhang told China's story to a watching world. He created arguably the grandest spectacle of the new millennium, and it was viewed by nearly one-third of the world's population. With this work, Zhang obtained a stature shared by very few peers.
In telling China's story, Zhang explored the character he, or peaceful harmony an ideal critical to Chinese culture. This level of thematic and creative artistry is rare in the controlled realm of filmmaking, let alone in a multidimensional arena with thousands of performers and visual set pieces that seemed to border on the impossible yet it was all happening live, before the eyes of the world.
There is much mythologizing surrounding Zhang's rise to prominence, given that his first job was as a farmhand and then a laborer in a cotton mill. But the story I enjoy most is that he gave blood over a period of months to earn enough money to purchase his first camera. He was 25. When the Beijing Film Academy reopened in 1978 after the Cultural Revolution, he was 27, already considered too old to become a filmmaker and lacking many of the necessary credits. Undaunted, he offered his portfolio of photographic works and was admitted to the department of cinematography.
Zhang became a filmmaker, and for the past two decades, he has inspired the world's fascination with China through his cinematic vision. Not since the great British director Michael Powell has a director used color so effectively to tell stories. In Red Sorghum (1987), Ju Dou (1990) and his magnum opus, Raise the Red Lantern (1991), the vivid use of red in the manufacturing of wine, the traditional wedding gown, the process of dyeing silk and even the crimson splashes of blood illuminate Zhang's celebration of life, exoticism and death. Ju Dou was the first Chinese film to be nominated for an Academy Award; Raise the Red Lantern was the second.
Zhang also brought the actress Gong Li to prominence, casting her in starring roles in six of his films. Together they are credited with introducing sensuality and eroticism to Chinese cinema. Western audiences are probably familiar with Zhang more from his action movies: Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004) and his most Shakespearean work, Curse of the Golden Flower (2006), in which he choreographed giant armies in ways not seen since the heyday of the Busby Berkeley musical extravaganza.
Zhang was no stranger to live theatrical events either. In 1998 he staged and directed Puccini's opera Turandot at the Forbidden City in Beijing. He directed a folk musical in 2003 and staged it outdoors on the Li River. In 2006 he mounted Tan Dun's The First Emperor for New York City's Metropolitan Opera.
All this work and its complexity should have prepared me for the depth and breadth of Zhang's vision, apparent even in its early stages when he first contacted me in 2005 regarding the Beijing ceremonies. We met on a sunny afternoon in East Hampton, N.Y., and I knew immediately we were going to become good friends. With computer renderings on his laptop, he showed me what he was thinking. That was when I realized that every movie he had ever made would be a luminous precursor to what was surely going to be a personal journey of destiny. Zhang would be the creator-director of the Olympic ceremonies, with the honor of putting on what would become the greatest show on earth, with China at center stage. I was honored to have been one of the first people stirred and inspired by Zhang's ideas.
At the heart of Zhang's Olympic ceremonies was the idea that the conflict of man foretells the desire for inner peace. This theme is one he's explored and perfected in his films, whether they are about the lives of humble peasants or exalted royalty. This year he captured this prevalent theme of harmony and peace, which is the spirit of the Olympic Games. In one evening of visual and emotional splendor, he educated, enlightened and entertained us all. In doing so, Zhang secured himself a place in world history.
Spielberg has won three Academy Awards, two for Best Director. He withdrew as an adviser to the Olympic ceremonies to encourage greater efforts by China to bring peace to Darfur
See the Six Degrees of Barack Obama.
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Obama: The College Years
Barack Obama on Flickr
Graphic: Six Degrees of Obama
Graphic: TIME's Person of the Year 1927-2010
Henry Paulson
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'Twas the trading day before Christmas and all through markets, investors were nervous, and not just in small pockets.
December 2018 was a month most stock investors really just want to forget, but we must remind one and all that, you get what you get, and we sincerely hope you're not too upset.
The stock market had risen for nearly 10 straight years, and a bear market now and then just happens, due purely to emotional fears.
While no one can predict the next S&P 500 index low or high, the latest figures make the economic forecast extremely bright.
Sparing you further rhyme, here's an analysis of the facts and it won't take much time.
The market was spooked by the Fed's decision to hike interest rates on December 19th.
Hiking interest rates flattened the yield curve, and that's the key lever of the U.S. economy. Regulated by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, an independent body, the yield curve is the difference in yield between a 10-Year U.S. Treasury bond and the Federal Funds Rate. The Fed funds rate is the interest rate charged by the Fed, the central bank of the U.S., and tracks closely with the movement of the highly-liquid 30-day Treasury-Bill. The yield curve on December 24th, shown in green, is flatter than it was just a week earlier. The difference between the one-month T-Bill and the 10-year Treasury Bond declined. At the start of 2018, the gray line shows that the slope of the yield curve was much steeper.
Charting the S&P 500 stock index total return against the yield curve since 1983, the Fed's rate hike and the stock market plunge.
In the previous two economic expansions, the yield curve's plunge preceded stock market downturns.
That's what made stock prices drop sharply, fear that the Fed was about to cause a recession.
But the real economy shows no sign of a recession. The economic indicators show the economy is doing just fine.
The monthly survey of about 60 economists by The Wall Street Journal, conducted in early December, before the Fed rate hike, resulted in a consensus forecast for a 2.3% growth rate for 2019. That's robust. It's down from 2.5% last month but certainly nothing like a recession in which the economy shrinks.
The forward-looking U.S. Leading Economic Index — a composite of 10 components of economic growth — rose in November by two-tenths of 1%. It had ticked down by three-tenths of 1% in September before resuming its long ascent in record territory dating back over two decades.
The Conference Board economics research department, which analyzes this data, said, "Solid GDP growth at about 2.8 percent should continue in early 2019, but the LEI suggests the economy is likely to moderate further in the second half of 2019."
The 2.8% growth expected by the Conference Board is much higher than the 2.3% consensus forecast of economists surveyed in The Wall Street Journal.
The LEI has definitively collapsed many months in advance of the last two recessions. Nothing like that is happening now.
In addition, the LEI in the past has collapsed well in advance of the peak in stock prices. The red circles highlight the start of sharp declines in the LEI in advance of the last two stock market declines.
The December stock market plunge was not preceded by a collapse of the LEI.
It's dissonant from the fundamental economic data.
The stock market has been spooked by the Fed's rate policy, but fundamentals show no sign of a traditional bear market recession.
While the S&P 500 fell by 19.8% from its September 20th high and, thus, this plunge makes it into the record books as an official 20% bear market after rounding, the real economy remains strong.
After one of the wildest weeks in Wall Street history, the Standard & Poor's 500 index closed on Friday at 2485.74.
This article was written by a veteran financial journalist based on data compiled and analyzed by independent economist, Fritz Meyer. While these are sources we believe to be reliable, the information is not intended to be used as financial or tax advice without consulting a professional about your personal situation. Tax laws are subject to change. Indices are unmanaged and not available for direct investment. Investments with higher return potential carry greater risk for loss. Past performance is not an indicator of your future results.
This article was written by a professional financial journalist for Ashford Investment Advisors and is not intended as legal or investment advice.
�2019 Advisor Products Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Six Problems with the Common Core State Standards Initiative
Life is Always the Right Choice
Emmett McGroarty
American Legislative Exchange Council,
Common Core State Standards,
With Jane Robbins
(below is an executive summary of a white paper written by Jane Robbins and myself)
The American Legislative Exchange Council’s Public Sector Board of Directors must decide whether to uphold the Education Task Force’s approval of the Comprehensive Legislative Package Opposing the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The Task Force’s public-sector members approved the package on a 14-6 vote, and its private-sector members approved the package on an 8-4 vote. This legislation provides a model for legislatures to reclaim state responsibility for education decision-making –which has been gravely impaired as a result of the Common Core.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative presents the following problems:
1. Manner of creation and propagation
The national Common Core State Standards (the “Standards”) were not created by the states, but rather by private organizations in Washington, DC, with lavish funding from private entities such as the Gates Foundation. The federal Department of Education then used legally suspect means – the Race to the Top competition and the promise of waivers from No Child Left Behind – to impose the Standards on the states. This effort has been accompanied by a misleading campaign to present the Standards as “state-led” and “voluntary.”
2. Mediocre quality
The Standards, which are intended to prepare students for nonselective community colleges rather than four-year universities, are inferior to those of some states and no better than those of many others. Common Core’s English language arts standards consist of empty skill sets that, once implemented, might not require reading skills any higher than middle-school level. Furthermore, their de-emphasis of the study of classic literature in favor of “informational texts” would abandon the goal of truly educating students, focusing instead on training them for static jobs. Among the many deficiencies of the mathematics standards is their placement of algebra I in grade 9 rather than grade 8, thus ensuring that most students will not reach calculus in high school, and their mandate to teach geometry according to an experimental method never used successfully anywhere in the world. Contrary to previous claims by their creators, the Standards are not “internationally benchmarked.”
3. Illegal direction of curriculum and usurpation of state autonomy
The point of standards and assessments is to drive curriculum. By imposing the Standards on the states, and by funding their aligned assessments and imposing those on the states as well, the U.S. Department of Education is violating three federal statutes prohibiting its direction, supervision, or control of curriculum. In addition, because states that adopt the Standards must accept them word for word and will have little opportunity to add content, the states must relinquish their autonomy over public education, all to the denigration of parents’ rights.
4. Vague and unaccountable governance
It is not clear what governance structure will be created in the future to address issues related to the Standards. What is clear is that the Standards are owned and copyrighted by nongovernmental entities unaccountable to parents and students in individual states.
The only national study done of the potential costs of implementing the Standards and assessments estimates nationwide costs of almost $16 billion over seven years. Continuing costs will be substantial, especially with respect to professional development and technology maintenance and upgrades.
6. Threats to student and family privacy
The federal Department of Education (the “Department”) is using the Standards and the assessments as vehicles to mandate the construction of massive state student databases. The Department has also gutted federal student-privacy law to allow greater sharing of student data with other government agencies and private entities. Partnering with the Department of Labor, the Department seeks to build a data system that allows tracking of individual students from preschool through the workforce. This vision not only creates substantial risks of privacy breach, but it also encompasses a worldview of the proper role of government that is greatly at odds with American founding principles.
For these reasons, the Public Sector Board of Directors should uphold the Education Task Force’s approval of the Comprehensive Legislative Package Opposing the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
Jane Robbins is a Senior Fellow with American Principles Project. Her works includes education policy, student privacy and parental rights issues. Ms. Robbins is a native of Pendleton, South Carolina, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Clemson University.
Ddshrper says:
why are the social media icons in the middle of the page, blocking the article? this is very annoying.
Shane Vander Hart says:
I don’t know they don’t look that way on any of my computers. What size screen do you have and what web browser are you using?
9.7 Million Twitter Users Reached During #StopCommonCore Twitter Rally
9,788,450 Twitter users to #StopCommonCore to call on ordinary citizens to join and lobby for repeal of Common Core State Standards.
Arne Duncan the Common Core Bully
What happens when a state decides or some state legislators decide they…
Union Overlords Cave … Partially
This isn’t the end of the story. There will be more to…
John Hitchcock
Glenn Beck Blasts the Common Core
Glenn Beck shined a spotlight on the Common Core State Standards in his show on The Blaze TV saying it is one of the greatest problems we now face.
Emmett McGroarty is the executive director of <a…
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Sad way to celebrate 56 years
COLUMNIST Photo by:Irving Ward
It is noteworthy that the announcement of the planned shutdown of the refinery of Petrotrin has emerged in the week of the observance of Trinidad and Tobago’s 56th anniversary of political independence.
Petrotrin is both an actual and symbolic expression of the nation’s economic independence, since it is a flagship project and a core pursuit of our most prized and essential industry.
Its vision includes being ‘a high performing energy organisation, that delivers superior results to its shareholders every time, all the time’.
It is also the result of a dogged campaign by the people’s sector for localisation of the commanding heights of the economy.
Petrotrin embodies Trinidad and Tobago’s economic ambitions, our involvement in the most successful and vital sector in the global economic environment.
But Petrotrin is also the embodiment of poor corporate governance, expressed in bad policy decisions, wastage, corruption, nepotism - and more.
Today, the pride of our energy sector stands bereft of the ability to ‘deliver superior results to its shareholders’ and is a testament of monumental debts, amounting to $13 billion, a lack of viability, resulting from an absence of innovation and of weak and indifferent leadership.
Most of this took place under the management of two so-called energy czars, who have been honoured with the highest national awards and are lionised as icons.
Under their watch, the WGTL project cost taxpayers almost $3 billion, and yet the Rowley regime withdrew litigation for breach of fiduciary duties against the executive chairman and board of directors.
The cost of the gas optimisation project escalated from US$350 million to US$1.6 billion and was delayed by several years.
The ultra-low sulphur diesel plant set taxpayers back by TT$3.1 billion, from an original budget of TT$780 million and requires a further $2 billion to complete.
The structure of shame that is the ugly and incomplete corporate headquarters cost $170 million, and its land space was expanded from 60,000 to 168,000 square feet. It remains a painful and vivid reminder to thousands of motorists, on a daily basis, of mismanagement and squandermania of past PNM regimes.
There were other costly ventures, which led to staggering debt and to the downgrade of Petrotrin by international rating agencies.
Most of these projects were pioneered from 2003 to 2009, under successive PNM governments and when the current prime minister was an active and frontline member of the Cabinet.
Today, facing bond repayments of US$ 850mn in 2019 and US$750mn in 2022, with a wage bill in excess of twice the international average and adjudged by Solomon Associates, a leading global performance measurement company, as functioning in the bottom of the fourth quartile of the energy sector internationally, the future of the company’s operations look bleak.
The current state of the energy company is a legacy of the critical lack of national and industry planning, along with the absence of transparency and probity.
In fact, the Rowley regime shamelessly withdrew the legal action against the “energy czar” who masterminded the scandalous WGTL project and even kept him as an important member of the National Energy Council.
Some of the very directors involved in WGTL are still hovering around Petrotrin, providing critical advice and bleeding the organisation.
Ultimately, over 2000 employees and their families will be affected in addition to several ancillary businesses and their employees, which potentially can run into several thousand people being put on the breadline.
This will undoubtedly cause severe hardship and social and economic dislocation.
The critical question remains however is what has become of the Memorandum of Agreement signed in April 2018 between Petrotrin and the OWTU to establish a working committee comprising representatives of both parties that will work over the next 18 months to “address, resolve and agree on the four organisational structures, work processes and skills/competencies and manpower requirements which will make the company internationally competitive, thus ensuring its survival, sustainability and profitability.
This flagship venture has become a national financial albatross and the symbol of wretched governance of successive PNM regimes.
The collapse of the Petrotrin refinery is the result of systemic poor governance, also expressed at other loss-making State enterprises.
It is ironic that this is taking place while Trinidad and Tobago is celebrating national “independence.”
Vasant Bharath is a former MP and minister in the People’s Partnership government.
Stop buying into US nonsense
Venezuela natural gas deal
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Elementary Genocide
A Controversial Film About the School-to-Prison Pipeline
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« Parents Outraged: Student Punished For Helping Hungry Friend
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NYCLU Demands That NYPD Stop Handcuffing 5-Year-Olds
Prison, School, Student
by Rahiem Shabazz
The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is demanding sweeping changes to current discipline guidelines for the more than 5,000 school safety officers in New York City. The NYCLU has previously sued the NYPD for use of force against students and wrongful arrest, made the demands during a press conference Wednesday, stating that school discipline should be handles by educators, not the police.
Alecia Cabral made a statement at the NYCLU press conference about her 5-year-old special needs son who was tied to a chair with velcro straps by officers. Cabral says her son was traumatized by the experience and now has trouble sleeping and is afraid of cops. Cabral says that her son was restrained after acting out in gym class and that officers kept him tied to a chair for twenty minutes even after he had calmed down. Cabral also stated, “There needs to be a better way. Kids with special education needs need support, and how they handcuffed my son like a criminal. I just don’t want this to happen to anyone else. That’s why I’m speaking out.” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio made a statement to reporters following the incident with Cabral’s son stating that “new policy will be announced quite soon clarifying the kind of restraint we expect in these situations.”
Cabral’s son is just one example of kids being handcuffed. According to the mother of 7-year-old Wilson Reyes, her son was handcuffed for ten hours “and verbally, physically and emotionally abused, intimidated, humiliated, embarrassed and defamed,” over an allegation that he stole $5 from a fellow student.
NYCLU executive director Donna Liebermann stated, “We want an end to the use of handcuffs. We want an end to the control of school discipline by school safety officers.” Liebermann also called on the city’s Department of Education to begin tracking how often kids are handcuffed by officers. Freshman Ben Roter wore a pair of handcuffs during the press conference, hoping the visual would help drive home the message that kids do not belong in handcuffs as part of school discipline. Roter addressed the fact that although he sees school safety officers on a daily basis, he has yet to meet his guidance counselor.
Bernard Dufresne, a staff attorney with Advocates for Children, believes that the success of the 2010 Student Safety Act in reducing unnecessary student suspensions is evidence that requiring officers to report the number of incidences where handcuffs are used as well as the number of arrests and summonses would help reduce the occurrence of those situations. Reporting may also help reduce disparities in how policies impact Black and Latino students. According to the Huffington Post, over 90 percent of students arrested for disorderly conduct in New York City schools in 2013 and 2014 were Black or Latino.
Tags: Donna Liebermann, Elementary Genocide, Handcuff, NYCLU, Student
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Rahiem.Shabazz@Gmail.com
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© 2019 Elementary Genocide.
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Intangible heritage
2003 UNESCO Convention
Intangible heritage and sustainable development
Countries and communities
The countries of the Mediterranean diet
Emblematic Communities
The network of ecomuseums
3 - INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF HUMANITY: CRITERIA
Author: DOTT. ALESSANDRO ZAGARELLA
In order for a cultural element to be included in the Representative List of UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, it is necessary to complete a nomination file demonstrating that the following five requirements have been satisfied:
The element must fall within the definition of “intangible cultural heritage” as defined in the Convention and therefore be considered a cultural element that reflects the identity of the community to which it belongs.
UNESCO has identified the following categories of intangible cultural heritage: dialects and minority languages; performing arts, music, dance, and theater; rituals, festivals and ceremonies; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; technical knowledge and skills used to produce traditional crafts. To demonstrate that requirement number 1 has been met, sufficient supporting information must be included in the nomination file so as to define the item as a cultural element of the community’s identity, having a social and cultural value that is carried through the centuries from generation to generation.
To demonstrate the requisite number 1, the format must be given all the information that allow us to define that item as a cultural element of their identity of that community with a social and cultural value transmitted through the centuries from generation to generation.
Inclusion of the element in the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage should contribute to ensuring visibility and increasing awareness of the significance of intangible cultural heritage.
In the nomination file it must be specified how the element may be the basis for an intercultural dialogue between peoples, testifying to the creativity of its community and that of communities comparable to it, and supporting worldwide cultural diversity.
An outline of the safeguarding measures to be taken to protect the element that is nominated for the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity must be included.
The term “safeguarding measures” refers to all activities undertaken by the communities and the State to protect and ensure the viability of the intangible cultural heritage. Specifically, it refers to: identification, cataloging and documentation; research relevant to the element; measures including legislation for the preservation and protection of the element; enhancement and promotion of the element through formal and informal education within the community itself.
Documentation of community involvement leading up to the element’s nomination.
It is necessary to indicate the nature of involvement of the community or communities, groups or, if applicable, individuals concerned with the element. Evidence of free and informed consent from these parties must be included in the nomination file in the form of letters, a video or by the sending of materials directly affiliated with the element being nominated.
The inclusion of the element in an inventory of intangible cultural heritage present in the State or territories of the submitting party or parties.
The element must be formally inventoried and/or cataloged and be made part of a formal register or national inventory by the direct request of the submitting party which has presented itself as the privileged custodian of the element and is prepared to safeguard and protect the element as intangible cultural heritage.
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Home » About
The e-FISCAL project includes a variety of experts from e-Infrastructure technology, policies and financial aspects.
Dr. Sergio Andreozzi is the Policy Development Manager at EGI.eu leading the policy development team. He supports the formulation and development of a coherent set of policies and procedures, the liaisons with projects and organisations, as well as international policy bodies. He has been involved in Grid Computing since 2002, when he joined INFN to work on interoperability aspects. Since 2007, he has co-chaired the GLUE Working Group in OGF and contributed to several standard activities. Andreozzi holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Bologna and an MSc in Computer Engineering from the University of Pisa.
Owen Appleton began in the life sciences before taking a left turn into the communication of science and technology. He has worked in a range of communicative roles, from PR to journalism and communications strategy, as well as working on entrepreneurial projects. He worked at CERN for some years, where he helped manage outreach and communications for the world’s largest Grid Computing infrastructure, as well as dealing with issues of policy and commercialisation. Recently Owen has been managing exploitation and communication a number of EC funded research projects.
Dr. Eoin Brazil Eoin has a PhD and an MSc in Computer Science at the University of Limerick and holds a PGDip in Technology Commercialisation from the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is a member of ISA's Irish Software Innovation Network (ISIN) steering committee, which focuses on promoting research collaboration between industry and third level Universities. Eoin leads ICHEC’s Technology Transfer team, working with clients to provide solutions and services to companies. He is responsible for managing ICHEC's programme of technical transfer, and
maintains a watching brief on new and emerging technologies
Prof. Sandra Cohen is an Assistant Professor of Accounting at the Athens University of Economics and Business, in the Department of Business Administration. She holds a MBA and a Ph.D. in Accounting from the same University. She teaches cost accounting in both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. She has extensive consulting experience in cost accounting systems development and telecommunication services costing for regulatory purposes by acting as a consultant to the incumbent telecommunications operator in Greece. She has participated in the e-IRGSP2 project leading the financial exercise on dedicated Grid computing.
Dr. Jean-Christophe Desplat has over 19 years experience in parallel computing and brings that experience to the Irish HPC community as Associate Director of the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC). JC studied at Sheffield Hallam University gaining a BSc (hons) in Instrumentation and Measurements and a PhD for his work on "Monte Carlo simulations of amphiphilic systems". He worked at the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC) at the University of Edinburgh from 1995 to 2005 in various roles. He participated in numerous projects and activities ranging from user support, research, software development, development and co-ordination of large European programmes. He negotiated and set up EPCC's involvement in the DEISA and HPC-Europa projects (chair of the Technical Executive Board and co-ordinator of the Transnational Access activity). J-C holds the position of 'Honorary Professor of Computational Science' at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) since 2008. He is also a member of the Digital Humanities Observatory (DHO) Management Board (2008-), and of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Climate Change Coordination Committee (2008-). More recently, he joined the ICT Sub-Committee of the Medical Council (2011-) and the UK EPSRC Research Infrastructure Strategic Advisory Team (2011-).
Matti Heikkurinen has an eclectic background starting from computer science and software engineering to communications, policy development and entrepreneurship. He is one of the founders of Emergence Tech, a communications-oriented consulting company offering services from software outsourcing to in-dept analysis of trends in technology and innovation in Europe.
The highlights of his previous experience include software development and Nokia Telecommunications, Development of the GridCafe and CERN openlab concepts, and contributions to the e-Infrastructure policy development, especially through the support for the work of the e-Infrastructure Reflection Group.
Kashif Iqbal joined ICHEC in November 2008. His work has primarily focused on the development of a web portal designed as a problem-solving environment for the Bioinformatics community in Ireland. His research interests include semantic enabled service discovery and registry/indexing services, development and evaluation of software architectures for collaborative work environments. At ICHEC, he is especially interested in tackling computational challenges posed by emerging data-intensive projects.
Dr. Fotis Karagiannis has 17 years of experience in the ICT research area, focusing mainly in Research Networking and Computing Infrastructures (e-Infrastructures). He received his PhD in 1998 in the fields of Integrated Communications and Management of Broadband Networks from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), while working as a research-associate in its Telecommunications Laboratory. He participated in multiple European research projects working for commercial or research entities such as OTE Consulting (now OTEPlus), GRNET, CERN, CESNET, Microsoft Research Cambridge (through Microsoft Greece), Microsoft Innovation Center Greece, ATHENA Research Center, and AUEB. He has worked for major e-Infrastructure and policy projects such as the GEANT, EGEE series, EGI Design Study, PRACE, and the e-IRG support projects. He has also acted as a member of the Programme Committee of the FP7 Research Infrastructures, Greece’s representative in the e-Infrastructure Reflection Group (e-IRG), EGI Policy Board vice-chair and NGI representative (Hellasgrid) in EGI.
Prof. Costas A Courcoubetis (http://nes.aueb.gr/users/cc.html) is heading the Network Economics and Services Group and the Theory, Economics and Systems Lab at the Athens University of Economics and Business. He was born in Athens, Greece and received his Diploma (1977) from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, his MS (1980) and PhD (1982) from the University of California, Berkeley, in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Since autumn 1999 he is a Professor in the Department of Informatics at the Athens University of Economics and Business. His current research interests are economics of networks with emphasis in the development of pricing schemes that reduce congestion and enhance stability and robustness, quality of service and management of integrated services, performance and traffic analysis of large systems, applied probability models. He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals such as Operations Research, Mathematics of Operations Research, Journal on Applied Probability, IEEE Transactions in Communications, IEEE JSAC, SIAM Journal on Computing etc. and in conferences such as FOCS, STOC, LICS, INFOCOM. GLOBCOM, ITC, ACM SIGMETRICS. His work has over 9000 citations according to the Publish or Perish citation analysis software program. He is co-author with Richard Weber of “Pricing Communication Networks: Economics, Technology and Modeling” (Wiley, 2003).
Ioanna Nalbani has a background in languages and linguistics. She has worked as a teacher, interpreter and a communication consultant for various companies for 15 years. She has worked for construction, commercial and industrial companies being responsible of communication and booth preparations. She was the dissemination manager for the GRNET booth at the Supercomputing 2007 exhibition in the USA.
Steven Newhouse is the Director of EGI.eu and Project Director of the EGI-InSPIRE project. He studied Aeronautical Engineering at Imperial College London, where he then researched underwater acoustic scattering through the use of computational modelling and parallel computing. Over the last 10 years he has been leading teams in the research, implementation and deployment of grid systems to support user communities. This has taken him from London to Amsterdam via Southampton (UK), Seattle (USA) and Geneva (Switzerland).
George Thanos is a member of the Network Economics and Services Group at the Athens University of Economics and Business, where he is pursuing a PhD. Mr. Thanos received his BEng degree in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Manchester (former UMIST) and his MSc in Mobile and Satellite Communications from the University of Surrey, both in the UK. In the past he has been working in the private sector as a senior systems architect involved in the research and development of telecommunications systems for mobile networks. His current research focuses in the investigation of Economic issues in Grid and Cloud computing, Service Oriented Architectures and Internet of Things. He has also been working in the past in more than 15 European FP5, FP6 and currently FP7 projects in various technical and management positions.
The project team is also supported by the Advisory Board of the project.
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Image of Mary Help of Christians crowned in northern Philippine diocese August 24, 2018
An image of "Mary Help of Christians" was canonically crowned on Aug. 22 in the northern Philippine diocese of Lingayen-Dagupan.
Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, apostolic nuncio to the Philippines, crowned the image in recognition of its role in expanding Catholicism in the province of Pangasinan.
"This is a clear message of affirmation from the Holy Father that this image of the Mother of God with Child Jesus has contributed to the growth of the Catholic faith in Pangasinan for the past 90 years," said Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan.
The papal nuncio led the canonical coronation during Mass at St. John the Evangelist Metropolitan Cathedral.
The coronation was authorized by Pope Francis through a decree issued on March 23.
The image was a gift from then Apostolic delegate Archbishop Guglielmo Piani to the first Bishop of Lingayen, Bishop Cesar Maria Guerrero, that led to the naming of the archdiocesan seminary as "Mary Help of Christian Seminary."
The coronation of the image gives the Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan the "unique honor" of having two images canonically crowned. The other is the "Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag" that was crowned on April 22, 1926.
Photos by Karl Romano
CHECK PHOTO GALLERY HONG KONG: Taize International Meeting of Young Adults in Hong Kong
Sunday Gospel reflection with Fr. Bill Grimm
If Jesus is indeed who he and the Church say he is, then there really is no place else to go
Travelling for Eid-ul-Adha in Bangladesh
Millions make a hazardous journey from Dhaka to their rural homes to celebrate with family and friends
Filipino Muslims mark 'Feast of the Sacrifice'
Commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim — also known as Abraham — to follow God's command to sacrifice his son
Would someone watching us at the Eucharist be disturbed by our conviction the sacrament is the real presence of Christ?
Vietnamese Catholics celebrate the Assumption of Mary
The Blessed Mother is believed to have appeared in La Vang in 1798 to console persecuted Catholics
Monsoon rains cause widespread flooding in Manila
More than a million people in the Philippine capital and nearby provinces have been affected
Padre Pio: The healer of the sick
Saint's relics are touring through parts of the Philippines
Back to Multimedia Page
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Now displaying: February, 2017
20 - Mom 0
Kelsey calls her mother to talk about the man who is stalking her ... and makes a frightening self-realization.
Patrons get the episode early each week, exclusive content and all the content from Subject: Found as a bonus. That's two awesome audio dramas for the Patronage of one! If you're enjoying these diaries and want more stories, head over to Patreon and become a Patron at https://www.patreon.com/paulsating.
Barbara: Sarah E Golding
19 - Fate 0
Do we write our own stories or are we destined to walk the path set before us?
Patrons get the episode early each week, exclusive content and all the content from Subject: Found as a bonus. That's two awesome audio dramas for the Patronage of one! Patrons are also enjoying the new horror short story called "Be Mine", which has come out just in time for Valentine's Day. If you're enjoying these diaries and want more stories, head over to Patreon and become a Patron at https://www.patreon.com/paulsating.
Check out Paul Sating's short stories at http://www.paulsating.com.
18 - Fear 0
We're constantly told that we need to be afraid of something. We are bombarded on a daily basis, from the television to the smartphone in your hand, that there is something to fear ... and that's just the way the Madman likes it.
There were two new reviews this week, from Gregory28888888 and Kessi Riliniki. Thank you for helping the show! These things help so much! Please leave a 5-star rating and review for the show if you haven't already; it helps so, so much.
Check out the recent review of the show from the Daftest Punk You Know! You can find what he had to say about the show at http://daftestpunkyouknow.wixsite.com/review/single-post/2017/01/31/Diary-of-a-Madman-Slip-into-Insanity & please let him you know you came over from Diary, so he knows that the audio drama love is out there and hungry for more.
Patrons get early & exclusive content, including free access to short stories if they're $5+/mo Patrons. Patrons are already enjoying "Salt and Pepper" and in a few weeks they'll be devouring the new horror story, "Be Mine." Become one today at https://www.patreon.com/paulsating .
To everyone who supports this show--thank you!!!
Raul Vega: http://www.rosedrive.com
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Evolution and Creationism as Science and Myth: Charles M. and Martha Hitchcock Lectures by Eugenie Scott
Lecture | October 4 | 4:10 p.m. | International House, Chevron Auditorium
Speaker: Dr. Eugenie C. Scott, Founding Executive Director, National Center for Science Education, Inc.
Sponsor: Graduate Division
Eugenie Scott will present the Hitchcock lectures on October 3 and 4, 2018. The second lecture is titled "Evolution and Creationism as Science and Myth" and is free and open to the public. No tickets are required.
About the lecture
In her second lecture, Eugenie Scott will discuss how myths symbolize ideas, values, history and other issues that are important to a people. They may be true or false, mundane or fantastic; their significance is their meaning, not their narrative content. Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. Its conclusions tentatively may be true or false, but its significance is its explanatory power: one has confidence in the process of science, even though some explanations change over time. Myth and science thus seem very different, but each has been utilized by proponents of both sides of the Christian creationism and evolution controversy. Understanding this role is essential in comprehending (much less mediating) this persistent conflict.
About Eugenie Scott
Eugenie C. Scott served as the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, an organization that works to keep publicly (though not scientifically) controversial topics like evolution and climate change in the public schools. Her work has involved a mixture of science, communication, religion, education, law, and community activism.
Event contact: lectures@berkeley.edu, 510-643-7413
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ISB organises 5th edition of Singapore India Business Dialogue
Indian School of Business (ISB), in partnership with Singapore Management University (SMU), organised the fifth edition of the Singapore India Business Dialogue (SIBD) 2018, at the ISB campus. The theme of the Dialogue was ‘Managing Disruptions in the Age of Technology” with special focus on Education, Innovation and Fintech.
07 May, 2018 by EE News Desk
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The objective of the fifth edition of SIBD was to investigate strategic responses to disruptive innovations and explore strategic partnership between India and Singapore.
SIBD 2018 deliberated on three focused themes – ‘Changing Role of Management Education: Perspectives from East and West’; ‘Fintech Dialogue: Disruption or Innovation’; and ‘Strategic Response to Disruptive Innovation’.
SIBD is an annual multi-stakeholder conclave bringing together policy makers, representatives from business, academic, media on a common platform to share insights and perspectives on various aspects of mutual interest.
Dr. S K Joshi, IAS, Chief Secretary, Government of Telangana, in his keynote address elaborated the efforts made by the Government of Telangana in strengthening the innovation ecosystem of Telangana. “The next generation institutions created by Telangana like TASK, T-Hub, RICH and TSIHC will play a major role in managing future disruptions”, he said.
Professor Rajendra Srivastava, Dean, ISB, in his address, opined that there is a need to integrate ideas from West and East, as lot of innovation is increasingly distributed globally. There is also need for convergence of ideas between industry and academia to address the complex problems that are perceived due to disruptive innovations. “Managers have to become more and more adapt to evidence based analysis”, he said.
A senior delegation from Singapore Management University led byProfessor Arnoud De Meyer, President, Singapore Management University, actively participated in the deliberations of SIBD 2018. The other delegation leaders were Associate Professor Paul Robert Griffin and Professor Srinivas K Reddy among others.
Offering his remarks, Professor Arnoud De Meyer said “Given the significance of the topic to both Singapore and India, we see a need to emphasise the important phenomenon of digital transformation especially in education, finance and innovation; and explore a tripartite solution between academia, industry and government towards the management of these disruptions. Beyond knowledge creation and contribution to society is also the Singapore Management University’s commitment to nurturing future-ready citizens who can deal with these rapidly changing times and thrive in the age of disruptive innovations”.
Some of the other prominent speakers at the Dialogue were Dr Parakala Prabhakar, Advisor (Communications), Government of Andhra Pradesh;Shri J A Chowdary, Special Chief Secretary & IT Advisor to the Chief Minister, Government of Andhra Pradesh;Mr Y Harish Chandra Prasad, Founder & Chief Mentor, Malaxmi Group;Mr Prasad Vanga, CEO & Founder, Anthill Ventures;Professor Bhagwan Chowdhry, Professor of Finance, UCLA Anderson School of Management;Professor V Venkata Ramana, Vice Chairman, Telangana State Council of Higher Education,Ms Rajani Kanigiri Kasu,CEO and Co-Founder, Zyppys,Professor Tejpavan Gandhok,Clinical Assistant Professor – Strategy and Entrepreneurship, ISB
Around 400 delegates representing industry, government and the academia actively participated in SIBD 2018.
Professor Paul Robert Griffin, Associate Professor of Information Systems (Practice), Singapore Management University, in his address emphasised that decentralisation is the next big phenomena which will both disrupt and provide the ground for many innovations across all industries. “In payments we are already seeing this with the advent of crypto currencies, blockchains and smart contracts being investigated and trailed by start-ups, corporates and governments. This is just the tip of the iceberg and Singapore Management University is working with the financial industry in Singapore to delve into the real practicalities of how to reap the benefits and uncover the risks with solid research from business, governance and technical aspects”, he said.
Professor Srinivas K Reddy,Professor of Marketing, Singapore Management University, in his address mentioned that based on research and analysis, it is found that if the response to perceived disruptions are either aggressive or lukewarm, the impact ends up to be negative. “We must look for solutions which are neither aggressive not lukewarm”, he said.
indian school of business singapore students
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Andrew Gingerich
Filmmaker/Educator
Purgatory: DONE! (almost)
“Beware; for when you gaze long into the bottomless cup of coffee, the bottomless coffee cup gazes also into you.”
As I write this, it has been 13.5 hours since we wrapped shooting of Purgatory at the Ever Open Café (a wonderful place, I might add, not only because they let us in but because they have good food and friendly service and free wi-fi. Go eat there! Take all your friends! Tell them the crazy late-night filmmakers sent you!)
It was a long-stressful night and I’m not quite sure where to begin, except to say that we got there at 11:00 at night and we had completed our shooting by 3:45, 15 minutes ahead of schedule! That’s never happened to me before, not just on this film but ANY film! It’s a miracle that we were able to get a location at all, but we also had some wonderful and cooperative extras who, although they had no sense of rhythm and acted like a herd of cattle with lobotomies, were well-intentioned and cheerful all night and tolerated my ill-tempered squalling.
Leo was great and Odin was great and Nietzsche was great and had a quite convincing costume (I’m just now reading the package the mustache came in and it says it was made of 100% human hair…that’s kind of creepy). The lighting was tough but we made it work, and we still have to shoot Purgatory exteriors (maybe at Ever Open, or maybe somewhere else).
I would like to let all of you who participated know that I’m planning on blocking out my memories of all the negative energy I was feeling and pretend that it was the most fun I’ve ever had shooting anything. That may actually be the truth. It was at least an adventure, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat (but next time Parker gets to do my job and I get to do Parker’s). Thank you all for a fantastic shoot, and you can expect a vodcast on this subject in the near future.
“In heaven we all wish to dwell,
But this place ain’t as bad as hell.
The blender may not work at all,
But still at least the pancakes sell!”
10 thoughts on “Purgatory: DONE! (almost)”
Arin on August 4, 2006 at 9:50 pm said:
I still have yet to get sufficient sleep
Parker on August 4, 2006 at 10:56 pm said:
I can see the lights off of the window behind Leo and Nietzsche in the first picture….
Paul on August 5, 2006 at 12:08 am said:
It was a lot of fun. There was a lot of negativity, but I was enjoying myself (except for being pestered by Katie on occasion). I think practice would have been good, but I know there is no way we would have stayed any later.
I was really entertained by the antics of Sean and Vynni. Also, many of the customers were facinating. I hope you got “We just won a wet t-shirt contest!” on film, though there would be release issues.
Andrew on August 5, 2006 at 2:02 am said:
Since the light reflections show only the lights (not the stands) they’re not a problem, and I kind of like them. They look like little floating avatars over Nietzsche’s and Leo’s shoulders.
And unfortunately I didn’t get the wet t-shirt remark on camera. Unfortunately. But the rushes look really good. Really good. Like almost as good as the way I was envisioning the scene in my head (which is rare); maybe even better.
Vynni J. Gagnepain on August 7, 2006 at 9:55 am said:
Yeah. I think we all have heads. And Avatars. An Pancakes.
James on August 10, 2006 at 12:55 pm said:
So… That’s great. Ya know what would be greater? The DVD of Wholesale Souls… Yeah…
Seriously though, I’m really impressed with the progress you’ve made, and I feel bad that I haven’t been able to help out (sleep + work = Greg being tired a lot but having no time)
Woot! Here’s to moose.
Paul on August 11, 2006 at 12:53 am said:
I think James would have made a great addition to purgatory…oh, well though.
Arin on August 11, 2006 at 9:08 pm said:
VODCAST!
ME WANT VODCAST!
Andrew on August 12, 2006 at 7:34 pm said:
Ohh… you’ll get your precious vodcast. But first I have to successfully get up at 4:00 in the morning, wash the stench of cow out of my hair and fly from Syracuse, New York to Chicago, then Houston and finally to Denver. Without bringing any liquids on the plane and getting shot. (I’m 70% water… is this going to be a problem?)
Anyway, pray for me lots and when the worst is over I’ll make you a nice little hand-crafted vodcast with a pretty red ribbon and lots of inane commentary.
Paul on August 13, 2006 at 10:29 pm said:
Oh, goodie! I am looking forward to anything you have to throw at me from Terminal Philosophy. (Not to mention ACTUALLY releasing Wholesale Souls, and maybe showing it somewhere.)
13 years ago Short URL 10 Comments
I watched 100 movies in 2015. Here are my favorites.
The five best movies my students made me watch
THE TAPE travels again: Missing
THE TAPE travels again: How to Eat a Film
THE TAPE
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Occupy Wall Street, Part 7
Actors perform monologues from interviews with OWS protestors, and Michael Friedman sings a song from his grandfather's rebel songbook. Recorded live at Joe's Pub in NYC.
This week’s episode continues our exploration of the events surrounding Occupy Wall Street. Using edited transcripts of actual interviews as scripts, actors Jordan Mahome, Garrett Neergaard and Caitlin Miller play OWS protestors from around the city. Also, Michael Friedman takes a page from his grandfather’s rebel songbook, leading an audience sing-along at Joe’s Pub in NYC.
Civilians R&D In Process: Eva von Schweinitz explores “The Space between the Letters”
by Eva von Schweinitz March 27, 2018
Eva von Schweinitz, the lead artist of "The Space between the Letters," discusses how her deep dive into adult literacy inspired her most recent work. Incorporating interviews and devising techniques, this project is being developed in the Civilians R&D Group.
Civilians R&D In Process: Deepali Gupta
by Deepali Gupta March 5, 2018
Writer, composer and lyricist Deepali Gupta discusses some research topics for "I Love You Stranger," a new musical which takes a personal look at bipolar disorder. Navigating a balance of research and memoir, this work is being developed in the Civilians R&D Group.
This is Reading: Photo & Video Essay
by James Carter July 20, 2017
It’s always fascinating to be a small piece of an enormous work, such as This is Reading. For months, you hear bits and bobs about the grand scheme but focus only on your tiny piece. This past weekend, we saw it all come together at Franklin Street Station.
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Three Palestinians killed in Syria
Three Palestinians were killed in Syria on Tuesday following the renewed shelling and the unbroken siege imposed on the refugee camps. According to the Action Group for Palestinians in Syria: “The little girl Tabarak Hijazi was killed after a mortar shell landed in Dwilaa area in the Yarmouk refugee camp, south of Damascus.”
The Group added in a statement on Wednesday: “The ongoing shelling and clashes left the boys Mahmoud Kazmouz and Khaled Hussein dead.”
In a related context, the Handrat refugee camp in Aleppo was bombarded yesterday with explosive barrels by Syrian regime forces, causing considerable damage to the inhabitants’ houses. Confrontations are still going on in the camp between regime and opposition forces.
Khan el-Sheikh and Deraa camps were also subject to brutal shelling targeting civilians’ homes. Clashes are still going on between regime and free army forces in the vicinity of both camps.
A state of relative calm, however, prevailed in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, where food-aid access has been blocked for seven consecutive days. The camp has been besieged by regime forces and armed groups for 10 uninterrupted months.
The Action Group for Palestinians in Syria documented the death of more than 2200 Palestinian refugees since the eruption of the Syrian conflict.
Statistics: 2202 Palestinians killed in Syria
The Action group for Palestinians in Syria has documented the death of 2202 Palestinians since the start of the events in Syria until 14th April. It said in a statement on Tuesday that three others died on Monday of starvation and lack of medical care in addition to shelling on refugee camps.
The statement said that 57-year-old Shamsiya Shtiwe, from Sabbina refugee camp, died due to lack of medical care in Yarmouk refugee camp, where she had resettled.
It said that Mohammed Dhiab, 26, was killed in clashes between the Syrian Free Army and members of Fatah-intifada, an offshoot of Fatah faction allied with the Syrian regime.
Ali Yacoub died under torture in Syrian regime prisons where he was held for the past eight months, the group said.
Meanwhile, Nairab refugee camp in Aleppo came under heavy shelling by Syrian regime forces, which caused severe material damage to citizens’ houses.
Violent clashes were reported between Syrian regular army and the Free Army in Diraa refugee camp while similar clashes were reported near to Aydeen refugee camp in Homs.
Action group reports death of three Palestinians, two in previous incidents
Qais Al-Najjar
The action group for the Palestinians in Syria reported the death of three Palestinian refugees, two of them were killed in earlier incidents in Syria. The action group explained that Qais Al-Najjar, a veterinarian, was killed in a projectile attack on Hamra neighborhood in Homs city and Ali Abu Nabbout was killed in armed clashes on the fourth of April.
Mohamed Mansour
The group also reported that Mohamed Mansour, a Palestinian refugee from Al-Yarmouk refugee camp, was proclaimed dead on Sunday after his exposure to excruciating torture in a Syrian jail.
The group noted the death toll of the blockade imposed on Al-Yarmouk refugee camp amounted to 143 victims, all of them died of starvation and malnutrition.
Ali Abu Nabbout
In another report, the action group for the Palestinians in Syria stated that 21 Palestinians had died or killed from 7 to 13 April as a result of the blockade imposed on Al-Yarmouk camp or during armed confrontations or shelling in different parts of Syria.
It noted that eight of those victims were tortured to death in Syrian detention centers.
1,000 Gaza families to get delayed UNRWA aid
Seventy percent of Gaza's residents are registered as refugees with the UNRWA
The UNRWA will deliver aid packages to 9000 families on Sunday, spokesman Adnan Abu Hassana told Anadolu Agency.
He added that the rest of the beneficiaries will get their packages within the coming days.
Abu Hassana explained that the aid delivery was delayed a few days over "technical reasons."
"These aid deliveries help impoverished families and would never stop," he said.
The U.N. agency, established in 1949 following the Israeli occupation of Palestine, distributes quarterly food supplies to families that fall below the poverty line in the blockaded Gaza enclave, home to around 1.8 million Palestinians.
It classifies those below poverty line in Gaza into two categories; those with daily income of less than $3 per family member and those with less than $1.5 daily income per family member.
Seventy percent of Gaza's residents are registered as refugees with the UNRWA, with the number expected to rise by 2020.
Source: World Bulletin
Palestinian refugee dies of torture in Syria
A Palestinian refugee was killed Saturday evening under torture in the Syrian regime prison ; Palestinian camps subjected to extensive bombing. Action Group for Palestinians in Syria said Ahmed Taha from al- Yarmouk refugee camp was tortured to death in the Syrian prisons on 10th April, pointing out that he was arrested in 2nd April after leaving the camp to proceed his study.
Khan Danoun refugee camp in Damascus countryside was shelled with several bombs, the group added.
The Group added that an explosive bomb, exploded before one of the Palestinian houses, caused several physical damages in al-Yarmouk refugee camp.
Amnesty International said the Syrian army was using starvation as a “weapon of war” in its siege of Yarmouk, where it said nearly 200 people have died since the tightening of the siege, including 128 who starved to death.
It said Yarmouk was the deadliest of several blockades set up of civilian areas across the country, some by the army and some by Syrian rebels.
New Palestinian deaths in Syria, two killed under torture
Brothers Ahmed and Basel Azima were killed under torture
Four Palestinian refugees were proclaimed dead on Friday, two of them were killed under torture in a Syrian jail, according to the action group for the Palestinians in Syria.
The group said that two brothers named Ahmed and Basel Azima were tortured to death in a Syrian detention center, noting that both of them had been kidnapped by the Syrian regime one year ago.
Other two young refugees from Khan Danoun camp were killed in the armed clashes that broke out before yesterday in the vicinity of the camp, the group added.
An unidentified militant group released Mohamed and Alaa Shahin, Palestinian refugees from Neirab camp, one month after they were kidnapped.
Local sources from Khan Younis refugee camp reported the fall of barrel bombs on the camp and the occurrence of considerable damage to many civilian homes. They reported no casualties among the residents.
In Al-Yarmouk refugee camp to the south of Damascus, a group of armed men went on a march to express their rejection of any truce or initiative to neutralize the camp.
Daraa refugee camp also saw violent armed confrontations between Free Army fighters and the Syrian regime forces backed by Lebanese militias.
In a separate incident, a number of Palestinian and Syrian refuge seekers staged a sit-in outside the headquarters of the UN high commissioners for refugee in Bangkok, Thailand, to shed light on their humanitarian suffering and protest the detention of their compatriots in Thai prisons
Hamas delegation discusses Palestinian developments with Lebanese officials
A delegation of Hamas Movement has met on Friday with the Lebanese Information Minister Ramzi Jarih in his office in Beirut. The delegation included the representative of the movement in Lebanon Ali Baraka, Hamas information official in Lebanon Raafat Marra and a member of Hamas political leadership in Lebanon Mashhour Abdel Halim.
Baraka stated that they have discussed recent Palestinian developments particularly Israel’s escalated Judaization policy.
US Secretary of State John Kerry's plan is totally biased in favor of Israeli occupation's position that denies the right of return, he said, stressing Palestinian people's adherence to their right of return.
The meeting also discussed Palestinian refugees' conditions in Lebanese refugee camps. “We have briefed Lebanon's information minister about Hamas's initiative issued on the 28th of March that stressed the movement's keenness on Lebanese security”, Ali Baraka said, confirming that Palestinians can only be a part of Lebanon's stability.
He expressed his rejection and condemnation to the use of Palestinian refugee camps as tools to target Lebanese security.
For his part, Lebanon's Information Minister expressed his support to Palestinian issues particularly the Palestinian prisoners' issue, emphasizing that the Palestinian cause remains the central issue for all Arab countries.
Palestinian refugees who survive of the shipwreck in Greece asking for help
News about Palestinian Refugees Distressed calls of refugee survivors from a drowning in Greece Palestinian-Syrian refugees were rescued from drowning in Greece and they expressed their distress about getting human rights and relief to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to put an end to their suffering.
The refugees have been rescued from drowning while trying to reach Greece through Turkey, and they currently suffer from very poor living conditions. It is very difficult for them to find shelter and food, especially after they had lost all their belongings and money that was with them in the sea.
According to information issued by one of the survivors, the Greek authorities detained the refugees and made them stay for over two days, and then they were released. The refugees pointed out that they were left them homeless without food or money. Greece only provided them with assistance through a local organization for only a limited period of time, and then informed them that they were not able to help them any longer, which only adds to the refugees’ suffering.
In related news, the Office of the United Nations refugee agency said seven refugees, including two children, illegally migrated to Europe, and they got into a shipwreck off the coast of the Greece. The ship was coming from Turkey. The UN also announced that there are still people missing from this wreck, and they have still not been found until now.
The survivors and victims of this accident were Syrians. Commissioners have called on the European Union to improve communication and conditions in dealing with refugees fleeing wars, and to create alternatives to legal migration for the Syrian refugees. Thousands of Palestinians and Syrians are forced to illegally migrate to escape the oppression of the Syrian regime and the ongoing war in Syria, and they come across obstacles when they reach Europe. Since it is difficult to obtain a visa, civilians have resorted to traveling by sea. However, most of the refugees have traveled by small boats, and that is what led to many shipwrecks.
Almost all of these victims were refugees. Last year, there was a ship which sank near the Italian coast that killed 250 people and the majority of these people were Palestinians from the Yarmouk refugee camp.
Two Palestinians killed in Syria
Wassim Abou Zina
Two Palestinians were killed, including one tortured to death, on Thursday in the war-torn Syria.
The action group for Palestinians in Syria said in a statement that Wassim Abou Zina from Yarmouk refugee camp was killed under torture in a Syrian prison after being arrested outside the faculty of Information Technology of Engineering in Damascus. Hussein Ali, from Neirab refugee camp, was killed following the violent confrontations that broke out in Aleppo.
Along the same line, mortar shells slammed into Germana refugee camp in Damascus while mosques called on civilians to stay at home because of the ceaseless shelling.
In Aleppo, several funerals were held for the casualties of Lirmon confrontations who were killed last Wednesday.
Absurdly enough, the convoy was shot right after the cadavers reached the camp, leading to a head wound among the partakers.
A state of relative calmness overwhelmed yesterday the Yarmouk refugee camp which has been blocked for nine uninterrupted months, leading to hospital and baking services suspension in the besieged camp, where barriers have been set by the regime army and Popular Front groups so as to block the entry of food aid access and medical supplies into the camp.
Action group: Seven Palestinians killed in Syria yesterday
Seven Palestinians were killed on Wednesday in armed violence in Syria, according to the action group for the Palestinians in Syria. The action group said that a Palestinian civilian refugee named Mustafa Abu Raya was killed in the armed clashes that broke out yesterday between militants in Al-Yarmouk camp.
Other six Palestinian militants, from a brigade fighting for the Syrian regime, were also killed during their involvement in armed confrontations with groups from the Free Army in Al-Lairamun area in Aleppo city, according to the action group.
Al-Yarmouk refugee camp also saw violent armed clashes between the popular front-general command, an ally of the Syrian regime, and militant groups. One Syrian civilian was killed and many other Palestinian refugees were wounded during the violence.
Danish Minister of Justice honors 3 Palestinian female refugees
Three Palestinian female refugees, from Lebanon's refugee camps, have received a human rights award in Denmark. The three females, identified as Afaf Zaid and Isra and Fatena Maroof, were awarded by the Danish Justice Minister for their project on treatment of crimes among youths.
The Palestinian community is considered Denmark’s oldest and largest community, where large waves of Palestinian refugees have immigrated after Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) for education and work purposes due to the poor living conditions in refugee camps.
Inside Yarmouk: Life under seige in Syria
Three years since the uprising in Syria began, ordinary civilians are being intentionally starved to death. Besieged by the Syrian government and armed opposition groups, some have been reduced to eating cats.
Inside Yarmouk
Yarmouk is a highly built up area of about two square kilometres on the south side of Damascus. Yarmouk was home to about 180,000 Palestinian refugees and several hundred thousand Syrians.
The siege of Yarmouk by government forces began in December 2012 and since July 2013, except for a few occasions, the Syrian army has prevented the entry of all people, food and goods. Today 17,000 to 20,000 people remain trapped in Yarmouk.
Yarmouk's civilians have been brought to the brink of starvation, forced to forage for food.
Between July 2013 and up to 25 February 2014 we have recorded the deaths of 194 people, including 12 babies, six children and 41 elderly people. Two-thirds have died of starvation.
'The last time I ate vegetables was more than eight months ago'
A Yamouk resident
At first, when flour ran out, they used lentils and then bulgur wheat to bake alternatives. When these ran out or became too expensive they survived by scavenging for anything that might be edible including cactus and dandelion leaves.
'I eat anything I can get my hands on. I eat on average one meal every 30 hours. Either we have to go to the small field areas overlooked by snipers, looking for herbs, or group together to buy a kilo of rice or lentils at 10,000 Syrian pounds (£41) and cook it, but we cannot afford to do this each day due to the cost.'
We have recorded at least two people being killed by government snipers while foraging for food in the small fields adjacent to Yarmouk.
A hospital nurse told us of a teenager who had been shot dead while collecting leaves to eat. Addressing the lifeless boy, his grieving father said: 'You died for the sake of brining hibiscus leaves for your brothers and sisters.'
Recently a young girl was taken to hospital suffering from stomach problems after her family had killed and eaten a dog.
Urgently needed health care
Of the 194 deaths we have recorded, 51 died because of a lack of medical care.
Hospitals and other medical facilities have been particularly badly hit and medics have been targeted.
'As soon as I arrived [at Palestine Hospital] a health worker told me that my husband hadn't made it. There were no doctors at the hospital because a few days earlier, Dr Aladdin Youssef was arrested and so others were scared to come to the hospital'
Widow of Ghassan Shihabi
Today, after being besieged for months, no surgeons remain at Palestine Hospital. A medical worker told us: 'any necessary surgery is carried out by nurses who are learning by experience and study.'
In December 2013 and January 2014 three women and five newborn babies died because the hospital was unable to give them the medical treatment they needed. People we have spoken to have told us that the elderly and babies are suffering the most.
'Babies are dying because there is no milk, neither powder nor from their own mothers.'
A medical worker
Arbitary arrests
150 people have been arrested by government forces since April 2011 including 12 medics. However according to local activists the real number could be in the thousands. All our sources insist the majority were civilians.
On 2 February 2014, 27 people were arrested as they went to collect food from an army checkpoint. We don't know what has happened to them.
On 3 February 2014, Mahmoud Mou'ad, a humanitarian aid worker, was seized by forces loyal to the Syrian government. The authorities have provided no information about him since he was detained.
The residents of Yarmouk are not alone. Their stories are repeated across the country. Around 250,000 civilians are living under siege in Syria. World leaders must act to ensure immediate humanitarian access to end the suffering of ordinary civilians who have been caught up in the conflict.
Downloads Squeezing the life out of Yarmouk: War crimes against besieged civilians [PDF]
Three Palestinians tortured to death in Syrian prisons
Nasser and Hassan Sakhnini
Three Palestinians refugees were killed under torture in Syrian prisons on Tuesday, including two brothers. The Action Group for Palestinians in Syria documented, in a press release on Wednesday, the death of Ashraf Omar and the two brothers Nasser and Hassan Sakhnini who were tortured to death in Syrian prisons, leading to the rise of the death toll of Palestinian refugees killed under torture in Syrian prisons to 166 Palestinians.
In a related context, limited food-aid quantities were distributed in the besieged Yarmouk refugee camp south of Damascus at a time when several humanitarian cases were allowed to leave the camp.
The camp has been strictly blockaded for nine months. Armed groups have blocked access of food aid and citizens into the camp.
Along the same line, violent confrontations have been reported between regime troops and Free Syrian army in Deraa refugee camp.
The situation is no less alarming in Germana refugee camp where schooling has been exclusive to the administrative and teaching staff only as a precautionary measure taken by UNRWA following the daily shelling targeting the camp area.
A state of relative calm overwhelms the Khan Sheeh refugee camp in Damascus, while roads, linking Qadsiya to neighboring suburbs, were opened before traffic.
Hundreds of Palestinian refugee families, displaced from their camps due to the siege and the frequent shelling, have been living in Qadsiya.
Premier Haneyya briefed on situation in Mieh Mieh camp
Hamas representative in Lebanon Ali Baraka on Monday briefed Palestinian premier Ismail Haneyya over the phone on the developments in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, especially in Mieh Mieh camp, which saw violent clashes on the same day. Premier Haneyya expressed his deep regret for the killing of Palestinians in the armed violence that broke out yesterday between Palestinian groups in Mieh Mieh camp, and called for exercising restraint and address differences through dialog.
The premier stressed the importance of avoiding any violence in the Palestinian refugee camps and contributing to Lebanon's security and stability.
He also reiterated his support for the Palestinian initiative in Ein Hilweh refugee camp, which aims to protect the Palestinian presence in Lebanon and strengthening the Palestinian-Lebanese relations.
For its part, the alliance of Palestinian forces strongly denounced the unfortunate events that happened yesterday morning in Mieh Mieh camp, east of Sidon.
In a press release, the alliance called on all parties to end their clashes immediately and held them fully responsible for causing panic among the innocent people in the camp and killing Palestinians.
It demanded all Palestinian political forces to assume their role in controlling the situations inside the camps in Lebanon, especially in Mieh Mieh and do not allow anyone or group to tamper with their stability.
The calm returned to Mieh Mieh camp after a day of unrest that led to the killing of eight Palestinians and rendered 10 others wounded.
The Lebanese army, for its part, intervened on Monday and cut the roads leading to the camp and barred anyone from going in, while a Palestinian committee was making efforts inside the camp to calm the situation.
The clashes broke out, without prior warning, on Monday morning between militants of Jamal Suleiman's Ansarullah group, a close ally to Hezbollah, and others of Ahmed Rashid's Awdah Martyrs Brigades.
Haniyeh urges Palestinians self-restraint in Lebanon
Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, Monday called on the Palestinian factions in Lebanon to exercise self-restraint and refrain from using force to resolve their problems. In a phone call with Ali Baraka, Hamas representative to Lebanon, Haniyeh pointed to the importance of maintaining the security of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and offered his support for the unity and stability of Lebanon by adopting Civilian and humanitarian rights until they able to return to their homeland-Palestine.
Haniyeh expressed his support to the Islamic and national factions for the new Palestinian InitiativeIn Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp which aims to secure the Palestinians in Lebanon and strengthen the relations between Palestine and Lebanon
Meanwhile the Lebanese army imposed a security cordon around the camp, in an attempt to isolate it from other Palestinian refugee camps
Media sources said that nine Palestinians were killed one of them is leader Ahmed Shbak ,when militants from rival Palestinian factions exchanged fire in Lebanon's Mieh Mieh Palestinian refugee camp near Lebanon's southern city of Sidon, in which at least 10 people were wounded.
Armed clashes between the group "Ansar Allah" and a rival group, led by Ahmed Shbak who is closed to well-known Fateh leader Mohammed Dahlan, led to the death of three people from the latter group, and a number injuries.
It is worth to mention that similar clashes were occurred two weeks ago between the same two groups in the same camp, killing two people.
Mieh Mieh and the nearby Ain al-Hilweh, two of the 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon that are home of more than 200,000 registered refugees.
Two Palestinians die in Syria, one of starvation
Two Palestinian refugees died on Monday as a result of the armed violence and the tragic humanitarian situation in the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria.
The action group for the Palestinians in Syria said that Mohamed Judi was killed during the armed clashes that broke out yesterday near Aziza town in Aleppo.
An elderly man named Ayman Kurdi (video) also died of hunger and malnutrition in the besieged refugee camp of Al-Yarmouk.
In another incident, Daraa refugee camp came under heavy projectile attacks from the Syrian regime army and its militias.
In Al-Yarmouk camp, the UNRWA relief workers were able to distribute 300 portions of food aid to some Palestinian families and helped some humanitarian cases to leave the camp.
Two Palestinian refugees were reportedly kidnapped in Aleppo and Al-Yarmouk camp, according to the action group.
The action group also said in a separate report that 16 Palestinian refugee were proclaimed dead from March 31 until April 7 as a result of the conflict in Syria.
It noted that five of these victims died of hunger and drought because of the blockade imposed by the Syrian regime forces and their allies on Al-Yarmouk refugee camp.
The group's report highlighted in general the deteriorating living conditions in the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria, which has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011.
Impoverished Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Greece appeal for help
A number of Palestinian and Syrian refugees, who fled the Syrian war to Greece, complained about their living conditions in the country and appealed to human rights groups to help them. These refugees were rescued about one week ago by the Greek navy after receiving a distress call from their boat, which sustained a mechanical failure off the coast of Crete.
Following the rescue operation, they were detained and interrogated for two days before being released.
All of them suffer from very harsh living conditions, especially after they had been provided with assistance for a few days by a relief group which told them later that it would not be able to continue to support them.
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Why is Fracking Controversial?
The Danish Debate
Science>
Activists/NGO's
Controversy in the Making - Timeline
Hydraulic Fracturing - A Controversy in the Making
What Is Hydraulic Fracturing?
Hydraulic Fracturing is a technical procedure used to release petroleum, shale gas, tight gas, coal seam gas or other substances from underground: primarily natural gasses. Through wellbore drilling a high-pressured mixture of water, sand and chemicals is infused into the ground in order to create fractures in the underground rock formations. When the infusion reaches the deep shale rock formations (usually 6 to 7 thousand feet beneath the surface) a propagation within the shale layers occurs which forces oil and gas to migrate towards the surface. The extraction of shale gas provides alternative energy source opposed to our already known hydrocarbon-based energy sources such as oil or coal. Hydraulic Fracturing is also commonly referred to as "hydrofracking" or just "fracking".
Got two minutes?- this is how it looks like.
The History of Hydraulic Fracturing?
On March 17, 1949, the first two commercial drillings were performed by the American oil company: Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company. Since the drillings in 1949 in Stephens County, Oklahoma and Archer County, Texas, nearly a million oil and gas wells were stimulated by Hydraulic Fracturing. Later the procedure of Hydraulic Fracturing was practiced in the Soviet Union (1952) and Western Europe (1977-1985). Drillings, however, were performed allover the world from Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France and Northern Africa among others.
In 1997 the extraction of shale gas from Hydraulic Fracturing was made economically rentable by upgrading the technical systems. From 1997 the technique also gained wider commercial attention, which formed the foundation for the modern technique we know today.
The first Hydraulic Fracturing experiment performed by Stanolind Oil in the Hugoton gas fields of Southwestern Kansas in 1947.
Globalized Fracking
Hydraulic Fracturing is practiced worldwide and have since the 1940s expanded across the globe - from the United States of America to China. Take a look a the map to the left by clicking it.
Source: http://www.eia.gov/
To read more about this webpage and the background for this student research project entitled "Hydraulic Fracturing- A Controversy in the Making", click "about this webside". If more interested in the controversy, "Frack it!", and click "Controversy".
Frack it! - Go to "Controversy"
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EXTRA EXTRA REAL ALL ABOUT IT!
Meet The Cardinals
Posted on April 3, 2014 December 1, 2016 by admin
Meet the St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the most successful and decorated of the Major League Baseball franchisees. Having won 11 World Series titles, they are second only to the New York Yankees. They have also won 19 National League pennants and 12 division titles. They are based in Missouri and have their home park at Busch Stadium. You can get cheap St Louis Cardinals tickets online.
With John Mozeliak as their general manager and Mike Matheny as their manager, the St. Louis Cardinals are destined to go the distance in the upcoming season. The St. Louis Cardinals have the likes of Matt Holliday, Adam Wainwright, and Yadier Molina in their ranks.
Matt Holliday has the distinction of hitting the longest home run of 498 in 2006. He is a six-time All-Star selection and a four-time Silver Slugger awardee; was the National League Player of September 2007; has one World Series championship title to his credit; and was the 2007 National League batting, runs batted in, and doubles champion. He also has various other records to his name. He is definitely a player to watch for.
Puerto Rican Yadier “Yadi” Molina is another player to watch for in this season. The St. Louis Cardinals catcher has been world champion two times and has earned five consecutive All-Star Games selections. He also has six Rawlings Gold Glove Awards, two National League Platinum Glove Awards, six Fielding Bible Awards, and one Silver Slugger Award. He is often referred to as having the most accurate and strongest arms in the game.
Adam Wainwright is a two-time World Series champion, a two-time All-Star selection, and a two-time winner of the Rawlings Gold Glove Award.
Other notable players to watch for are Jason Motte, the 2012 National League saves leader; Allen Craig, a 2013 All-Star selection; Jhonny Peralta, a 2011 and 2013 All-Star selection; Matt Carpenter, the 2013 MLB leader in doubles and hits; and Matt Adams. The complete list of the squad is as follows:
1. Adam Wainwright
2. Randy Choate
3. Pat Neshek
4. Keith Butler
5. Joe Kelly
6. Lance Lynn
7. Seth Maness
8. Carlos Martinez
9. Trevor Rosenthal
10. Shelby Miller
11. Kevin Siegrist
12. Michael Wacha
1. Yadier Molina
2. Tony Cruz
Infielders
1. Matt Adams
2. Matt Carpenter
3. Allen Craig
4. Pete Kozma
5. Daniel Descalso
6. Jhonny Peralta
7. Kolten Wong
Outfielders
1. Matt Holliday
2. Jon Jay
3. Peter Bourjos
4. Shane Robinson
Who Do The Knicks Play
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Being an Immigrant Writer in the Age of Trump
A guest post from Carmen Bugan, who has been a member and instructor with the Geneva Writers' Group, and who returned to the US almost exactly a year ago today.
The upcoming inauguration of the next president of the Unites States fills many people with anxiety, but it horrifies me. I am an immigrant and I feel that my values are directly under attack.
I come from a family of political dissidents. My father spent twelve years in Romania’s worst prisons because he fought for the truth, human rights and freedom of speech. He bought a typewriter illegally; ordinary people were not permitted to own them, both typewriter and owner had to be fingerprinted and surveilled by police. Dad buried the typewriter in the backyard every time he and my mother were finished with typing stacks of anti-communist manifestoes. We immigrated to the United States at the end of 1989 as political refugees, just when the Berlin Wall was brought down and the Romanian Revolution littered the streets of Bucharest with dead people who hoped for freedom.
My first poems were written to a photograph of my father which we kept in our beloved house, where we had been subjected to years of secret police surveillance while he served in prison. It took me time to understand myself as a freed person, to translate my poetry into English, and then write directly in English, which has become my adoptive, comforting language. I left my native language because it felt corrupt by the informers who destroyed my childhood, by the surveillance which has turned my family and me into fearful and suspicious people, by the slogans thrown at us by a dictator who saw himself as the father of all people and tortured anyone who criticized him. The English language was a rebirth: of speech after long silence, of dreams after despair, of hope and gratitude that my father’s fight for freedom was welcomed and respected by Americans who gave us a home among them. My writing took roots in this beautiful new language and I could finally articulate my story and dream my place among my fellow Americans: I had become a naturalized citizen and also a linguistic citizen. I wonder what would have happened to me and my family had we been subjected to Trump’s proposed vetting of immigrants.
Out of gratitude for this country, immigrants may not say much to criticize it, but we are very sensitive to demagoguery and any gestures that threaten freedom of expression. We know all about grand, empty promises, policing the speech, the way a slogan can enter the heart of a family that struggles to pay bills. We know how people can fall into the trap of words. We know when the rhetoric is directed against us. But those of us who are writers are aware of the price paid in our own families for the freedom to shout out ‘This is wrong!’ and be heard. We are now in the age of a president-elect who is trafficking into horrible side stories about immigrants, who wants to deport hard-working families, who is beginning to make rules about the ways in which people protest against injustice in this country, who disrespects and lashes at anyone who speaks against him, who deals solely in lies, all the while promising the American people that he will make this country great again. This is a police state in the making and the worst part of it is that people are already afraid to stop it. I watch the major TV news channels in horror: why are they making headlines out of Trump’s tweets when Trump bypasses them?
One of Trump’s top advisers said the job of his administration is to implement the vision of Trump. Why should his opportunistic, dehumanizing vision determine how I am going to raise my own children? Why should I go to sleep at night worrying whether the President of the United States will destroy health care, education, make enemies all over the planet, and shut all Americans inside a big fat wall? Why should I worry that he fills his cabinet posts with billionaires who made a fortune exploiting poorer nations?
This is an open letter to the immigrant writers of the United States of America. Let us get to our notebooks and write the compassionate, amazing stories of immigrants who have made this country the reason the world still wants to flock here. Let us write shimmering, nuanced, beautiful words, poems and stories full of love, let us show the Americans who welcomed us here the generosity of their hearts. Let us help those who cannot yet see the dangerous path America is taking, step away from it. Let the great American writers who have enjoyed working and growing in one of the most beautiful languages on earth, a language of song and poetry, let them join us with their stories of how we became their friends and learned from them.
I believe that the English language is hurting: it suffers from materialism, from empty slogans, and it has been reduced to buzzwords. We need to open our hearts to this language and in turn the language will give us the resources to resist lies. The immigrant writers bring to the English language the wonder of looking at it afresh, and with gratitude. This is the wonder that most natives lose soon after that magic period in childhood when they begin to read and write, to unlock the power of words and the thrill that the language has opened to them the right of ways. This language needs words from other countries, rhythms from other parts of the world, tears and laughter from the huts and homes of people in faraway places; it must taste their fragrant foods and it must nurture their hopes.
We must not be afraid to look into the eyes of danger: let the writers be like surgeons who have enough emotional distance that they can perform that operation which removes the tumor. There are many people who are discontent in this country: enough that they have turned to Trump. The writers must serve these people with good words that will bring peace and understanding. There is no love but in the word of it.
Note about the author:
Carmen Bugan has a doctorate in English Literature from Balliol College, Oxford University, UK. She is the author of the critical study Seamus Heaney and East European Poetry in Translation: Poetics of Exile (MHRA, 2014), Crossing the Carpathians (Oxford Poets/Carcanet, 2004), Burying the Typewriter: Childhood Under the Eye of the Secret Police (Picador, 2012), The House of Straw (Shearsman, 2014), and Releasing the Porcelain Birds: Poems after Surveillance (Shearsman, 2016). A short interview with her about her latest poetry collection appears on the BBC World News here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03wtmlk
Imagery in Poetry - Laura Kasischke workshop in November
As soon as I heard that the GWG was thinking of inviting Laura Kasischke to Geneva to be a guest instructor for poetry, I knew I had to make every effort to be there. So I came all the way from the UK to see and hear her (and I was not the only one).
Of course, Laura herself came all the way from snowy Michigan, battling jetlag and not quite getting to see anything of the city, just to share with us her love of poetry, inspire and motivate us to keep on writing and improving.
The weekend started with a Friday evening of poetry readings and signing with Laura and Wallis Wilde Menozzi in the magnificent surroundings of Payot Rive, with their knowledgeable and supportive staff. The two poets both write prose as well, but when they were asked which of the two they would choose, if someone were to tell them that for the rest of their lives they could only do one or the other, they both replied: 'Poetry.' After all, you don't choose to write poetry, it chooses you!
On Saturday 18th we discussed imagery in poetry, based on Pierre Reverdy's statement that the image is born from a juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities. The greater the distance, the more interesting the image gets - as long as we don't lose the truth of it! Laura encouraged us to put unlikely things together and, if it doesn't immediately work out, to allow things to mate and gestate in a drawer.
Another timely reminder as I go through bouts of ranting and confessional poetry was that you cannot 'express yourself' in poetry. Rather, it's about a journey of self-discovery, working things out during the course of a poem, allowing it to surprise you (and the reader). I loved Laura's insistence on concrete, sensory details rather than abstract concepts and nouns. Quoting from Borges, she told us: 'Every detail is an omen and a cause' and that we may well find out that we describe things in different ways at different points in our life, as our irrational, subconscious works its magic on the world around us. Laura proved to be a great believer in the craft of prose and the inspiration of poetry. Although you do have to edit your poems, she warned us that 'I know I'm done with a poem when I pull out the thesaurus and start looking too hard for a different word.'
The masterclass on Sunday was intense and exhilarating. When else do you get a chance to discuss poems all day with a group of 13 like-minded people? You learn so much not just from having your own poems dissected and edited (and, occasionally, partly admired), but also from other poets' images and from their attempts to convey certain thoughts or sensations. Laura proved to be the ideal workshop facilitator, always encouraging, warm and positive.
I left the Genevois weekend feeling nourished, nurtured, reinvigorated, full of renewed passion for words and poetry, bursting to the seams with ideas and the courage to try them out.
This is what keeps so many of us coming back to the events organised by the Geneva Writers' Group, even though we have moved away from the area. There is a magic in such a diverse group of people, with perhaps only one thing in common: an all-consuming passion for the written and spoken word.
Meet Our Members: Alice Baudat
Alice Baudat was born in Chicago but now lives in Switzerland with her family and a few furry four-pawed friends. She has published two books set in a small town in the mountains (which reminded me a little of Joanne Harris' Chocolat) and is well-known within the GWG community for her delightful, humorous drawings. You can find Alice online at her website and, as you might be able to tell from her answers below, she has a dry sense of humour, as well as being rather modest about her work.
Where did your love of books/storytelling/writing come from?
My fourth grade teacher told the class to write a book. This was the only English lesson I got right! George and the Mushroom Men was the title of my first book (I married George).
What sort of writing do you do and why?
Fiction because it sparkles.
Who or what inspires you?
Inspiration comes in a flash, anywhere-anytime. I have many favorite authors.
Tell us a little bit about your publishing journey.
A long road never finished but then worth the painful and rewarding journey of a real book.
What do you enjoy most about writing?
Sitting in my corner-and pulling the strings of my make believe world. Fictional life is a puppet show.
What do you find most difficult about writing?
Getting it right-making the words feel good-and then deciding to stop and go ahead.
What is your writing routine?
Afternoon, my dog in her basket and a cup of tea for revival.
How did you hear of GWG and how has it helped your writing?
From a friend of a friend-everyone who writes needs to know another writer.
What (if anything) has surprised you most since publishing your first book?
The plain fact that this hunk of paper is REAL. And a dream has become reality and there are more dreams to come.
What advice would you give to new writers?
Just sit down and write-keep note of your inspirations-and don't feel that you have no talent because everyone that works with words does it in their own way not like the writer next-door. And don't give up.
Meet Our Members: Anne Korkeakivi
Anne Korkeakivi is an American writer, who has worked for many years as a journalist, but chose to focus on fiction after coming to France. Her first novel, An Unexpected Guest, was published by Little, Brown & Co. in 2012 and garnered comparisons to Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Her second novel, Shining Sea, will come out also from Little, Brown on the 9th of August this year.
Anne is currently based in Geneva with her family. She is not a GWG member but does occasionally attend our conferences and other events. You can find her online at her website, on Facebook, on Twitter and Instagram.
I’ve always been a bookworm and a storyteller. When I was a little girl, four or five years old, all long braids and freckles, I’d lie in bed at night and tell myself continuing stories, each night a new episode. It came naturally. Happily for me, my parents were readers; their bookshelves were a treasure trove, heavy with work by the likes of Joseph Conrad, William Faulkner, E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf.
I write literary fiction. For many years I worked as a journalist, and I also still occasionally write essays and articles. Literary fiction and journalistic nonfiction are my favorite things to read as well--although I enjoy and read other genres too--which may not be unrelated.
One interesting truth of writing is both love and anger, and both beauty and horror can provide inspiration. History, news, nature, human beings – there’s inspiration everywhere.
While I’ve always written fiction in spare hours and I earned an MA in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, for many years I made my living with nonfiction, contributing to different publications in the US and UK: the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Times, etc. I occasionally wrote book reviews but mostly I wrote about the other arts, travel, or culture.
At some point after I’d become a mother and moved to France for my husband’s work, time and geographical constraints told me I had to make a choice between these two poles—fiction and nonfiction. I decided to gamble. I took a freelance editing job with a publisher in Paris and gave myself one year without working as a journalist to teach myself to write effective fiction. In the eleventh month, I received my first acceptance of a short story for publication.
I continued writing short stories until I felt ready to start on a novel. I worked hard, completed a solid draft, and found a wonderful agent in NY to represent it.
If you mean what part of the process: when I’m deep inside a story, when the story has become its own world, and I’m reaching into it, discovering.
I suppose when I’m not deep within a story. Being between stories leaves me dangling.
Writing is my profession, so my writing routine is similar to other 9-5 work routines, except that my office is in my home, I’m alone, and the hours are longer. I get to my desk by 9 am at the latest and stay there as long as I can uninterrupted. I don’t usually break for lunch but, because I’m a mom and because I work at home, my days can also involve, for example, helping my kids with whatever is going on in their lives or talking with a plumber. I typically save the actual writing of fiction for days when I expect to have a longer period of uninterrupted time. On other days, I might edit already written work, do research, work on nonfiction, social media or emails. A couple of times a week, I’ll take an hour out for a run, an excellent way to clear my head.
When I have a book (or article/short story) coming up for publication, my hours really go haywire, however, because my agent and publisher are based in the US, six hours behind us here in Geneva. I can be back at my desk responding to email requests, for example, well after midnight. It’s completely worth it, though. I’m not complaining!
How did you hear of GWG and how has it helped your writing (if it has)?
When I learned I was moving to Geneva, a friend of mine in Paris, who had attended a GWG conference, told me about Susan Tiberghien, Susan is a really cool lady, my friend told me. That’s an understatement. I’m not a member of the GWG, but I have attended a couple of the conferences now myself. They were super. I like to think of myself as an enthusiastic, if off-stage, GWG advocate. No matter where you are as a writer, from just starting out to making your living from it, the encouragement and shared knowledge of a supportive community is invaluable.
The practical process of publishing a novel was a non-stop learning experience for me; the period from manuscript submission to appearing on the shelves of bookstores is more labyrinthine and requires more continued participation from the author than I had understood. It has given me even more respect for publishing houses. I feel honored to be a part of what they do, as an author.
Some of the nicest surprises post-publication have been the people who went out of their way to champion An Unexpected Guest. Getting the word out on a novel takes the support of others, and the individuals who showed up for readings and bought books, posted on social media, proposed my work to their book group, blogged about it, wrote nice reviews on Amazon or Goodreads, gave copies for Christmas presents, etcetera, were my heroes. It wasn’t always the people I would have expected either. So, while there have been some deep disappointments, there have also been the loveliest of surprises. I send huge thanks in advance to anyone who does the same for Shining Sea now!
Try reading like a writer, and work very hard. When you think you’re done, take a moment to celebrate--and then ask yourself whether you may well have only just started. But don’t give up!
GWG Literary Prize 2016 and farewell for the summer
13 Jun 2016 08:23 | Deleted user
11 June was our final workshop for the 2015/2016 season and saw a lively and informative session on new developments and opportunities in publishing in the morning - with gratitude to the panellists Diccon Bewes, Alison Anderson and Susan Tiberghien.
At the evening reception, we were delighted to announce the winners of the Geneva Literary Prizes 2016:
Poetry – judged by Aracelis Girmay
3rd prize: Patti Marxsen
2nd prize: Julianne DiNenna
1st prize: Roschelle Don
Fiction – judged by Geeta Kothari
3rd prize: Bill Lloyd
2nd prize: Lida Papasokrati
1st prize: Chris Baball
Nonfiction – judged by Annette Kobak
3rd prize: Jen Kirwin
2nd prize: Mary Pecaut
1st prize: Kristine Greenaway
Congratulations to all of our winners and a huge thanks to Nancy Frazer for organising the event and to Olivia Wildenstein for stepping in to announce the winners on June 11th.
Happy writing over the summer and see you back in September 2016!
The House of Shells - Guest Post by Carmen Bugan
20 May 2016 12:41 | Deleted user
Until December 2015, we had the pleasure of counting the talented poet and memoir writer Carmen Bugan amongst our members. The 'official' biography states the following:
Carmen Bugan was born in Romania in 1970 and emigrated to the US with her family in 1989, following her father's imprisonment for protesting against the Ceausescu regime. She was educated at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), Lancaster University, The Poets House (Ireland), and at Balliol College, Oxford, where she obtained a doctorate in English Literature. Her memoir 'Burying the Typewriter' has won the Bread Loaf Conference Bakeless Prize for Nonfiction, was BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and shortlisted for the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing. Shearsman Books has just published her third collection of poetry 'Releasing the Porcelain Birds'.
But to those of us who knew and loved her, she was an inspirational workshop facilitator, a passionate advocate for creativity in all its forms and a really special friend. Since the end of 2015, she has moved back to the US with her young family, and we miss her dreadfully. Here is the story (in her own words) of how she is settling in.
The House of Shells
Soon after we moved to Long Island we went to the beach, where we collected egg-shaped stones, peach-colored shells, rosy stones and dark shells. The children ran on the sand dunes shouting, the winter wind blew their words every which way. We used my husband’s pockets as transport containers, and when our fingers froze with the cold, we drove back to our newly-rented, empty home. There, I took a large sheet of thick paper and drew a house on it. My husband and I sat with Alisa and Stefano on the floor as we filled in walls, windows and the roof with stones and shells. We glued them all in and made a little path that led from the white road to the door.
Our belongings sailed the wintery Atlantic for more than one month. Children’s toys, our beds, plates, books, clothes took forever to arrive. We slept on air mattresses and folding couches feeling homesick. Homesick for what, we kept asking ourselves? I was homesick for the morning walks in the countryside with our French neighbors. I missed the Sunday village market. Alisa said our apartment in Prevessin must be crying from loneliness and the teachers at her nursery school were waiting for her. Stefano kept asking when we were going to install the phone so he could call his best friend who had just turned nine. One day Alessandro walked into the house with a grocery bag looking triumphant: ‘Look, I found soppressata and Lambrusco!’ He was nostalgic for his father’s favorite salami and his mother’s native wine: he missed his Italy.
‘I hope this is the last time we are going to move,’ I told my husband last summer, when we were trying to decide between England and the US as the place where he would accept the ‘permanent-sounding’ job offer.
‘You know, our children don’t have a sense of home,’ he agreed. ‘They go to school in France, have American passports, they are half Italian, half Romanian, Stefano was born in England, Alisa in Switzerland…’
Stefano interrupted, ‘But Mommy, I am half-English!’
‘Well, once we settle some place and buy a house, the rest will come naturally. We just need to give them stability.’ I tried to sound confident.
‘I like this house,’ jumped in our four-year old: ‘We stay here.’
‘No’, I argued, ‘we will buy a nice house, this way we won’t have to deal with this awful leaking ceiling in the kitchen. And we could explore America! How about that?’
How do you give children a sense of home? I am a political refugee from Ceausescu’s Romania. When I was a child I helped my parents build our own house. We had trees, flowers, and a kitchen garden. We had neighbors, friends, cousins, grandparents and our priest with his own wobbling cantor. When my father protested against communism, he was incarcerated. The rest of us became prisoners in our house, where we lived under continuous surveillance for years.
After Dad was released from prison, we sought political asylum in the US. We were welcomed by people of good will in Michigan. My parents and siblings settled there. They bought houses and built a church with the Romanian community in Grand Rapids: Mom and Dad put up the church doors. Yet for me the rupture was so deep I never felt at home anywhere, though I have felt privileged to experience each place where I have lived since.
After leaving my native country, I began thinking of myself as a traveler who is one with the road. I fought the need to have one place that is deeply mine. When I met Alessandro in Oxford we embraced our cultural differences and cherished the comfort of our similarities. We have lived in several countries and with the research careers being more temporary than ever, moving is a part of life. We’ve become academic migrants. I am enjoying a sort of post-exilic state of mind, and our children were born on the move, as it were.
But this life style is not as light-hearted as it seems. Though you can’t beat the exhilaration of exploring new cultures and landscapes, it’s disorienting to have no place you can call home. Distance is hard on our ageing parents. We tend to improvise on furniture that falls apart sooner than the rental contracts. Transitioning the children to new schools and languages weighs on our minds too. They are at the stage when they make friends, who give them a sense of continuity. Moving is disruptive, they have to start all over again.
As we prepared our Big Trip, Stefano’s friends gave him their phone numbers and skype addresses, promising to keep in touch every day. We flew in the day after Christmas with suitcases crammed full of presents from Alessandro’s family, who were sad to see him leave Europe.
We are far from buying our house, even though we promised ourselves this will be the first thing we do when we arrive here. Our lives still feel provisory. The new garage is half filled with unopened boxes. We are waiting to move into that new house that will be ours and it will give us a sense of place. Alisa and Stefano are tired of being reminded not to put stickers on their doors: ‘It’s not our house,’ I say, ‘it belongs to the landlord, and last time Alisa drew her masterpiece on the living room wall, it cost us our rent deposit.’ ‘It’s just exhibiting fees,’ smiles my husband.
The children have been playing a game they invented in France. It’s called: ‘Is this window ours?’ They walk around the house asking if the doors, windows and beds are ours, and if we will take them with us in our new ‘permanent’ house where we will, one day, move. ‘Nothing is ours,’ I tell them, ‘in having none we have all of them, like countries and like languages.’ I say the world is our home. This does not satisfy them.
Lately Stefano goes around asking all his new friends at school to vote for Bernie Sanders. The other day he asked me to cook him Korean noodles: ‘It’s an American food, Mommy,’ he informed me delighted at this new discovery. Alisa has fully mastered the transition from Saturday to Sarrurday.
Meanwhile our house of shells, which we built ourselves, just like once upon the time I built my own real house in a country far from here, sits on the dresser in Alisa’s room. Now and then someone draws a flower or a little tree in the garden: after all, it’s going into spring. Outside the kitchen door, a red cardinal and a few robins hop around. The cardinal peers inside: it looks comfortable with me, as long as I sit still.
Books and More Books at Salon du Livre Geneve
Thank you to all authors and volunteers who brought their books, time and enthusiasm to the GWG stand at the Salon du Livre at Palexpo Geneva from the 27th April to the 1st of May.
Although the Salon officially dropped the word 'International' from its title, there were many writers and publishers invited from all over the world, including the famously reclusive Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, who resides in Geneva.
A number of big names may have been missing (Le Temps, RTS and the like), but the interactive events were larger than ever, as was the children's section. There were also many new stages this year, in addition to the traditional ones of 'Crime', 'Travel', 'African' and 'Arab' cultures. The Young Adult section, for instance, proved particularly popular, as did the Philosophy debates.
The GWG stand was small but perfectly formed, decorated and organised by Catherine Nelson-Pollard, ably helped by Caroline Thonger. Here are our two dynamos during the fair.
We had a number of enquiries about the group and our events, but we were also asked what sort of books our authors had published. It would have been nice to be able to show more of them, from our 100+ published members. Admittedly, the Salon is not the ideal place to sell lots of books, so there was little incentive to bring all of them in. However, we were unmissable with our large poster!
Perhaps next year we should create a wallpaper for our stand with all of our book covers to add a bit of colour to the restrained artwork of our Offshoots covers? What do you think? Luckily, Peter St. John Dawe was there with his bright yellow cart on Saturday...
Thank you all for your visits, smiles, croissants, nibbles and encouragements! A la prochaine!
Exciting Events Coming Up!
28 Apr 2016 12:41 | Deleted user
Just in case any of our members thought that we had gone rather quiet lately (there have been some internet connection problems over the past few weeks), we have many exciting events coming up over the next month. Here are some to whet your appetite!
1) The 30th Salon du Livre in Geneva started this Wednesday 27 April at Palexpo (until Sunday 1 May). Over 1000 authors are invited and there will be conferences on multiple stages: Crime, Arab, African, Philosophy, Apostrophe, Authors' Stage and many more. GWG has a stand J1062 next to the big CICAD stand. Come and say hello, bring your books, answer questions about GWG membership and its benefits or just bring some sweets and smiles!
2) The last Writing Workshop for Teens of this schoolyear will take place on Saturday 14 May (10-11:15) at Wall Street English near Cornavin Station in Geneva. The tutor will be the fabulous writer and GWG member Jason Donald and the topic is ‘Writing Dialogue That Really Speaks’. The sessions are free, but we do ask you to register your teenagers in advance via gwg.workshops@gmail.com, so that we know how many are coming and can prepare accordingly.
3) The next regular workshop at the Press Club will be led by Susan Tiberghien on the topic of ‘From Journal to Story’ on 21 May. We would love you to stay on after 12:15 for the Annual General Meeting of the GWG (VERY important that we have a quorum of members attending). There will be lots of things on the agenda, including new committee members, so please have your voting arm ready for use!
4) Last but by NO MEANS least, please don’t be shy or too perfectionist or just too much of a procrastinator (I’m describing myself here…) and do enter the GWG Literary Prize 2016. Previous winners in any category are not allowed to submit for 3 years within that same category, but can submit in others, if they wish. Don’t forget, it can be older (previously unpublished) work, although your own blog does not count as published. It’s free to enter, your work will be seen directly by our highly-regarded external judges and it’s a much smaller pool of talent (in terms of number of entries) than those highly publicized Mslexia or Bridport or other prizes. A win-win situation! The deadline is 1st May at midnight (Geneva time), good luck to everyone!
The judges are waiting for your entries.
Annette Kobak - Non-Fiction
Geetha Kothari - Fiction
Aracelis Girmay - Poetry
Inspirational Quotes for Writers
Here are some quotes which keep me refreshed, from the well of clear water produced by inspirational writers, some of whom we have had the pleasure of welcoming to our GWG conferences in the past.
A writer’s job is to get outside one’s self, to pry, listen and eavesdrop, to find out what you don’t yet know. (Bret Lott)
There is nothing new in literature, there is no new way to tell a story, no more breakthroughs to be made. It’s all about the details. (Bret Lott)
In creative writing you are always a beginner. Once you feel you are an expert, you can’t write anymore. (J.L. Borges)
If poets are genuine, they must keep on repeating: ‘I don’t know.’ All they can do is keep on trying. (Naomi Shihab Nye)
If you can’t take the first step, take the second. (James Richardson)
After this life, we need a second life to apply the lessons we have learnt. (Dunya Mikhail)
You don’t have to have a long track record to become interesting to an agent or publisher.
It is the perennial debate, born in the Romantic era, between the beliefs that all creative acts are born of (a) some transcendent, inexplicable Dionysian act of inspiration, a kiss from God on your brow that allow you to give the world The Magic Flute, or (b) hard work. … I come down on the side of hard work…. Creativity is a habit and the best creativity is a result of good work habits…. In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative. (Twyla Tharp)
Happy inspiration and happy writing!
Meet Our Members: Massimo Marino
Welcome to a new series on our blog. Every 2-3 weeks we will feature one of our authors from the Geneva Writers Group, so that we can all get to know each other better. If you are a published writer and would like to take part in this series please contact Sanda Ionescu. I will be interviewing via email, so there will be plenty of time to polish your answers, although spontaneity is always appreciated! I also look forward to hearing your comments and additional questions.
Welcome to the blog, Massimo, and thank you for agreeing to be the guinea pig for this new series. Tell us, where did your love of books/ storytelling/ writing come from?
I've been writing since I was able to hold a pencil in my toddler’s hand. I daydreamed and always had a fervid imagination. Writing was a way to make everything real. Those written words, though, were only for me. I never shared this with anyone, not even in the family. Being an author was never in my mind and readers are the only ones who can say that of a writer. At what point does a writer begin to function as an author? Being an author means being held to a certain standard of quality, and I do work toward that, the best I can and using proofreaders and working with an editor.
I write Science Fiction, and my working definition of SF is closer to Theodore Sturgeon’s: “A good science fiction story is a story about human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, that would not have happened at all without its science content.”
Science Fiction isn’t about squids in space, it isn’t all aliens and spaceships. A large proportion of SF never leaves the planet or encounters aliens. Science Fiction can make you think. One of the biggest unanswered questions is “what if?” SF stories deliberately explore possibilities – time travel, genetic engineering, computers in people’s heads, teleportation, what happens when the oil runs out, what do we do if we’re contacted by aliens. If more politicians read SF, we wouldn’t be in half the messes we’re in now.
My father and my older brother read sci-fi a lot, so I grew up with that, all the big names: from Isaac Asimov to Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, Robert Heinlein, to name just a few. Other genres too, like Tolkien, Stephen King, Tom Clancy and Italian authors like Svevo, Calvino, Sciascia. I have also come round to Greek mythology, the things I used to hate at school. We live with myths daily, even if we do not realize it.
I spent a year in a peer-critique group with other writers at all stages of their writing careers, from debutant to established. I got my skin thicker and thicker, until, one day, the feedback started to change tone and point more to the good things than to the so-so ones. One in particular prompted a change in me: “This is good, you should develop it into a story and publish this stuff.”
So I gathered my thoughts and worked on what was to become a post-apocalyptic novel with an ongoing mystery and suspense till the end, where all “dots connect”, especially with the main character’s past. About half-way through “Daimones,” the arching plot of the trilogy emerged, and I jotted down notes for what could have happened after the events narrated in “Daimones.” (the first volume in the trilogy)
After working with a few editors on the manuscript, I started querying agents specialising in Science Fiction. I received my dose of standard rejection forms, and quite a few personal replies too, some even asking to read the first chapters. Part of the normal process of a writing career, I guess. But when I read those personal rejections more carefully, it seemed there was a different message lurking below the explicit lines: “I liked the prose, almost poetic, but I don’t know how to sell it to the publishers I work with.” So the material wasn’t bad, but the perceived market for it wasn't there... but what if it was?
I therefore explored independent publishing, not the Vanity Presses (any sane person would run away from those scams), but the revolution that Amazon and the like had created in the publishing industry. So I self-published all 3 volumes of the trilogy. The reaction was much better than I expected. I’ve sold now over 10,000 copies of the “Daimones Trilogy" and collected over 1,000 reviews and ratings from the various sites that sell my books.
Then, one day, at a “Meet the Agent” conference, I met a fabulous literary agent who liked my work and connected me with an innovative publisher in the US. I’m exploring and enjoying the traditional publishing journey now and am a member of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, home of the Nebula Awards, with past winners such as Asimov, Bradbury, Le Guin, Heinlein, Arthur C. Clark, and many more.
Writing is entering a different world, a separate dimension. Sometimes you find yourself in a trance-like state and the real world becomes veiled and obfuscated. It is a dream moment. I do not need to find other means of evasion from the asperity of life when I’m writing.
Making readers aware that you're there. Writing is easy, being discovered is the hard part.
When I`m writing, I aim to write at least 2000 words a day, in whatever situations, locations, and conditions. When I discuss this with other successful writers, I've discovered that writing habits are as varied as personalities. If any common factor exists, it is their (our) extreme seriousness about their (our) work.
GWG has been instrumental in my publishing journey and adventure. GWG came into my world by the way of an ex-colleague. She wanted to be accompanied to a workshop held by this—unknown to me at the time —mysterious group of Geneva writers. We never made it to that workshop, but I discovered GWG and I decided to go to their Conference in 2012. I had already written Daimones and wanted to discover more of the writing, agenting, and publishing world. A community of like-minded people is priceless, extremely important and motivating, which was also the decisive factor behind my latest venture BookGarage.
I've discovered I'm more of a pantser than a planner, which means the story grows independently and I am its first reader. I watch my novels in my mind, hear characters discussing and reacting to what happens to them as in a movie. Sometimes I`m unable to write as fast as the images flow...
I’m not going to repeat what everybody says. Everything can be summarised in two words: Be humble.
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Author: Henry Rodriquez
Henry Rodriquez
The Hawaiian Spirit Lives On
During the early 19th century outsiders gained strong influence in the region by means of their Missionaries and settlers that gained the land reform allowing the outsiders to buy land and cultivate crops on it. The ages old Kapu system was abolished and new systems took over. This led to plantation culture which has been one of the most controversial ones in the history. The new house of rule ceded a lot of region to US for trade reforms and the dynasty was finally overthrown in the year 1893 by the US by means of a very peaceful coup. The main reason for this was the attempt to implement a new constitution for the region which brought forth a very controversial coup. The Hawaiian Kingdom came to an end and a republic was born out of the ashes from the burned empire. The republic wanted to join the United States and succeeded in their pursuit in the year 1898.
During the Second World War the Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Japanese Navy and the place suffered huge losses. The whole region was put under Martial Law which lasted for a long time. But in 1954 after a non violent revolution governorship of the state was restored and in 1959 President Eisenhower granted this restoration after a referendum that had 93 % votes in favour of statehood. However, not everybody was satisfied with the appointed officials of the U S government. People wanted to gain greater governance for themselves and thus led to Self Determination movements in 1960s that are known as Hawaiian Renaissance.
Such long and vivid history has created a civilization that is very proud of their heritage and lineage while keeping their connection with modern world alive. The Hawaiian native people have a very rich culture and like to be known for it but they have also adapted the modernization of the world and new technologies. The history of this US state even though very long in terms of timeline that spans over centuries doesn’t have detailed description and neither they have long descriptive texts like western civilizations or Asian countries that share the same timeline.
March 7, 2016 Henry Rodriquez Leave a comment
Imports and Exports of Hawaiian Economy
Hawaii is the only state in the United States that is made up completely of islands. It originally became a state in August 21st of 1959. Due to its remote location off the southern coast of California in the Pacific Ocean, the prices for consumer products are much higher than other places in the country. The fact is, many items have to be imported, which works to drive the cost up of various items even more.
Referred to as the “Aloha State,” Hawaii was first home to Polynesians approximately 1500 years in the past. Later, Tahitian settlers came to the islands and created a social system that was based on kapu, which actually translates to taboo. In 1778, Captain James Cook landed in the Hawaiian islands and brought a number of western ideas and thoughts to these Oceania islands. In 1820, 42 years later, a number of Protestant missionaries arrived in Hawaii and begin to establish various societal standards, which quickly replaced the Tahitian kapu (taboo) system. At this point, Hawaii was established as an active seaport and it catered to whalers and traders, which helped to solidify the future of the state as an exporter and importer of goods. At the time when Hawaii actually became a territory of the U.S. in 1898, some of the main exports included fresh fruits and sugar; however, sugar is not included as a top export in Hawaii. Also, the only fresh fruit that Hawaii is exporting in big numbers are papayas.
The largest imported items to Hawaii include petroleum oil and crude oil. In fact, in 2013, the total estimated value of these imports was around $3 billion. However, that is not all that Hawaii imports. It also brings in propane, precious metals, jewelry, semiconductors, coal, passenger vehicles and aircraft. The main exports of the state of Hawaii include parts for aircrafts, exotic fruit, petroleum and light oils, fresh shrimp, ferrous scrap, cocoa preparation, aluminum scrap and waste, drawings, paintings and stainless steel scrap.
There is a common misconception that Hawaii exports all things “tropics,” for example, coconuts and other exotic fruit. However, this is simply not the case. In fact, the state offers much more than just the tropical items that it is so well-known and loved for. The evolution of this state is diverse and as a result there are a number of products and goods that are unique to this area. However, due to its location, it costs more to import and export here. This is why there are many things that are sourced elsewhere, besides Hawaii.
Taking some time to get to know about the history of Hawaii, will help you understand why the state imports and exports the items it does. Being informed and educated can help you better understand about this unique state and what it has to offer.
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Uihlein wins European Tour Rookie of the Year award
November 19, 2013 Ken MacLeod 0 Comments
Former Oklahoma State golfers Peter Uihlein eschewed the PGA Tour to go over to Europe a few years ago and try his hand at the Challenge Tour (Europe’s version of the Web.com Tour).
That went well as he won the Madeira Islands Open this May, thus earning his European Tour card for the rest of the season.
He took full advantage of it notching five top 10s the rest of the year and finishing 14th in the Race to Dubai — ahead of bigger names like Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy.
On Monday he was honored for his success by becoming the first American to win the European Tour rookie of the year award.
"It’s an honor to win the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year award," said Uihlein. "I wasn’t expecting it, but it’s been a great year and I’m very pleased. I think I’m the first non-European to win it, so that’s a great honor. Any time you’re the first of anything, it’s neat."
Uihlein also noted what a launching pad his first win was for the rest of his season.
"The win in Madeira was great and I had a lot of top tens. I played well all week in Madeira and handled myself well in the wind, and it was nice to get the job done. The win opened a few doors for me and I was able to play at Wentworth (the BMW PGA Championship) the following week.
"I was supposed to start the year on the Challenge Tour, but instead I was 11th in The Race to Dubai heading into the final event, so it wasn’t what I’d planned on but obviously it’s fantastic the way it has worked out."
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You are here: Home / HHS / Centers for Medicare and Medicaid / Bipartisan Lawmakers Call for Closer Scrutiny of Minnesota Medicaid Program
Bipartisan Lawmakers Call for Closer Scrutiny of Minnesota Medicaid Program
March 2, 2012 by Wolters Kluwer Contributor
During a recent committee hearing, the Minnesota legislature became aware that the state’s Medicaid program, called the Medical Assistance Program, is being investigated by the federal government on allegations that it inflated health care premiums to receive excess federal funds. Consequently, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are recommending a review of the program’s accounting practices by an independent third party auditor.
At issue in the investigation is whether Minnesota funds have improperly boosted the financial reserves and profits of four HMOs that manage the program, including Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, UCare, Health Partners and Medica. United States Representative Michelle Bachmann framed the inquiry as, “(a)re nonprofit HMOs certifying the level of risk that may or may not even exist in order to draw down massive amounts of matching federal funding?” The collective surplus of the HMOs, combined with those of related private market health insurance companies, totaled $2.5 billion at the close of 2010, according to the Minnesota Council of Health Plans (MCHP), an HMO trade group.
Eileen Smith, the spokesperson for MCHP, maintains that as health care costs are increasing, there is more of a necessity for insurers to place money in reserve. She also contends that the amount currently in reserve is only sufficient to cover less than three months of care under the program. At this time, the state has not imposed a maximum limit on financial reserves.
One of the program’s biggest challengers, Attorney David Feinwachs, inquired during the committee hearing why UCare exceeded anticipated profits from the program in 2011, resulting in its return of $30 million to the state. Officials defend the HMOs’ profits on the Medical Assistance Program because the HMOs used to run a second low-income health insurance program, the General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC), at a financial loss. Feinwachs questioned why the federal government did not receive its half of the returned money, despite its role as joint funder of the Medicaid program and why other HMOs did not refund excess profits as well.
Representative Glenn Gruenhagen inquired why HMOs have been receiving increasing amounts of funding although provider payment rates have not increased. The Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Lucinda Jesson, said that HMO enrollment has been growing, which has been a factor in the increased funding. Jesson also maintained that there was no provision in UCare’s contract that required them to make the $30 million payment to the state; therefore, it qualified as a donation, not a refund.
Bachmann made it clear that she will assist state legislators by introducing comparable federal legislation that requires independent auditing of the Medical Assistance Program.
Highlight on Minnesota: Health plans’ red ink worst in a decade
Highlight on Minnesota: Blue Cross, medical cannabis, and baby chickens
Maine Sues for Expedited Review of Medicaid Amendment
Filed Under: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, HHS, Legislation, Medicaid, State Level Tagged With: Minnesota
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AHA: Get Your (Exer)game On to Make Screen Time Pay Off
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 12, 2018 (American Heart Association) -- Parents, can't seem to tear the kids away from their screens? There are ways you won't have to -- and still get them off the couch.
Exergaming allows players to engage in physical activity while also participating in video games -- using a video camera, an infrared sensor or other technology that tracks their movements while playing.
"Dance Dance Revolution" is widely credited for popularizing the concept, particularly after versions of the fast-footed arcade game made its way into home video console systems. Then came gaming systems such as the Nintendo Wii and Xbox Kinect, which allowed players of all ages to play tennis, throw a football or partake in various other sports.
"It's breaking up that sedentary time, because if you're doing a dance game, your heart rate will get up there," said Erin O'Loughlin, a researcher who has studied exergaming as part of her doctoral work at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. "You're expending energy, and that physical activity gives you some health benefits."
More recently, exergaming has come to include something as simple as Pokemon Go, the mobile app that has children (and their parents) heading outside and combing streets to capture imaginary Pokemon creatures. But exergaming isn't only for kids: The popular "Zombies, Run!" app has adults trying to outpace zombies, or pick up "supplies" to hunt them down, while out for their morning run.
"Some exergames are just made for fun. Kids in particular may not even be aware that they're being active while playing them," O'Loughlin said.
And that fun activity can help them become healthier, studies have shown.
Exergaming helped improve the quality of life in heart failure patients after three months, according to a team of researchers in Sweden that used Wii Sports tennis as the basis of a study presented at the European Society of Cardiology congress in May. Researchers looked at patients advised to play the Wii game for 30 minutes each day, compared to a control exercise group advised to simply be physically active for the same amount of time.
In another study closer to home, children who were overweight or obese lost weight and lowered their cholesterol and blood pressure by playing special exercise video games at least three times a week.
According to the six-month study published in July in Pediatric Obesity, the children also were given step trackers and, with a parent, had weekly online meetings with a fitness coach. By the end of the study, partially funded by the American Heart Association, the exergamers had reduced their body mass index by roughly 3 percent. Kids in a control group, meanwhile, saw their BMIs increase by 1 percent.
"The goal of this study was to get these kids to meet the recommendation of one hour of physical activity a day, and that's what we did," said lead author Amanda Staiano, an assistant professor at Louisiana State University's Pennington Biomedical Research Center.
But exercise video games, and exergaming in general, shouldn't be viewed as something to replace sports or going outdoors to take a walk, Staiano stressed.
"This is just one tool in a multi-pronged approach to physical activity promotion," she said.
Staiano noted that her study found that parental involvement was crucial in the success of the children in the gaming group.
"We were asking the kids to be active every day, play the game three times a week, wear their Fitbits, do video chats with the coach -- and they did it for the full six months," she said. "What that meant is the family had figured out a way to integrate this into their daily lives, and they stuck with it."
Staiano said that's a good lesson for anyone trying to get into a physical activity routine, through exergaming or other venues.
"It's one thing to be active occasionally or try something for a week or two, but to get the most benefits from physical activity, people need to integrate it into their daily life for several weeks or for several months to really see the health effects."
Hospital Based Medical Staff
In-House Physicians
Common Childhood Illnesses and Concerns
Anatomy of a Child's Brain
Anatomy of the Endocrine System in Children
Abuse of Prescription ADHD Medicines Rising on College Campuses
1 in 5 Kids Don't Strap on Helmets Before Biking
ACL Reconstruction: Definition and Treatment
Basics for the Diabetic Diet
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The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons, Vol. 1 of 4
19 January 2018 William Pitt 0
Excerpt from The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons, Vol 1 of 4The prefatory and supplemental notes have been compressed and used as sparingly, as was found consistent with the necessary illustration of the sub jects to which they refer.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books Find at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work Forgotten Books uses state of the art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Best Download [ The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons, Vol. 1 of 4 ] author [ William Pitt ] For Kindle ePUB or eBook – heartforum.co.uk
Is a well-known author, some of his books are a fascination for readers like in the The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons, Vol. 1 of 4 book, this is one of the most wanted William Pitt author readers around the world.
William Pitt
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Amory Lovins receives the Heinz Award in the Environment for his extraordinary accomplishments in alerting the world to the enormous potential of energy efficiency and renewable energy resources.
Chosen several years ago by the editors of The Wall Street Journal as one of the people most likely to change the face of world industry, Mr. Lovins is an environmental visionary. He is already credited with having done more than any other single individual to redefine the thinking around energy policy and to link it with environment, development and security issues. He, his wife Hunter, and the team of researchers at the resource policy center they co-founded in Snowmass, Colorado delight in challenging conventional wisdom by demonstrating advanced resource productivity that avoids depletion and pollution, and still shows a profit.
He has done original work of high intellectual merit and has popularized his work far better than anyone else in the field, aggressively moving his ideas into widespread practice, chiefly via the private sector.
It was evident early on that Amory Lovins had the makings of a genius. At age 21, after studying at Harvard and Oxford University, he became Oxford's youngest junior faculty member in 400 years. While there, he intended to pursue an interest in the details of energy policy, two years before the oil embargo put those issues on the world's agenda. When the university protested, he left.
Almost immediately, he set about redefining the energy debate, which, at the time, focused entirely on how more energy could be produced to meet an ever-growing demand. Mr. Lovins turned that challenge on its head by suggesting a radically different focus, not on getting more energy of any kind from any source at any price, but on providing just the amount, type, scale and source of energy that would provide each desired service in the cheapest way. That suggestion was challenged by many energy experts and greeted with derision by industry. But Mr. Lovins, frequently using his opponents' statistics against them, calmly continued to argue his case and to meet with, debate and inform utility executives, other industry leaders and policy makers. Many of them turned from critics into clients. As a result of his work, new methods were developed to allow utilities to profit from energy efficiency, methods that have been implemented in many areas around the United States. Even more significantly, the powerful new idea - that properly structured, sustainable, least-cost energy and resource options can be beneficial both to the environment and to industry - was introduced.
In 1982, Mr. Lovins expanded his work by establishing with his wife the Rocky Mountain Institute, a research and educational foundation. Today, the pair, along with a staff of more than 40, blaze new trails investigating efficiency issues and proposing solutions that, while they may spring from Mr. Lovins' boundless creativity, are firmly rooted in reality. One such solution currently engaging Mr. Lovins is the design of a "hypercar," an ultra-lightweight, hybrid-electric vehicle, now moving rapidly toward the marketplace. Not only would these vehicles save fuel and prevent pollution, but Mr. Lovins argues that by accelerating the introduction of fuel cell-powered versions, hypercars used as plug-in mobile generators could quickly and profitably displace today's coal and nuclear power plants.
Mr. Lovins has briefed heads of state, written and co-authored dozens of books and hundreds of papers, and served as an advisor to scores of boards, businesses and institutions. He argues that the U.S. can operate on a fourth of the energy it now uses, while still providing the same or better services. This may seem far-fetched, but Mr. Lovins has been accused of taking off on flights of fancy before. Together, both he and time both have a remarkable way of proving his assertions correct.
Note: This profile is excerpted from the commemorative brochure published at the time of the awards' presentation.
UPDATES SINCE RECEIVING THE HEINZ AWARD
October 2011 - Amory Lovins, the chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute and the author of influential books like Winning the Oil Endgame and Natural Capitalism, releases his latest book, Reinventing Fire, proposing methods to run an economy that's 158 percent larger by 2050 without any coal, oil, nuclear energy, or new inventions (and one-third less natural gas). - GreenBiz.com
April 2009 - Amory Lovins is named a recipient of the 10th National Design Awards (Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum) in recognition for his work at the nexus of energy, resources, environment, development and security in more than 50 countries for 40 years, including 14 years based in England. - 10th National Design Awards
November 2007 - For his "outstanding achievements in the field of energy efficiency," Lovins receives the Volvo Environment Prize at a ceremony in Stockholm. The prize ($235,390 USD) is awarded by an independent foundation, and the selection committee is comprised of internationally recognized scientists and researchers in the fields of economics and environmental studies. - Volvo Environment Prize
November 2007 - Ford Motor Company Executive Chairman Bill Ford appoints Lovins to a newly-formed Transformation Advisory Council designed to help advance Ford's sustainability initiatives. - U.S. Newswire
July 2007 - Lovins wins the Blue Planet prize for "for his contributions to leading global energy strategy for protection of the global environment by efficient utilization of energy." Sponsored by Japan's Asahi Glass Foundation, the environmental prize is worth $407,000 (USD). - The Blue Planet Prize
March 2007 - Lovins relinquishes CEO post at the Rocky Mountain Institute in order to focus on thought leadership, strategic influence, and high-impact special initiatives. These initiatives include leading the implementation of RMI's Pentagon-cosponsored roadmap, Winning the Oil Endgame, for getting the U.S. completely off oil by the 2040s, led by business for profit. Lovins now serves as chairman and chief scientist. - Rocky Mountain Institute
August 2005 - Lovins gives a talk in Bar Harbor, Maine based on his latest book, Winning the Oil Endgame. The speech outlines Lovins' energy policy ideas and includes his ideas for "combining innovative technologies and new business models with uncommon public policies" in an effort to thwart a business led oil solution rather than one dictated by the government. - The Press Herald
June 2005 - Lovins releases his latest article, "Security Meltdown." The article severely questions and discredits "Washington's wisdom to promote new nuclear plants through federal subsidies," and insists that nuclear construction is not a practical or viable way to deal with increasing climate change. - Energy Washington Week
Bio, Rocky Mountain Institute
Amory Lovins appears on the Ed Show at MSNBC to discuss clean energy independence by 2050 - 03/06/2015
Amory Lovins argues that we can reduce fossil fuel use 80 percent with existing technology - 08/25/2014
Amory Lovins writes a piece on what the 1973 oil embargo can teach us today - 10/24/2013
Amory Lovins' new book, Reinventing Fire, is released - 10/27/2011
Amory Lovins to be inducted as founding member of new Sustainability Hall of Fame - 07/01/2011
Amory Lovins is co-recipient of award for leadership in energy efficiency from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy - 12/08/2010
Amory Lovins pens new strategy for reducing U.S. dependence on fossil fuels by 2050 - 12/03/2010
Amory Lovins joins five-person advisory panel for National Geographic's "The Great Energy Challenge" - 09/01/2010
Colorado Renewable Energy Society presents its 2010 Larson-Notari Award to Amory Lovins - 06/10/2010
Amory Lovins inducted as an Ashoka Fellow - 05/20/2010
Amory Lovins makes Foreign Policy's first annual list of 100 top global thinkers - 12/01/2009
Amory Lovins wins 10th National Design Awards from the Cooper-Hewitt in the Design Mind category - 04/30/2009
Amory Lovins featured among America's Best Leaders of 2008 by U.S News and World Report - 11/19/2008
Amory Lovins, 4th Heinz Award, is profiled in The Economist - 09/04/2008
Amory Lovins named as one of 50 "Green Heroes" by The Guardian - 01/05/2008
Amory Lovins to receive the Blue Planet Prize - 07/11/2007
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300-240= 250: IS THE OPERATION ALL-OUT WORKING?
ABID BASHIR
Publish Date: Dec 17 2018 2:21AM
Updated Date: Dec 17 2018 2:21AM
Photo: Habib Naqash/GK
In May 2017 when Mehbooba Mufti was the chief minister and the chief of the Unified Command, top army officials flew from New Delhi to Srinagar to participate in a crucial security meeting where top officials of various security agencies also participated. The meeting was held in highly fortified army’s 15 Corps Badamibagh Headquarters where it was unanimously decided to roll out “Operation All-out” in a bid to wipe out new age militancy born after the killing of young HizbulMujahideen commander BurhanWani on July 8, 2016.
From May to December 2017, 215 militants were killed including top commanders of HizbulMujahideen, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad. Top security experts opine that after sustaining back to back jolts in 2017, Jaish-e-Muhammad militants, especially those who managed to infiltrate from PirPanjal range, carried out at least three major suicide attacks—two of them in Pulwama district. “The attacks were a message to Hizb and Lashkar to take a back seat for re-grouping and saving commanders who were on the government forces’ radar.”
The top security officials believe that the winter months of 2017-2018 were utilized by the Hizb and Lashkar militants to “re-organise themselves and to re-group as well” and to some extent they succeeded. However, the forces changed their strategy by deciding to target top militant leadership and a hit-list was prepared. Police believes that top commanders were mainly responsible for the recruitment of local youth into militancy.
The list of 25 commanders of Hizb, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish, Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen and the Ansaar-Gazwatul Hind prepared by the forces went viral on various social networking sites. Though earlier it seemed difficult for the forces to catch the big fish, but according to police officers, on the basis of “renewed human intelligence supported by the technical intelligence” they gradually started zeroing-in on the top commanders who started falling one after another in the encounters, most of whom took placed in the restive Southern Kashmir.
Director General of Police Dilbagh Singh said that many militant commanders had a habit of uploading videos and photographs on the social sites to lure the youth into militancy fold, but “the same also helps the forces to track the militants.”
According to police, 2018 saw the killing of 240 militants, the highest ever since 2007, including 18 top commanders of Hizb, Lashkar, Jaish and AnsaarGazwatul Hind. Among the slain commanders were most wanted faces— SadaamPaddar, Sameer Tiger, AltafKachroo, Towseef Sheikh and Umar Ganai. But for the forces, the major success of the year was the killing of top most commander of Lashkar-e-ToibaNaveedJatt alias Abu Hanzallah, who escaped from police custody in February this year after killing two policemen who were accompanying him from Central Jail Srinagar to SMHS Hospital where he was brought for a check-up. Naveed, according to police records, had infiltrated from Kupwara sector in October 2012 when he was only 15. He remained active for two years and was arrested and lodged in Central Jail Srinagar. However, he managed to escape from SMHS Hospital. His successful bid to flee from the hospital triggered suspension of the then Director General of Prisons and the SSP also. Besides, the then DGP S P Vaid also issued directions barring medical check-up of prisoners in State-run hospital and instead made it obligatory that non-local or local militants in need of medical check-up be brought to police hospital only.” Naveed’s escape also resulted in the shifting of all non-local and local militants lodged in Central Jail to Jammu prisons.
Now police, army and the CRPF have decided to track the movement of remaining seven top militants including three top most commanders, ReyazNaikoo, the chief operational commander of Hizb, Zeenatul Islam, who took over the reins of Al-Badr, and ZakirMoosa, the chief of AnsarulGazwatul Hind.
While addressing the press men after the killing of top Lashkar commander Naveed at police control room (PCR) Srinagar, DGP Dilbagh Singh said that 240 militants were killed till November 15 this year while 250 were still active. DGP’s revelation about the number of active militants signifies that the security agencies had been earlier downplaying the number of active militants. If one goes by figures shared last winter, 300 militants were active. As many as 240 were killed this year, then there should have been just 60 militants active at present.
A top police officer revealed to the Kashmir Ink that though 240 militants have been killed and that 250 more are active signifies that the there has been successful infiltration attempts and also some silent recruitment of militants. “Successful infiltration is possible given the terrain and dense forest cover along the LoC stretch in Kashmir’s Baramulla, Bandipora and Kupwara districts,” he said.
However, DGP Dilbagh Singh said that there was zero militant recruitment since October this year. “Not a single case of militant recruitment was witnessed from October this year. Recruitment has gone down, stone pelting incidents too are down and there is a lot of improvement in law and order situation,” he said. “We will see a better tomorrow.”
Now that the police assert no militant recruitment has taken place since October 2018, it indicates that before October there has been a militant recruitment “at a good pace” given the number of active militants at present. A police officer while replying to a query whether militancy would be wiped out from Kashmir given the pace forces are killing militants, said: “As long as infiltration continues, militancy can’t be done away with.” He also said that killing militants “was no solution” and “ultimately political handle is highly inevitable for the long lasting peace in the region.”
Almost similar statement was echoed by the general officer commanding (GoC) of Srinagar-based 15 Corps, Lieutenant General AK Bhat, who stated that the military can only create conditions of normalcy. “Beyond that, the initiatives have to be at levels of good governance, politically talking to people. During the Vajpayee era, it has happened, and similar initiatives the government will take at the right moment. I am sure they will,” Bhat told a newspaper in an interview. He said one of the main things was to find the methods and means to convince the youth that the path of violence will not deliver anything.
“And second, more importantly, is to work in the psychological space with the populace of Kashmir, to tell them that their future is far better in India than in Pakistan… that they are only being used as tools by the Jama’at, by the separatists and Pakistan,” he said. “Army’s role was to ensure that peace is maintained. Of course long-term solutions, the government have to look at them.”
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function at Kapurthala, Punjab, recently, northern army commander Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh said that that initiatives taken by the government and forces had resulted in a decline in militancy as well as a drop in the number of “local youths being radicalised” in Kashmir.
“Our operations are carried out in a very professional manner,” Singh said. “More importantly these successful operations are possible only because information regarding the movement of militants is now coming from local population, which is a very positive sign and indicates the decline of militancy. More than the number of militants killed, information from locals is a much encouraging and positive sign.”
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Murphy to serve as a member of CDIAC
Posted: Friday, September 22, 2017
The Federal Reserve Board selected Christopher J. Murphy, 1st Source Bank Chairman and CEO, to serve as a member of the 2018 Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council (CDIAC) in Washington, D.C. The announcement was made on Wednesday, August 30.
The CDIAC advises the Federal Reserve Board on local economic conditions, the impact of regulations, and the Federal Reserve’s operational services and oversight of community depository institutions. Murphy just completed a three-year term on the Federal Reserve Board of Chicago’s CDIAC and was reappointed to an additional term to serve as the Council’s Chairman.
Murphy stated, “As the purpose of the Council is to advise the Fed with regard to community banking, I am honored to represent my colleagues in Washington. Community banking is at the heart of the economy serving people, smaller and mid-sized businesses, community organizations, and municipal governments on a very local basis. Preserving their strength is important to the continued success of many places in this country. Also, we provide the Federal Reserve Board with an on-the-ground look at the economy across the country which is important to their deliberations on interest rates and macro-economic policy. Obviously, it is an honor to serve on the CDIAC.”
Council members are selected from representatives of commercial banks, thrift institutions and credit unions serving on local advisory councils at each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks. The Chair of each Council then represents that Federal Reserve District in Washington.
Murphy has served as a board member of 1st Source for over 45 years and was named president and CEO of the Bank in 1977, CEO of the Corporation in 1979, and Chairman in 1998. Murphy received a B.A. in Government from the University of Notre Dame, a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia Law School, and an M.B.A. (with Distinction) from Harvard University Business School.
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Lecture of The Eminent and Distinguished Scholar Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghazzali : International Conference on Education
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. "Glory to You: of knowledge we have none, save what You have taught us, in truth, it is You Who are perfect in knowledge and wisdom".
I allude here to a Quranic fact which caught my attention. I have noticed that the term education or sanctification comprises one third of the Islamic message. The first third being the study of the Quran or the exposition of the method or recitation of the book. The second third is education in most verses, while the last third is the know ledge of the scripture and wisdom "A similar (favor you have already received) is that we have sent among you a messenger from amoung you to instruct you in Scripture and Wisdom and in new knowledge; (2:151). As I understand it, reciting or rehearsing i. e. rehearsing the Quran or studying the method is the presentation process of the work and program, as an introduction to two endeavors linked to each other: education and then instruction, although in Ibrahim's call it was instruction and then education. Anyhow, according to grammarians the Arabic conjunction waw(and) does not denote order or sequence, but mere conjunction. Thus, the arrangement in "He instructs them mere participation or partnership. He instructs in scripture and wisdom and sanctifies them" or he sanctifies them and instructs them in the scripture and wisdom "and sanctifies them" or "He sanctifies them and instructs them in the scripture and wisdom" makes no difference. What matters is that I have noticed two points in the above versa: the word "sanctification" (Ar. tazkiyah) is the best word for the concept of education in our time. In an invitation by Dr. Muhammad Zafir to lecture on education at Medina, I have traced the word "tazkiyah" or sanctification in the Holy Quran and discovered that it means to purify human nature from dross and make man clean and purified and superior. Instruction, then comes to refine man's mind. However, both processes must accur together. Elsewhere in my writings, I have noticed some gaps in Islamic history.
Conference Trends and Future Aspirations
A conference on the theme: "Towards building a contemporary Islamic Theory of education", was held in Amman Jordan, in cooperation between Islamic Researches and Studies Society, the Yarmouk University and Mu'tah University in Jordan, and the International Institute of Islamic Thought in the United states of America. The Conference lasted for four days (2-5 Muharam 1411 A.H. = 24-27 July 1990) in the hope for fulfilling an urgent need for developing a distinct Islamic theory of education that would help purify educational systems, institutions, applications and curricula.
The conference activities and .papers revolved around three topics:
Revising available literature on Islamic educational thought, and analyzing and evaluating it.
Contemplating the contemporary Islamic vision of the learning process elements, which include: goals, learners, curricula, teachers, educational bodies and evaluation.
Building the Islamic theory of education and emphasizing its necessity and its relations with sub-theories on the elements of the educational process, and the approach to be followed in building such a theory, its main pillars and the Islamic research methods as correlated with research methods in general.
Reformed on the Discipline of Education
Md. Abdur Rahman Rakib
Lecturer, Darul Ihsan University, Dhaka.
Paper presented at a Follow-up Workshop on Curriculum Reform
9 November, 2008, Dhaka University
Course: PC Philosophical Foundation of Education Need to Add:
Course Objective: To help students to realize-
- the reflection of faith in education.
- role of faith on human activities.
- role of faith on reconstruction of life and civilization.
Md Abdur Rahman Rakib
New Horizons in Muslim Education
New Horizons in Muslim Education - S. A. Ashraf
The Concept of an Islamic University - H. H. Bilgrami and S. A. Ashraf
Islamic Sociology: An Introduction - I. Ba-Yunus and F Ahmad
The three small -average 100 pages -introductory books under review form a piece and are the first volley from the Islamic Academy at Cambridge. The Academy’s Islamic Monograph Series is attractively produced and easy to read. The guiding genius of the Academy is Professor S. A. Ashraf. He was also one of the key figures, as organizing secretary, of the First World Conference on Muslim Education in Makkah in 1977. That Conference greatly accelerated the present trend in Islamic scholarship. Today we hear of Islamic Economics, Islamic Sociology and so on as one result (see my Towards Islamic Anthropology: definition, dogma and directions published by the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Defining Islamic Anthropology in the RoyalAnthropological Institute News, London.) The two books on education are linked by the authorship and ideas of Professor Ashraf. In the one on education he clearly plans out an Islamic syllabi, training courses (for both students and teachers) and conferences.
S A Ashraf
H H Bilgrami
I BaYunus
F Ahmad
Islamization of the Discipline of Education
The Concept of the Discipline of Education
A Fields of knowledge are diversified, and touch upon almost every aspect of life and the universe, including the physical, societal, spiritual and material aspects. Various theories of knowledge are proposed by man to deal with its classification, acquisition and use in life situations. The discipline of education deals with the question of teaching and learning of various disciplines of knowledge by teachers and students with the hope of changing the behavior of the learner to adapt to society and develop the capabilities necessary to become an effective human being.
Ishaq Farhan
Towards Understanding Islamic Paradigm of Education
Islam represents a comprehensive code of civilization encompassing all the dimensions of human thought and life. A civilization experiences both rise and fall. It rises and enjoys continuous growth as long as it manages to lead its members to grow intellectually and morally. It falls when intellectual as well as moral growth of man reach the point of stagnation. Both growth and stagnation are indicative of the education system adopted by society. Similarly, Islam considers education a very essential tool to mould human thought and life. Its education system, as the history stands witness, has the potential to lead civilization to the pinnacle. Islamic system of education is composed of a clear objective of human recognition of God the ultimate reality and development of man at both intellectual and moral level. Fundamental principles of this system are: 1) unification of so called secular and religious curricula, 2) rational and critical approach in teaching and learning, 3) continuous process of research and development based on three point formula-----acquisition of available knowledge, application of observation and in-depth enquiry into the validity of the ideas incorporated in the existing knowledge and development of new form and substance of knowledge, 4) refurbishing and reorientation of disciplines of study, and 5) teacher-student close relationship governed by love, respect and other basic human values.
Islamic Education in the United States: An Overview of Issues, Problems and Possible Approaches
This article, which I intend to be one of a series, will provide analysis of major issues and problems arising out of attempts to implement Islamic educational alternatives to American public schooling. The discussion begins by offering a brief overview of the current dilemma - a triumvirate of historical, theoretical and practical enigmas confronting Muslim schoolmen. A primary question that is common to Muslim-American school planners is scrutinized through a sub-set analysis focussing on some relevant and critical concerns to Muslim educators. From this starting point, future installments in this series will look at practical cases that are representative of contemporary &orb in alternative Muslim school planning, design and implementation.
Kamal Ali
Conference on Knowledge across Cultures: Universities East and West
9 -12 Rabii al Akhir 1413 / 7-10 October 1992, Toronto, Canada
This conference was organized by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), Toronto, Canada. Approximately 166 participants, representing various disciplines and different countries, attended the eight plenary and twenty concurrent sessions. Its purpose was to bring together Eastern and Western knowledge through culture via an exchange of ideas and deliberations, an exposition of theories, and an examination of the contributions of various cultures-mainly China’s-to human civilization.
The papers presented and the discussions that ensued were extremely enlightening and concentrated on the following issues: a) the contributions made to knowledge by specific cultures (mainly Chinese, Indian, and Muslim); b) knowledge transferred from the West to the East does not consider the attributes of the East; c) the East is responsible for finding ways to adapting its cultures to imported knowledge; and d) social science knowledge is better generated when social science –hers abandon natural science methodologies (i.e., realism and positivism) and recognize that the social sciences should be based on qualitative research.
A Holistic and Institutional Analysis of Islamic Education
Knowledge is the source of economic, social, and political energy as well as divine enlightenment. An individual or a nation succeeds only by gaining and using beneficial knowledge. Gaining useful knowledge and using it for a proper cause for the pleasure of Allah is emphasized in Islam. The Qur’an mentions repeatedly the importance of knowledge (Qur’an 30:22, 36:36, 39:9, 58:11). The Prophet also emphasized the importance of acquiring knowledge in many contexts: “A person who follows the path of acquiring knowledge, Allah will make easy for him/her the passage to paradise” (Muslim) and “A person who goes out of his/her house in search of knowledge, he/she is on Allah’s way till the person returns” (Tirmidhi).
Mawdudur Rahman
Designing the Islamic Component of a Proposed World Religion Curriculum for South African State Schools
An aspect of curriculum policy-making under the past Nationalist government had to do with policy being used to develop and impose the state’s nationalist and religious ideology - Christian National Education - on all schools in South Africa after its assumption of power in 1948. One consequence of this policy was that the rich diversity of South Africans as a people holding to multiple, positive, and idiosyncratic beliefs linked to various communal identities was sacrificed to a state-imposed pseudo-commonality. Part of the challenge of educational reconstruction under the democratic government elected in April 1994 is to develop curricula that both recognize the diversity of positive ideals, beliefs, and faith while remaining impartial, if not agnostic,’ toward any one belief and to contribute to the development of a new and shared national identity.
Ray Basson
Zein Cajee
The Golden Generation: Integration of Muslim Identity with the World through Education
Turkey is a crucible in which Eastern and Western civilizations, secular ideas, and Islamic tradition merge. Using ideas born in the Turkish context, Fethullah Gülen and his followers have developed and put into practice an educational system that combines the strengths of both European and Islamic cultures, cultivating students of academic achievement in the sciences who possess deep ethical grounding. Founded in universal values of honesty, hard work, harmony and conscientious service, Gülens model appeals to people with a wide range of beliefs. Through Gülens teachings, this educational system stresses the compatibility of science with Islam and aims to bring up people equipped with the moral values and knowledge to use science for the benefit of mankind.
S Kirmizialtin
Y Yildirim
The Future of Muslim Education in the United States: An Agenda for Research
This paper addresses some of the Muslim community’s concerns regarding its children’s education and reflects upon how education has shaped the position of other communities in American history. It argues that the future of Muslim education will be influenced directly by the present realities and future trends within American education in general, and, more importantly, by the well-calculated and informed short-term and long-term decisions and future plans taken by the Muslim community. The paper identifies some areas in which a well established knowledge base is critical to making decisions, and calls for serious research to be undertaken to furnish this base.
Fathi Malkawi
Perceptions Of Islamic Educators About The Conflict Between Conservative And Secular Muslims Regarding Islamic Education And The Teaching Of Science, Philosophy, And Mythical Stories To Muslim Students.
Ali, Yacob Mohammad, Ph.D. The University of Oklahoma, 2000. 153 pages. Adviser: McQuarrie, Frank. Publication No: AAT 9985571
This qualitative study explores the perceptions of Islamic educators in a southwestern state about the conflict between Islamic secularism and conservatism regarding the education of Muslim students. It also examines these educators’ perceptions as to whether science, philosophy, and mythical stories contradict Islam, and whether these educators can teach these topics to Muslim students. Semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews were used to collect data that were analyzed using grounded-theory methodology. Analysis showed convergent and divergent views about Islamic education. Many perceived a conflict between Islamic secularism and conservatism in education and were pessimistic about a compromise between the two groups. Almost all of the participants perceived a harmony between science and Islam including astronomy. However, as related to the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution, philosophy and mythical stories, supporting, opposing, and ambivalent views were expressed.
Yacob Mohammad Ali
What Are The Perceptions, Problems, And Concerns Of Female Pakistani Students Attending Secondary Level Public School In The United States?
Spencer, Sharon Michelle, Ph.D. 2000. 232 pages. University of Houston. Adviser: Carspecken, Phil. Publication Number: AAT 9989832
Muslims comprise a significant percentage of the world’s population (Lippmann, 1994). Muslims form a growing percentage of the population in the United States, and each year more and more Muslim students enter America’s public schools (Siddiqui, 1998). Many of these Muslim students are Pakistani. A group such as Pakistani secondary school-age females attending public schools in the United States, the focus of this qualitative study, is important because they are both Muslim and Asian, and therefore, often experience the problems that come with being members of either of these groups in America. Being Muslim and female also poses challenges to the students. In addition, they are a relatively overlooked subgroup among both Asians and Muslims. Multicultural Education has become important, and is one solution for the concerns and problems of Pakistani public school adolescents (Banks 1988; Sleeter, 1988; Ladson-Billings, 1992; Bennett, 1992); global education too, has taken on great significance (Hanvey, 1979), especially as the conflicts and misunderstandings between the West and Islam, as well as in the global society continue. The responses received from these five participants could not be treated as a sample that comprehensively represents the population. However, from these five cases, the thorough analysis certainly yielded data from which a broadly applicable theory could be constructed.
Sharon Michelle Spencer
The Influence of Islam, Gender Roles, and Social Class on Educational Attainment of Pakistanis in Los Angeles County and Lahore, Pakistan
Abu Halimeh, Debbie Ismat, Ed D. Azusa Pacific University, 2000. 101 pages. Adviser: Rooney, Patrick. Publication Number: AAT 3001506.
Educational patterns are greatly affected by numerous factors such as cultural values, gender roles, economics, and religion. This study analyzed socioeconomic factors and the influence of Islamic practices on the educational attainment of Pakistanis in Los Angeles County and Lahore, Pakistan. The methodology of the study included a total of 270 written surveys that were distributed by mail, in person at an Islamic Center in Los Angeles County, at a Pakistani community in Culver City, and in Lahore, Pakistan. A total of 85 responses were received among which were 40 males, 35 females, and 10 children. A total of 55 respondents were selected for in-depth interviews which were conducted in Los Angeles and in Lahore.
Debbie Ismat
Abu Halimeh
Krashen Apostasy: Popular Religion, Education, and the Contest over Tatar Identity (1856–1917) (Russia)
Kefeli-Clay, Agnes, Ph. D. Arizona State University, 2001. 437 pages. Adviser: Batalden, Stephen. Publication Number AAT 3004116.
Located on the frontier between Islam and Eastern Orthodoxy, the baptized Tatars of the Russian Empire, the Krshens provide an excellent field for exploring the ways that both colonizers and colonized used education and religion to forge new identities. In the late nineteenth century, the Krshens, descendants of Muslim, nominal Muslim, and animist Volga Tatars who had converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity before 1800, were subject to several great experiments in education. Muslim Tatars sought to win them for Islam, and Orthodox Russians struggled to keep them from apostatizing from Christianity to Islam. Before the 1917 revolution, several cultural systems, including popular Orthodoxy, mystical Islam, animism, and Islamic modernism, competed for allegiance in the middle Volga.
Agnes KefeliClay
Faith in our Schools? A Study in Portraiture of Three Teachers of Religion (Massachusetts, Susan McCaslin, Jack Heidbrink, Jonathan Yu-Phelps)
Garfield, Eliza Newell, Ed.D. Harvard University, 2000. 525 pages. Adviser: Lawrence-Lightfoot, Sara. Publication Number: AAT 9968303.
American classrooms at the dawn of the twenty-first century are as religiously pluralistic as they have ever been, yet like the public sphere they are preparing their students to join, classrooms are often the sights of religious controversies, misunderstandings, and prejudice. In the last decade of the twentieth century, controversies involving religion and schools have drawn increasing attention – in the press, in the courts, and among many diverse constituencies affected by issues of religion and education. Among this increasingly loud debate two constituencies are often overlooked: teachers and students.
Eliza Newell
The Islamic Concept of Education Reconsidered
Some authors have analyzed the Islamic concept of education in parallel to the assumed contrast between Islam and the liberal tradition. Hence, given the latter’s rationalist tendencies, an almost indoctrinatory essence is assumed for the Islamic concept of education. However, we argue that rationality is involved in all elements of the Islamic concept of education. There might be some differences between the Islamic and liberal conceptions of rationality, but these are not so sharp that the derivative Islamic concept of education can be equated with indoctrination. We suggest an Islamic concept of education that includes three basic elements: knowledge, choice, and action. Then, we show that, according to the Islamic texts, these elements have a background of wisdom.
Khosrow Bagheri
Zohreh Khosravi
Intellectualism in Higher Islamic Traditional Studies: Implications for the Curriculum
The number of faculties and universities offering Islamic traditional sciences or studies has slowly increased over the past decades. However, the Islamic community has not felt their graduates’ impact other than as teachers or religious personnel. In fact, if the criteria used to assess Islamic education is the growth of a genuine, original, and adequate Islamic thought or intellectualism, then most of these institutions have failed to provide such an education. I examine the goals and curriculum of higher Islamic education and the conditions conducive for the growth of intellectualism. I argue that poor pedagogy, which does not offer teaching methods that encourage critical and ethical thinking, contributed to the state of affairs. Further, I argue that the basic problem is the inadequate conceptualization of knowledge as regards Islamic epistemology in the curriculum and the lack of academic freedom. I assert that the issue of what knowledge is most valuable for today’s intellectual and ethical Muslims has not been resolved and that this affects the curriculum structure and, inevitably, the programs of Islamic traditional sciences. The need to reintroduce Islamic philosophy into the curriculum is one of this article’s major arguments.
Rosnani Hashim
Secularism and Spirituality: Seeking Integrated Knowledge and Success in Madrasah Education in Singapore
Noor Aisha Abdul Rahman and Lai Ah Eng, eds., Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies & Marshall Cavendish Academic, 2006. 191 pages.
This compilation provides a systematic overview of the development and challenges of Islamic education in Singapore. After the introduction by Noor Aishah and Lai Ah Eng, Chee Min Fui focuses on the historical evolution of madrasah education (chapter 1) and Mukhlis Abu Bakar highlights the tension between the state’s interest and the citizens’ right to an Islamic education (chapter 2). In chapter 3, Noor Aishah elaborates on the fundamental problem of the madrasah’s attempt to lay the educational foundation of both traditional and rational sciences. Azhar Ibrahim surveys madrasah reforms in Indonesia, Egypt, India, and Pakistan in chapter 4, while Afiza Hashim and Lai Ah Eng narrate a case study of Madrasah Ma`arif in chapter 5. Tan Tay Keong (chapter 6) examines the debate on the national policy of compulsory education in the context of the madrasah, and Syed Farid Alatas (chapter 7) clarifies the concept of knowledge and Islam’s philosophy of education, which can be used to assess contemporary madrasah education.
Noor Aisha Abdul Rahman
Lai Ah Eng
Teaching the Study of Muslim Minorities in Higher Education in the United Kingdom
In this paper, I reflect on my experiences of teaching sociology of Islam at an elite British university: the University of Birmingham. As a trained economist with postgraduate degrees in social science and sociology and as a former Whitehall civil servant, my foray into the world of Islamic studies has only been recent. Indeed, it was the events relating to British Muslim minorities between 1999 and 2001 (namely, the arrests, trial, and sentencing in relation to the mostly Birmingham-born “Seven in Yemen” in 1999; the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, DC; and the urban disturbances in northern England 2001) that propelled me to interact with this vast and rich field of learning and scholarship. These three events compounded matters in relation to identity politics, Islamism, and international political economy. Having already researched and written on matters related to education and class,1 entrepreneurship and culture,2 and Islamophobia and the print news,3 my new focus on Muslim minority issues stemmed precisely from my existing interests in ethnicity, culture, and multiculturalism.4
Upon joining the University of Birmingham in 2003, I spent my first two years concentrating on teaching a specialized course, “Ethnic Relations in Britain,” to finalists. In 2005, I began to teach a new course, “Islam, Multiculturalism, and the State” to finalists. In this article, I discuss the resulting insight into teaching to a largely non-Muslim audience issues relating to Islam and Muslim minorities.
Tahir Abbas
Religious Education and the Delegitimation of Knowledge
The velocity of information production has increased at all levels, including the global. These expansions lead to the delegitimation of knowledge by equating information with knowledge or the predominance of information over knowledge. Given that this situation has caused epistemological challenges for the process of religious education, this article attempts to study the epistemological problems and challenges posed by information technology (IT) in this area.
Religion and Religious Education
Religion, commonly defined as a system of thought dealing with the supernatural, sacred, and divine realms as well as with the values, traditions, and rituals associated with such a belief or system of thought, is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system.1 According to some, religion is related to the inner and intuitive aspects of human life. For example, whenever religion talks about guiding humanity, it refers to internal and intuitive (revelation and compliance) guidance. From a religious perspective, intuition is defined as an internal and interior transformation that connects people to the supreme source (God) and makes them capable of receiving religious revelation and inspiration. Thus, whenever God talks about humanity being open to guidance and about the increasing level of guidance provided, He is, in fact, talking about these internal and interior transformations, about people’s readiness to accept divine revelation and guidance.2 Of course, such thinkers as Dewey believe that religion is more related to individual experiences.3
Seyed Mahdi Sajjadi
Wholeness and Holiness in Education: An Islamic Perspective
Zahra Al Zeera UK: The International Institute of Islamic Thought, and Biddles Limited, 2001. 158 pages.
Wholeness and Holiness in Education: An Islamic Perspective is a very interesting book. Although the book is a result of her experience as a Muslim graduate student in Canada, she does not mention any personal reasons for writing this book, but rather tackles it very lightly without mentioning the hard experiences she faced when her faith was questioned. A Muslim who has taken her faith for granted for years and had had little or no communication with the West was questioned for the first time in her life about many aspects of her faith and found herself unable to provide adequate answers. Her book is the result of such an experience, one which many others in her circumstances and situation have faced and will have to face. Although the author frequently tackles abstract ideas, she always provides scholarly explanations and discussions by quoting and elaborating upon many well-known figures in various disciplines. The book is divided into four parts and has a total of nine chapters. The first part, “Reflection on Personal Experience,” includes two chapters. In them, she tries to take the reader from her own personal experience to the book’s goal: preparing Muslim students in their homelands’ educational systems to think and question their faith so that they can stand on solid ground. In chapter 1, “The Spiritual and Intellectual Journey,” she apologizes for including her personal experience growing up as a Muslim. Actually, more elaboration upon such experiences and on the conflicts she faced while studying in Canada would have been appreciated, as such a topic requires that personal experiences be shared, given that they are not limited to one person but rather to millions of individuals. Chapter 2, “Spirituality: Woman’s Best-Kept Secret,” further analyzes the significance of such experiences to women specifically.
Zahra Al Zeera
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Scripturient
Ideas. Opinions. Politics. Culture. Satire. Parrhesia. Skepticism. Terribila meditans.
Tag: quotation
Misquoting Shakespeare. Again.
Let me begin with a digression on memes. Like a virus, a meme can spread uncontrollably in the right environment and infect millions with an idea or goal. This, of course, is good for such advocates of social ideals as Greenpeace or PETA, but like viruses, there can be bad memes that do more damage than good. More, it seems, than good or socially constructive memes.
A meme is the self-propagating cultural equivalent of a virus*, but rather than spreading its DNA, a meme spreads ideas, cultural practices, thoughts, symbols, ideals, aesthetics and icons of popular imagination.
Like a virus, a meme requires the communication between people to spread – talk, mail, the medium of literature, TV or music, and of course the Internet. A good example of a wildfire meme in popular culture was Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Another pop-culture meme is the spread of tattoos as fashion. Fashion itself is a seasonal meme, not unlike a seasonal cold.
But there can be bad memes as well; memes that poison, memes that distort and damage. Similar to Ebola virus or prions, these memes can jump cultures like viruses jump species.
Anti-semitism – disturbingly on the rise in France and the USA today – is a bad and infectious meme. So is any form of religious fundamentalism – look at how the meme of the jihad has spread across the Middle East. Computer hoaxes like the email chain letter that promises you riches if you forward the email to everyone on your mailing list, is another bad meme albeit more innocuous. Donald Trump’s tweets become memes almost as soon as he posts them.
One of the factors that accelerates a meme’s spread is its brevity. In an age when deep reading is a dying art and skim reading is the new normal (to disastrous effect ion our collective education and society), a meme finds easy access to hosts online.
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme” in 1976 to describe evolutionary principles help explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. As Wikipedia points out,
He gave as examples melodies, catch-phrases, and beliefs (notably religious belief, clothing/fashion, and the technology of building arches).
Meme-theorists contend that memes evolve by natural selection (in a manner similar to that of biological evolution) through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance influencing an individual entity’s reproductive success. Memes spread through the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Theorists point out that memes which replicate the most effectively spread best, and some memes may replicate effectively even when they prove detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.
Continue reading “Misquoting Shakespeare. Again.”
Great Minds, Small Minds
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
That quote has been attributed online to Eleanor Roosevelt in the images shared by people too lazy to check the facts. And like so many other quotations that circulate on social media, it’s not by the person claimed. As far as has been determined, she never used those words.
The saying offers a valid point, especially when it comes to local bloggers, but it was made by someone else, not the wife of the former U.S. president.
Who, then, gave us these pithy lines? Wikiquote – one of the very rare authoritative online sources of quotations* – tells us that one printed source was an American admiral, writing in a magazine, who made it popular, although he himself did not take credit for it:
There are many published incidents of this as an anonymous proverb since at least 1948, and as a statement of Eleanor Roosevelt since at least 1992, but without any citation of an original source. It is also often attributed to Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, but though Rickover quoted this, he did not claim to be the author of it; in “The World of the Uneducated” in The Saturday Evening Post (28 November 1959), he prefaces it with “As the unknown sage puts it…”
Was there really an ‘unknown sage’ behind the saying,? Or was it created, whole cloth, in 1959? Ah, the tale is older than that.
Continue reading “Great Minds, Small Minds”
Charles Darwin has long been associated with the phrase, “survival of the fittest.” For a century and a half people have used it to refer to their understanding of his explanation of how species evolved.
But it wasn’t his. And it has obscured the understanding of Darwin’s own theory.
It came from a contemporary, Herbert Spencer. Spencer was a contemporary of Darwin – an English polymath: philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, economist liberal political theorist, utilitarian – and, by some accounts, an early libertarian. His ideas came from people like Malthus and Adam Smith (read more about his philosophy here). Wikipedia tells us:
For many, the name of Herbert Spencer would be virtually synonymous with Social Darwinism, a social theory that applies the law of the survival of the fittest to society; humanitarian impulses had to be resisted as nothing should be allowed to interfere with nature’s laws, including the social struggle for existence. Spencer desired the elimination of the unfit through their failure to reproduce, rather than coercion or state intervention to initiate their physical annihilation.
He wrote his interpretation of Darwin’s ideas in an 1864 textbook of biology:
“This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called ‘natural selection’, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.”
Spencer was really trying to apply Darwin’s ideas to his own ideas about economics, class struggle, competition and politics. He also believed in Lamarckism – the inheritance of attributes gained in one generation by the next – which has long since been discredited. But whether you agree with Spencer’s views, his reduction of Darwin’s theory to a convenient axiom did the theory an injustice.
In the public mind, Darwin’s ideas about natural selection were confusing and challenging. They became conflated with Spencer’s ideas and somehow the phrase stuck – the Victoria era equivalent of a bumper sticker phrase. It became wildly popular, and was soon applied to social and political phenomena, not simply biological.
It was so popular as a catch phrase that in the 1869 fifth edition of his book, On the Origin of Species, Darwin – unfortunately – added this line:
“But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.”
The problem is really in how the word “fittest” is defined. Like its sister term, theory, it has both a common and a scientific meaning.*
Fittest, in Darwin’s sense, doesn’t mean the biggest, best, toughest, strongest or even the most competitive. It’s not the macho concept of superiority. It isn’t about power, control or brute force.
It means the “best suited for the immediate environment.” It has also been described as a “property of the relationship between the organism and the environment.” That might be a different colour, smaller size, less active. Whatever offers the best opportunity to survive and breed. Having offspring is key.
It’s a far more subtle notion than commonly used. As Wikipedia says:
Modern evolutionary theory defines fitness not by how long an organism lives, but by how successful it is at reproducing. If an organism lives half as long as others of its species, but has twice as many offspring surviving to adulthood, its genes will become more common in the adult population of the next generation.
Continue reading “Survival of the Fittest”
Poor Lao Tzu: He Gets Blamed for So Much
Poor Lao Tzu. He gets saddled with the most atrocious of the New Age codswallop. As if it wasn’t enough to be for founder of one of the most obscure philosophies (not a religion, since it has no deity), he gets to be the poster boy for all sorts of twaddle from people who clearly have never read his actual writing.
This time it’s a mushy feel-good quote on Facebook (mercifully without kittens or angels) that reads,
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
Well, it’s not by Lao Tzu. Or more properly, Laozi. That’s not his name, by the way: it’s an honorific, a title that roughly translates to “Old Master.” His real name was likely Li Er, Wikipedia tells us. But his name doesn’t matter: it’s the single book he left us that is relevant.
That book – the Tao Teh Ching – consists of 81 short “chapters” – although they’d be better described as poems. Or pithy epithets. It can be ready cover to cover in an hour.
For all its brevity, the Tao Teh Ching is a weighty work. It’s the underpinning of an entire school of Chinese metaphysics and philosophy: Taoism, that dates back to the Axial Age, circa 500 BCE. That makes Lao Tzu contemporary with Confucius and in the same rough time frame as Siddhartha Gautama.
Lap Tzu was clearly a deep thinker, which makes it all the more ironic that he gets accused of spouting all sorts of saccharine New Age piffle.
One of the stories of how the book came about goes like this: Lao Tzu was the Keeper of the Royal Archives. Late in his life, he wearied of the intrigues, the corruption and the crassness of life at court. He decided to go live the remainder of his life as a hermit in the mountains. At the city gate, the sentry asked him to write down his wisdom. The result was the Tao Teh Ching.
Like with many religious, political or philosophical figures, take any story or claims with a grain of salt. Stories get embellished by both supporters and enemies over the centuries.*
Others say the work is really a collection of sayings by many people, collated into a single work. Since the earliest copy of the text is at least 100 years younger than Lao Tzu, and there are no verifiable records that identify him as the sole author, this theory strikes me as having some merit.
After all, every single religious work I can think of has been edited, added to, cut away from and interpreted by hundreds of human hands in the interim since it was first penned. Why not this one?
Continue reading “Poor Lao Tzu: He Gets Blamed for So Much”
The Unknown Monk Meme
This pseudo-poem popped up on Facebook today. It’s been around the Net for a few years, without any source attributed to the quote, but it seems to be making its comeback in the way these falsely-attributed things do:
When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town.
I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself,
and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself,
I could have made an impact on my family.
My family and I could have made an impact on our town.
Their impact could have changed the nation and
I could indeed have changed the world.
It’s recently credited to an “unknown monk” from 1100 CE, and sometimes just to “anonymous.” Since the latter can be anyone, any time, anywhere, it’s less than helpful. Citing the source – at the very least where you found it – is helpful. Anonymous could as easily be one of those crank posters who reply to news stories with snippets about the New World Order or conjure up conspiracies about the local rec facilities.
And the monk from 1100 CE? Not likely. It reads to me like New Age piffle, something regurgitated without understanding.
So let’s look at the attribution. First 1100 CE is in the High Middle Ages. It was shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066, so if the monk was in England it was a time of chaos, while the Normans dispossessed the English aristocracy (those few left) and took the lands for themselves.
Not as much secular literature survives from that era as religious writing, in large part because the majority of literate people were in the church. Keep in mind that everything was handwritten, mostly on sheepskin: vellum or parchment. Printing was another 450 years away.
The 12th century literature shows nothing like this “poem” anywhere.
Second, a monk would have practiced asceticism, a lifestyle…
…characterized by abstinence from various worldly pleasures, often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals.
Celibacy was one of those practices. Hence the monk would not likely have had his own family – wife and children. Parents of course, but likely left behind at an early age to be a novice initiate. How much “impact” – a word that didn’t appear in English until 1601, derived from the Latin impactus: to push against (not the same meaning as today’s usage) – a child could have had on his family is unclear, but I’m guessing little.
We of course don’t know if this alleged monk came from a wealthy or poor family. If the latter, their impact on their town – more likely a village at that time – would likely have been minimal at best, non-existent at worst. Twelfth century village life isn’t what we think of today. There was no central governing body like a municipal council. All land was owned by the lord, and villagers rented from him. Those who were free and not bound to service:
The 12th Century society and village
What defined your status in medieval England was whether you were free or unfree, and how much land you had.
Some rough proportions: About –
15% of people were free
40% of people were Villani (villeins) – they had substantial land (c. 30 acres) but owed service
35% were cottars or bordars – unfree, less land
10% were slaves or as near as darn it
Not all villages were the nucleated village that we think of today – but it’s far and away the most common model. Each village was composed of a number of tofts (or crofts) – areas of 1/4 – 1 Acre, rented from the lord. each croft held the medieval house – typically 24 x 12 feet, 2 rooms, 5+ people and not a lot else.
Continue reading “The Unknown Monk Meme”
Teddy’s Words of Wisdom
I’m not a great student of American history – my tastes run to other places and people: Napoleon, Casanova, Elizabeth I, the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the French Revolution, China…. but I do read about it. Most recently Rick Perlstein’s history of the American Sixties, Nixonland. And in that book I came across a powerful, moving quotation from U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt that I wanted to share because it still resonates today:
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
Roosevelt said this in a speech called “Citizenship in a Republic,” made at the Sorbonne, Paris, France, 23 April, 1910. Source: Wikiquote.
I would write it in stone and place it in front of each member of council at the table as a reminder at every meeting that we do our best and that’s what matters. We may stumble, we may even fall now and then, but we stay in the ring, we finish what we started, and we do what we believe is right, what is best for everyone.
I know how much each of you at the table care, how hard you work, how much you ponder and worry over the questions we must all answer, and how much it means to each of you to have the best community we possibly can. You do the work, you stand in the ring and take the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but you hang in because you care. And I know how much it hurts to have outsiders tear at you, to belittle and mock you, to denigrate your efforts. To try and hurt without offering to help.
At the end of the day, you can take pride in your accomplishments and your values. You are in the arena, where it counts most.
Continue reading “Teddy’s Words of Wisdom”
The death of critical thinking or just bad journalism? [...]
The dictionary of delight [...]
Thoreau and Buddhism [...]
Don Quixote times three [...]
Cicero, Seneca and Confucius [...]
Travels with Epicurus [...]
Stalin’s ghostly influence today [...]
Non-political posts
Travels with Epicurus May 24, 2019
Misquoting Shakespeare. Again. December 31, 2018
Don Quixote times three July 2, 2019
2018 in review January 1, 2019
Thoreau and Buddhism July 4, 2019
The slow death of reading January 1, 2019
Cicero, Seneca and Confucius June 7, 2019
Skepticisms & Debunking
Hegseth, hand washing and social media February 12, 2019
The Ten Bulls January 19, 2019
Local media is letting us down February 1, 2019
You’re going to die. Again. January 14, 2019
Natural selection simplified December 31, 2018
What is science? It’s not this stuff. January 24, 2019
WTF is wrong with people these days? January 22, 2019
GWT treatment a sure cure for NAWHS syndrome February 5, 2019
Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules February 10, 2019
Recent Collingwood issues
Collingwood and cannabis stores January 17, 2019
Musings on leadership January 11, 2019
Council’s financial follies part 1 December 22, 2018
The slow death of media credibility December 17, 2018
The towering heights of the SVJI December 13, 2018
What’s wrong with local media? November 26, 2018
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Your $350,000 wasted
Time to get serious with distracted drivers
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Prayer isn’t stopping the violence
Pondering the US election from a Canadian perspective
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Montaigne’s cat and Descartes’ reality
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New Surrogacy Law in DC
In April, a new law for surrogacy became law in the District of Columbia.
Prior to the passing of this new law, all parties to surrogacy agreements were subject to a fine up to $10,000 and a one year prison term. This ban had been in place for 25 years, and D.C. was the only jurisdiction making surrogacy a criminal offense.
Opponents of surrogacy argue that the practice is unnatural and exploits women. Concerns in some western European countries have made compensation for surrogacy illegal. Supporters of surrogacy say that it represents a rare chance for to make families for some people.
The new D.C. law streamlines the process for would be parents, and allows them to be named on the birth certificate, so they can avoid filing for adoption after the birth. The law applies to any would-be parent, regardless of sexual orientation and biological relation.
Florida Becomes First State to Issue Miscarriage Birth Certificates
From my guest blogger, Samuel Nicosia.
Partisan lines have been crossed as both Florida Republicans and Democrats support the Grieving Families Act (GFA). The GFA allows Florida to issue “certificates of nonviable birth” upon request by the parents for those women whose pregnancies end after nine weeks and before twenty weeks.
In Florida, pregnancies ending after twenty weeks are considered to be stillbirths, and are issued death certificates and a birth certificate upon request of the parents. Although numerous other states also issue death certificates in the instance of miscarriages, no state has anything equivalent to a birth certificate for these cases.
Both parties have widely supported the GFA, stating that it gives parents the opportunity to obtain a birth certificate in the wake of losing a child to a miscarriage. The only opposition comes from the National Organization for Women who believe the GFA is a tactic by those who oppose abortion to establish an earlier point at which the life of a child begins. However, both Republicans and Democrats have rejected this argument since the issuing of a “certificate of nonviable birth” is optional.
Do you believe the GFA helps families who lost their child due to a miscarriage? Will other states follow Florida’s lead in issuing “certificates of nonviable birth”?
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U.S.A./Germany 2009
Opening 7 May 2009
Directed by: J.J. Abrams
Writing credits: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Gene Roddenberry
Principal actors: Chris Pine, Zachary Pinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood
Based on the original TV series from 1966, this is the eleventh film version of one of our most popular stories: Star Trek (called Raumschiff Enterprise in Germany). With this forty-three-year history and thousands of expectant and critical hardcore fans, director J.J. Abrams is courageous if not foolish to put forth a new version, seven years after the last one.
Trekkies rest assured: you will not be disappointed. Here we go back to the beginning with Kirk growing up in Iowa of all places and Spock the victim of bullying because of his human-vulcan bi-racialism. Upon manhood and graduation from an exclusive academy, a world threat throws them together on the spaceship Enterprise which is part of a “peace-keeping humanitarian armada.” Along the way they pick up our old friends Dr. McCoy, Sulu, Pavel Chekov, Uhura and Scotty. They fly off to conquer their nemesis Nero (Eric Bana): that tattooed Romulan whose spaceship looks like a gigantic clump of seaweed. Except for a welcome surprise appearance of original member Leonard Nimoy, the cast is refreshingly new, young, and good looking: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, and Anton Yelchin.
This Star Trek version is full of action; it’s suspenseful and funny. The newest special effects show state-of-the-art spaceships; rugged, frozen environments and even a monster. The bombastic music will lift you out of your seat and catapult you straight into outer space. The plot upholds morals such as honesty, true love, loyalty, braveness, and dependability – all good examples for your kids, probably 10-12 years and older, although it might be rated PG-13. This Star Trek promises to take on board a whole new generation, kids who will quote, “Beam us outta here” as the new version puts it. Probably the originator Gene Roddenberry, to whom the film is dedicated, would agree with that, or he might just salute with four fingers and say, “Live long and prosper.” (Becky Tan)
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You are here Home Blog Roots When Paris became Venice
When Paris became Venice
Living in one of the hot tourist destinations of the world, it is hard to believe that hard times of the proportion of a catastrophe fell on Paris about a century back. In 1910, Paris was inundated for close to 10 days bringing the city life to a spectacular halt.
The summer in 1910 had been particularly rainy followed by a winter with precipitation of rain and snow. From 18th January, 1910, whole of Europe witnessed torrential rains making the rivers and their subsidiaries overflow. This led to a saturation of the earth thereby causing the river Seine to rise. The region around Paris and the city of Paris were not left untouched.
Paris owed the conception of its drainage system, the distribution of potable water and prevention of risk of inundation to Engineer Eugène Belgrand (1810-1878). There had been inundations in Paris before. During the time of Eugène, the river Seine had risen to a level of 6.50 m (1876) on which he had based his network of surveillance of the river with the hydro-metric system at the basin of Seine. The river rose 2 meters higher than this reference point in 1910. For Parisians, the four statues of soldiers on the sides of the 'Pont de l'Alma' (zouave, grenadier, chasseur, artilleur), measuring 6 meters high, were the popular references for visually measuring the rise of the river Seine*. Within a week from 20th January, the level of the Seine rose from 3.80 meters to its highest of 8.50 meters on the 28th of January**. Even though the mark steadily declined from then on for the next two weeks, the levels of water remained significantly high at 5.18 meters on the 14th February. It was not until March 15th that the river regained its bed without rising.
In the rest of the city, as many as twelve of its twenty districts were affected. Water clogged the 1,200 km underground network of drainage, potable water distribution, telephone cable holes etc. 4 lines of metro were under construction at that time***. The construction of metro work was interrupted as water flowed through the tunnels. From there, it rose up to the Gare Saint Lazare. Out of the 10 major stations of Paris at that time (now only 6), as many as 4 were affected: gare d’Orsay, gare de Lyon, gare Saint-Lazare and gare des Invalides. This included 2 train lines running alongside the river Seine whose construction was done against the recommendation of the engineer Belgrand.
The impact on public transport had been devastating. At the time, there were 11 companies of transport with tramway, horse, steam, compressed air, electric etc. Since the sources of energy were not available, the old omnibus hippomobile as well as 75,000 horses were put to the transport service. Gare de Lyon became an overnight stable. A large number of horses died because of difficult and potentially health damaging journeys.
Out of the 80,000 buildings in Paris at the time, as many as 20,000 were inundated. 1,50,000 persons were stricken by the catastrophe, many of whom were deprived of work. Parisian suburbs were touched too and as many 200,000 persons sought to seek refuge in Paris. One person succumbed whereas the economic loss was considerable- thought to be around 400 million francs or 1 million Euro. The 'City of Lights' plunged into darkness as the factories, stations and cables supplying electricity were submerged. Even the areas that were not inundated remained cut-off from the electric supply.
SOS Call
A nation-wide call for solidarity was made through newspapers, magazines, city municipalities, certain corporations etc. Municipal services, fire-fighters, 'les soldats du Génie' and volunteers worked without rest to put the city back together: building the causeways, pumping water, evacuating the inhabitants, restoring food supplies etc. The navy answered the call by Prefect Lépine to bring 300 Berthon lifeboats to Paris. These were foldable barges with flat bottom, made of canvas and a wooden structure. Several women's associations were particularly active with the French Red Cross. Asylums were made in the affected areas for disaster victims.This experience would contribute to the efficiency of aid during the world war five years later.
In the following weeks, the life started to come back to normal, slowly and progressively. The ferry services did not come back to normal till March and the metros till April. The government made a commission to assess the impact of the inundation and to propose preventive measures.
What if it happened again ?
Immediately after and over the course of last 100 years, various measures have been put in place to prevent a repeat of an event of the same magnitude. Interdepartmental Institute of Barrages-Reservoirs of Basins of River Seine (l’Institution Interdépartementale des Barrages-Réservoirs des Bassins de la Seine) have made reservoir lakes that allow the regulation of the course of water in the Paris region. These artificial lakes can reduce the rising of the river by 60 cms.
The city of Paris works within the framework of Plan for Prevention of Risks of Inundation (PPRI- Plan de Prévention des Risques d’Inondation), approved by the state in 2003 and revised in 2007. Other than this, there have recently been works to raise the parapets of the river banks and mending of the walls at the banks where the water-tightness was defective.
Currently the Exhibition Inundated Paris 1910 is on at the Paris City Municipal Library from Janury 8th- March 28th, 2010. The exhibition presents more than 200 documents- original photographs, post-cards, posters, illustrated press articles, maps, paintings and drawings, advertisements, manuscipts and archives, news coverage etc. that reconstitute the event for today's public exactly 100 years after it happened.
Visit the Virtual Exhibition
*In 1974, the stone bridge was replaced by a metallic bridge where only the statue of Zouave was conserved.
**The highest since February 1658 when river Seine rose to a mark of 8.81 meters.
*** In 1910, 6 lines of Metro were functional. The first metro line 'Vincennes-Etoile' was inaugurated in 1900.
La rue de Lyon, Janvier 1910 © Abert Chevojon/ BHVP / Roger-Viollet
La rue de Seine. Paris (VIe arr.), 29 janvier 1910. © Albert Chevojon / Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris / Roger-Viollet
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Home » Skills » Listening skills practice » Advanced C1 listening
Do you need more help with your English? Take an online English course.
Listen to four different people talking about their experiences with renting accommodation to practise and improve your listening skills.
We saw the ad in the summer, in about July, I think, but we weren't really serious about moving then so we didn't even go and see it. It wasn't until November when they readvertised it that we got in touch with the agency and had a look. They'd put the price down since the summer too, I suppose because it had been empty so long, so that made it more affordable for us which helped us make up our minds. It was perfect – a bigger garden for the kids and enough space for an office. In winter it was lovely, very cosy, in fact, which is important to me as I really feel the cold, whereas my husband will open a window when it's minus temperatures outside! Anyway, in July when summer really started and we had that heatwave, we understood why no one had wanted to rent it over summer. It was boiling! All those lovely big windows that made the flat so light and open were like a greenhouse as soon as it got warmer. From about 8 in the morning until 7 in the evening, it was like living in a sauna! We couldn't stand being at home, and weekends were especially bad. No air conditioning, of course. If only we'd gone to see it when it was first advertised in July, we'd never have moved in!
I always rent apartments when I go on holiday, rather than staying in hotels. Hotels are so impersonal, aren't they? This way you get to feel like you really live in the place you're visiting. It's the first time I've done it the other way round, though, and rented out my place … but it seemed like a good way of making some extra money. The website is really easy to use and they only charge five per cent commission, which is lower than a lot of the other holiday rental sites. It's all about the photos and the reviews. Get the photos right and the place can look really upmarket and spacious, but you don't want to make it look too much better than it really is or you end up with a bad review. It's better to undersell and overdeliver so guests are pleasantly surprised and leave an extra positive review. So far, I'm averaging three stars because of one bad review that brought my average down from four and a half stars, but hopefully I'll get it back up during the busy season.
Buying a house seems so far out of my reach it's almost impossible, as it is for loads of people my age these days. My parents always told me renting was throwing money away, but it was different in their day. Then people could afford to buy a house on a normal salary, but nowadays house prices are so high and no bank will look at you unless you've got a huge deposit. The problem with my dream of buying is that it's never going to come true. Not unless my parents help me out, but I've got two sisters and we're all in the same position. At least they've both got good jobs. Not good enough to buy a house, but at least they can afford to rent places of their own in nice areas. I just don't earn enough to rent around here. Even if I get promoted to manager, it'll be tough to find somewhere unless I share, and call me fussy, but there aren't that many people I want to share a bathroom and kitchen with. Some days I think I'll be stuck living with my parents forever – even renting is like a dream to me.
At first our landlord was really helpful, couldn't do enough for us. You hear stories of nightmare landlords and we felt like we were really lucky, or so we thought anyway. He redecorated the whole place, from top to bottom, and let us keep all the bills in his name so we didn't have the bother of contacting all the companies ourselves. He even offered to come round and do the gardening as he knew we both worked long hours and might not have time. That's where the problems started now I look back. Then he'd pop round 'just to check everything's OK for you' … once a month, then twice a month. Soon he was coming every week with some excuse or other. In the beginning we'd invite him in for tea, but it was only encouraging him, so when we realised, we'd try to have the conversation on the doorstep instead. It got so bad we pretended to be on our way out if we saw him coming up the path. We'd grab our coats and walk round the block until he'd gone. I don't know if he was just lonely or just didn't trust us not to ruin his precious house. In the end we gave our notice and found somewhere else. It's a shame because we really loved that house, but at least it's more peaceful in the new place.
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Do you think renting or buying a house is better?
Sridhar reddy replied on 13 July, 2019 - 11:28 India
By far this is the best English learning site ever. I love all the lessons. I can't thank you guys enough. Great job! Keep up the good work.
nikoslado replied on 21 May, 2019 - 15:41 Greece
Dear Team,
thanks a lot again for helping us.Is there anything wrong in the phrase''...our landlord was really helpful, couldn't do enough for us.''? How can we say someone being ''helpful'' without him be able to do ''enough for us''?
Hello nikoslado
Yes, I can see how that would sound strange. When we say that someone 'can't do enough for us', it means that the person is always trying to do more to help us. It's as if, from that person's point of view, they can't do enough for us, because they always want to do more for us.
It's a somewhat strange way to say it, but the expression is quite common!
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The original story can be found at http://m.bpnews.net/50350/david-platt-to-transition-out-of-imb-presidency
David Platt to transition out of IMB presidency
by David Roach, posted Monday, February 12, 2018 (one year ago)
Tags: IMBDavid Platt
David Platt told IMB missionaries and staff Feb. 12 he will transition out of the SBC entity’s presidency.
BP file photo.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Updated Feb. 12 at 2:35 p.m. CST.
RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- David Platt has announced plans to transition out of his role as president of the International Mission Board but will continue to serve until a new president is selected.
Platt told trustees, missionaries and staff today (Feb. 12) that during his nearly four-year tenure at the IMB, he has been "burdened to continue preaching and leading in the local church," which led to assuming a teaching pastor role at McLean Bible Church in Northern Virginia, alongside his leadership of the IMB.
"I am more passionate today than I have ever been about getting the Gospel to the nations, and I want to spend what little time I have left on this earth with urgency toward that end," Platt said according to an IMB news release (see full statement by Platt following this story). "This passion is what drove me to become IMB president, and I have sought to honor Him and you in this role over the last four years."
David Platt (right, in yellow shirt), as president of the International Mission Board and earlier as a pastor, regularly has preached in overseas settings toward sharing the Gospel with the nations.
IMB photo
Platt added, "I have come to the realization that it is not viable long-term for me to lead as president of the IMB while serving as teaching pastor in a church. This realization has been sobering, for I don't believe I can choose between preaching and leading in the local church, and mobilizing and shepherding people in global missions. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that if I am going to serve in this way in the local church, then I need to serve in different ways for the cause of global missions."
In 2017, Platt began serving as a teaching pastor at McLean. The IMB trustee executive committee agreed in August to evaluate Platt's involvement at McLean during a provisional period, BP reported in September.
Platt "has no timeline for his departure," according to a Q&A posted on the IMB website, "but he asked that the search" for a successor "begin immediately."
Southern Baptist Convention President Steve Gaines praised Platt's IMB service.
"I have known and loved David Platt for many years," Gaines, pastor of Memphis-area Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., told Baptist Press in written comments. "I am very grateful for the service he has provided as the leader of the IMB. His love for our Savior and passion for the spread of the Gospel are both well known to all. He has served Southern Baptists well. We will continue to pray for him and his precious family as they faithfully serve our Lord in the days and years ahead."
An IMB presidential search committee will comprise board trustees appointed by trustee chairman Rick Dunbar, according to the IMB release.
Dunbar, a member of First Baptist Church in Madison, Miss., said he is "thankful that David [Platt] will continue to lead until a new president is elected."
"We are sad, but also feel confident in the future as we move forward," Dunbar said according to the IMB release. "We trust that David's gifts of preaching, teaching and writing will continue to bless the work of the IMB for many years to come, and we look forward to a long-term relationship."
In a statement released to BP, Platt said "trustee leaders have communicated a desire" for him "to serve with the IMB in the future in some capacity." Platt indicated willingness to do that "if the Lord so leads."
Among other SBC leaders to react to Platt's announcement:
-- Frank S. Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee, told BP, "I love David Platt and thank God for him. I wish the best for him and his precious family during this time of transition. I look forward to working alongside him in the future as well as the new president of the IMB."
-- Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, tweeted he is "grieved and saddened" by Platt's announcement. Akin added, however, that he is "grateful our sovereign God is in control! Our trust ultimately is always in Him."
-- Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, of which Platt is an alumnus, tweeted, "I am grateful for the hard work of [Platt] and the [IMB]. They work diligently each day to serve the Kingdom. Join me in praying for David and the IMB as they begin this leadership transition. Great work has been done, and will be done! To God be the glory!"
-- Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, tweeted, "I am grateful to God for [Platt] and for our [IMB] and for their common commitment to reach the nations with the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
Among highlights of Platt's IMB tenure were establishing new channels for professionals, students and retirees to enter the mission field and collecting a record $165.8 million for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions in 2015.
Under Platt's leadership, IMB trustees adopted a balanced budget in 2016 following a six-year period in which the board's expenses exceeded its revenue by some $210 million.
Previously, the IMB had overcome the shortfall by using reserve funds to make up the difference -- including global property sales -- as it gradually reduced its missionary force. But beginning in 2015, IMB trustees and staff realized an "organizational reset" was necessary to put the board on stable footing for the future.
Consequently, voluntary resignation and retirement incentives were offered beginning in 2015, and 1,132 missionaries and stateside staff accepted, bringing the board's total number of missionaries under 4,000 for the first time since 1993, according to SBC Annual reports.
As of Dec. 31, 2017, the IMB reported 3,562 overseas missionaries, according to SBC.net.
"By God's grace over recent years, we have come to a stable, healthy financial position, we have clarified our mission, and we have recalibrated our internal systems and structures around that mission," Platt said. "We have set the stage for a limitless mission force that is focused on the missionary task with urgent motivation and strong biblical, theological, ecclesiological, and missiological foundations.
"We have sought to create collaborative processes in the IMB such that what we do doesn't revolve around one leader, but around all of us working together. Consequently, our vision for the future remains the same: we will continue partnering with churches to empower limitless missionary teams who are evangelizing, discipling, planting and multiplying healthy churches, and training leaders among unreached peoples and places for the glory of God," Platt said.
Author of the bestselling books "Radical" and "Follow Me," Platt was pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., from 2006-2014. He also founded and leads Radical, a ministry that provides resources to support disciple-making in local churches worldwide.
Platt and his wife Heather have four children: Caleb, Joshua, Mara Ruth and Isaiah.
Platt's full statement follows:
Language is insufficient to express all that is on my heart and mind as I write these words, but I want to let you know that I have asked trustees to begin a search for a new president of the IMB. The paragraphs below are my best attempt to explain why and what that means.
I am more passionate today than I have ever been about getting the gospel to the nations, and I want to spend what little time I have left on this earth with urgency toward that end. This passion is what drove me to become IMB president, and I have sought to honor Him and you in this role over the last four years. Along the way, as I have shared with you, I have been burdened to continue preaching and leading in the local church amidst the lack of biblical literacy and missional urgency in the church and culture around me. That is why I began volunteering as Teaching Pastor in a church alongside my leadership in the IMB.
However, through concentrated prayer and fasting alongside counsel from various leaders across the SBC over recent months, I have come to the realization that it is not viable long-term for me to lead as president of the IMB while serving as Teaching Pastor in a church. This realization has been sobering, for I don’t believe I can choose between preaching and leading in the local church, and mobilizing and shepherding people in global missions. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that if I am going to serve in this way in the local church, then I need to serve in different ways for the cause of global missions.
This is why I have asked trustees to begin a search for a new president. To be clear, I am not resigning now, but I will resign upon the election of a new president. Until that new president is found, I am committed to serving you faithfully in my current role. Trustee leaders have communicated a desire for me to serve with the IMB in the future in some capacity, and I am certainly willing to do so if the Lord so leads. I love this IMB family, and I want to encourage you continually with God’s Word, I want to mobilize limitless missionaries to join you, and I want to work with you overseas in any ways I can help you. In short, I want to do anything I can to see missions succeed across and beyond the IMB and the SBC for the glory of God.
So what does this mean for now? While this search begins for a new president, trustee leaders have asked me to continue implementing the initiatives that our leaders here and around the world have put in place aimed toward fulfilling our mission as the IMB. In other words, we will keep moving forward together in all the ways we are currently moving forward. By God’s grace over recent years, we have come to a stable, healthy financial position, we have clarified our mission, and we have recalibrated our internal systems and structures around that mission. We have set the stage for a limitless mission force that is focused on the missionary task with urgent motivation and strong biblical, theological, ecclesiological, and missiological foundations. We have sought to create collaborative processes in the IMB such that what we do doesn’t revolve around one leader, but around all of us working together. Consequently, our vision for the future remains the same: we will continue partnering with churches to empower limitless missionary teams who are evangelizing, discipling, planting and multiplying healthy churches, and training leaders among unreached peoples and places for the glory of God. Specifically, I want to encourage you to remain steadfast in your devotion to the missionary task wherever God has placed you. You know better than anyone else: the nations need the gospel. Please, please, please don’t let this distract you from getting the gospel to them.
As I spent time with the Lord this morning, I was reminded that my life, along with yours, is His to spend for His glory however, wherever, and whenever He wants. I know that you are serving where you are because you believe this same truth. So this morning my prayer for your life and mine was the same---that one day, Lord willing, we will kneel before His throne together with every tribe, tongue, and nation, and He will say to each of us, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Yours in Christ,
Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress) and in your email (baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP).
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Reluctant missionary now leading many to Christ in Peru
Praying for more believers they don't know
Five tips for a new missionary
IMB's Chitwood receives Union's Dodd Award
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Mark Jefferies has achieved top 10 in the World on 4 occasions at advanced and unlimited aerobatics in FAI sanctioned contests
Being trained by highly respected former World Champion Eric Vazeille and Alan Cassidy considerable skills have been learnt, Mark frequently studies his flying videos to see what’s spectacular from a crowds point of view by doing this he discovers new figures and combinations, this is especially true now with the Extra 330SC who’s power to weight ratio is virtually 1:1. Words cant describe the abilities and spectacle of Marks flying, other display pilots stand asking themselves how on earth was that flown, what’s happening aerodynamically. Mark has been part of medal winning teams on several occasions not only for individual flights but that of large formations flying in the Aerostars team. Mark Jefferies is one of the top pilots in the world. His free-style solo display in his Extra 330SC is second to none. With his own unique flying skills and the extreme capabilities of his aircraft, Mark performs manoeuvres in this aircraft that just should not be possible and he never fails to impress the crowds. Please click here to see these videos for an example of his flying. He can also fly this aircraft in a formation display team.
Mark Jefferies was placed in the top ten in the world at the last World Aerobatic Championships. He has displayed at many world renowned air shows and events including the Farnborough International Air Show and the Bahrain International Air Show last year and well as several other prestigious events including the Opening Ceremony of the Formula One Grand Prix in Bahrain, The World Air Masters in China as well as many others throughout Europe and The Middle East. At the Farnborough International Air Show he was one of the most outstanding pilots and has already been re-invited to display at their next show in 2012. Not only is he a top competition pilot, he also really knows what the crowds like to see from a display and never fails to amaze them.
The Global Stars includes the Yak Formation Team – a superb team of Yak pilots, lead by Mr Rolandas Paksas, former Prime Minister and President of Lithuania, with Mark Jefferies also being a member of this team. Their display is a mixture of fast and furious but also very graceful with these War-Birds having a style of their own – the crowds particularly enjoy it as it is very unusual for military aircraft to fly in formation but at low level and directly in front of the crowd with the smoke trailing the aircraft. These single piston engine aircraft are very manoeuvrable and produce a fantastic noise with their impressive ten litre radial engines. We can fit cameras to our aircraft and display live air to ground footage, or in cock-pit footage to large track side screens. We were in fact the only act at Farnborough Air Show 2010 to be offering this facility and it was very well received. We are happy to provide all our footage to the air show organisers for their own future use. We also have two-seat aerobatic display aircraft which can be used to carry out VIP flight experiences.
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The low countries
In 1585 the Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin (1548–1620) wrote a popular book De Thiende [The Tenth] that explained decimal fractions, advocated their widespread use for everyday calculation, and proposed a decimal system of weights and measures. Stevin also wrote an important treatise on statics that included the first explicit use of the triangle of forces.
Johan de Witt (1625–1672) was a talented mathematician and political leader whose concern with Holland’s financial problems led to his writing a treatise on the calculation of life annuity payments, an early attempt to apply probability theory to economics. His important text Elementa Curvarum Linearum [Elements of Linear Curves] was one of the earliest accounts of analytic geometry. He was murdered by an angry mob for political reasons.
The scientific contributions of Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) were many and varied. He expounded the wave theory of light, hypothesised that Saturn has a ring, and invented the pendulum clock and spiral watch spring. In mathematics he analysed curves such as the cycloid (the arch-like path traced out by a piece of mud on a bicycle tyre) and the catenary (the shape formed by a hanging chain), and wrote the first formal probability text, introducing the concept of expectation.
[Belgium 1942; Comoro Islands 1979; Netherlands 1929, 1947, 1962]
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COPYRIGHT AND THE STATE IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES
David VAVER[*]
Osgoode Hall Law School
York University, Toronto
In Canada, the government has copyright in the works it produces; in the US, the government does not.
That, at least, is what a reader quickly scanning the relevant Canadian and US copyright sections might conclude:
Canada: Copyright Act 1921, s. 12
US: Copyright act 1976, ��101,105
12. Without prejudice to any rights or
privileges of the Crown, where any work
is, or has been, prepared or published by
or under the direction or control of Her
Majesty or any government department, the
copyright in the work shall, subject to any
agreement with the author, belong to Her
Majesty and in that case shall continue for
the remainder of the calendar year of the
first publication of the work and for a period
of fifty years following the end of that
calendar year.1 101. A "work of the United States Government"
is a work prepared by an officer or employee
of the United States Government as part of
that person's official duties.
105. Copyright protection under this title
is not available for any work of the United
States Government, but the United States
Government is not precluded from receiving
and holding copyrights transferred to it by
assignment, bequest, or otherwise.
But, as often happens, matters are less clear-cut than at first they appear. Reading the Canadian provision, one is immediately struck by the obscurity of the opening words: "without prejudice to any rights or privileges of the Crown". What rights or privileges are these? On investigation, we find this refers to the ancient royal prerogative: the crown's "sole right of printing a somewhat miscellaneous collection of works, no catalogue of which appears to be exhaustive."[2] This non-exhaustive catalogue -- which in the 17th century was said to encompass everything written[3] -- is said today to include statutes, orders-in-council, proclamations, admiralty charts, and (some even say) judicial decisions.[4] The right is conveniently said to be perpetual (so it would cover statutes long ago repealed) and not to lapse through non-use or non-assertion.
The next striking thing is the breadth of the following phrase in section 12. On top of the prerogative power, this allocates copyright to the crown in "any work [that] is, or has been, prepared or published by or under the direction or control of Her Majesty or a government department." If those "or"s are truly conjunctive, that phrase of 24 words potentially includes 24 classes of material.[5] Unsurprisingly, it appears wide enough for the government to publish a work prepared by a freelancer, divesting her copyright and revesting a new 50-year copyright in the government![6]
To cap matters, we find that, if section 12 fails it, the government can rely on the parts of the Copyright act applying to private sector employers. It is on this theory that it has claimed the copyright in all creative work produced by prisoners serving their sentence. Recently, an inmate served his time, opened an art business and wanted to reclaim a painting he had done in jail as part of his rehabilitation. A federal judge decided the government owned both the painting and its copyright. Not only had the inmate been an involuntary tenant of Her Majesty, but also (unbeknownst to him) an employee of Her Majesty paid at the rate of $6 per day. His employer therefore owned copyright in his job output. The artist could not even photograph his painting without the leave of the government.[7]
Small wonder that section 12 has attracted abuse such as "legislative monstrosity" and "atrocious drafting", nor that as recently as 1981 a study by Barry Torno bore the title Crown Copyright in Canada: a Legacy of Confusion.8 For to understand what copyrights the federal and provincial governments could claim at the end of the 20th century, Torno had to retreat into mid 17th century Britain to the time of the restoration of Charles II, well before the passage of England's first copyright law in 1710. Not surprisingly, he found confusion then, let alone now, about exactly what the ancient law was or meant at a time when the role of the monarchy was changing and, with it, the extent of its despotic power.[9]
An exercise like this is only for the dedicated antiquarian, masochist or crown lawyer -- of which I am none. Sadly, nothing has changed in the 14 years since Torno wrote. The "legislative monstrosity" with its "atrocious drafting" sits there in its pristine glory and, in the waning years of Elizabeth II, decisions made by Charles II's judges are still relied on by the governments of Canada and the provinces to support their claims of copyright. The smell of the crumbling pages of 17th century law reports hangs over the dancing pixels on the electronic highway.
Nothing is to be gained in retracing Torno's steps, discussing his conclusions, or hurling further abuse at those responsible for the situation. Instead, I shall examine the US and Canadian laws on government copyright to see what light each sheds on the other. I shall then consider some implications of my findings for government copyright today.
Why no copyright for US government works?
I start by asking why the US does not allow copyright for the works of its government. No clues appear off the face of �105 of the US Copyright act[10] but some hypotheses are easily testable, for example:
1. Government works are valueless and so not worth protecting. I have not seen this suggested, yet, and it seems implausible. As a class, government material seems no less valuable than private sector material.
2. Government works will be produced anyway, with or without the spur of copyright. Giving the government a copyright will not increase the production of worthy works. This may be true too of other works,[11] but it is especially true of government works. Only budget cutbacks slow down their production.
3. Government works are so valuable or important everyone should have them. Everyone should have the fullest possible access to government works, at least so long as their cost of production is recovered. So everyone is free to copy works as they like, and distribute them freely or for whatever price others are willing to pay. This assures fullest possible access at the lowest price.
This sounds plausible, although copyright cheerleaders might find it uncomfortable: it suggests that the more socially useful a work, the less a copyright is justified. The strongest justification for protection would then exist for trash.[12] Nor does the proposition easily explain why it might pay anybody to copy and sell a public domain work commercially: yet this happens quite often, e.g., if the government print run is low or not easily accessible, or if the commercial seller makes the work more attractive than the official publication by adding value to it.
4. Since the government belongs to the people, so do its works; or since the people pay their officials, the officials' works are the people's.[13] This also sounds plausible as an outcrop of democratic theory, under which the government, as part of the people, should serve the people. It should not seek to profit from them, or enable one group of the people to profit from another.
5. The government might use copyright as a tool of patronage. Disallowing it therefore removes the temptation and makes for cleaner government.
This has some truth if former British royal practice is regarded. Both before and after copyright was formally introduced in the early 18th century, the monarch claimed a prerogative right to control all printing and granted patents to his or her supporters (and their supporters) to print useful books.[14] Powerful publishers could be useful allies.
This argument seems trivial today. There are more valuable forms of government patronage around than awards of copyright; and, in any event, if patronage were the problem, the solution would be general rules discouraging it, which would work as (in)effectively in the copyright sector as elsewhere.
6. The government might use copyright as a tool of censorship. The government might try to stop the publication of material it would prefer, for political reasons, to keep hidden. Copyright then runs counter to democratic notions of open government and freedom of information.
This too seems plausible for historically copyright in England was "secreted in the interstices of the censorship",[15] and modern experience in the Commonwealth (including Canada) shows governments successfully using copyright as a weapon of censorship when all else fails.[16]
A little dose of US history and US law publishing
The actual history of US �105 seems partly influenced by the US constitution's first amendment guarantee of free speech and the attitude 19th century US judges assumed toward law publishing. Many struggling lawyers had difficulty affording law books, which affected the quality of law practice and justice. So when, in 1834, Henry Wheaton, the former reporter of the US supreme court reports, took the current reporter Richard Peters Jr to (where else?) the US supreme court for producing a condensed version of the reports under Peters' name, the judges seemed unenthusiastic about giving either man a monopoly over the court's decisions. Peters was doing a good job spreading news of the court's work cheaply (without the arguments of counsel and the annotations Wheaton had included) and so giving the court greater national prominence. So, after a long disquisition on the nature and history of copyright, the court disposed of the issue in a single off-hand sentence at the end of its opinion:
It may be proper to remark that the court are unanimously of opinion, that no reporter has or can have any copyright in the written opinions delivered by this court; and that the judges thereof cannot confer on any reporter any such right.[17]
Law publishers besides Peters' took this to heart. Cheap versions of state law reports and legislation began appearing throughout the US as courts extended Wheaton to the decisions of all courts and to all legislation (including delegated legislation). No legislature or private person could copyright this material, although they could copyright added value such as headnotes or annotations.[18] Officials other than judges were also affected by Wheaton. True, President George Washington was allowed common law copyright in his unpublished letters and writings,[19] but lower level bureaucrats could not object to their work being put into the public domain by the government.[20]
An 1895 law on the government printing office partly confirmed this activity. It provided that "no publication reprinted from [duplicate] stereotype or electrotype plates and no other Government publication shall be copyrighted."[21] This became �8 of the US Copyright act of 1909: "No copyright subsists .. in any publication of the United States Government, or any reprint, in whole or in part, thereof...".[22]
The observant reader will note the lack of any reference to state court decisions and legislation, but nobody doubted the judges would continue leaving these in the public domain, and so it has proved. Publishers have naturally tried to limit the reach of Wheaton and its progeny, with mixed success and some arbitrary results. Thus, a state building code, largely drafted by private industry, was put in the public domain,[23] but officially approved zoning plans and carrier tariffs were not.[24] Extraordinarily, the page numbering of law reports has also been protected, preventing a legal database from inserting those numbers in the reports it made available on-line;[25] one trusts this error will not be repeated.[26]
Why copyright for Canadian government works?
Why then does the Canadian government exercise copyright over its works? Looking at section 12 of the Copyright act and the treasury board rules implementing it,[27] we may posit the following:
1. If ordinary citizens can have copyright in their works, so should governments. Arguments for equality and equal protection are often attractive,[28] but they founder here because:
* the crown is already treated better than everyone else: e.g., it retains its perpetual prerogative power, and it automatically allocates to itself copyrights that freelancers would hold had they been hired in the private sector.
* the ascription of formal equality to the Crown overlooks the substantive inequality between the government and the people: ask any defendant on criminal legal aid.
* as noted earlier, the government would still produce virtually everything it produces now without the spur of copyright.
* the government can make or break this equality at a stroke: after all, government copyright is created and maintained by the government; no private person has this power.
2. The government has copyright to ensure accuracy. This was a major reason given for the royal prerogative over printing legislation or the authorized religious writings.[29] People had to know how to behave legally and morally: where would society be if someone printed the ten commandments or the criminal code without all those "nots"?[30]
These fears may have been realistic at a time when the state tried to enforce morality through blasphemy and sedition laws, but they are not so now. Government control or licensing does not guarantee accuracy, any more than unlicensed private sector publishing guarantees inaccuracy.
On government accuracy: we all no doubt have our favourite example of mistakes by official printers. My favourite in this context is a passage in the official report of Canada's supreme court in the leading copyright case of Massie & Renwick Ltd v. Underwriters' Survey Bureau Ltd,31 issued under the aegis of the king's printer of Canada. Because of a series of editing errors, the report makes the chief justice of Canada, Sir Lyman Duff, look as if he has plagiarized a former lord chancellor of England![32] Is it not piquant that a decision on copyright, over which the crown itself claims copyright ostensibly to ensure accuracy, is reported in a way that is not only misleading but also defamatory of the chief judicial officer of the land? It took the private publishers of the court's decision, who transcribed it accurately, to resurrect the chief justice's honour.[33]
As to private sector inaccuracy: the market should take care of that.[34] A publisher with a record of inaccuracy will be shunned by those for whom accuracy is critical. Informal sanctions also encourage accuracy. For example, courts may accept only the government printer's version of legislation as authentic evidence,[35] and in the past have refused to accept citations to law reporters with a reputation for imprecision.
3. Government copyright helps prevent material from being used inappropriately. This appears a major worry according to the treasury board manual, which states that permission to copy government material can be refused if the copy would
- be in an undignified context;
- be considered as an unfair or misleading selection;
- be used for advertising purposes in an undesirable manner;
- be used in a context that may prejudice or harm a third party;
- be considered inappropriate by the institution in question for legal or other specifiable reasons.[36]
It is hard to imagine conditions like these surviving parliamentary scrutiny. What counts as an "undignified" context, or "undesirable" advertising? What business is it of the government that a third party may be "prejudiced or harmed" (can't she look after her own interests)? What is "inappropriate for legal or other specifiable reasons"? If a publication is illegal, it may be dealt with on that ground. Is the vagueness of "inappropriate for .. specifiable reasons" tolerable in a democracy?
Assume an artist takes the Copyright act and, after copying it, proceeds to do unspeakable things to it in the name of art. If this activity is not proscribed by the ordinary criminal or civil law, why should copyright -- designed to protect the economic interests of authors and distributors -- be the government's weapon of choice? And if the artist is foolish enough to seek the government's permission to do her art, how could a prior restraint on free speech be justified morally, let alone under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
4. The government should be able to make money off its works. This at least is plausible, and probably has history on its side. Note that, of all the departments of government with a possible interest in crown copyright, it is the Treasury Board that has produced the rules for its administration.
Now governments are free to decide that some of their services should break even or even make a profit. Even in the US, postage stamp designs and compilations of "standardized scientific and technical reference data" can be copyrighted.[37] So a business wanting to make a textile design from a postage stamp or to use StatsCan data can hardly complain if it has to ask for a licence or pay for these private for-profit uses. But isolated examples like these hardly justify across-the-board control of all government material.
5. Government copyright can be used to advance general economic welfare. The government could advance economic or social welfare by encouraging or discouraging particular activities through giving or withholding copyright permission, and charging or not charging royalties. So the treasury board rules[38] offer preferential treatment to
* uses that "assist in the achievement of program objectives" of a department;
* non-profit organizations;
* Canadian publishers reproducing statutes, statutory orders and regulations and judicial decisions.[39]
Except for the boost to Canadian law publishing, no coherent policy emerges from this. The general rule -- permission must be sought, it can be denied, and royalties are anyway payable -- does nothing to maximize the use of government material to help the economy or society.
Whether the government can be trusted even to recognize when an activity may "assist in the achievement of program objectives" is doubtful. Take the case of the report on the competition in the petroleum industry issued by the competition director in 1981. This 7-volume report was tabled in parliament and then published for $70. Many free copies were nonetheless distributed, including to public libraries. Along came a small publisher called Lorimer who thought a one-volume condensed version of the report would sell well. But speed was essential lest his project turn into Canadian history. Lorimer spoke with department officials but was met with foot-dragging. So he decided to go ahead anyway. He spent two weeks cutting and pasting, and issued the condensed version at $14.95 two weeks later. Meanwhile Lorimer wrote to the minister of supply and services offering 8% royalty on retail sales of his book.[40] The ministry's lawyer wrote back refusing permission and complaining that the use of the competition director's name on the cover of Lorimer's book suggested the director had also authored the abridgment. Lorimer corrected that by covering the director's name with stickers carrying his publishing company's name. This was still not good enough. Instead of giving him a medal for making the report available cheaply to a wider audience cheaply, the government took Lorimer to court and got an injunction, damages at 8% on past sales, delivery up of all existing stocks, and the costs of the action.[41]
The government admitted it had not lost anything by Lorimer's publication and that widest possible dissemination of the report was an important goal. But all this was set aside to establish the principle of full control over government publications. Whether publications like Lorimer's are any more possible today because of speedier clearance is uncertain. What is certain is that such versions would more likely occur if pre-clearance was unnecessary. The greater distribution of information that would result would surely "assist in the achievement of program objectives" more than any fallout from the occasional unworthy republication.
6. The government has "the right or privilege" to control disclosure or publication of its works. This may historically be the real reason for crown copyright. Crown copyright comes from and is justified by a particular non-democratic conception of government. Look at how section 12 opens: by telling us the "rights or privileges of the Crown" are retained. Note, first, the absence of any reference to preserving the rights or privileges of the people. Why? Because they had none to retain. It is the government, not the public, that has rights and privileges over disclosure and publication of government works. Note, second, the absence of any reference to duties: the crown has rights and privileges, but no duties. It takes no Hohfeld to recognize that the government owes no-one a duty to disclose or publish anything it does not want to.
Taken together, these two silences reveal much about how the legislative and the executive arms of government view their relationship with the people. While the US Copyright act talks of extending copyright to "nationals and domiciliaries" of the US and other nations,[42] the Canadian Copyright act extends copyright to "citizens, residents and subjects".[43] This is the relationship section 12 reflects: that of CROWN and subject, of monarchical government, under which the crown through its delegates does what it thinks best for its people, and the people as the crown's subjects accept this as the best because the crown can do no (or perhaps today, not much) wrong. Under this theory, a government that decides not to publish does so because it has decided the public interest favours secrecy.
The judges are supposedly there to mediate the public interest -- but in practice this means backing the government unless it has gone egregiously wrong in its calculation of that interest. In the rare case where a British court overrode copyright and allowed a publication to occur in the public interest -- significantly not a case involving a government document -- one of the judges cautioned that the decision should not be treated as a "mole's charter": "there is a world of difference," he intoned, "between what is in the public interest and what is of interest to the public."[44]
If one were designing new coats of arms for judges, this would be as good a motto as any; for few Canadian courts take the public interest defence seriously.[45] Consider Lorimer:46 while Jerome ACJ there said "the copyright laws ought not be used to assist the suppression of information when it is in the public interest that that information be made known", he did not recognize any public interest in making published information more widely available.[47] Still he was willing to let the abridgment continue, so long as the publisher paid an 8% royalty; this view did not hold on appeal, where an injunction issued.[48]
When theory meets practice: plus c'est différent, plus c'est la même chose
The Canadian and US laws seem so different on their face that one would expect different outcomes in the two countries. This is true -- to a point. Thus, a report issued by the Canadian government or a body that is an "agent" of the crown would have copyright in Canada; the same report, if issued by any branch of the US federal government, would have no copyright in the US.[49] Also, while the federal and provincial governments, not being bound by the Copyright act, are immune from suits for infringement,[50] the same is not true for their US counterparts.[51]
There are nonetheless some striking similarities between the two systems:
1. Canadian provincial and municipal governments can claim copyright; so can US state and municipal governments. Canadian provincial and municipal governments own the copyright in works produced by their employees, just as any private sector employer does.[52] This is comparable with the US, where state and local governments, also like private employers, have copyright in works produced by their employees or independent contractors,[53] except of course for legislation and judicial decisions; for US �105 explicitly applies only to works of the US government.
2. All governments in Canada and the US can acquire copyrights. Any level of Canadian government can acquire a copyright by assignment or otherwise, as may US state and local governments. And US �105 explicitly states the US government may hold copyrights transferred to it by "assignment, bequest or otherwise". So the governments can, to the same extent as private persons, acquire copyrights from a trustee in bankruptcy and levy execution on them for unsatisfied judgment debts, e.g., for unpaid taxes.[54] More significantly, as governments outsource more of their work, government-financed private contractors in both countries may be compelled to assign to the government copyrights in work they have developed.
�105 gives the US government plenty of room to manoeuvre. In one a case, a US government agency contracted with the Pittsburgh affiliate of the public broadcasting service for the production of television films for the US bicentennial. The contract assigned copyright to the government. The court held the assignment valid on a third party challenge to the deal. The court said it was "reluctant to cabin the discretion of government agencies to arrange ownership and publication rights with private contractors" unless there was a subterfuge to avoid �105. Had government employees been detailed as consultants or employees of the broadcaster, the assignment might have been invalidated as a subterfuge. But that was not this case: the films were "neither produced by current or former employees nor related to the official duties of any Government employee."[55]
3. Government contractors in Canada and the US can acquire copyrights. Perhaps as significantly, all levels of governments in Canada[56] and the US[57] may allow contractors they fund to acquire private copyrights in their own names. The reasons for this exception for the US federal government appear from �105's legislative history:
[�105] deliberately avoids making any sort of outright, unqualified prohibition against copyright in works prepared under Government contract or grant. There may well be cases where it would be in the public interest to deny copyright in the writings generated by Government research contracts and the like; it can be assumed that, where a Government agency commissions work for its own use merely as an alternative to having one of its employees prepare the work, the right to secure a private copyright would be withheld. However, there are almost certainly many other cases where the denial of copyright protection would be unfair or would hamper the production and publication of important works. Where, under the particular circumstances, Congress or the agency involved finds that the need to have a work freely available outweighs the needs of the private author to secure copyright, the problem can be dealt with by specific legislation, agency regulations, or contractual restrictions.[58]
On this basis, the US court in the bicentennial film case approved of private copyrights for public television producers for instrumental reasons: without copyright, the loss of revenue generated through licensing "would lead to requests for more government money, fewer original programs, or both."[59]
This may be uncontroversial for public television, but not everywhere else. For, as governments cut back the public service and outsource formerly in-house work, less publicly funded material will end up in the public domain. Previously freely accessible and reproducible information may be charged for or even suppressed by private owners. Governmental reorganization may therefore undercut the policy objectives of �105.[60]
The same policy concern exists in Canada, although the Copyright act leaves it entirely to the government's discretion whether to hold copyright in its own name or give the contractor the right to acquire it.
4. All governments may own copyrights abroad. US state, Canadian provincial and local governments in both countries may obviously enforce foreign copyrights for works for which they enjoy local copyright. But governments that may be unable to claim copyright within their territory may be able to claim it outside: copyright is a territorial right and it is irrelevant that a work is unprotectable in its country of origin if it otherwise qualifies for protection in the country where protection is sought.[61] So a US publisher issuing Canadian legislation or judicial decisions in the US may infringe US copyright in this material, just as the Canadian publication of US legislation or case law may infringe Canadian copyright.
This is unexplored terrain. It would no doubt be an interesting exercise to discover who in Canadian law qualifies as the author and owner of material that in the US is deemed authorless and ownerless.[62] Who would by US law be judged to have US copyright in works that in Canada are protected only by crown prerogative is an equally interesting point.
As interesting is the question of how, or even whether, differential treatment based on territory is enforceable in respect of electronic databases like those on the Internet. Are territorial borders relevant any more, where the location of a database is fortuitous and international accessibility is the norm? Is differential treatment justifiable, given the movement toward common standards and national treatment signalled by NAFTA and the World Trade Organization agreement of 1994?
5. Government employees may acquire copyright in non-official work. Government employees in Canada and the US may have copyright in work produced outside their official duties. This is an amorphous area. The copyright in works such as public speeches, memoirs, private diaries, or articles produced by officials who do not have to engage in these activities should belong to the official.[63] Similarly, officers engaged as instructors in military schools may produce teaching material in which they own the copyright. Like university professors, they may be obliged to teach, but the way they teach -- orally or using written teaching material -- is usually left to the individual.[64] The production of the material is then technically "outside" the employment. On the other hand, military illustrators assigned to produce a sculpture under the army's supervision and at the army's cost were said to act in the course of their employment, and so had no copyright in the product.[65]
6. Authors may have moral rights of attribution and integrity. Wherever copyright may or may not initially lie, authors of government works in Canada and the US may retain and vindicate their moral rights of attribution or integrity.[66] The treasury board rules thus suggest authors of formal research and technical publications should be named, while for other publications they should usually be acknowledged in the foreword or acknowledgment page.[67]
The Québec government also explicitly recognizes its officials have moral rights, except where material like government or ministerial policy statements is involved.[68] So, for example, ministers may use or abuse the speeches their ghostwriters produce for them without regard to the author's integrity right, nor would the writer would expect any credit line for her contribution. On the other hand, a justice department lawyer writing a legal opinion for another department can insist that her signature accompany the opinion, but that it be removed if her superior wishes to change the language of the opinion in a way that does not sit comfortably with the original writer.
Implications of government copyright today
Government copyright is quite unsatisfactory in both the US and Canada. A number of things should be done:
� In both countries, the copyright status of publicly funded work needs rethinking. The conditions under which the public should have access to this work should mirror more closely the conditions for government works. Where copyright is outsourced, the extent to which the contractor can enforce it should be delineated. Some contractors may not need to retain copyright beyond the time necessary to recoup their investment and a fair profit, after which the right could revert to the government or be abandoned. The same principles should apply where the government acquires copyright from a contractor.
� The copyright status of provincial and state government works should parallel the status of federal works, for democratic theory applies to all levels of government. People should be able to obtain comparable material on similar terms throughout the country, from whatever level of government it originates.
� Canada's law should be clarified to reflect the imperatives of a modern democracy, not the ancient hierarchy of Crown and subject. In particular:
The federal government should consider freeing some, if not all, classes of work from copyright. Federal, provincial and municipal laws, the proceedings of legislative bodies, and decisions of judges and administrative tribunals[69] are obvious candidates. In the US this legal material, because it is in the public domain, has been made more accessible at cheaper cost than would otherwise have been the case.
If copyright must be retained for some material for specifiable strategic reasons, those works should be identified and a clear rationale for protection given. One should start from the presumption that government works should be in the public domain, unless there is very good reason to the contrary.
Copyright law should not be used to prevent disclosure of unpublished material.
The long duration of protection for private sector works need not apply to government works.
The pre-clearance procedure for government employee works in section 5.1 of the treasury board manual needs rethinking. The procedure is overbroad and confiscatory, and its reliance on section 12 of the Copyright act is wrong in law. Government employees who are able and willing to share their expertise should not be treated as objects to be stifled, but rather as national resources.
The government should no longer assert, through the royal prerogative, perpetual copyright over an unascertained, not easily ascertainable, and unclosed category of works. This uncertainty is in nobody's interest. The federal and provincial prerogative power in respect of copyright should be repealed.
C.L. Mardi 6 juin 1995
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» All Bands
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The Skaliners
Skank 'til you drop !!!
Printable Logo (200 - 300dpi)
Time has come to start swinging those flabby hips, which have been ascertained over the year. ! And THE SKALINERS can deliver the perfect Soundtrack with their current CD "Belly Dance" (Black Butcher Records 2003)
Since 1995 this 8-piece band coming from the sunny Bergstraße (Heidelberg/Darmstadt-Germany) causes belly's all over the country and neighbourhoods to sweat, boil and perspire.
In 1996 the Ska world was excited about a track "Black and white dog" on "Ska Trax 2, Heatwave-Compilation" which has become a SKALINERS classic. Following this success two more albums - "Stinkfoot in motion" (1997) und "Skarrera" (2001) - were released which again received much best and encouraging positive criticism from the media.
Finally to fight against the evergrowing midrift bulge, the band went to studio again at the end of 2001 to record the stunning album "Belly Dance", which is offering a mixture of the most different types of influences Ska has to offer: Up-tempo beats and melodic refrains, traditional - sometimes also jazzy - songs, and a blend of back to the traditional roots of Ska (mixed by SKA TREK's very own Lollo).
THE SKALINERS: Highly recomended for dancing - so swing your belly-button!
Francesco Di Tacchio......................... Vocals
Tobias Meyer ....... .......................... Guitar, Backing-vocals
Bernd Dörsam ................................. Bass
Alexandra Hoffmann ........................ Organ & Keyboards
Torsten Czanderle ........................... Drums and Backing-vocals
Christian Veit .................................. Saxophon (tenor)
Ana Laibach .....................:.............. Saxophon (alto)
Christian Humbert ............................ Trombone
Releases:
- Stinkfoot in motion (CD 1997, Banana Pirat Records)
- Skarrera (CD 2001, Spirit of 69 records, Cargo-Records Germany)
- Belly Dance (CD 2003, Black Butcher Records, Cargo-Records Germany)
[address]: c/o Torsten Czanderle
Franz-Schubertstraße Nr.8
[email]: toddi@skaliners.de
Homepage: www.skaliners.de
Back to bandlisting
Date Band additional bands Location
Mad Butcher Records | Kurze Geismarstr. 6 | D - 37073 Göttingen
Tel. ++49-5528-2049282 | Fax. ++49-5528-2049283 | Mail: mike(at)madbutcher.net
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Madness and Play
A Little bit of Housekeeping
First up, I'd like to point out the tabs at the top of the page. Yesterday I set up a new one to go alongside the Further Reading page as a resource listing Games that feature madness either mechanically or thematically. I intend to keep adding to both these lists and will gladly take suggestions for titles I've missed. The games page doesn't have links because primarily because choosing a definitive resource on each title seems somewhat too subjective, but again I'd be willing to put something in if enough people shout.
Secondly, it's in the further reading tab, but if you found my take on Depression Quest interesting then you might also like this take by The Orts. I don't agree with everything it says, especially the slight anti-psychiatry stance that seems to push the, in my mind false, dichotomy between treating mental distress as illness and treating it as a part of your inviolable self. But it does say a lot of stuff that I agree with, and that I would say myself, and it does so more eloquently and more academically than I'm capable of.
Thirdly, the latest issue of the as-always excellent Memory Insufficient is on Disability and Games History. Of the three essays two are primarily focused on issues of mental health, while the third encompasses it in its overview of disability as a concept, and so the issue will be of particular interest to anyone who reads this blog. A couple of confessions: editor Zoya Street's article on sanity rules in D&D does reference this blog, and I did intend to write a piece for this issue but couldn't get an angle I was happy with sorted out in time for the deadline.
(I was planning on taking a look at how the merit and flaw system popularised in the World of Darkness games deals with disability by both quantifying it but also systematically compensating for it by allowing players to buy unrelated bonuses but I didn't get much father than 'that's really quite reductive' which is pretty un-interesting really, because roleplaying rules literally are attempts to reduce complex realities into a system.)
I have a few brief responses to the articles in the issue which I'll lay out here. I though it was interesting that in general all the essays worked within a conceptual framework in which the DSM and psychiatry are essentially synonymous. This is a common position and a useful shorthand, especially for some of the points being made about medicalization and normativity but, as I discussed here, I think things are more complicated than that and I sometimes worry that this shorthand can become a self-limiting axiom. I don't think this impacts on what the articles have to say in any significant sense, and I may also be reading it in wrongly, but I think as a critical position it might be worth bearing in mind.
I have to admit that I've never played with the rules from Unearthed Arcana, so as far as I was aware the only sanity system in D&D was that developed for Ravenloft. I will have to read into it some more. In some ways that just goes to show how large D&D is as an entity, as well as the scope of its ambition as a system. (Are there any sanity rules for the explicitly universal systems like GURPS or Rifts/Palladium? There must be, although I've only ever read the core rulebooks for either of those.)
Zoya Street's take on D&D is probably harsher than mine, I was quite pleased to be described as 'even-handed' as I sometimes worry I get too polemical, but I suppose my problem is that I've always thought D&D to be self-evidently a terrible system. That's not to say I don't enjoy it as a game, just that in some ways that enjoyment was hard won and involved a lot of ignoring the really stupid bits. The article also reminded me of the tribalism in RPG circles, where people are wedded not only to systems, but to the primacy of those systems' representational models.
D&D, and AD&D especially, is never going to describe anything realistically, or allow you to play or explore any concepts in a realistic manner, because as a project it is about imposing the D&D mathematical model onto those concepts and not the other way around. While this is not to say that it shouldn't be called out for doing so, which is something Street does very well, I suppose my position is that it can only be understood in the light of this dynamic. One day James Wallis will finally publish FRUP and I'll be able to point at it and go 'look, this is what you have done - this is the world your slavish rules-lawyering has implied.' Until then you'll just have to take my word for it.
And finally, I recently wrote a piece for The Ontological Geek about horror in roleplaying games. I looked at where horror is located and how game systems, including sanity systems, can mediate and generate that horror. It isn't strictly about mental illness but I hope that my rule-happy readers will find it interesting. The Ontological Geek is running a horror month at the minute and I heartily recommend having a look at what is coming out of that.
Posted by Amsel von Spreckelsen at 13:00 2 comments:
Labels: Housekeeping, Links, Theory
Depression Quest and the Physicality of Mental Illness
Trigger warning, this is about depression in quite a visceral sense.
I know what it feels like to be depressed from my own past experience. As much as anything that means I have an understanding of the physiological effects as well as the mental, which can be important because, as a mental illness, it is often discussed in purely mental terms.
But those physical effects can be horrible, almost indescribably so. It isn't just the lethargy and the headaches, in some manner similar to the experience of a bad cold, but the curious fear that accompanies them. Colds come and then they go, following a familiar and understandable self-limiting pattern. They are grim and they can vary in severity but they make sense and have an end that can be anticipated while the physical symptoms of depression merely persist. And the longer they persist the more the anxiety over that persistence becomes a physical thing in itself; a gnawing in the gut that feels like maybe you ate something wrong and oh god what if you might get sick for real and...
I imagine that this is similar to many other chronic illnesses, which I am aware have the capacity to feedback into mental illness. I also am certain that other mental illnesses have their own set of physical symptoms which I have never felt and will probably never know. It is interesting that I am better able to imagine the mental state of someone with mania than I am the physical feeling of it and it fascinates me, in part because the physicality of my own depression is a huge part of the way I understand it.
I said I know what it feels like to be depressed because what I realise is that I don't know what it feels like to become depressed. I can imagine that it must be terrifying on that purely physical level because there's no frame of reference for why your body suddenly feels the way that it does - it can be terrifying for me and I know that it's coming and that it will, eventually, pass.
Those games which do model mental illness seem for the most part to be focused on its onset - on the shift-point between sanity and madness. Once the illnesses are contracted, and they are contracted, imposed into the sanctity of a character's mental cradle by the agencies in the external world, they become modifiers on play rather than lived and vital experiences. Or worse, they signify the end of playability.
But mental illnesses are progressive, not binary. Those acquired later in life do not snap into being, fully-formed in the sufferer's mind, but are wrought out of experience and predisposition. Of course, to make a secret list of the illnesses your character might develop would be a curious exercise, and to roll your winnings on the genetic lottery on a random table at the point of phenotype expression is functionally, if not teleologically, the same action as rolling at birth.
It makes me wonder what a game would have to do to actually embody the experience of being mad - to genuinely get at at the phsysicality of it without resorting to glitch or distortion, to showing things which aren't there when it's already in a world that isn't there and anyway can't we just get over the idea that hallucination is the be-all and end-all of being mad?
One game which makes a stab at this is Depression Quest. It's a good stab, and I like the core idea of having, in a choose-your-own-adventure, greyed-out choices. It says that the core of being depressed is knowing that there are things you could do, but nevertheless being unable to do them. Unfortunately the rest of it lets it down.
Really, it's doomed from the name onwards. The idea that depression is a quest already suggests that it has a win-condition, that no matter how many times the authors tell you that it is something you must learn to live with fundamentally they view it as something that can be beaten. And that it can be beaten by the sufferer. For some people that may be the case, but unfortunately the game clearly isn't talking about an isolated episode of depression as experienced by an otherwise healthy person, it's talking about the chronic kind. The kind I've got. The kind that isn't a game.
It's odd for me to say that because, perhaps unsurprisingly, I've gamified my own depression. When I was sixteen, and heavily self-harming, I sat in a park at night somewhere near Three Bridges and I made a deal with myself that if I was to commit suicide then I would have lost the game I was playing. I didn't know what the win condition was back then, I still don't, but that was a clear loss. It helped. It gave me a point of power and control and it's kept me going. But some of the worst mistakes I've made have been to, even unconsciously, project that system onto other suffering people, because it has seriously fucked up my relationship with them.
That's the problem with systems. Unlike events, for which you can disclaim universality, systems imply their applicability to all situations. Depression Quest allows that it doesn't describe every depressed person's experience, but it implies that it models it. Ignoring the use of static and glitch as signifiers, they may be tired but they are at least uncontroversially deployed, the first thing you notice when you load up the game, especially if you are used to playing games, are the three gauges at the bottom of the screen. Again, suddenly, there's a win condition, and it's when those gauges say the right things.
It almost doesn't matter that those gauges represent a hopelessly proscriptive view of what depression is and how it should be managed. The fact that they are there at all is enough to imply that failure in this game of coping is the fault of the player, the very thinking the game aims to subvert with it's greyed-out choices. It isn't the case that you can't try these options because you are unwell, it's because you rejected meds and meds always help. If you'd gone to the therapist you'd get to have sex with your girlfriend and enjoy it, but you didn't, so fuck you. You're just not thinking about your illness in the right way, because if you were you'd know how to fix it.
I should be clear, I think medication is wonderful if you get the right stuff, but because we don't know exactly how these illnesses work it is always a compromise. I think therapy can be an incredibly useful tool, but it can also become a very expensive sideshow, even more addictive than the supposed addictiveness of the drugs, and again it depends on so many factors I can't even begin to explain them here.
I stated earlier that I wondered what a game that truly embodied the experience of being mad was like but I'm not sure I actually want to know. I was imagining things like haptic feedback on controllers that flooded your limbs with dull current. Characters that controlled sluggishly, like you were pushing them through treacle. All those similes we employ, writ large on the screen. The thing is, I'm not sure I want to know, really. I wanted to love Depression Quest's core mechanic, but I ended up hating the execution.
I still think that the best expressions of what it is to be depressed come through in Douglas Adams' adventure games. It's in the loneliness of Starship Titanic or the sheer bloody-minded hostility of the world in Hitch-hiker, but the systems of those games are not the vehicle for that expression. I want someone to show me a system that works as well as that, and I admire that people are trying, but I can't not point it out when those noble failures look like propagating further harm.
Labels: Depression, Video Games
Amsel von Spreckelsen
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Four posts on Theory to get you up to Speed
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On Ecology and Economies for Memory Insufficient #9
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This piece discusses suicide in a way that, while hopefully pragmatic may be difficult or triggering for some readers. It contains spoilers...
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Posted on April 1, 2001 March 30, 2011 by Eric T. Miller
Stephen Malkmus: Being Stephen Malkmus
“I’m not what you think I am,” declares Stephen Malkmus on his post-Pavement solo debut. No, he’s not really Yul Brynner or the King Of Siam. But it’s still a wonderful life. By Jonathan Valania
I’m driving Stephen Malkmus’ car. In America, that’s tantamount to possessing someone’s soul. But wait, it gets better: I’m listening to Slanted And Enchanted—make that Malkmus’ copy of Slanted And Enchanted—and it sounds great as I tool down the sun-kissed streets of Portland, Ore., with the windows down and the stereo up. There’s a parking ticket flapping beneath the windshield wiper—and it bores me. I look around at all the people, and I just don’t care. Not a care, really, in the world. I am, for a moment, Stephen Malkmus, fortunate son. Listen to me, I’m on the stereo.
Actually, I’m driving Malkmus’ girlfriend’s car. Which you would know is even better if you’ve ever seen his girlfriend. Her name is Heather Larimer, and she’s beautiful and bright and 28. She was a cheerleader and she has a master’s degree in creative writing—a major-league summer babe (AOL Keyword: Babia Majora). By the time you read this, you may have already seen her singing in Malkmus’ new band, the Jicks. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s back up.
I’m driving Malkmus’ girlfriend’s car because I’ve come to Portland to find out what it means to be Stephen Malkmus (AOL Keyword: Laconic), and the first thing he wants to do is get a friggin’ battery for his car. It’s a 1989 Acura Legend, and it’s been stranded for months in front of his former apartment up in the rich, old-money part of town. Up here, on this faintly Olympian perch where even modest homes list for $300,000, we sit waiting for the AAA guy. Malkmus, the man Courtney Love called “the Grace Kelly of indie rock,” doesn’t want to be interviewed yet, and it isn’t like I know him from Adam; for that matter, after spending three days with him, I will still not really know him from Adam. Aside from a bit of strained small talk, my first half hour or so in the company of one of indie rock’s most acclaimed wordsmiths is spent in silence, watching him clean out his trunk. A soggy copy of an old income-tax form. A Thin Lizzy album. A rumpled suit bag and battered dress shoes, probably last worn to the funeral of his friend Robert Bingham (author of a collection of short stories called Pure Slaughter Value and heir to a publishing fortune). Bingham died from a heroin overdose in the fall of 1999. “I don’t think he was really that into it,” Malkmus will tell me later. “I think he just tried it with this girl … ” The rest of the thought trails off to protect the privacy of the dead.
There’s a song on Malkmus’ self-titled solo album called “Church On White.” It’s prime Malkmus. He sounds sad-eyed and shattered, and the guitars clang languidly, loping along in figure-eights of resignation and regret. It ends with a tolling passage that closes the lid on the final chorus before flaming out in a wailing-wall guitar solo. If every Pavement song was about thinking, this song is about feeling. “Church On White” is about Bingham. He used to live at the intersection of Church and White streets in New York City.
The AAA guy finally arrives and gets the Acura started. Malkmus wants me to follow in Larimer’s car as we go shopping for a new battery. I fish Slanted And Enchanted out of the glove compartment and pop it in the tape deck as we zigzag through the streets of Portland, visiting five different auto-parts stores before Malkmus finds what he needs. File this under Doing Ordinary Things With Extraordinary People. Make no mistake, Malkmus is extraordinary—some say the finest songwriter of his generation—but he replaces his car battery just like you and me: He has the guy at the car-parts store do it.
That’s about all I can tell you about Malkmus with any degree of certainty. Other than that, you’re on your own. I hung out with him, asked him questions for hours, watched him make music, looked at the records in his collection, the books on his shelves, the magazines on his coffee table. I called his old bandmates and his record company. I even called his dad (great guy, by the way). The facts are all here, but, as with any good Pavement song, it’s up to you to figure out what it all means.
Being Stephen Malkmus is … easy. You’re born upper-middle class in Los Angeles, the son of a general property/casualty insurance agent. You live on Citrus Avenue in the City Of Angels, where the sun shines all the time. When you’re eight, you move upstate to the tony suburban subdivisions of Stockton, where you’ll live out your formative years. You meet this kid named Scott Kannberg on your soccer team. You play wing. You learn to play guitar by aping Jimi Hendrix on “Purple Haze,” which features this tricky E chord. When you finally pull it off, you realize you can now play the guitar. You spend your puberty at all-ages punk shows. You even start a punk-rock band called the Straw Dogs, which sounds like a cross between the Adolescents, Wasted Youth and Dead Kennedys, as was the style at the time.
At age 18, you depart cross-country for the University of Virginia, because it’s the best school that accepted you and, besides, your old man went there. You have the distinct feeling you were one of the last students accepted because you’re assigned a room in the basement of the freshman dormitory, which you call a “ghetto for all the dumb kids.” You don’t complain, because even though you fill out the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink, you don’t test well and you only scored 1180 on your SATs. After a couple of years, you declare a major in history because you get the best grades in those classes._You meet David Berman, who will one day be regarded as one of the finest poets of your generation. You will one day make albums with him under the name Silver Jews. (You aren’t Jewish.) You will also meet a super-nice guy named Bob Nastanovich, who will one day talk you into co-owning a racehorse named Speedy Service with him. Who knows, you might even ask him to join your next band if you ever get around to starting one. The three of you become DJs at the college station and sit around drinking beer while raiding the deepest depths of the record stacks: Can, Chrome, Swell Maps, the Fall. These records will serve you well in due time. So well, in fact, that the Fall’s Mark E. Smith will one day curse you in the pages of Q magazine for riding his style to the bank. If someone told you this back in college, you would’ve never believed it.
You record an album under the band name Lakespeed, which even you have to admit sounds a little too derivative of Sonic Youth and the other college-radio superstars of the time. You send it around, but no label is interested. After graduating with a respectable 3.2 grade-point average and not even a vague clue as to what you want to do with your life, you go back to Stockton. You team up with Kannberg, because he’s the only one of your acquaintances who still lives there. He’s learned to play guitar. You make up aliases for each other: You call him Spiral Stairs, he calls you S.M. You record some songs for a seven-inch single you purposely try to make sound really bad, like Television Personalities or Chrome or Pere Ubu. Later, people will call this “lo-fi.” On the day you record, you’ll learn later, a grisly mass murder happens downstate, which is odd because you’ve already decided to call the seven-inch Slay Tracks.
You leave all the pedestrian details of pressing the singles and mailing them out to zines and record labels to Kannberg—who decides to call the project Pavement—and head out on a year-long backpacking trip across Europe. You’ll also visit Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, where you’ll hike out to the intersection of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which, in the Bible, is called Eden. When you get back, you’re amused to learn Slay Tracks has been well-received. You record another single called Demolition Plot J-7 and follow it up with a 10-inch called, rather archly, Perfect Sound Forever. The buzz builds. You move to New York to live with good ol’ Nastanovich. You and Berman get jobs as security guards at the Whitney Museum Of American Art, and to fill the endless ennui of standing for hours babysitting some of the greatest artistic achievements of Western culture, you make up an album’s worth of songs in your head.
Spending Christmas back in Stockton with your family, you record these songs. You call it Slanted And Enchanted. It will change music. It will change people’s lives. It will change your life. You’ll become the slacker prince of indie rock and, as befits the title, you’ll never have to work another day in your life.
That’s the beginning of Pavement (AOL Keyword: Irony); as the middle is well-documented, we’ll talk about the end.
“I wasn’t particularly proud of Pavement at that point,” says Malkmus, recalling the drudgery of recording the band’s final album, 1999’s rather dismal Terror Twilight, and the joyless tour that followed. “I thought it had gone on too long. I wish it would have ended after, like, two records or something. It’s not a bad band to be in, don’t get me wrong. We had been talking about it not being what it should to people for some time. There was an edge to it that was not as heartfelt as it should be to be going out and shoving shit down people’s faces.”
Did you feel that way, or did the other people in the band feel that way?_“You would have to talk to individual people,” he says. “I’m sure that there is a part of everyone that would like to keep it going, because anything they do after that isn’t going to be any bigger. It was a pretty successful run. You want to hold on to that. But I hope everyone realizes that it was the right time to pull the plug and end on an OK note … I made it clear to people in many ways that there was no way I could make another record the way we made records. Making the Silver Jews album (1998’s American Water) was another thing that made me realize that there’s such a better way to be making records, and I knew I could do it. We did that in four days and that was a breeze, and it was such a better record than [Terror Twilight]. I mean the performances, maybe not the songs or the mix, but the performances were much more inspired. I realized I could do that. I didn’t need to settle for uninspired performances.”
When was it official Pavement was over?_“It’s never official, I guess. Anyone that’s asked me for the last year and a half, I’ve said it was over. So I guess a year and a half.”
After the tour for Terror Twilight?_“Before that, even—during it. I never made a formal announcement and nobody asked me in an interview, so we never said anything. I would have liked to have maybe made it more official, but it wasn’t a pressing thing on my mind, and nobody else in the band wanted to do it. So I was like, ‘I’ll just wait until my solo album is out and I have to talk to people anyway for promotion.’ I can kill two birds with one stone instead of having some meaningless media thing last March.”
Do you ever write songs that reveal something about yourself?_“Not really. I’m always commenting or assuming voices about lives that would be interesting to me. I’m not particularly interested in my own feelings or my own struggles, so I wouldn’t write a song about them. But anything you write is a reflection on you, so if you are into being non-revealing, it shows your personality. So I never feel like I’m selling people short.”
What do you think about the way writers characterize you as being cold and aloof?_“It’s never been a problem. Just about every song I like is the same way. The Velvets are always singing about somebody else. Van Morrison is singing about Crazy Face or whatever, and it doesn’t have anything to do with him. People think he’s soulful.”
Do you feel naked going out there without Pavement and just your name up there in lights?_“No. I really don’t care at this point. I’m a big boy and I have my posse. I think it’s gonna be fine. I wouldn’t do it this way if I wasn’t over any deep, stoner-paranoia thing.”
The next night, I’m sitting in a Portland bar with Malkmus and his Jicks: drummer John Moen, bassist Joanna Bolme and back-up singer Larimer. It’s a running joke around Portland that Larimer is Malkmus’ Yoko Ono, in part for her singing style, which, shall we say, has a very casual relationship with the notion of being in key. But she’s much more than just the candy cane on Malkmus’ tree; she’s probably given him the confidence, if not the itch, to strike out on his own. That’s a beautiful thing for one human being to pass along to another.
(This is the part of the story that’s in parentheses. It’s just a theory, and Malkmus, notoriously reluctant to reveal himself in his songs, would never admit this, but I think the song “Jenny & The Ess-Dog” from his solo album is really about their relationship. Some of the names have been changed, but you don’t need a secret decoder ring to figure out who the “S” Dog is. Even though the facts have been disarranged—“She’s a rich girl, he’s the son of a Coca-Cola middleman”—the song has the same vibe Malkmus and Larimer give off when they’re together. It sounds like summer, like falling in love. It’s the catchiest song he’s written since “Cut Your Hair.”)
Moen has pulled drum duty for the Fastbacks and Dharma Bums. He has his own band called the Maroons, which, he says, “doesn’t get off its ass much.” At 32, he looks like a regular-joe version of actor Greg Kinnear, exuding the same disarming niceness and likability. They used to call guys like him “happy go lucky,” but nobody is this happy or lucky anymore. Moen once made his living as a tree surgeon, but “it just didn’t go well with rock ‘n’ roll,” he says. “You gotta be alert when you are running a chipper and climbing trees with a chainsaw in your hand.” Moen owns exactly two Pavement albums: Wowee Zowee and another one he can’t quite remember. “I’m a poor record buyer,” he says, as if his casual Pavement fan status somehow undermines his legitimacy as Malkmus’ drummer.
Moen met Bolme when they played together in one of the latter incarnations of the Spinanes. Before that, Bolme was in Calamity Jane. “It was pre-riot-grrrl, all-girl punk rock,” she says, adding she first heard Pavement on tour with Calamity Jane, listening to Slanted And Enchanted over and over in the tour van. Until recently, she played bass in the Minders, a Portland psych/pop outfit with Elephant 6 connections. Oh yeah, one more thing (and she’ll likely want to strangle me for printing this): She was, on and off for years, the love of Elliott Smith’s life. It’s a safe bet many of Smith’s songs are, in some way, about her. Bolme met Malkmus when the Spinanes’ Rebecca Gates brought her around to his place to play Scrabble.
The next day, the Jicks are rehearsing in the basement of the house Malkmus shares with Larimer, a charming Victorian two-story skirted with a spacious yard. It’s located in a much more modest neighborhood than his last digs. Malkmus is looking to buy, but he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for.
The Jicks have yet to play a proper gig, and they’re a little nervous about their impending live debut in New York. The basement is small and cramped and barely fits the band, so I sit alone up in the living room, listening through the heating vent. I hear Malkmus explaining to touring keyboardist Mike Clark exactly which sounds from the album he’ll be expected to play and which ones will be sampled from the record—which turns out to be quite a few.
“That’s cheating,” says Clark.
“That’s OK,” says Malkmus.
As the Jicks run through the material from Malkmus’ solo album, I visually catalog the contents of the living room. On the turntable: Swaddling Songs by Mellow Candle, an obscure, late-‘60s Irish psych/folk outfit that sounds a bit like Jefferson Airplane. According to Malkmus, an original copy of Swaddling Songs fetches $900. (He has a less-valuable later pressing.) Sitting on deck: Fairport Convention’s What We Did On Our Holidays, R.E.M.’s Fables Of The Reconstruction, Thin Lizzy’s Johnny The Fox and an album of Greek cooking tips. Stacks and stacks of precious vinyl sit nearby. On the bookshelf: In Touch by Paul Bowles, Force Majeure by Bruce Wagner, Collected Poems by Philip Larkin, Vectors And Smoothable Curves by William Bronk, Mexico City Blues by Jack Kerouac and a book about Japanese film directors. The shelves are full, and there are still boxes and boxes of books waiting to be unpacked. On the refrigerator hangs a Christmas card from Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker and her husband, Lance Bangs, who directed two of Pavement’s videos. Inside the card is a photocopy of Tucker’s sonogram above the words, “From Corin & Lance And The Little Guy.” There are a few Steve Keene paintings scattered about the house, the collector’s edition of Scrabble and an eight-track player.
A couple hours later, practice ends and everyone sits around the living room sipping herbal tea. Malkmus is ridiculously attired in a misshapen Stetson (not unlike the one Hoss wore on Gunsmoke), an Evergreen T-shirt, sweatpants, beige running shoes worn like slippers and ugly brown-tinted shades that even David Hasselhoff couldn’t pull off back in the Knight Rider days. Larimer gives him shit for the sweatpants.
“This is my practice outfit,” Malkmus says with mild defensiveness. “(Black Flag guitarist) Greg Ginn always wore sweatpants, and he looked good.”
Malkmus plays DJ: Mellow Candle’s “Silversong” (which he wants the Jicks to cover), Sparks’ “Wonder Girl,” an obscure ‘60s L.A. group called Touch and Buzz Martin (a local logger who made two country albums of modest kitsch value). Malkmus and Larimer have been taking yoga classes, and he shows off some moves. He assumes a perfect Tree Pose, then The Rabbit, and then he curves his body into a little donut hole.
Malkmus is 34, but he’s just now getting around to looking late 20s. He still dresses like an untucked tennis pro. If he was a car, he would be a Volvo with ancient plates. He’s still an inside joke. On record, Malkmus sounds like he’s talking when he sings, but he’s actually singing. His speaking voice is a few notches flatter in affect and even more devoid of emotion. He’s nearly impossible to read—“inscrutable” is Webster’s word for it—which is only compounded by his habit of looking away from you when he speaks. If you look up “laconic” in the dictionary, in some editions you’ll see his picture next to the definition: “concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious.” He lolls about contentedly on the floor, but when he becomes aware I’m taking notes, he spins the conversation into verbal blind alleys. He gets out a book by Ronald Firbank.
“He wrote a book in the ‘20s called Prancing Nigger—he shouldn’t have done that,” says Malkmus, with an impish grin. “W.H. Auden said he judged people on the basis of whether or not they liked Firbank. I have to decide whether or not I like him.”
Are you a big fan of W.H. Auden?
“Not really,” he says dismissively, getting up to put the Psychedelic Furs’ debut on the turntable.
Being Stephen Malkmus is … hard to figure out when you’re the guy writing this article. Malkmus really isn’t much help. So I ring up the Pavement guys. Bassist Mark Ibold doesn’t return my phone calls. The wife of drummer Steve West calls to say he’s on tour in Europe with his band Marble Valley and probably won’t be available. Original Pavement drummer Gary Young, who recorded all the band’s stuff up until 1994’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, agrees to talk but isn’t home when I call at the agreed-upon time; his wife will call back to say Young is out of town and won’t be available for comment.
Good ol’ Nastanovich—Pavement’s percussionist, Moogist and designated shouter—is happy to talk. He’s remained friends with Malkmus and will be road-managing the Jicks, a duty he performed for Pavement’s Crooked Rain tour. “I earned the nickname Harsh Harold,” he says. “I was kind of a slave driver.” Nastanovich (AOL Keyword: The Nas) could see the end of Pavement coming a long way off. He’s just surprised it lasted as long as it did.
“Each tour would end, and it would pretty much be the end of the band,” he says. “And then we would regroup again 10 months later. After the Terror Twilight tour, it was left that it would be on hiatus for a long, long time, if not forever. It was left that we might get back together one day, but it was gonna take a lot longer than just 10 months. I have no regrets. We were an extremely fortunate rock band that got to do things our way and still have a career. It was a great way to spend the ‘90s.”
So, Bob, who is Stephen Malkmus?
“An unusually talented guitarist and songwriter,” he says. “I remember back in college being pretty confident that I was friends with one of the best songwriters in the country in Malkmus and one of the best writers in America in Berman. Not that they both weren’t huge pains in the ass.”
Thanks, Nas.
Kannberg answers the phone, and although he’s a little wary at first, he agrees to talk. Kannberg (AOL Keyword: Spiral Stairs) is finishing up work on the debut album by his band the Preston School Of Industry. Kannberg first met Malkmus in the third grade, though they wouldn’t actually become friends until after high school when they bonded over a mutual love of British post-punk. His first impression of Malkmus: “He was the bratty rich kid.” I ask him how he learned Pavement was breaking up.
“Six months after the Terror Twilight tour, Steve sent me this email that he wanted me to put up on the Pavement website saying that we broke up,” says Kannberg. “I was like, ‘Oh, we broke up!?’ I spoke with the other guys, and they were surprised. Steve’s whole thing was, ‘They should have known. They should have read between the lines.’ I told Steve that I wouldn’t put [the break-up announcement] up on the website until he talked to the rest of the band first. He never got back to me … I’m proud of what we did with Pavement. The way it ended left a bad taste in my mouth, but I’ll get over it. I want to stay positive and leave the negativity to Steve Malkmus.”
Kannberg calls me a week later, concerned he came across as bitter. Not to worry, Scott.
I phone Malkmus’ dad, Stephen Sr., knowing full well Junior probably won’t be pleased. The elder Malkmus is, understandably, very proud of his son, even if Pavement’s music isn’t exactly his cup of tea. “He’s so darn talented,” he says.
How would he describe his son?
“Kinda quiet, very intellectual. He thinks about things a little differently than other people in his line of work.”
Yes, I suppose he does.
Next, I call Chris Lombardi, who along with Gerard Cosloy, owns and operates Matador Records, Malkmus’ label. Yes, it’s true, Lombardi says, that Matador dissuaded Malkmus from calling his new project the Jicks, at least on the album cover. “We kind of freaked out,” says Lombardi. “It was going to be this Carter Family thing: Stephen Jick, Joanna Jick, John Jick. I was like, ‘Stephen, you have to understand that people know who Pavement is, but they don’t necessarily know who Stephen Malkmus is. And they certainly don’t know who the Jicks are.’ I mean, if you listen to it, it’s Stephen’s record. He’s exuding this new confidence, you can see it in the cover photos. In the old Pavement photos, he’s hiding behind the other guys half the time. He’s stepping out.”
And just who is Stephen Malkmus?
“That’s a tough one,” says Lombardi. “He’s a cryptic guy, to start with. One of the smartest and most talented people I know. He’s confused me many times.”
Finally, I email Berman. Sensing the direct approach is getting me nowhere, I send him this question: What epitaph should be written on Malkmus’ headstone, god forbid?
Berman emails back: “Being dead’s OK. It’s alright. I don’t mind much.”
It’s a few weeks later, and Malkmus’ Jicks are making their New York City debut at the Bowery Ballroom. The show sold out almost as soon as it was announced. The crowd is heavily weighted with industry insiders, media types, Matador friends and family, various hipster hangers-on and guys who are the coolest dudes in their dormitory. There are also some in the audience who would like nothing more than to be able to report that indie rock’s emperor has no clothes. By now, the critics’ verdicts on Stephen Malkmus have begun to come in, and the consensus is a solid B-plus from anyone who’s been paying attention since Slanted and four-star hyperbole from anyone who’s just trying to look hip with “the kids.” Ibold is in the crowd, as is Jon Spencer. Matador’s solution to the brand-name recognition problem presented by Malkmus going solo is to hand out T-shirts to everyone in attendance that read: Who The Fuck Is Stephen Malkmus? Good question. By this point I, too, have been putting the “fuck” in there whenever I ask it.
Malkmus elects to begin the set with “Jo Jo’s Jacket,” and maybe it’s just opening-night jitters, but his Jicks look and sound like extras in the movie adaptation of the sequel to Pavement. Though the crowd responds warmly, Malkmus asks that the audience keep in mind that this is their first show. Someone semi-seriously calls out “Judas!” which, like everything Malkmus/Pavement-related, seems to come with those little quotation-mark hand gestures attached, as in, “This is sort of my generation’s Dylan at the Royal Albert Hall, but not really.” I ask the stranger next to me what he thinks.
“Pretty good,” he says, “although the chick singing is kind of a distraction.”
Actually, that’s Malkmus’ girlfriend.
“Right on! I’m all for having a girlfriend that looks 17!”
Rumor has it Elastica’s Justine Frischmann was supposed to play guitar with the Jicks tonight, but it didn’t work out. Malkmus and Frischmann have been “just friends” for years. The Ess-Dog always stayed at her London flat whenever Pavement was in town. “I remember one morning we came by to pick him up,” said Nastanovich. “He comes walking out, and our roadie says, ‘It looks like she did his hair with her thighs.’” You almost have to wonder if she didn’t befriend Malkmus just to piss off Blur’s Damon Albarn, her ex-boyfriend and an avowed Pavement fan. I think back to the first night I met Malkmus for this story, in Seattle on New Year’s Eve, and how he was wearing a Mogwai T-shirt that read: Blur Are Shite.
Truth be told, the Jicks could use a second guitarist right about now. With his voice and guitar pushed high in the sound mix, Malkmus seems, at first, a little naked without some Pavement to surround him, diffusing attention and spreading out the blame. But Malkmus has always cloaked himself in good tunes, and by the time the Jicks get to “Church On White,” a song with miles and miles of style, he seems impeccably attired. Adorned. Imperial. Like the Grace Kelly of indie rock.
It’s then I realize that being Stephen Malkmus … is, well, something only he can do. Something he has to do all by himself.
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Posted on April 26, 2012 April 17, 2012 by MAGNET Staff
Hidden Gems: Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Brian Eno And Nico’s “June 1, 1974”
Each week, we take a look at some obscure or overlooked entries in the catalogs of music’s big names. MAGNET’s Bryan Bierman focuses on an album that, for whatever reason, slipped through the cracks in favor of its more popular siblings. Whether it’s new to you or just needs a revisit, we’ll highlight the Hidden Gems that reveal the bigger picture of our favorite artists.
Supergroups are one of rock music’s most frustrating entities. On paper, gathering up several big stars to collaborate might look good, but the results are rarely spectacular; for every Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young or Derek And The Dominos, there’s at least a dozen SuperHeavys. When a supergroup forms, there are definitely high, oftentimes impossible, expectations from the fan base, not to mention the tremendous amount of ego of its participants, which can easily soil the work. There’s sometimes a sense of quasi-perverseness in the eyes of the band members, whether it’s “everything we do is gold” or “we could try harder, but people will buy this no matter what.” (Although the results turned out to be pretty solid, Them Crooked Vultures—consisting of Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, Nirvana/Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones—were selling T-shirts and concert tickets hand over fist before they even premiered a full song.)
One supergroup dealt with these tropes and did the opposite (at least somewhat). Instead of several giant superstars, the June 1, 1974 band featured a handful of cult musicians in a sold out concert at London’s Rainbow Theatre. Heading the group was Kevin Ayers, a founding member of Canterbury avant-psych rockers Soft Machine, who had by then gone solo. The show’s quote, unquote “leader” was Brian Eno, the former keyboardist for Roxy Music, just off the release of his first solo album (and masterpiece) Here Come The Warm Jets. The other two names were John Cale and Nico, two brilliant artists who were both ex-members of the Velvet Underground, a band whose legend and influence was finally being crystalized in 1974, even though they were finished. The backing musicians featured even more cult heroes, including Mike Oldfield (of Tubular Bells fame), John “Rabbit” Bundrick (rock journeyman and future keyboardist for the Who) and Robert Wyatt (the now solo, ex-drummer for Soft Machine, who was paralyzed from the waist down in a fall exactly one year earlier.)
The idea for the performance was spearheaded by Richard Williams, A&R man for Island Records, who had helped sign several of the artists. Island was originally a strictly reggae label based in Jamaica, but starting in the late ‘60s, had started to release all kinds of music, especially artists of a more experimental nature. Though the critics lauded Island’s output, much of it didn’t sell very well, so while the concert was, in part, a unique artistic endeavor, there was a business element, too. As Cale explained in a 1974 press release for his upcoming solo album, “They had all these cult people on the label. The idea was that if you put them all together you might sell enough to justify their presence.”
The rehearsals were a dream come true for Eno. The Velvet Underground was a giant influence on him, and in return, branded the band with the legacy-defining sentiments that even though the Velvets didn’t sell many records, everyone who did buy them formed a band. (The exact quote changes depending on who’s telling it, as does who actually said it; it’s likely it wasn’t Eno after all.) Now he was collaborating with two of the band’s members, though he didn’t treat them any differently when it came to the music. He explained in a 1975 interview with Hit Parader, “Working with them was of course interesting; both of them are very demanding people in a way—and so am I in another way. It was a very volatile situation and those are the ones that interest me in music. We weren’t sitting around patting each other on the back saying ‘groovy,’ ‘let’s blow together’—it was quite intense.” As a sort of logistical adviser for the concert, he was careful not to make the mistakes that bog down most supergroups: “what happens usually is that you get the lowest common denominator of every person. You don’t bring out the best points in them, you bring out the points where they all agree.”
As Ayers and backing band the Soporifics were the main attraction, the bulk of the set list was focused on him. Unsurprisingly, he was incredibly relaxed during the short rehearsals, as Ayers seems to glide through things effortlessly, which represents itself in his music. Cale, however, was incredibly nervous about the show, as he had never really played live as a solo artist. Though he had made numerous records and produced a ton of groups, he hadn’t taken it to the stage since his Velvet Underground days. There was one thing, however, Ayers and Cale did have in common: the latter’s wife, Cindy Wells. A famous groupie in the late ‘60s, “Miss Cynderella” was later a member of groupie-band the GTO’s. Wells and Cale had married in 1971, though it was a shaky partnership, at best. The night before the Rainbow Theatre concert, as Cale was stressing himself out, he learned that Ayers and Wells were having sex behind his back. Cale confronted Ayers, who admitted it, but his wife repeatedly denied it. None of this helped Cale’s situation. In fact, the album’s cover photo, taken the night of the show, shows Ayers and Cale in a very awkward stare-down; Ayers is smirking, while Cale looks like he could kill the man. (The next year, Cale documented the incident on Slow Dazzle’s “Guts”: “The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife, did it quick and split.” His marriage with Wells ended soon after.)
Rather poetically, Cale’s single solo contribution to the album, though he played several songs that night, is a gnarled cover of Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel.” Taking all the sexiness out of the original and substituting pure rage, the version is almost unnerving at times. In front of pounding drums, Cale’s screams punctuate the choruses, as do the three female backup singers who wail along with Eno’s siren-like synthesizer, echoing through. Cale would record “Heartbreak Hotel” on Slow Dazzle, but this is perhaps the best recorded version. (The song would become a live staple for him, later soundtracking his chicken beheading, as documented in an earlier Hidden Gems.)
Like Cale, Nico also only has one song featured on June 1, 1974, though like the former, it’s a showstopper. Her contribution is a haunting cover of “The End” by the Doors using just a harmonium and Eno’s synthesizer in a nine-minute long float of tension. Nico had a very intense relationship with Jim Morrison for a period in ’67 that was famously filled with fights, drugs and blood rituals in the desert. It ended after a short time, but the two free-spirits remained friends for the next few years. In July 1971, Nico made a phone call to Morrison’s Parisian residence, though he didn’t pick up; when she later found out the reason was because of his death, she was devastated. During May and June 1974, Nico was in the midst of recording her next solo album with Cale, which featured a more filled version of “The End” as the title track. (Also included on the record was “You Forgot To Answer,” a depressing ode to her last phone call to Morrison.) Even without knowing the dramatic subtext, the version here is still ghastly. Nico had one of the most unique voices in music, with her thick German accent and unbound sadness, and her brooding version stays true to the original on a scary, emotional level.
The much more upbeat side two is all Ayers, functioning as a great summation of his solo career up until that point. Opening with “May I?” from 1970’s Shooting At The Moon, Ayers’ charmingly laid-back nature accentuates the mellow grooves, even singing the last verse in French. “Shouting In A Bucket Blues” is almost a perfect representation of Ayers’ style: a melancholic tune about loneliness that sounds less than a self-pitying wallow, and more of a man trying to be happy, even if it’s not going so well. “So I sing for everyone who feels there’s no way out,” Ayers announces in his unique baritone, “but maybe if you all shout, someone will hear you.” The heroes of Ayers’ set are the guitar work of Oldfield and, particularly, Ollie Halsall. The latter’s mercurial runs up and down the neck provides an exquisite counterpoint to the casual atmosphere of the songs, especially the pseudo-rockabilly “Stranger In Blue Suede Shoes.”
June 1, 1974 was remarkably released the same month, as several more performances from the group followed. The album, although superb, merely acts as a sampler of the music that night; various bootlegs capture the entirety of the show, featuring more songs from each of the members, including a mini-reunion performance of a few Soft Machine songs and a version of Ayers’ “I’ve Got A Hard-On For You, Baby” that ironically, given the back story, features Cale on vocals. The participants of the concert would continue to work together over the years—even Cale and Ayers, who later made up. The record went on to become a cult classic, a fusion of some of rock’s most innovative minds. Although the show was a joy for him, the ever-sensible Eno realistically explained, “Of course we really couldn’t take it on the road, because we’d fight after a few gigs.”
CategoriesHIDDEN GEMS
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Alien (1979) is 20th Century Fox's extremely suspenseful, space science-fiction horror film about a menacing, unstoppable, carnivorous, stowaway, hermaphroditic Demon beast.
No Country for Old Men ( film ), wikipedia Purdue OWL / Purdue Writing Lab Analysis, guide English Major., goshen College
Their chief worries are whether or not theyll have a date to the dance and can they get the car. Chigurh hides behind the door. Nor does it contain in-depth study of such other 50s developments as the growth of mega-corporations and conglomerates, the suburban building boom that broke the backs of our cities, the separation of labors political power from the workers by union leaders and organization men. The tragedy of the commons as a food basket is averted by private property, or something formally like. 36 The.S.-Mexico border crossing bridge was actually a freeway overpass in Las Vegas, with a border checkpoint set built at the intersection of Interstate 25 and New Mexico State Highway. Its application is unique to the musical comedy, an ephemeral entertainment which has found new relevance through its philosophical engagement with 21st century concepts of irony and alienation." Still, Ironic Detachment isnt entirely new in musical theatre weve seen it before, periodically over the twentieth. Sex was no longer subtle or implied. Record companies were releasing describe shock essay more than a hundred singles every week and the country was about to explode. The rock musical had been born with Expresso Bongo in 1958 and became mainstream with Hair in 1968, but it became a fixture on Broadway during the seventies, partly because the definition of rock was so pliable, so inclusive by then. The Foley for the captive bolt pistol used by Chigurh was created using a pneumatic nail gun. Up to that time, rock and roll addressed teen angst and misfired romance; but once the sixties arrived, rock songs would tackle war, injustice, sexual oppression, drugs, hypocrisy and authority, religion, and politics.
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Whitaker on Herschberg Pierrot, ed. (2009)
Herschberg Pierrot, Anne, ed. Œuvres & Critiques XXXIV (1). Écrivains contemporains lecteurs de Flaubert. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2009. Pp. 105. ISSN: 0338-1900
Jena Whitaker, Johns Hopkins University
This issue of the journal Œuvres et critiques explores the extent to which the nineteenth-century novelist Gustave Flaubert has influenced contemporary literature. Focusing on authors and works ranging from the latter part of the twentieth century to the present day, the six essays comprising the collection analyze an extensive number of topics including critical reception of the French novel, genetic criticism, and the writing process itself. In her brief introduction entitled “Flaubert, contemporain,” the “coordinatrice” of this fascicule, Anne Herschberg Pierrot, asks three essential questions that guide the reflective thinking of the issue: “Qu’est-ce qu’écrire à partir de Flaubert? Qu’est-ce que lire Flaubert quand on écrit? Comment cette lecture a-t-elle transformée l’image de l’œuvre?” (4). The different approaches found in this anthology provide several answers to these overarching questions, shedding light on how Flaubert’s novels have considerably changed both the reading and writing of modern authors and critics. Through a close study of Flaubert’s impact on writers such as Pierre Bergounioux, Jorge Luis Borges, Raymond Queneau, Roland Barthes, Italo Calvino, and Claude Simon, this resourceful group of essays proves that Flaubert is indisputably a powerful and unforgettable literary presence.
In his essay “Modernités de Bouvard et Pécuchet, Borges, Queneau,” for example, Jacques Neefs gives an account of how Jorge Luis Borges and Raymond Queneau interpreted Flaubert’s last and unfinished novel, Bouvard et Pécuchet. As Neefs shows, the critiques of both Borges and Queneau were innovative because they raised an awareness of the novel’s philosophical significance, placing special emphasis on its skeptical critique of absolute knowledge. Although some scholars have criticized the chronological inconsistencies in Bouvard et Pécuchet, Neefs points out that both Queneau and Borges attributed these temporal contradictions to the novel’s symbolic power as well as Flaubert’s epic ambition. Much like Queneau and Borges, Barthes also studied the use of myth, time, and self-reflexivity in Bouvard et Pécuchet. Indeed, in her essay “Présence de Bouvard et Pécuchet chez Roland Barthes,” Herschberg Pierrot explains how Flaubert’s novel motivated a number of Barthes’s theoretical texts, notably his “Le mythe aujourd’hui” (1956) and “La mort de l’auteur” (1968).
Gisèle Séginger’s essay entitled “Le Flaubert de Claude Simon,” investigates the numerous connections between Flaubert’s literary aesthetic and Simon’s conception of the nouveau roman. As Séginger notes, the writing of both Flaubert and Simon adopts a critical, disenchanted, and non-anthropocentric outlook on history that allows their works to create not only a new descriptive style, but also a new form of vision. In Flaubert’s works, for example, narrative progression does not depend on a linear chronology, but rather on the power of memory to connect certain sensations and images. Flaubert’s use of discontinuity and fragmentation, Séginger explains, had a marked effect on Simon’s literary theories. Indeed, in many of Simon’s essays, namely his Discours du Stockholm (1986), the author explicitly references Flaubert, explaining that the formal qualities of Flaubert’s works have helped him understand the importance of concrete details.
In the final essay of the collection, “On ne se souvient pas de Flaubert,” Tiphaine Samoyault considers Flaubert’s perpetual presence within contemporary French literature, bringing to light modern authors’ continued encounters with the recurring themes of his works. As Samoyault explains: “C’est sans doute une référence qui s’impose toujours sur le mode de la présence et qui ne se place pas, contrairement à presque toutes les autres, sous les auspices de la mémoire” (88). In order to trace this presence, Samoyault outlines three essential directions of Flaubertian influence: la “ligne Bouvard et Pécuchet,” la “ligne Éducation sentimentale,” and la “ligne Madame Bovary.” Much like the essays written by Neefs and Herschberg Pierrot, Samoyault explains that the “ligne Bouvard et Pécuchet” includes authors and artists who challenge positivism and absolute knowledge, as well as works that bring into question the notion of idiocy and the act of copying. While the “ligne Bouvard et Pécuchet” focuses on aesthetic creation, la “ligne Éducation sentimentale” is concerned with the psychological characteristics of the novel’s hero, Frédéric Moreau, who has a melancholic and disillusioned outlook on history. Indeed, works inspired by Flaubert’s Éducation sentimentale often include characters who have a nostalgic relationship to the past and whose identities are uncertain. Finally, in her discussion of the “ligne Madame Bovary,” Samoyault shows that Flaubert’s literary creation is directly related to both fragmentation and a tension between continuity and discontinuity.
Through the many different sources and references found in the collection, the reader is able to discover several visionary elements of Flaubert’s style. Moreover, since the essays concentrate on a nineteenth-century novelist’s pronounced impact on contemporary literature and theory, they demonstrate that the nineteenth century itself is a central and enduring field of study. For this reason, I also recommend this anthology to those who research twentieth- and twenty-first century literature.
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Kapoor on Séginger, ed. (2008)
Séginger, Gisèle, ed. Gustave Flaubert 6: Fiction et philosophie. Caen: Lettres Modernes Minard, 2008. Pp. 278. ISBN: 978-2-256-91137-8
Sucheta Kapoor, Independent Scholar
This four-part volume centers on reading and philosophical reflection in Bouvard and Pécuchet, Madame Bovary, and Salammbô. Four out of seven essays in the first part of this volume are devoted to analyses of Bouvard and Pécuchet’s readings in Flaubert’s last, eponymous, unfinished novel. Agnès Bouvier’s essay, which shows how Flaubert read natural historian Pliny, stands out in the second part. The highlight of the third part —Flaubert’s hitherto unpublished notes on the philosophy of Hegel and Spinoza preserved at the Bibliothèque municipale de Rouen—consists of the 126 pages of notes on thirty-two authors/commentators that he made from December 1878 to March 1879 in preparation for writing Bouvard et Pécuchet (225).
These unpublished notes reveal that Flaubert repeated and/or underlined key ideas under both Hegel and Spinoza. The notes form an autonomous little world and serve a dual purpose: not only do they go back to the source of the essays on Bouvard et Pécuchet, the encyclopaedic or philosophical novel for which they were intended, they also provide insight into the deep, understated philosophy of romantic novels such as Madame Bovary and Salammbô.
Michael A. Soubbotnik’s essay helps us understand the context in which Bouvard and Pécuchet become interested in studying philosophy. Stéphanie Dord-Crouslé examines the notes as well as the notes on notes that Flaubert made to write the chapter on literature in Bouvard et Pécuchet. Flaubert recopied authoritative definitions of Beauty from different philosophers, shortened them, used his own words to rephrase them, retaining only those parts which suggested abstract thought, and those which had a musical rhythm, for example, “recevoir une impression de plaisir ou de peine” (97). In the book, Bouvard and Pécuchet answer the question “What is Beauty?” with: “Pour Schelling c’est l’infini s’exprimant par le fini, pour Reid une qualité occulte, pour Jouffroy un fait indécomposable, pour De Maistre ce qui plaît à la vertu; pour le P. André, ce qui convient à la Raison.” In her essay Florence Vatan wonders whether Bouvard and Pécuchet could be considered disciples of the nineteenth-century iconoclast French philosopher Hippolyte Taine, whose theory on the artistic quality of hallucination Flaubert read attentively (130). Taine discussed his theory with writers like Flaubert and Turgenev and in a letter to Turgenev, Taine described Bouvard and Pécuchet as two snails striving to climb to the top of Mount Blanc: at their first fall, one smiles; the second fall is intolerable (136). In De L’Intelligence (1870) Taine described his theory of intelligence as general anatomy, after a quantity of unusual dissections. In her essay Juliette Grange also demonstrates the irreconcilable duality that reigns over Bouvard et Pécuchet, arranging Bouvard’s and Pécuchet’s individual attributes into two columns: among other qualities, under Bouvard she notes materialism, beneath Pécuchet she mentions spiritualism (150). This is one of the reasons why the novel does not progress (153).
In the second part of the book, scholars study Madame Bovary and Salammbô not as books of philosophy, but as representing certain philosophies of life. Kazuhiro Matsuzawa contrasts the opposite personalities of Emma and Charles, their different conceptions of love and happiness. In her interpretation of Flaubert’s reading of miracles in Pliny, Bouvier draws attention to Hamilcar’s treasures, an antique thesaurus as well as masses of things, “choses mystérieuses, qui n’avaient pas de nom, et d’une incalculable valeur” (181). Like Pliny, Flaubert invites readers to wonder at the miracles of nature and also apprehend nature as a miracle. The remaining three essays in the collection, those by Delphine Jayot, Taro Nakajima, and Gisèle Séginger, look at Flaubert’s work from the viewpoints of philosophy and literature and they continue the dominant theme of reading and creating art.
Thought-provoking as well as offering valuable insight into the creative process through meticulous readings, this collection is a welcome addition to publications from France attempting to interpret Flaubert’s artistic interest in philosophy.
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Predator: Hunting Grounds Is Friday the 13th's Successor
Pay attention, fans of Friday the 13th: The Game! You have a new title to look forward to. Fortunately for you, it is just as good, campy, and inspired by a horror classic. The Predator is coming to you. By which I mean, the often nemesis of the Alien (or Aliens) is getting a title called Predator: Hunting Grounds.
IllFonic is working on this new title, which was revealed at the second Sony State of Play presentation on May 9, 2019. Like the 1987 movie, a group of soldiers is being pursued by the Predator. One of the people playing is the Predator. The other people are the human soldiers who are being hunted by it.
Like Friday the 13th: The Game, Predator: Hunting Grounds is an asynchronous online multiplayer game. The soldiers have to infiltrate an area, acquire some important, mission-related items, then escape safely. The Predator's goal is to kill them all. Think of it as being like the camp counselors trying to survive in Friday the 13th and escape Jason.
There's still a little while to wait for this one. Sony noted it will be coming to the PlayStation 4 in 2020. However, it does mean that people will have major PlayStation 4 games to look forward to going into next year, even with the PlayStation 5 around the bend. Also, those curious about what Illfonic is capable of can look to a very clear example. Let's just hope legal troubles don't keep this title from having its future cut short.
Jenni Lada
JMariye
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Ian Cumberland:
Once Removed
6 August - 24 September 2016
Millennium Court Arts Centre is delighted to present Once Removed, the first solo exhibition in Ireland by Irish visual artist Ian Cumberland. Cumberland is known for his stunning large oil paintings, particularly his award winning ‘heads’ and has been awarded the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s ACES funding for the development of this new body of work.
Once Removed is a modern day tale of consumerist alienation and the ‘society of the spectacle’ where authentic social life is replaced with its representation leaving little beneath, a process that has accelerated in the age of social media and selfies. The painted works ruminate on the individual, their understanding of self, and the disparity between appearance and reality. To do this Cumberland produces tightly framed magnified, fleshy faces (‘heads’) that meet the viewer’s eye and works depicting solitary figures confined in a series of uncanny domestic spaces. Instances of the surreal punctuate the work.
The beautiful, youthful figures of Cumberland’s cast appear fixated on superficial attractiveness. They exude glamour but their perfection is belied by a mottled complexion and malaise. Some appear at a remove, reflected in mirrors, which have a long association in art history, not least as indicators of the illusory nature of painting itself, but also vanity, and in the mid twentieth century, psychoanalytic self-recognition. Even the surreal black holes that absorb the pictured inhabitants are mirrored, like the surface of smart phones or tablets. These scenes possess a hallucinatory stillness and are heightened by the artist’s vivid use of colour and attention to detail – in fabrics and carpets.
Cumberland’s paintings are technically brilliant and realistic in style. The painted surface performs a sort of alchemy that transcends the photographic source material, making this symbolic depiction of the contemporary condition more, not less believable and absorbing. Cumberland also explores painting’s mode of presentation through complex installations as well as producing new sculptural installations (including the recurring black hole motif) that mark a departure into three-dimensional work.
About the artist: Ian Cumberland (b. 1983) is an Irish Visual Artist. He studied Fine Art at the University of Ulster, Belfast where he was awarded the John and Rachael Turner Award for the most outstanding student in their field. Cumberland has gained a national and international reputation for his large scale award-winning ‘head’ paintings. In 2010 he won the Davy Portrait Award, in 2011 he was placed third in the prestigious BP Portrait Award as well as winning the Ireland-US Council and Irish Arts Review Portraiture Award at the Royal Hibernian Academy. http://www.iancumberland.com/works/portfolio/
Mirror Stage, Oil on Linen Size, 120x140 cm, 2016
Distance, Oil on Linen Size, 90x150cm, 2016
Black Hole, Oil on Linen Size, 140x110cm, 2016
Millennium Court Arts Centre Virtual Tour
Experience our gallery online by taking a virtual tour and immerse yourself in Ian Cumberland’s exhibition ’Once Removed’.
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The present disclosure provides polymorphic forms of sodium benzoate with a X-ray diffraction pattern comprising characteristic peaks at a reflection angle 2? of approximately 5.9, 30.2, and 31.2 degrees; or a X-ray diffraction pattern comprising characteristic peaks at a reflection angle 2? of approximately 3.7, 5.9, and 26.6 degrees. Also provided herein are methods of preparing the polymorphic forms of sodium benzoate and uses thereof in treating and/or reducing the risk for a neuropsychiatric disorder (e.g., schizophrenia, psychotic disorders, depressive disorders, or Alzheimer’s disease).
Claim(s)
1. A polymorphic form of sodium benzoate, which has an X-ray diffraction pattern comprising characteristic peaks at a reflection angle 2? of approximately 5.9, 30.2, and 31.2 degrees, wherein the X-ray diffraction pattern further comprises characteristic peaks at a reflection angle 2? of approximately 4.3, 7.1, 8.6, 10.1, 10.7, 12.9, 13.8, 14.4, 17.2, 17.7, 18.5, 21.5, 22.0, 22.6, 23.7, 25.1, 25.9, 26.2, 26.9, 27.9, 28.2, 28.8, 29.1, 29.7, 33.2, 34.9, 35.8, 36.1, and 39.3 degrees, and wherein the polymorphic form of sodium benzoate has a water solubility of 666 mg/ml at ambient temperature.;
8. A polymorphic form of sodium benzoate, which is prepared by a process comprising (i) fully dissolving sodium benzoate in water followed by gradual addition of isopropyl alcohol to form a slurry, wherein the isopropyl alcohol and water are in a volume ratio of 5:1, (ii) stirring the slurry for 3 to 4 days to produce the polymorphic form of sodium benzoate, and (iii) filtering and collecting the solid thus formed.
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Home / sports / Weevils split, top last year’s league win total
Weevils split, top last year’s league win total
In any collegiate athletic endeavor, new coaches have to take baby steps until they get their ideas ingrained in their athletes—and their own recruits ingrained in the program. The University of Arkansas at Monticello Boll Weevils accomplished one of those stages Saturday.
Finishing 2014-15 at 3-17 and in the Great American Conference cellar is not something anybody wanted to endure, much less new coaches Kyle Tolin and Michael Cyprien. With a 72-63 win at Arkansas Tech University, the second-year staff (now at three with the addition of Tolin’s Hall of Fame father, Doug Tolin) led the Weevils to their fourth GAC victory before the halfway point of the conference season.
Unfortunately, that high didn’t last long. In a makeup game postponed from last Thursday because of an anticipated snow storm, Ouachita Baptist University and reigning GAC Player of the Year Tirrell Brown tempered UAM’s enthusiasm with a 66-63 defeat of the Weevils at Steelman Field House.
The split gave UAM a 6-11 overall mark and a 4-7 conference slate. Still, the Weevils are tied for eighth in the league standings; important because the top eight teams after the regular season will advance to the postseason tournament. Two more home games loom just ahead for UAM.
Southeastern Oklahoma State University, also tied for eighth in the GAC at 4-7, visits Monticello Thursday at 7:30 p.m. while East Central University, currently sitting in third place at 8-3, comes calling Saturday at 3 p.m. UAM has dropped games to each school already (during the Weevils’ season-opening six-game losing streak) and, with UAM’s overtime loss to Southern Arkansas University at home on Jan. 18, Kyle Tolin said the upcoming contests take on an even bigger meaning.
“You’ve got to take care of business on the home floor,” the head Weevil noted, “and we haven’t done that the last two games.”
Monday, each team had an advantage for more than 19 minutes—there were four ties and four lead changes. UAM’s biggest lead was at 9:31 of the first half, a 17-8 margin after a made three-point shot by senior Richard Benedyth. Ouachita reversed its deficit by halftime and the Tigers raced out to a 13-point lead of their own, 62-49, when Brown netted a jumper at the 3:35 mark.
After that, however, the Weevils went on a 14-3 run to cut the visitors’ second-half dominance to two points. That was as close as UAM would get.
“They’re a good team,” Kyle Tolin said of the Tigers, who are currently tied for first in the GAC at 9-2 with Harding University. “They made plays down the stretch and we didn’t. We battled. I don’t think it was that we didn’t play hard because we did. I thought the kids gave the effort to win.”
Brown, who also earned the GAC Newcomer of the Year award last season after transferring to Ouachita from the University of Central Arkansas, led three Tigers in double figures with a game-high 28 points. UAM’s Andre Brown, charged with shadowing Tirrell Brown most of the night, responded with a double-double, 20 points and 16 rebounds, both season bests.
“Andre really played well,” Kyle Tolin noted. “He accepted the challenge of guarding their kid who was Player of the Year last year—and probably will be again. We need him to play well.”
Andre Brown’s senior classmates, Benedyth and Jerron Washington, also reached double figures for UAM. Benedyth and Washington scored 12 points apiece.
It was a much brighter story for the Weevils at Tech’s John E. Tucker Coliseum two days earlier. UAM used three-pointers from Benedyth and senior Jamal Peterson on back-to-back possessions early in the first half to take a four-point lead. The Weevils did not trail for the remainder of the half, and held their largest lead of the period following a 7-0 run capped by another long-range shot from Benedyth at the 7:28 mark that gave UAM a 28-18 advantage.
The Wonder Boys later used a 13-4 run to cut their visitors’ lead down to one point with 2:45 remaining before halftime. UAM led 34-33 at the break after out-shooting Tech by 20 percentage points in the first 20 minutes.
The two squads exchanged 8-0 runs to start the second half. UAM’s run came first, highlighted by a pair of three-pointers from Benedyth—leading to an ATU timeout less than two minutes into the period. Tolin was forced to take a timeout of his own two a minute and a half later when Tech cut its deficit down to one point.
The Weevils got back on top by double digits with just less than seven minutes remaining, using on a 9-0 run over the span of 2:43 to lead by as much as 14 points.
Tech took advantage of missed free throws by UAM down the stretch to climb back to within six points with 1:46 remaining, but no closer than that.
“We played well,” Kyle Tolin said of the Weevils’ trip north. “I thought we defended well. We made plays and moved the ball. I thought we really played together. For us being on the road playing a team that has gone to seven straight NCAA Tournaments, I thought it was huge.”
Benedyth tied his career-high in scoring with 24 points. Peterson followed with 15 points. Andre Brown turned in a double-double of 14 points and 11 rebounds. Junior Vicktor Arnick also reached double digits in points with 11.
By Harold Coggins sports@monticellonews.net
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by Hadley Newton on September 28, 2013 September 28, 2013
Netflix company, Jenji Kohan (Producer), Jordan Jacobs (Art Director)
This summer, I went to prison. Well, not actually, but I did watch Netflix’s original series “Orange is the New Black,” and therefore feel as though I am something of an authority on the subject of federal penitentiary. Piper Chapman, the show’s WASPy, neurotic protagonist, has led me on a tour of prison life, providing a kind of personal “scared straight” program.
After binge-watching the first season, I can pass on these lessons about the realities of prison (at least as they are portrayed by the dramedy’s creator Jenji Kohan and her troupe of actors):
If you are thinking about having a lesbian love affair with a drug dealer, think again. In fact, even a non-lesbian love affair with a drug dealer may be out of the question. The show is based on the memoir of Piper Kerman, who was sentenced to 15 months in prison for carrying drug money across international borders for her one-time flame, Alex. Piper’s Hollywood equivalent, actress Taylor Schilling, has more than convinced me that dating a drug dealer is not good life choice. If you are involved with a member of an international drug cartel, your life may be fabulous for several years and you may travel to tropical locations, but, in the end, you will be turned in and all you will see is the inside of a penitentiary in Litchfield, New York. This prison will look suspiciously like my old public elementary school, with cinderblock halls and laminated cafeteria benches and a general lack of privacy. In fact, both the toilet stalls in this fictional prison and at my elementary school lack functioning doors (a realization that made me question the state of public education in our country). Furthermore, your lesbian ex might reappear in prison and make things awkward with your fiancé (spoiler alert!).
When in prison, you will be meeting many, many people—so many people that you may have difficulty remembering their names. Seriously, OITNB has enough characters to employ the entire Screen Actors Guild. All the inmates will all be uniquely scary and unkempt, but you will still struggle to recall their monikers. Just smile and wave and hope they don’t stab you with a screwdriver. In addition, avoid anyone with the nickname Scary Eyes. Her unrelenting stares and Miley-Cryus-at-the-VMAs hairstyle are enough to make anyone cry.
Do not criticize the food or insult the cook. You might end up with a tampon sandwich. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to incorporate iron into my diet by eating spinach.
Don’t mock anyone for her religious beliefs. I mean, hopefully you wouldn’t do that anyway, but the women in prison may have more radical beliefs than those to which you are accustomed. If one of your inmates claims to be a miracle worker, do not set up a series of tricks to embolden her and then set her up to fail. It will not be as funny as you thought it would be, and she may come after you in revenge with a shank.
You will look bad in prison. There is no way around it. Despite the title of the series, you will not wear orange, and your outfit will not be trendy. You will wear dingy brown scrubs that make you look like a cardboard box. On the bright side, feel free to gain a few pounds, because nobody will notice.
Wash your face. From the beginning credits and accompanying Regina Spektor song “You’ve Got Time,” I am frightened. Garish, pierced, unwashed faces of dozens of incarcerated women flash across the scene as Regina croons about all the time you will have to reflect and gaze upon the ghastly faces of your fellow inmates. The effect is jarring, and vaguely revolting. I asked myself, “If I go to prison, will I look this horrible? More importantly, will people look at my face this closely?” It is worth avoiding prison just to keep up with your skincare. It seems that doing hard time is hard on your complexion.
Be racially ambiguous. In and out of the lunchroom, inmates on OITNB tend to help their own sisters out. Try to be equal parts Taylor Swift, Beyoncé Knowles, and Jennifer Lopez. That way, you can ask favors from all the ladies, and you will be an extraordinary singer.
Avoid the rapestache. Some prison guards have moustaches that are most often associated with porn stars and the more burly employees at Home Depot. They will shout obscenities at you and expect sexual favors. Do not follow them into a broom closet or the church. (Because yes, the prison’s church is a hotbed for sexual activity. The video cameras may not be rolling there, but, rest assured, God is watching and shaking his head.)
You will not have a cell phone in prison. That is reason enough to steer clear of a life of crime. You will not be able to tweet about how much prison sucks or snapchat pouty pictures or message your friends for advice. Prison will become your only reality. The actresses on the show certainly find their time in character (and thus away from their phones) grueling, because, as soon as they are done filming, they whip out their camera phones and release a flurry of group selfies on their Instagram accounts. Social media is an addiction, and prison is a difficult place to go through withdrawal.
Beware of the Solitary Housing Unit (SHU). Solitary confinement may cause you to start talking to yourself or with invented inmates. You may never recover your sanity. In addition, the guards seem to only serve rotting baloney, which is just gross. In conclusion, prison seemed entertaining and even humorous when I was snuggled in my bed, watching episode after episode of OITNB, but the inmates’ many struggles have had a lasting psychological effect. Recently, I was watching a news program which followed a group of women on parole, and I genuinely felt connected to them, like I knew what they had been through.
Their faces and stories felt familiar. They could have been Piper Chapman’s cellmates—they could have been my cellmates. Prison no longer feels like a faraway, vaguely scary idea, but instead like a close, particularly uncomfortable memory.
In a NPR interview of Jenji Kohan, the director noted, “Piper was my Trojan Horse.” Television network executives were not interested in the story of an underprivileged Latino woman going to jail, because that would not attract attention or boost ratings.
However, Piper, a white, preppy woman, is a character that is relatable to all white, preppy women (like myself), and thus she is marketable to a largely white television audience. Kohan has been able to use Piper as a tool to lure an unlikely audience into the annals of prison life. I certainly began watching the show because I was drawn to Piper’s story, but by the end of the season, I was more interested in the backstories of her various inmates. In reality, I know nothing of the genuine experience of going to jail, but at least Piper Chapman and the whole cast of OITNB have given the world (or those with access to Netflix) some insight into the perils of prison life. I, for one, may never break a law again or at least a law punishable by time in a medium security prison.
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Music Charts Magazine® History – Song for the month of June 2014: Jim Croce – “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”
Music Charts Magazine® History
- Song for the month of June 2014:
Jim Croce - "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"
http://www.musicchartsmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/08-Bad-Bad-Leroy-Brown.mp3
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" is a song written by American folk rock singer Jim Croce. Released as part of his 1973 album Life and Times, the song was a Number One pop hit for him, spending two weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1973. Croce was nominated for two 1973 Grammy awards in the Pop Male Vocalist and Record of the Year categories for "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown". It was his last number-one single before his death on September 20.
The song is about a man from the South Side of Chicago who, due to his size and attitude, has a reputation as the "baddest man in the whole damn town." One day, in a bar, he makes a pass at a pretty, married woman, whose jealous husband proceeds to beat Leroy brutally in the ensuing fight.
Croce tells a nearly identical story (tough guy whom everybody fears is brutally beaten when he meets an even tougher guy) in his hit single "You Don't Mess Around With Jim."
Read more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leroy_Brown_(song)
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I have spent the last 11 Super Bowls watching the game from work.
It's not as bad as it seems, but it does take away from the ability of the game to linger in my brain. The vast majority of memories I have from Super Bowls occurred before 2001. Since that point, the game has been a jumbled mess of headlines, graphics and "where's my celebration shot?????"
I can't even tell you the teams that were involved in those years. The Eagles were in there somewhere, right? And the Seahawks, too? And the Cardinals? Yeah, that's crazy, but I think the Cardinals were in there as well.
But pinpoint the team with the year? No can do. Ask me the matchups from the last decade and I'll just shout "Patriots!" at you in a clueless panic.
The interesting thing is that the vast majority of the games from the last 11 years have been exciting games. Close margins of victory. Late-drive excitement. Dramatics everywhere. But they don't stick in my mind when I go through 37 years of Super Bowl memories (my first memory is Super Bowl X, the Lynn Swann game).
The games that do stick in my mind?
Well, those would be the ones where the Super Bowl was part of a party, when I was surrounded by friends and food and beverages. The game was a small, yet important part of the festivities that took place on that day.
The best of those?
Super Bowl XXXI: Packers vs. Patriots, 1997
Super Bowl XXV: Giants vs. Bills, 1991
Super Bowl XIV: Steelers vs. Rams, 1980
But the best of the best was Super Bowl XXIII, January 22, 1989. The 49ers beat the Bengals, 20-16. It was a hell of a time in that house in suburban Buffalo. I'll remember it long after all other Super Bowls fade forever.
It also helped that it was a close, exciting game. At the time, the Super Bowl had been plagued by a series of blowouts and fans were starting to wonder if the game was ever going to be close again. People were getting bored. The 49ers and Bengals did their best to get the game back on track.
These days, just about every Super Bowl is exciting. A goal-line stop in the final moments. A spectacular grab with the ball pressed against the receiver's helmet. I watch it all from work, ready to spring into action when a winner is declared. But I can't tell you what happened in last year's game.
So, we're trying something different tonight.
We're having a Super Bowl party at work. Food, drinks, everything you can expect at your stereotypical big-game party (no alcohol, unfortunately).
Yeah, we've done a little bit of this before at work, but never at this level.
I'm going to try to make the Super Bowl memorable again.
Go Niners.
(Sorry. It's Matt Kemp's team).
Night Card Binder Candidate: Ronnie Lott, 1990 Pro Set, Super Bowl Supermen, #105
Does it make the binder?: Nope. Only baseball, please.
Labels: 1990 Pro Set, awesome night card, Ronnie Lott, Super Bowl
RunFore!Kelloggs February 3, 2013 at 11:15 PM
I felt bad that no one commented. I didn't like those FB cards, day or night.
night owl February 3, 2013 at 11:33 PM
Don't feel bad. Everyone was watching the Super Bowl. ... I don't know why I post on this day anyway.
The golden age of all-star cards countdown: 10-6
For the sake of organization: The '75 mini page qu...
C.A.: 2009 Upper Deck SPx Matt Kemp
The tortoise wins the race
The dreaded ebay 1/1
I'll take you there
2012 isn't done trying to kill me
'56 of the month: Dale Long
It was worth it
Early '90s mojo, define the design results and a p...
If this is fantasy, get me reality quick
'Fisk' is one letter away from 'fist'
Parallel-o-grams
Some junk while I'm looking for junk
Paper hero
Mini lovin' and idea stealin'
Erasing history ... and some cartoons
C.A.: 2000 Pacific Invincible Eric Karros
State of gray
The golden age of all-star cards countdown: 15-11
Kemp vs. Kershaw
Define the design: 13T, 93T, 93D, 93F, 93S, 93U
Ladies and gentlemen, your 2013 Topps Series 1 Los...
4 is better than 1
Blue-tiful
I miss Christmas
C.A.: 1978 Topps Graig Nettles
Out from the shadows
Yeah, yeah, who won the giveaway ...
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Chevelle Are Touring This Fall - Wed, 09/20/2017 - 5:08am
Alternative Metal band Chevelle are touring this fall beginning September 30th Fremont St. Experience in Las Vegas, NV and concluding December 18 at the House of Blues in Chicago, IL. Best known for a handful of hits, "The Red", "Jars" and "Joyride", they... more
Lacuna Coil + Epica Bring The "Ultimate Principle Tour" To North America This Autumn - Tue, 04/25/2017 - 10:37am
Italian heavy metalers Lacuna Coil are ready to embark on "The Ultimate Principle Tour" with Epica and Insomnium. Beginning August 31st in Boston, Massachusetts at the Royale, the trek concludes in New York, New York at the Playstation... more
Seether Announces 5th Annual Rise Above Fest For 2017 - Wed, 02/22/2017 - 4:52am
South African rock band Seether recently announced acts for the fifth annual Rise Above Fest, however, the multi-stage rock n roll extravaganza is extending to two days for the first time ever! "Rise Above Fest, which supports suicide prevention and mental... more
Best Tours of 2016 - Fri, 12/16/2016 - 9:13pm
Hello my awesome Nimrod kumquats! Welcome to another end of the year article and this time I’ll be counting down the six best tours of 2016! I know there were many tours to be had this year but these are the top six I actually attended. So sit back and let this list rip! Blink-182... more
M83 To Begin Newest Production: Cirque du Soleil Volta - Wed, 12/07/2016 - 10:16am
Synthwave gods M83 are embarking on their next venture by collaborating with Canada's Cirque du Soleil to bring their newest production, "Cirque du Soleil Volta". The new show will be presented under The Big Top in Montreal next spring on... more
Coldplay Announce Extension Of New Tour - Mon, 10/10/2016 - 6:35pm
Brit pop-rockers Coldplay are now extending their "A Head Full Of Dreams Tour 2017" kicking off next autumn. This'll be the first time in five years the band will play in Canada, so of course North American fans are absolutely excited. "The album itself has... more
Delain and Hammerfall Touring North America In 2017 - Fri, 09/30/2016 - 10:05am
Europe's finest Delain and Hammerfall are joining forces to tour North America next spring beginning April 19th at The Opera House in Toronto, Ontario and concluding May 18th at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, Georgia. Hammerfall are on the road to support their... more
Red Hot Chili Peppers Announce North American Tour Dates - Tue, 09/20/2016 - 9:23am
Red Hot Chili Peppers are embarking on a proper North American tour in 2017 beginning January 5th in San Antonio, TX and concluding March 18th in Vancouver, BC at the Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena. The band have a few surprises up their sleeves, including this little tidbit fresh off... more
Kaiser Chiefs To Tour UK in 2017 - Sat, 08/20/2016 - 10:43am
English five-piece Kaiser Chiefs announced an upcoming tour around the UK beginning pretty early in 2017. The first stop begins at the Llandudno, Venue Cymru Arena February 22nd and concludes at the Leeds, First Direct Arena on March 4th. The band will release their next record in... more
Liz Phair To Open For Smashing Pumpkins This Spring - Tue, 02/02/2016 - 5:10am
Singer-songwriter Liz Phair is set to offer support on select dates for the Smashing Pumpkins as they embark on 19-city trek following last year's End Times tour. The "Acoustic-Electro Tour" is not only oozing 90's nostalgia but... more
Iggy Pop and Josh Homme Team Up For Joint Tour - Thu, 01/28/2016 - 11:08am
After announcing their collaborative album "Post Pop Depression" out March 18th via Loma Vista, Iggy Pop and Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age will embark on a four month long tour starting next month. "In... more
3 Doors Down Announce New Record "Us And The Night" - Wed, 01/20/2016 - 5:02am
You may think rock superstars 3 Doors Down have been missing in action, but really the Mississippi natives were prepping an album slated for release March 11th, 2016. "We're all excited to release our new album 'Us and the Night'. It's truly been a labor of love and we can'... more
3Teeth Tour North America Throughout January - Fri, 01/08/2016 - 5:37am
3Teeth are celebrating their third year of being a band by touring North America opening for power rockers Tool and Primus all throughout January. Stopping in exactly 17 cities the hard rocking masterminds will melt faces all your makeup clad faces... more
3Teeth Announce Tour with Primus And Tool - Thu, 11/19/2015 - 5:42am
The wait is finally over for all you Tool fans who have been dying to see them live once again. Just recently did the news break out about legends Primus joining the bill as well as our friends 3TEETH, who have become a huge success since releasing... more
Mumford & Sons Announce USA Tour 2016 - Tue, 11/10/2015 - 5:19am
Mumford & Sons just announced "An Arrow Through the Heartland Tour" to hit cities around the American south and Midwest beginning April 3rd in Houston, TX at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion and concluding April 23rd in Indianapolis, Ind. at the Bankers Life... more
July 18, 2019 9:58:56 PM EDT
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Nimrod Street Designed By Nimrod God. Nimrod Street ©2014 Nimrod Street International, LLC.
Rock Vos Liberabit! | Rock Will Set You Free!
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NIOS ,Regional Centre ,
Raipur ,Chhattisgarh
Online Admissions
The National institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) has entered into its adulthood and completed two decades of its existence in the field of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in the school education sector. This journey of the Institute has been quite successful. With about 2.71 million students on its roll, NIOS is credited to be the largest open school in the world with significant popularity in the Commonwealth countries and in certain other developing and developed countries. NIOS has been offering Secondary and Senior Secondary and Vocational Education & training (VET) courses through its study centers and Open Basic Education Programme through Accredited Agencies. NIOS not only offers a wide spectrum of courses of study up to the pre-degree level for all categories of learners, but also works as a nodal institute for carrying forward the open school movement in the country in order to achieve the objective of developing an inclusive learning society. This has been possible due to dedication and unstinting support from all faculty and staff of the institute and other stakeholders. However, there are some tasks and issues that need quick intervention and concerted attention as indicated below :
The success of ODL system largely depends on satisfaction of its learners, not only in terms of what is the quality of academic support they receive but also up to what extent they are empowered during the learning process. NIOS needs to work in this direction by consolidating and strengthening its academic support system.
The National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005) has posed several challenges of education before all of us, particularly in the school education sector; not only what is to be learnt but also to ensure the effectiveness of the process of learning. It emphasizes giving more freedom and autonomy to the learner. Hence, there is a need to revisit the curriculum of NIOS for making learning more and more learner oriented.
NIOS needs to focus more on those disadvantaged groups of the society, who have been discriminated against getting education for long due to varied socio-economic reasons. We are in the process of developing workable and implementable action plans with due priority for reaching the unreached and uplifting them in the social structure by providing relevant and need based quality education. Besides SCs, STs, Girls and differently abled, NIOS has visualized a programme of education of minorities. The programme for education of minorities has already been started and it is in the process of expansion.
In recent years, the modern technologies have been playing varied roles. Among other things, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is being used widely by NIOS in the school education arena, particularly at the secondary and senior secondary levels. A comprehensive vision and perspective plan is being developed to harness the benefits of ICT for facilitating teaching-learning and other ODL endeavours. We are taking several steps for empowering the distance learners through our own efforts and by using the public-private partnership (PPP) mode of cooperation and collaboration. Some of the significant ICT based programmes that need focused attentions are:
On-line admission
On-Demand Examination System (ODES)
Interactive Voice Response system (IVRS)
24×7 admission facility.
Capacity building of functionaries is an integral part of the ODL system. It is all the more important in the school education sector keeping in view the fact that a large number of personnel are associated with the system for planning, implementation and monitoring of educational programmes. NIOS has to develop a comprehensive system to ensure that the capacity building activities becomes an integral component at all levels including the functionaries working under the State Open Schools (SOSs). We have to make the open schooling system a vibrant agent to meet this challenge of capacity building of ODL functionaries not only at the national level; but also at the international level with support from international agencies like the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and UNESCO.
In any instructional process, including ODL, research is an integral component not only to strengthen the system internally but also to contribute significantly to meet the national and societal goals. This area needs to be given significant attention for strengthening the instructional process as well as for making education relevant and need based to the learners. These efforts will prove useful in placing the open schooling programme on a sound pedestal.
NIOS is making concerted efforts for development of ODL system, particularly at the school level, by establishing a network of open schools to further strengthen the open schooling movement in country with the support from the Government of India and the State Governments. As envisaged in the XI Plan by the Planning Commission, NIOS, therefore, has to take a lead role in setting up of the State Open Schools in all the states.
There is a need to bring a happy balance between expectations from the institution and the actual contribution made by it to the society. Our endeavor would be to make the student a good human being and a useful member of the society. In this context, providing suitable vocational education and training (VET) to specific target groups who want to enter the world of work is our priority agenda to be implemented mainly through PPP mode. Societal expectations do not have any limits; however one must strive to make concerted efforts to meet these expectations as far as possible. The ODL system, like that of NIOS, therefore, has to work within the parameters of expectations and contributing substantially to the nation’s endeavours for universalisation of school education. Let us join hands for providing appropriate responses to the challenges of education.
Announcement :
Pay Examination Fee for October 2019 Exam
Online admission to Vocational course from the session starting from 1st July 2019.
Last Date of Stream 2 Oct 2019 Registration is 15 July
CM Message
RD Message
Notification 07/2019 dt. 28.06.2019 regarding online admission of Stream-2 for Academic Session 2019-20 has been extended upto 15th July, 2019
Pay Examination Fess
See your Result
Admission Open Online
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"Right up there with Mr. Block's best....A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF keeps us guessing."--Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal
Facing his demons in his first year of sobriety, Matthew Scudder finds himself on the trail of a killer. When Scudder's childhood friend Jack Ellery is murdered, presumably while attempting to atone for past sins, Scudder reluctantly begins his own investigation, with just one lead: Ellery's Alcoholics Anonymous list of people he wronged. One of them may be a killer, but that's not necessarily Scudder's greatest danger. Immersing himself in Ellery's world may lead him right back to the bar stool.
In a novel widely celebrated by critics and readers, Lawrence Block circle back to how it all began, reestablishing the Matthew Scudder series as one of the pinnacles of American detective fiction.
Download A Drop of the Hard Stuff PDF
Download A Drop of the Hard Stuff ERUB
Download A Drop of the Hard Stuff DOC
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Lawrence Block has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense fiction for more than half a century. He has published in excess (oh, wretched excess!) of 100 books, and no end of short stories.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
Reviews of the A Drop of the Hard Stuff
Masterpiece! Masterpiece! Masterpiece! Just an incredibly scary, deep and interesting book, penetration to shivers!
Very controversial Vpechalenija
Best among ordinary
A cozy book that teaches small things, happiness, in detail!
Download EBOOK A Drop of the Hard Stuff by Lawrence Block Online free
PDF: a-drop-of-the-hard-stuff.pdf
ERUB: a-drop-of-the-hard-stuff.epub
DOC: a-drop-of-the-hard-stuff.doc
TXT: a-drop-of-the-hard-stuff.txt
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People hear climate change through different concerns. Some hear threats to the environment, others to people, and others still to national security. (Of course, there is overlap.)
For those in the national security category, the National Security Journalism Initiative has created Global Warning.
Water shortages in Yemen
Go to A Complex Climate Threat and click on water management—Morocco spends more than 1/5 of its budget on water management, and Sana’a could run out of water in 2025.
Click on flooding:
Last summer, record floods ravaged Pakistan, killing nearly 2,000 people, damaging or destroying 1.2 million homes and laying waste to large portions of farmland. Afterward, 34 percent of the rice crop was gone and cholera swept through camps, affecting tens of thousands of people.
During previous disasters in unstable regions — the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, the 1998-2000 drought in Central Asia — terrorist groups stepped in where governments failed, winning supporters with their aid. There were reports of such efforts following the Pakistan floods.
Click on energy shifts:
Since the Industrial Revolution, economic growth has been propelled by fossil fuel emissions. Switching to alternative fuels would change the foundation of the global economy.
While higher energy prices would give major oil exporters resources to increase their power, a shift away from fossil fuels could force changes in petro-regimes. The National Intelligence Council predicts Saudi Arabia, which would absorb the biggest shock, would face new pressures to institute major economic reforms, including women’s full participation in the economy.
Click on international trade:
Climate change stands to disrupt global markets, alter key trading routes and affect natural resource supplies.
After more than one-third of Russia’s grain crop was destroyed last summer by a devastating heat wave and fires — extreme weather events that President Dmitry Medvedev called “evidence of this global climate change” — the country banned all grain exports until the end of the year, causing a price spike in global markets. Less than a week later, food riots broke out in Mozambique.
Go here for videos on threats from climate change to California agriculture, NYC, and Houston energy infrastructure.
Recent articles include
Our man in the greenhouse: Why the CIA is spying on a changing climate
This summer, as torrential rains flooded Pakistan, a veteran intelligence analyst named Larry watched closely from his desk at CIA headquarters just outside the capital.
For Larry, head of the CIA’s year-old Center on Climate Change and National Security, the worst natural disaster in Pakistan’s history is a warning.
“It has the exact same symptoms you would see for future climate change events, and we’re expecting to see more of them,” Larry, who asked his last name not be used for security reasons, said in a recent interview at the CIA. “We wanted to know: What are the conditions that lead to a situation like the Pakistan flooding? What are the important things for water flows, food security, [displaced people], radicalization, disease?”
As intelligence officials assess key components of state stability like these, they are realizing that the norms they had been operating with — like predictable river flows and crop yields — are shifting.
But the U.S. government is ill-prepared to act on changes that are coming faster than anticipated and threaten to bring instability to places of U.S. national interest, according to interviews with several dozen current and former officials and outside experts, and a review of two decades’ worth of government reports. Climate projections lack critical detail, they say, and information about how people react to changes — for instance, by migrating — is sparse. Military brass say they don’t yet have the intelligence they need in order to act.
Losing the Andes glaciers
Glacier melt hasn’t caused a national crisis in Peru, yet. But high in the Andes, rising temperatures and changes in water supply have decimated crops, killed fish stocks and forced entire villages to question how they will survive for another generation.
U.S. officials are watching closely because without quick intervention, they say, the South American nation could become an unfortunate case study in how climate change can destabilize a strategically important region and, in turn, create conditions that pose a national security threat to Americans thousands of miles away.
Think what it would be like if the Andes glaciers were gone and we had millions and millions of hungry and thirsty Southern neighbors,” said former CIA Director R. James Woolsey. “It would not be an easy thing to deal with.”
Glaciers in the South American Andes are melting faster than many scientists predicted, causing a dramatic change in the region’s availability of water for drinking, irrigation and electricity. Some climate change experts estimate entire glaciers will disappear in 10 years due to rising global temperatures, threatening to create instability across the globe long before their ultimate demise.
Oil rig damaged by Ike
Houston oil infrastructure exposed to storms
The largest search and rescue operation in U.S. history; the largest Texas evacuation ever; a $30 billion price tag and 112 deaths in the U.S….And Ike was only a Category 2 storm with mild-for-a-hurricane winds of 109 mph.
If Ike had been a direct hit on the channel, refineries would have been flooded with seawater despite 16-foot fortifications, likely requiring months of repairs and prolonging supply disruptions, according to analysis by the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center at Rice University.
Not only is the sea level rising, the land is sinking.
Disease: A top U.S. security threat
One of the most worrisome national security threats of climate change is the increased spread of disease, with potentially millions of people at risk of serious illness or death and vast numbers of animals and crops also in danger of being wiped out, U.S. intelligence and health officials say.
But more than a decade after such concerns were first raised by U.S. intelligence agencies, significant gaps remain in the health surveillance and response network—not just in developing nations, but in the United States as well, according to those officials and a review of federal documents and reports.
And those gaps, they say, undermine the ability of the U.S. and world health officials to respond to disease outbreaks before they become national security threats.
U.S. military grasps effects of the rising tide
Climate change is fast becoming one of those security threats, according to U.S. and Bangladeshi officials, who have concluded it will help create new conflict hotspots around the world and heighten the tensions in existing ones—and impact the national security of the United States in the process. Moreover, climate change could overstress the U.S. military by creating frequent and intensified disasters and humanitarian crises to which it would have to respond.
Nowhere is that potential chain of events more worrisome than in Bangladesh, a country strategically sandwiched between rising superpowers China and India, and which also acts as a bridge between South Asia and South East Asia.
Already, Bangladesh is beset by extreme poverty, overcrowding and flooding that frequently render large numbers of people homeless. The Muslim-majority country also has had problems with Islamist radicalization.
And over the next two generations, those problems are expected to get worse due to climate change, which worsens other problems such as food and water scarcity, extreme weather and rising seas, according to interviews with current and former officials and experts. By 2050, rising sea waters are projected to cost the low-lying country about 17 to 20 percent of its land mass, rendering at least 20 million people homeless and decimating food production of rice and wheat, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. By then, its population is projected to reach more than 200 million, which could lead to internal societal unrest that spills over into neighboring India.
Dirty Coal, Clean Future
Mining coal is notoriously dangerous, the remnants of those mines disfigure the Earth, and the by-products of coal’s combustion fill the air not simply with soot, smoke, and carbon dioxide but also with toxic heavy metals like mercury and lead, plus corrosive oxides of nitrogen and sulfur, among other pollutants. When I visited coal towns in China’s Shandong and Shanxi provinces, my face, arms, and hands would be rimed in black by the end of each day—even when I hadn’t gone near a mine. People in those towns, like their predecessors in industrial-age Europe and America, have the same black coating on their throats and lungs, of course. When I have traveled at low altitude in small airplanes above America’s active coal-mining regions—West Virginia and Kentucky in the East, Wyoming and its neighbors in the Great Basin region of the West—I’ve seen the huge scars left by “mountain top removal” and open-pit mining for coal, which are usually invisible from the road and harder to identify from six miles up in an airliner. Compared with most other fossil-fuel sources of energy, coal is inherently worse from a carbon-footprint perspective, since its hydrogen atoms come bound with more carbon atoms, meaning that coal starts with a higher carbon-to-hydrogen ratio than oil, natural gas, or other hydrocarbons.
James Fallows, in his The Atlantic article, Dirty Coal, Clean Future, is not oblivious to coal’s faults, and he explains in some depth about coal’s rather large percentage of carbon dioxide emissions. Unfortunately, the scale of the climate change problem is huge:
As one climate scientist put it to me, “To stabilize the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, the whole world on average would need to get down to the Kenya level”—a 96 percent reduction for the United States. The figures also suggest the diplomatic challenges for American negotiators in recommending that other countries, including those with hundreds of millions in poverty, forgo the energy-intensive path toward wealth that the United States has traveled for so many years.
The reduction needed is even more than 96% when we add in a portion of greenhouse gas emissions from China, where half of electricity is used to manufacture for export. Unfortunately, we will use coal in the future, a lot:
Precisely because coal already plays such a major role in world power supplies, basic math means that it will inescapably do so for a very long time. For instance: through the past decade, the United States has talked about, passed regulations in favor of, and made technological breakthroughs in all fields of renewable energy. Between 1995 and 2008, the amount of electricity coming from solar power rose by two-thirds in the United States, and wind-generated electricity went up more than 15-fold. Yet over those same years, the amount of electricity generated by coal went up much faster, in absolute terms, than electricity generated from any other source. The journalist Robert Bryce has drawn on U.S. government figures to show that between 1995 and 2008, “the absolute increase in total electricity produced by coal was about 5.8 times as great as the increase from wind and 823 times as great as the increase from solar”—and this during the dawn of the green-energy era in America. Power generated by the wind and sun increased significantly in America last year; but power generated by coal increased more than seven times as much… Similar patterns apply even more starkly in China. Other sources of power are growing faster in relative terms, but year by year the most dramatic increase is in China’s use of coal.
storing carbon dioxide
The price of making coal clean, capturing and storing the carbon dioxide, includes a huge energy cost, perhaps 30% increase or more to make the same amount of electricity.
“When people like me look for funding for carbon capture, the financial community asks, ‘Why should we do that now?’” an executive of a major American electric utility told me. “If there were a price on carbon”—a tax on carbon-dioxide emissions—“you could plug in, say, a loss of $30 to $50 per ton, and build a business case.”
Looking at US policy in isolation, there is little reason for optimism, as utilities are refusing to ask ratepayers to pay an extra 3 – 5 cent/kWh for coal. Looking at the US and China together, though…
Ming Sung from the Clean Air Task Force and
Julio Friedmann from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
In the normal manufacturing supply chain—Apple creating computers, Walmart outsourcing clothes and toys—the United States provides branding, design, and a major market for products, while China supplies labor, machines, and the ability to turn concepts into products at very high speed.
But there is more cooperation with coal:
In the search for “progress on coal,” like other forms of energy research and development, China is now the Google, the Intel, the General Motors and Ford of their heyday—the place where the doing occurs, and thus the learning by doing as well. “They are doing so much so fast that their learning curve is at an inflection that simply could not be matched in the United States,” David Mohler of Duke Energy told me.
“In America, it takes a decade to get a permit for a plant,” a U.S. government official who works in China said. “Here, they build the whole thing in 21 months. To me, it’s all about accelerating our way to the right technologies, which will be much slower without the Chinese.
“You can think of China as a huge laboratory for deploying technology,” the official added. “The energy demand is going like this”—his hand mimicked an airplane taking off—“and they need to build new capacity all the time. They can go from concept to deployment in half the time we can, sometimes a third. We have some advanced ideas. They have the capability to deploy it very quickly. That is where the partnership works.”
The good aspects of this partnership have unfolded at a quickening pace over the past decade, through a surprisingly subtle and complex web of connections among private, governmental, and academic institutions in both countries. Perhaps I should say unsurprisingly, since the relationships among American and Chinese organizations in the energy field in some ways resemble the manufacturing supply chains that connect factories in China with designers, inventors, and customers in the United States and elsewhere. The difference in this case is how much faster the strategic advantage seems to be shifting to the Chinese side.
Take home point: We need to add a cost to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and elsewhere in the $30 – 50 range if we are to stop using coal without carbon capture and storage.
Another New Yorker article: Jevons Paradox— Does Improving Efficiency Do Any Good?
The New Yorker has done much to introduce non-scientists to scientific thinking (eg, Kolbert’s articles on climate change), but now aims to confuse us, or so it appears, by presenting real concerns in a too simplistic manner. David Owen’s recent article discusses Jevons Paradox in The Efficiency Dilemma has been attacked by critics who object to his omissions. Truth sometimes lies in the middle, but in this case, Truth appears to be more towards the extremes, with a caveat, it depends on where and for what.
Jevons pointed out a century and a half ago that increased efficiency can lead to lower prices and thus to consumption greater than if there had been no improvement. Rebound effect is the term used when increased efficiency leads to lower consumption, but the decrease is made smaller by behavior change.
• Consumption increases as costs go down. Because refrigerators are so much cheaper to operate, Owen says, they have spread to hotel rooms and gas stations. Additional energy loss (and increases in greenhouse gas emissions) occur as we increase the amount of food we buy and waste (and consume) as refrigerator size increases. Altogether, per capita energy consumption due to all these changes has presumably grown even as energy to power residential refrigerators has gone down. Other examples are the rapid increase in air conditioning and the size of (and number of) houses in the South, and increases in lighting use in the US so “that darkness itself is spoken of an endangered natural resource”—increases in efficiency mean that the typical person uses more energy for both lighting and air conditioning.
• Increased efficiency in automobiles has been devoted to increasing horsepower and weight rather than fuel economy.
• Decreases in cost increases both the number of car owners and the number of vehicle miles traveled per car per year.
Changing energy use in refrigerators
The Jevons Paradox is still considered a factor in many parts of the world. For example, the introduction of cheap, efficient cars to India (the Nano) was expected to lead to increased consumption of oil. (Between March 2009 and January 2011, some 1 million cars were sold—see here for some reasons why the Nano hasn’t taken off, although this may still happen). Cheap solar panels (expensive compared to prices paid where there is a reliable grid, but cheap relative to the cost of a long ride in a motorcycle taxi to recharge the phone) and efficient light bulbs in Africa also lead to increased energy use, but a low-greenhouse gas form. There is great enthusiasm about the latter, but I have yet to hear policy experts wax enthusiastic about the Nano. The policy community appreciates the need to make more energy available to the poor. However, the need for more cars is either less clear than needs for phones and lightbulbs, or the downsides of adding more photovoltaics are smaller than the problems of using more oil, of which climate change is just one.
Increased energy use in Kiptusuri, Kenya
Of course, oil use is increasing in India anyway, as Indians become wealthier. Owen fails to discuss the effects of increased wealth on people’s choices, a fairly large omission, so would attribute the increase solely to the more efficient automobiles. (Nor does Owens consider the time for stock turnover.)
The rebound effects in 21st century US are of a different scale than the examples above. We already leave our lights on. A lot. We own considerably more than one car per licensed driver, 842 cars/1000 people (compared to 12/1000 in India). So it’s unlikely that the introduction of more efficient cars will lead to as dramatic an increase in fuel use as in India. Or that more efficient bulbs will produce the increase in lighting now being seen in Kiptusuri.
According to Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards, CAFE standards appear to have a 10 – 20% rebound effect, while changes in Europe produce a rebound effect of 20 – 30% (the difference is due to those shifting from public transit).
The rebound effect for cars today in the US may be greater than for refrigerators, now that the market for refrigerators is apparently saturated. (I’ve heard people in policy wonder when the US will reach saturation for automobiles—there has to be a point at which nothing can push Americans to drive more.)
There are three causes for the rebound effect, according to Energy Efficiency and the Rebound Effect: Does Increasing Efficiency Decrease Demand? (pdf)
Direct Effects – The consumer chooses to use more of the resource instead of realizing the energy cost savings. For example, a person with a more efficient home heater may chose to raise the setting on the thermostat or a person driving a more efficient car may drive more. This effect is limited since a person will only set the thermostat so high or have so many hours to spend driving.
Indirect Effects – The consumer chooses to spend the money saved by buying other goods which use the same resource. For example, a person whose electric bill decreases due to a more efficient air conditioner may use the savings to buy more electronic goods.
Market or Dynamic Effects – Decreased demand for a resource leads to a lower resource price, making new uses economically viable. For example, residential electricity was initially used mainly for lighting, but as the price dropped many new electric devices became common. This is the most difficult aspect of the rebound effect to predict and to measure.
See the paper for the scale of the rebound effect, which is close to 0% for home appliances, 10 – 30% for cars, and 0 – 50% for space cooling.
Even advocates of energy efficiency see a need to do more. In Leaping the Energy Gap (subscription required), Dan Charles says,
Experience has shown that there is more to saving energy than designing better light bulbs and refrigerators. Researchers say it will need a mixture of persuasion, regulation, and taxation.
(August 14, 2009 Science)
A frequently touted statistic is that while per capita US electricity use increased 40% over the last 3 decades, it remained flat in California. Some credit the efficiency mandates in California. That appears to be true only in part:
Anant Sudarshan and James Sweeney of Stanford University’s Precourt Energy Efficiency Center (PEEC) recently calculated that the state’s energy policies can take credit for only a quarter of California’s lower per capita electricity use. The rest is due to “structural factors” such as mild weather, increasing urbanization, larger numbers of people in each household, and high prices for energy and land that drove heavy industry out of the state.
Art Rosenfeld
An old economic assumption is that if scientists add efficiency, the consumer will come.
[Art] Rosenfeld [who was the most important person pushing California’s push toward higher efficiency] and Edward Vine had a friendly, long-running argument during their 2 decades as colleagues at [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]. Rosenfeld believed in technology. When he testified before the U.S. Congress, as he did frequently in the early 1980s, he always came with props in hand: compact fluorescent light bulbs, heat-shielding windows, or computer programs for predicting the energy use of new buildings. But Vine, whose Ph.D. is in human ecology, wasn’t convinced of technology’s power. “We can’t assume, if we have a great technology, that people will rush to stores and buy it,” Vine says. “We need to find out how people behave, how they make decisions, how they use energy, and we need to work with them.”
For the most part, energy-efficiency programs around the country have followed Rosenfeld’s line. They offer financial incentives for adopting energy-saving, cost-effective technology, and trust that consumers will follow their economic self-interest.
Yet many researchers are now coming around to Vine’s point of view. Consumers don’t seem to act like fully informed, rational decision-makers when they make energy choices. Many avoid making choices at all. Give them a programmable thermostat, and they won’t program it. Offer them an efficient light bulb that pays for itself in 2 years, and they won’t buy it.
Some points made by the article:
• The goal is to decrease energy use per person—stable energy use is not enough.
• Even for-profit companies don’t realize how much money can be saved on energy [and companies do much better than individuals].
• In a crisis, people respond to a need for “good citizens”. Some percentage of that change in behavior remains after the crisis ends.
• We see waste in others reflecting their “inner characters” and “own wasteful practices as the product of circumstances”, so information about the need rarely helps.
• Role models do help.
• We care what others are doing. Sacramento Municipal Utility District included information with the bills about how one’s energy use compares to one’s neighbors, and energy use declined 2%. [Information about saving energy left on your door knob is ineffective if accompanied by the importance of saving money or saving the earth, but is effective if we are told that our neighbors are doing it.]
• The current market option, more efficient and more expensive appliances targeting high-end customers, is less effective than selling these appliances at Costco or Walmart.
• Social marketing works, at least in some places, such as Hood River, OR, where 85% of the homes got energy audits and free efficiency upgrades.
[Hugh] Peach compared the process to a political campaign. The utility sat down with local leaders, followed their advice, and relied heavily on local volunteers. The process was time-consuming and labor-intensive but, Peach says, a pleasure. There was “a lot of community spirit. People just saw it as the right thing to do.”
• Feedback helps, eg, the Prius dashboard showing car drivers their rate of energy use. There is hope that Smart Meters will lead consumers to reduce energy use in their home, first by cutting use, eventually shifting to more efficient appliances.
• Green buildings don’t do nearly as well as advertised, and architects get too little feedback on how energy use changes as a result of their work. In a response to this article, several examples are given for projects where actual energy use came in at least double predicted energy use.
• There are a number of perverse incentives: people away from home have little incentive to reduce energy and water use. Landlords have little incentive to purchase more expensive more efficient appliances. Cable services provide boxes which use 40 W 24 hours/day and have no incentive to spend a tad more on reducing energy use. These perverse incentives might be responsible for 1/4 of US residential energy use. In Japan, on the other hand, vending machine suppliers pay for the electricity, and vending machines are more efficient.
• Really, adding a cost to energy is necessary, because we need to see the cost of our behavior, which goes beyond the price we pay today for energy.
In Behavior and Energy Policy, (subscription required, March 5, 2010 Science), there is more discussion of how to combine greater energy efficiency with changed behavior.
Summary: Jevons Paradox appears more important in less saturated markets and other factors, such as increased wealth should be considered. Increased efficiency does reduce energy use in the US, but if our goal is to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions quickly enough, we may want to move to “mixture of persuasion, regulation, and taxation.”
Comments from others: See The National Geographic blog for the comments of James Barrett (Clean Economy Development Center) and Matthew Kahn (UCLA)
Recent Article in the New Yorker, Is There Something Wrong with the Scientific Method?
Saturday, January 1st, 2011
In an attempt to point out that not every article that makes it into peer review survives the scrutiny of the science community, New Yorker author Jonah Lehrer apparently goes a little further than he intended, and says so here. The Truth Wears Off begins with a number of examples of when the effects described in peer reviewed articles don’t seem to be real, notably in medicine, the life sciences, and psychology. Lehrer gives some examples from physics, as well.
To some, it appears that the effect first seen declines over time. Examples:
• people shown a face and asked to describe it showed a lower ability to recognize the face (verbal overshadowing) two decades ago, but the effect shrank dramatically year after year.
• Anti-psychotic drugs tested in the 1990s appear to be less effective today. Note: the article leaves unexplained whether the schizophrenics in this study are similar to schizophrenics studied a decade ago—this includes severity of and type of symptoms, and any other treatments they may have received.
• In an ESP test from early last century, some initially appeared to show paranormal ability, but further tests failed to substantiate this result.
• A purported correlation between female barn swallows and symmetry in their mates led to a number of studies finding similar results for swallows and other species, but the correlation has since disappeared. Michael Jennions found that a large number of results in ecology and evolutionary biology demonstrate this decline effect.
In an apparent misunderstanding of the process, Lehrer discusses the problem when “rigorously validated findings” can no longer be replicated as a problem with science. Most scientists would assume there is a problem with both the findings and the sloppiness that leads to a large number of poor results.
Lehrer then discusses a few problems in the article, but does not tease out the importance of each:
• Journals and scientists look for results that disagree with the orthodoxy. Scientists are less likely to submit null results to journals and journals are less likely to print them. Once the orthodoxy changes (from symmetry is irrelevant to symmetry is important to female barn swallows), confounding results become interesting. Note: This is considered a real phenomenon, but Lehrer gives little idea as to whether this is a problem with 0.5% or 95% of articles submitted. Climate change skeptics—if results are submitted to peer review which are contrary to scientific orthodoxy on climate change, these results will get prominent play, if they make it through peer review.
• The barn swallow studies were not double blind studies, with different people measuring feather length and assessing behavior. When it came time to round up or down, errors crept into measurements that differed by millimeters. Similarly, published acupuncture results vary by country, in part because the person testing for the effect knows whether acupuncture has been used.
• A number of studies, such as those finding genetic effects on hypertension and schizophrenia, were so badly done that the results are meaningless. One review of 432 such results found the vast majority worthless. Note: This is considered an important problem in some fields of science, notably medicine, and also my field, education. See comments below for what those in the life sciences and medicine think. There appears to be little support for Lehrer’s including physics experiments in his article.
• Lehrer assumes that all the later-refuted results were analyzed statistically in an appropriate way. Note: Statisticians do not, see Andrew Gelman’s comment below.
Are there reasons that explain these results besides the one favored by many, that science is a crapshoot? The person who told me of this article certainly feels that way; he picks and chooses among scientific results, except when he knows scientists are wrong and so goes with other analysis.
Lehrer says, “We like to pretend that our experiments define the truth for us. But that’s often not the case. Just because an idea is true doesn’t mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn’t mean it’s true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe.” Only science doesn’t prove so much as disprove, and what is left standing gains credibility.
Lehrer does not provide enough information or context so that we can make sense of what he says. He repeats what everyone in science already knows: that research in some fields, and some peer review, is of lower quality, and that while a number of peer review results turn out to be uninteresting, this is much more often true in medicine and some of the life sciences. The one important point I got from the article, that results that no longer appear to be true are still used by some doctors, disappears among the noise.
Not mentioned is that people whose exposure to science comes primarily from articles on medicine see reason to doubt medical science, and many extrapolate to other fields of science. Those who prefer to doubt science will find justification in this article.
Comments from others
Jerry Coyne believes that his field, evolutionary biology, has a problem, in part because not many eyes look at each result.
I tend to agree with Lehrer about studies in my own field of evolutionary biology. Almost no findings are replicated, there’s a premium on publishing positive results, and, unlike some other areas, findings in evolutionary biology don’t necessarily build on each other: workers usually don’t have to repeat other people’s work as a basis for their own. (I’m speaking here mostly of experimental work, not things like studies of transitional fossils.) Ditto for ecology. Yet that doesn’t mean that everything is arbitrary. I’m pretty sure, for instance, that the reason why male interspecific hybrids in Drosophila are sterile while females aren’t (“Haldane’s rule”) reflects genes whose effects on hybrid sterility are recessive. That’s been demonstrated by several workers. And I’m even more sure that humans are more closely related to chimps than to orangutans. Nevertheless, when a single new finding appears, I often find myself wondering if it would stand up if somebody repeated the study, or did it in another species.
But let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. In many fields, especially physics, chemistry, and molecular biology, workers regularly repeat the results of others, since progress in their own work demands it. The material basis of heredity, for example, is DNA, a double helix whose sequence of nucleotide bases codes (in a triplet code) for proteins. We’re beginning to learn the intricate ways that genes are regulated in organisms. The material basis of heredity and development is not something we “choose” to believe: it’s something that’s been forced on us by repeated findings of many scientists. This is true for physics and chemistry as well, despite Lehrer’s suggestion that “the law of gravity hasn’t always been perfect at predicting real-world phenomena.”
Lehrer, like Gould in his book The Mismeasure of Man, has done a service by pointing out that scientists are humans after all, and that their drive for reputation—and other nonscientific issues—can affect what they produce or perceive as “truth.” But it’s a mistake to imply that all scientific truth is simply a choice among explanations that aren’t very well supported. We must remember that scientific “truth” means “the best provisional explanation, but one so compelling that you’d have to be a fool not to accept it.” Truth, then, while always provisional, is not necessarily evanescent. To the degree that Lehrer implies otherwise, his article is deeply damaging to science.
[Note: most scientists in physics, chemistry, and molecular biology, so far as I know, agree.]
David Gorski, an advocate of science-based medicine, says that people in medicine have been talking about a number of these issues for years, however, Lehrer goes too far in generalizing poor medical studies into problems with science.
Jennions’ article was entitled Relationships fade with time: a meta-analysis of temporal trends in publication in ecology and evolution. Reading the article, I was actually struck by how relatively small, at least compared to the impression that Lehrer gave in his article, the decline effect in evolutionary biology was found to be in Jennions’ study. Basically, Jennions examined 44 peer-reviewed meta-analyses and analyzed the relationship between effect size and year of publication; the relationship between effect size and sample size; and the relationship between standardized effect size and sample size. To boil it all down, Jennions et al concluded, “On average, there was a small but significant decline in effect size with year of publication. For the original empirical studies there was also a significant decrease in effect size as sample size increased. However, the effect of year of publication remained even after we controlled for sampling effort.” They concluded that publication bias was the “most parsimonious” explanation for this declining effect.
Personally, I’m not sure why Jennions was so reluctant to talk about such things publicly. You’d think from his responses in Lehrer’s interview that scientists would be coming for him with pitchforks, hot tar, and feathers if he dared to point out that effect sizes reported by investigators in his scientific discipline exhibit small declines over the years due to publication bias and the bandwagon effect. Perhaps it’s because he’s not in medicine; after all, we’ve been speaking of such things publicly for a long time. Indeed, we generally expect that most initially promising results, even in randomized trials, will not ultimately pan out. In any case, those of us in medicine who might not have been willing to talk about such phenomena became more than willing after John Ioannidis published his provocatively titled article Why Most Published Research Findings Are False around the time of his study Contradicted and Initially Stronger Effects in Highly Cited Clinical Research. Physicians and scientists are generally aware of the shortcomings of the biomedical literature. Most, but sadly not all of us, know that early findings that haven’t been replicated yet should be viewed with extreme skepticism and that we can become more confident in results the more they are replicated and built upon, particularly if multiple lines of evidence (basic science, clinical trials, epidemiology) all converge on the same answer. The public, on the other hand, tends not to understand this.
Gorski also discusses the effect of subject popularity on calculations of error rates. Commenters look at the challenges Lehrer presents from physical science, and do not support his conclusions.
It’s always good to run your results by someone who is very good at statistics. Andrew Gelman, statistician, says,
The short story is that if you screen for statistical significance when estimating small effects, you will necessarily overestimate the magnitudes of effects, sometimes by a huge amount. I know that Dave Krantz has thought about this issue for awhile; it came up when Francis Tuerlinckx and I wrote our paper on Type S errors, ten years ago.
My current thinking is that most (almost all?) research studies of the sort described by Lehrer should be accompanied by retrospective power analyses, or informative Bayesian inferences. Either of these approaches–whether classical or Bayesian, the key is that they incorporate real prior information, just as is done in a classical prospective power analysis–would, I think, moderate the tendency to overestimate the magnitude of effects.
Note: I don’t understand statistics, or Gelman’s solutions, but I learned early on that poor statistics is the downfall of many a conjecture.
PZ Myers, biologist
Early in any scientific career, one should learn a couple of general rules: science is never about absolute certainty, and the absence of black & white binary results is not evidence against it; you don’t get to choose what you want to believe, but instead only accept provisionally a result; and when you’ve got a positive result, the proper response is not to claim that you’ve proved something, but instead to focus more tightly, scrutinize more strictly, and test, test, test ever more deeply.
Steven Novella, neurologist, discusses how the naive, the skeptical (scientists mostly fit in this category), and the deniers see science, then says,
Lehrer is ultimately referring to aspects of science that skeptics have been pointing out for years (as a way of discerning science from pseudoscience), but Lehrer takes it to the nihilistic conclusion that it is difficult to prove anything, and that ultimately “we still have to choose what to believe.” Bollocks!
John Horgan sees this as the decline of illusion. He is not a big fan of truthiness.
Lehrer’s reference to physics was checked by Charles Petit. He quotes Lawrence Krauss,
“The physics references are (deposit scatological bovine expletive here) … the neutron data have fallen, reflecting under-estimation of errors, but the lower lifetime doesn’t change anything having to do with the model of the neutron, which is well understood and robust … And as for discrepancies with gravity, the deep borehole stuff is interesting but highly suspect. Moreover, all theories conflict with some experiments, because not all experiments are right.” / LMK
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Hello I’m Svend-Allan and I want to talk about linocuts, woodcuts, litographs, etchings, birds, words and guns. In other words I would like to talk about Svend-Allan and his work.
Svend-Allan Sørensen (DK, 1975), graduated from Funen Art Academy in 2002.
In 2014 Svend-Allan Sørensen received The Queen Sonja Nordic Art Award. This award also included a stay at Atelje Larsen in Helsingborg (S), as well as exhibitions in Oslo, Stockholm and through April at Scandinavia House in New York.
SAS has shown solo exhibitions at Museum Jorn (DK), Nikolaj Kunsthal (DK), Vendsyssel Museum of Art (DK) and Overgaden -Institute of Contemporary Art (DK) and participated in exhibitions at Vestsjælland Art Museum (DK), Funen Art Museum (DK), Esbjerg Art Museum (DK), Den Frie (DK), Silkeborg Bad (DK), Johannes Larsen Museum (DK), Växjö Konsthall (S) and Waldemarsudde (S). Svend-Allan Sørensen is represented in private and public collections, including Statens Museum for Kunst (DK), H. M. Queen Sonja Art Collection (NO), Museum Jorn (DK), New Carlsberg Foundation (DK), Vendsyssel Art Museum (DK), Vejle Art Museum (DK), National Art Fund (DK) and Nykredit (DK).
2 p.m - 4:30 p.m
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Comments (Add comment)
Greene: Members of the most exalted club
CNN Contributor Bob Greene
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
(CNN)– When today's rare meeting of five presidents past, present and future takes place in the Oval Office, people around the world will be wondering what it must be like for the men who are members of that tiny and exalted club.
If history is any indication, the five men in the room are themselves occasionally filled with wonder at the thought of it all.
“I recall the first time Mrs. Nixon and I went to the White House,” Richard Nixon said.
He was telling me this during a period of my life when I had set out to try to visit all the then-living former presidents. The idea was to endeavor to find out what their view of the White House was once they were no longer residing there– once they, like the rest of us, were again on the outside. Citizens.
“I was a new congressman,” Nixon said. “And they had, as every president does at the beginning of every new Congress, a reception for all the members of Congress.
“And we had very little then. A congressman, incidentally– when I entered Congress, his salary was $12,500 a year. Which we thought then was not bad. But Mrs. Nixon, she scrimped and she bought a new dress to wear to the White House. A formal.
“She said to me, 'Well, this is going to be a little hard on the budget, but this may be the only time we'll ever be there.'”
Filed under: Bob Greene • Election Express
Greene: What Obama is leaving behind
ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS
A woman takes shelter from the snow under the Cloud Gate in Chicago's Millennium Park(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– On a sloppy, snowy, ice-covered day here, Barack Obama is making imminent plans to head for Hawaii, and thus end the long presidential transition period he has spent in Chicago.
What Obama leaves behind as he, with any luck, beats the weather out of here over the weekend is a town that on some level is still a little woozy over how his accomplishment– becoming the first Chicagoan in the nation's history to be elected president of the United States– has upended the city's natural political order.
On a recent evening, in a steakhouse near downtown, sitting deep in conversation at a table next to the wall were two men who kept drawing openly curious glances from the other customers during their entire meal. If this were Los Angeles, maybe Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston in a restaurant would have the magnetism to attract such star-struck stares; if this were New York, perhaps Derek Jeter and Matt Lauer would be the objects of such attention.
In Chicago, though, the men on the receiving ends of the stares were two brothers who probably wouldn't be recognized in most other towns: Bill Daley, attorney, business executive, former secretary of commerce, and his brother John, member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. It was a table for four, and the pair of empty seats invited silent speculation from the other diners: Would a third Daley brother, the mayor, Richard M., be joining his family tonight? And the final empty chair, as it inevitably does at a Daley table, reminded anyone with a long enough memory of the man who wasn't there, but seemingly somehow always is: the late Richard J. Daley, father of the boys, mayor of mayors.
Greene: Will Chicago ever be ready for reform?
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, left, and Barack Obama attend a 2007 rally for Chicago's 2016 Olympics bid.
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) - These days, you have to wonder whether Barack Obama would like to retract those two words he ad-libbed at the very beginning of his victory speech in Grant Park - the two words that didn't appear in his prepared text.
Those two words seemed so innocuous at the time:
"Hello, Chicago!"
This week it would be hard to blame him if he is counting down the seconds until he can say goodbye to Chicago. "Change We Can Believe In" was an inspiring and highly successful campaign slogan, but this is a city that, in the ways that really count, never changes, and a man can grow old and embittered waiting for it to.
The legal and political questions whirling around the governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, will play themselves out in time. The nation, most of whose citizens had never heard his name before this week, will eventually turn its attention to other news stories.
And Chicago?
Greene: A rapid change in the Chicago air
Chicago, once in the glow of Obama's victory, now has a cloud over it, Greene says.
Award-winning writer Bob Greene rode CNN's Election Express across the country in the final weeks of the campaign before the Election Express parked in Chicago.
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) - Well, that was quick.
On Election Night in Chicago, people in the immense crowd in Grant Park were talking about how the victory of Barack Obama might do the impossible: change forever the international political image of Illinois, make the world forget about the corruption that has for so long been associated with politics in the state, and particularly with politics in Chicago.
So much for that.
That was a warm and balmy November night in Grant Park - which in itself should have told you something: the shirtsleeves-in-November feeling had a when-pigs-fly quality to it - but this week there is sleet and wind and snow, a Chicago December week fit for neither man nor beast, which is to say: the usual, the expected. And in the federal courthouse just a few blocks from the Grant Park scene of civic pride and celebration, the weather had changed in more than the meteorological sense.
Greene: The words that Obama now hears
Scott Olson/Getty Images
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– You wonder if he's getting used to the sound of it yet.
“Mr. President-elect,” Hillary Clinton said to him this week, “thank you for this honor.”
You wonder if he has begun to take it in stride.
“Thank you, President-elect Obama, for the honor that you have bestowed upon me,” Eric Holder, nominated to be attorney general, said to him.
The election was not ancient history– four weeks ago today, when the Tuesday sun was still in the sky and the polling places were still open, the nation did not know for certain who would win the presidency.
But as Barack Obama introduced his national security team here this week, the words directed at him tumbled over each other:
“President-elect Obama, I am honored by your confidence in me,” Janet Napolitano said.
“I will be honored to serve President-elect Obama,” Robert Gates said.
Joe Biden, whether inadvertently or on purpose, skipped, on at least two occasions, the future-looking part of the phrase– he dropped the “elect.”
“Well, Mr. President,” Biden said, “you've assembled quite a team.”
And, referring to that team:
“I have a long relationship, as the president does. . . .”
Biden wasn't talking about George W. Bush.
Greene: How the football season helps Obama
Charles Shenk, Bob Sirkus, and Michael Stern enjoy a football game
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– There were a couple of groups of guys in Chicago during the last seven days, all while the Barack Obama transition efforts were taking shape in a federal office building downtown.
One group of guys was gathered in room 1101 in the Sofitel Hotel near Rush Street. Their names were Charles Shenk, Bob Sirkus and Michael Stern; men in their early 60s, they were in town with their wives for a wedding, but the wives had gone out to lunch and had then gone shopping, whatever shopping now constitutes in this economy. The men weren’t budging from room 1101.
None of the three are political professionals, but all had been intensely, even passionately, interested in the presidential campaign; one of the men, utterly indifferent in past years to the electoral process, had surprised himself and his wife when, watching the Grant Park Election Night speech on television back in central Ohio, he began to cry because of the emotion of the historic moment.
On this day, in room 1101, he looked as if he might cry again. “Don’t drop it!” he wailed as an Ohio State receiver bobbled a pass attempt. He and his two friends– along with CNN Election Express producer Josh Rubin and I– were watching the Ohio State-Illinois football game together, and every time Josh and I attempted to discuss presidential transition team developments, the men shot us looks that made us think that if they could hit a “mute” button and silence us, they would.
Greene: The Obama business boom
MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– As Barack Obama marks time here and frets about the sinking economy before his move to the White House, he faces a peculiar and striking dilemma on the financial front:
The one segment of American business that is booming is the Barack Obama business.
Everything with his face or his name on it is flying off retail shelves. But he can’t take advantage of it– a president is not permitted to profit personally from the sale of his own image.
Yet a case can be made that, were Obama to take his name and likeness and sign their licensing rights over to U.S. industries that are in deep trouble, he might be able to save those corporations.
A joke, of course.
Greene: Scenes from the Obama honeymoon
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– Here’s the thing about honeymoons:
One of their defining aspects is that the rest of the world is supposed to leave you alone.
Chicago in November is hardly the place most honeymooners would choose for their little piece of paradise, but every incoming president is granted a honeymoon period, and for his, Barack Obama is here– either in his home on the South Side, or in his transition office downtown, where John McCain is scheduled to visit with him today.
A cold snap has hit the city– no surprise there: when historians someday look back upon Obama’s charmed political year of 2008, one of the eyebrow-raising facets will be that warm and balmy November Election Night scene in Grant Park; no one has that kind of good luck, but Obama did– and McCain’s friend Joe the Plumber might do well to come along with him here today, because by tonight there may be frozen pipes to deal with all over town.
Obama’s pre-White House honeymoon in Chicago has been festooned with several features most new presidents don’t receive, and each is symbolic of the unusual amount of goodwill with which he is taking office.
For one, the Topps trading card company– the people who first became famous for packaging baseball cards with brittle pink slabs of bubble gum, and wrapping them in waxy paper for sale to eager children– is issuing a series of Obama trading cards. The company that once sold colorful cardboard images of Moose Skowron and Minnie Minoso has determined that there is money to be made in the booming Barack Obama market– a good indicator that his appeal, at least for now, goes well beyond that of most political men.
Greene: Obama's tale of two cities
Doug, Eric, and Vickie Stanton in Millennium Park (Josh Rubin/CNN)
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– Mixed messages:
“I've always thought that Chicago is the number-one city in the world,” said Doug Stanton, 66, visiting from South Carolina.
“This should make even more people want to come and take a look,” said his wife, Vickie, 64.
“I was here in the mid-1990s, and Chicago felt like it was in a slump,” said their son, Eric, 36. “It feels different now. I think that this probably has something to do with it.”
The “this” he was talking about was the election of Barack Obama, of Chicago, to the presidency. After months of rolling through different cities just about every day, our bus is now lingering in one place: Millennium Park, in downtown Chicago. We're here for the transition, because Obama, most of the time, is here.
Which is the message the world is receiving: Chicago, home of Obama, is now the political home of all things powerful and urgent.
There is another message this week, though, being heard more quietly even as visitors to Chicago talk about the high spirits of these pre-inauguration days.
“As the president-elect himself announced last Friday. . .,” the tinny, distant voice said through the telephone receiver.
Greene: John McCain's own transition
Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– When John McCain talks to Jay Leno tonight, maybe he will discuss whether he watched on television President-elect Barack Obama's Monday visit to the White House.
Or maybe the subject won't come up.
Today is Veterans Day, so expect part of McCain's appearance to be poignant. But he will undoubtedly also be funny and charming; you don't choose the “Tonight” show for your first post-election-defeat interview if you don't plan to be at least a little lighthearted. And McCain, through friends and staff members, is already putting out the word that he's doing just fine.
If he doesn't completely mean that, it's understandable. The prize he wanted so badly belongs to someone else.
But if you somehow were able to speak to him, you might point out:
Filed under: Bob Greene • Election Express • Uncategorized
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Who are Allies?
Public Allies believes that Everyone Leads, that everyone has talents, abilities, and potential to be a leader through the way they live their lives and improve their community. Leaders must come from all backgrounds and all parts of a community if we are going to solve our most urgent problems. We identify and develop diverse leaders (Allies) in communities across the country. These leaders are committed to improving their communities. On average, Allies are 67% people of color, 60% women, 50% college graduates (including some with graduate degrees), and 25% LGBT. Most Allies live in the community they serve, but Public Allies sites will consider applicants who come from a community without a local Public Allies program.
What do Allies do?
Allies serve in full-time apprenticeship positions at local nonprofits, where they create, improve and expand services that address issues including youth development, education, public health, economic development, and the environment. In addition, Allies participate in a rigorous leadership development program; engage in community building activities; contribute to team service projects; and receive individual coaching to support their professional development during their apprenticeship.
What do Allies learn?
Our leadership development program challenges and supports Allies to become leaders who connect across social boundaries, facilitate collaborative action, recognize and mobilize community assets, commit to continuous learning and self-development, and are accountable for creating impact. Allies gain a deep knowledge of their community and important skills from local community leaders, practitioners, educators, and residents. They also learn from the diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences of their fellow Allies.
What pay and benefits do Allies receive?
Allies are AmeriCorps members and receive a stipend and benefits for their service. Allies are paid a stipend between $1,300 and $1,800 a month (depending on the community), and they receive health care, child care, interest-free student loan deferments, and, upon successful completion of the program, up to $5,775 in an education award to pay back student loans or pay for future education.
What happens after the program?
We help Allies identify and pursue future career and educational goals as part of our Pathways initiative, and we are committed to providing additional educational and career supports for graduates of our program as well to help them succeed. In addition, we connect graduates to our growing network of thousands of alumni for career and professional development opportunities.
Why should I become an Ally?
You can gain valuable leadership skills, receive personalized coaching to pursue your career goals, build relationships with a diverse network of local leaders, and participate in a national movement of leaders working for change.
Can I be a Public Ally if I have a criminal record?
Public Allies believes that everyone has talents and skills that can make communities stronger. We also believe that a person’s past shouldn’t dictate their future. Part of the learning Public Allies promotes is how to work with people who bring a variety of different experiences. We actively seek to ensure diversity in our program. Having a criminal history will not disqualify you from the Ally program, with the exception of two areas: Those who have been convicted of murder and those who are required to register on state or national sex offender registries are ineligible to be an Ally.
Is Public Allies successful?
Nearly 5,500 Allies have completed the program. More than 95% of Allies have met or exceeded their service goals helping tens of thousands of children, adults and families achieve greater education, health, economic security, and participation in the civic life of their communities. In addition, more than 95% of Allies would participate again in our program if they could. Over 80% of Alumni continue to work in the nonprofit and public sectors, and they participate in volunteer, civic, and political activities at more than twice the rate of their age cohort. Public Allies is recognized for having many best practices in our field, and we were the first grantee of AmeriCorps to be hired to provide training to other AmeriCorps programs. The Pew Partnership for Civic Change honored Public Allies with their prestigious Civic Change Award.
How are Partner Organizations selected?
Nonprofit organizations that have projects that create, improve, or expand services to meet community needs with measurable results are welcomed to apply to host a Public Ally . Organizations should view Allies as valuable tools in expanding the capacity of the organization through greater effectiveness, efficiency, or reach. Allies have served at organizations focused on youth, education, economic development, health, arts, environment, and other social and community services.
AmeriCorps is a federal program operated by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency created in 1993 by President Clinton. Since its inception, more than 775,000 Americans have participated in AmeriCorps, and 75,000 are participating this year. AmeriCorps provides grants to private nonprofit organizations and schools to contribute to the costs of stipends, benefits, training, and other support to Americans serving full-time or part-time meeting critical needs in communities. AmeriCorps is a public-private partnership, so programs are also required to raise matching dollars in their communities. Every program funded by AmeriCorps is considered an AmeriCorps program, and every participant in an AmeriCorps program is called an AmeriCorps member. Public Allies was identified by former President George H.W. Bush as a model for a national service program in 1992. President Clinton also recognized Public Allies as a model for AmeriCorps, and we were one of the original AmeriCorps programs.
Why work for a nonprofit?
Working for a nonprofit organization is an opportunity to engage more deeply with your community, to be of service to others, and to do work that is mission-motivated and has a positive impact in your community. The nonprofit sector employs 14 million people, almost 11% of the U.S. workforce; more than in the construction, utilities, and entertainment industries combined. Nonprofit organizations need a wide variety of skill sets to operate effectively – business management, marketing and communications, human resources, information technology, accounting, education, social work and more. Many nonprofits, including Public Allies, pay competitive salaries for many positions and offer a full array of benefits, including health care, retirement plans, and generous vacation. One recent study found that nonprofit employees had greater career satisfaction than their counterparts in other sectors. At nonprofit organizations, leaders can pursue a meaningful career and make a difference in their community.
Application Q & A January 25th, 2017mmfuentes
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY THROUGH OUR WEBSITE WHICH WILL ANSWER MANY OF YOUR QUESTIONS. FOR QUICKEST RESPONSE TO ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FIRST TRY TO CONTACT THE SITE YOU ARE INTERESTED BY CLICKING ON OUR INTERACTIVE MAP.
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British Royals 29th March 2017
Duchess of Gloucester dedicates foundation stone for new Performing Arts Centre at Princess Helena College
Royal tour of Europe coincides with triggering of Article 50
Duchess of Cambridge attends National Portrait Gallery Reception
The Duchess of Gloucester was in the Hertfordshire village of Preston this week. She was visiting Princess Helena College, a private school for girls which has had close links with the monarchy for many years and will be celebrating its Bicentennial in 2020. The Duchess, who is President of the School had several engagements during her visit; in addition to laying a foundation stone for the new Performing Arts Centre, she also planted a rose in the restored rose garden and unveiled a Heritage Wall designed by six Year 11 pupils.
HRH Duchess of Gloucester plants a rose, picture by kind permission of Princess Helena College
Headmistress, Mrs Sue Wallace-Woodroffe said: “We are delighted to once again welcome HRH The Duchess of Gloucester to PHC. We’re very proud of our long history of royal patronage and, in particular, the positive support we receive for our plans to invest in first rate facilities for the girls”.
The school was formed in 1820, as the Adult Orphanage Institution and was originally intended for the daughters of servicemen or churchmen who had died, we were at the time around the end of the Peninsula Wars. Just over fifty years later in 1874, Princess Helena, 3rd daughter of Queen Victoria, became the School’s President and in 1879 the name was changed to the Princess Helena College. The Duchess of Gloucester became President in 1947, on the death of Princess Alice, she has visited the College a few times in the past to open new buildings.
The College is very Arts orientated, and many girls go on from the school to either Central St Martins or the Royal College of Music. She also planted a rose in the newly refurbished rose garden which was originally designed by the influential British horticulturalist and garden designer Gertrude Jekyll around 1911. The picture above shows the Duchess of Gloucester, accompanied by the Headmistress and Mrs Sally Burton, Deputy Lieutenant for Hertfordshire.
Around 200 roses are being planted, supplied by local business Harkness Roses of Hitchin who supplied the roses when the garden was first created. Parents and friends of PHC have purchased a rose for their daughters, ‘200 roses for 200 daughters’ and each rose has a permanent tag with the name of the rose and the name of the girl for who it is planted.
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Brittani Barger18th July 2019
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Who’s Got Next? 5-Star Wing Rawle Alkins Heads West
Posted by Sean Moran on March 9th, 2016
Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Sean Moran, the RTC recruiting guru. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to discussing the recruitment of the top uncommitted players in the country. We also encourage you to check out his contributions at The Intentional Foul dedicated to recruiting coverage and analysis. You can also follow Sean at his Twitter account @Seanmohoops for up-to-date news from the high school and college hoops scene. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.
Note: Scout.com used for all player rankings.
The remaining uncommitted five-star players are now coming off the board, one by one. On Tuesday night it was New York’s finest, 6’4” wing Rawle Alkins, who made his decision to head out west and play for Sean Miller at Arizona. The Wildcats weren’t even in the running for the No. 20 prospect in the class of 2016 class just three months ago, but that all changed when Alkins put together an impressive performance against five-star forward Thon Maker in Detroit while Miller was in attendance. Shortly after that performance, Alkins took an unofficial visit to Tucson and the rest is history.
A major selling point for Alkins was a comparison of his game with that of former Arizona one-and-done star Stanley Johnson. Like the 2014 Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, Alkins is a powerful wing that plays with a junkyard mentality. Hailing from New York, Alkins is known as a talented scorer who can finish in the paint. He sports a powerful upper body which creates space off drives and allows scoring opportunities in the post. While a very good finisher at the rim, Alkins is a streaky outside shooter who, as Jonathan Givony from DraftExpress has noted. also has a propensity for weight fluctuations.
| Regular Features, who's got next | Tagged: arizona, Christ the King, Josh Jackson, Kobi Simmons, new york, Rawle Alkins, Stanley Johnson, Word of God
Who’s Got Next? Jonathan Isaac Creates Headlines…
Posted by Sean Moran on February 11th, 2016
Jonathan Isaac committed to Florida State last July, but the 6’10” small forward became a trending topic in the recruiting world last Friday. Interestingly, it wasn’t because of how the five-star senior (No. 10 – 2016) played in a game, nor was it because a ridiculous mix tape had been released. Instead, a Sports Illustrated report focused on the idea that Isaac was considering a bypass of his one-year pit stop in Tallahassee by making the direct leap from prep school to the NBA.
Isaac began high school in 2011, originally putting him in the Class of 2015 with such players as LSU’s Ben Simmons, Duke’s Brandon Ingram, Marquette’s Henry Ellenson. The talented wing played his first two years at Barron Collier in Naples (FL) prior to an additional two years at the International School of Broward (FL). He is currently spending this season, his fifth year of high school basketball, at IMG Academy.
NBA rules require U.S. players to be both a year removed from graduation from high school and at least 19 years old in the draft year to enter its draft. Since Isaac will turn 19 next October, he would meet that requirement. But there is some room for interpretation on the other requirement, specifically whether the NBA requires a player to be one year removed from actual graduation (which for Isaac, would set the clock ticking this spring) or one year removed from his original classes’ graduation (which for Isaac, was last spring). The NBA, for what it’s worth, weighed in with its position that Isaac is not eligible for this year’s draft.
While Isaac could have tested the waters of interpretation by taking a chance to follow a former IMG player (Satnam Singh) to the pros, Isaac instead seemed to put the debate to rest when he tweeted the following earlier this week:
https://twitter.com/jisaac_01/status/697092196353318912
Regardless of how this settles, Florida State has recruited a very good player. Isaac played on the famed E1T1 AAU squad, a team that has produced players such as D’Angelo Russell, Grayson Allen, and the aforementioned Simmons in recent years. Isaac averaged 13.9 points and 6.2 rebounds in the Nike EYBL, tantalizing observers with his skill set combined with great length. In the fall, Isaac participated in the USA Basketball Developmental Camp and was one of the most impressive prospects among a plethora of five-star recruits. He ran the floor with grace while showing off a tight jump shot.
Isaac will join two four-star recruits in shooting guard Trent Forrest (No. 92) and point guard C.J. Walker to form the No. 11 recruiting class in 2016. While current freshmen shooting guard Malik Beasley and small forward Dwayne Bacon might test their own NBA Draft status with the new rules allowing greater flexibility, a nucleus of Isaac along with that pair would make Florida State one of the most talented teams in next year’s ACC.
For now, Isaac will finish off his year at IMG Academy before beginning his All-Star travels. NBA scouts scoping his talents for the 2017 draft will get their first glimpse of Isaac in April at the Nike Hoop Summit practices.
| recruiting, Regular Features, who's got next | Tagged: florida state, Hoop Summit, Jonathan Isaac
Who’s Got Next? HoopHall Preview, Kobi Simmons & Rechon Black Make Decisions
Posted by Sean Moran on January 18th, 2016
The final day of the famed HoopHall Classic takes place today with ESPNU giving college basketball fans a chance to get a head start on watching some of the top freshmen in the 2016-17 season. Here is a primer on 5 players to watch:
Jayson Tatum (11am) – Tatum is a 6’7” wing headed to Duke and has been one of the top players in his class (#3 overall) from the time he entered high school at Chaminade (MO). The future Blue Devil has the most advanced offensive game in the class of 2016 and likes to show off his Kobe Bryant fade-away.
Markelle Fultz (11am) – As a sophomore, the 6’4” Fultz was playing junior varsity for DeMatha. Now, he is the #7 prospect in the country and will head across the country to play at Washington next season. Fultz is a combo guard that can score in unorthodox ways. He excels at getting to the basket off the pick and roll and is a strong 3-point shooter.
Lonzo Ball (5pm) – The oldest of the Ball brothers is the best passer in high school and is the quarterback of Chino Hills, the top team in the country. The future UCLA Bruin is a 6’5” point guard that can hit pin-point three-quarter court passes and also knock down a three from the NBA three point line. Chino Hills is one of the most entertaining teams to watch as well.
| who's got next | Tagged: arizona, duke, edrice adebayo, Hoophall Classic, Jayson Tatum, Josh Jackson, kentucky, Kobi Simmons, Lonzo Ball, malik monk, Markelle Fultz, north carolina, Rawle Alkins, Rechon Black, ucla, unc, washington
Who’s Got Next? Meeting Kentucky’s Next Vaunted Recruiting Class
Posted by Sean Moran on November 24th, 2015
Kentucky took down Duke 74-63 in last Tuesday’s Champions Classic and now it has surged ahead of the Blue Devils in the race for the top recruiting class in 2016 as well. Adding two five-star recruits in the span of a week (and three in the span of a month) will usually do that. It started on November 12, when 6’3” point guard De’Aron Fox committed to John Calipari’s program. It continued last week, when 6’8” Edrice “Bam” Adebayo and 6’3” shooting guard Malik Monk followed Fox’s lead with commitments of their own.
Surprise, surprise – John Calipari is cleaning up on the recruiting trail. (Getty)
So what is Kentucky getting in these three commitments? Fox will look to follow in the footsteps of John Wall and Brandon Knight, two of the many five-star point guards that Calipari has brought to Lexington during his tenure. He is a three-year veteran of the Nike EYBL, having first played on the Houston Hoops AAU squad as a rising sophomore with Justise Winslow, Kelly Oubre and Justin Jackson. Despite playing with older competition, Fox was usually somewhat of an afterthought in a loaded class of point guards. Even Kentucky originally prioritized Derryck Thornton (before he reclassified) and Kobi Simmons over Fox. However, this was before Fox put together a sensational summer and established himself at the front of the pack in a class that includes Dennis Smith, Frank Jackson (Duke commitment), Lonzo Ball and Simmons. The left-handed Fox is a menacing defensive presence who can lock down guards with his quick feet and fast hands. His primary weakness revolves around outside shooting, but he is a capable shooter off the dribble and is plenty explosive around the rim. While Fox was not always a priority for Kentucky, the Wildcats might have ended up with the best point guard in the class. Read the rest of this entry »
| recruiting, Regular Features, who's got next | Tagged: de'aron fox, duke, edrice adebayo, feature, kentucky, malik monk
Who’s Got Next? Duke Lands Top Recruit Harry Giles
Posted by Sean Moran on November 6th, 2015
It’s been rumored for months, but now it’s official: “I’ll be attending Duke University,” Harry Giles said at a Noon ET press conference earlier today. The 6’10” senior has been coveted by the top college coaches in America from the time he first put on a jersey at Wesleyan Christian Academy (NC) several years ago, and this article was supposed to focus on Duke’s Class of 2016 — now with the top two players committed — being one for the ages. While it might still end up this way, the somber backdrop to today’s announcement was that the nation’s top prospect tore his right ACL earlier this week and will miss his senior season at Oak Hill Acadamy (VA).
After three years at Wesleyan Christian, Giles’ transfer to the famed basketball powerhouse in the Virginia mountains meant that a high school national championship, McDonald’s All-American honors, and a National Player of the Year award were all in play. In an unfortunate but familiar twist of fate, all of those possibilities were removed when Giles heard a pop while driving to the basket against Moravian Prep (NC) on Tuesday night. The timing for his rehabilitation isn’t awful — Giles will be able to take his time to strengthen his knee in order to get ready for his freshman season in Durham one year from now, and sadly, this isn’t his first rodeo. While playing for the USA U-16 team in the 2013 FIBA Americas, Giles tore both his left ACL and MCL. He spent his sophomore season rehabilitating and it wasn’t until May 2014 when he returned to the court during Nike EYBL AAU action. He initially was nowhere near the player he had been as a freshman, and it wasn’t until almost 13 months after his injury that Giles was able to do some of the things that had previously come naturally to him. With all of the top college coaches packed into a gym in Colorado Springs for the USA U-17 tryouts, Giles threw down a rim-rattling dunk and followed that up with a smooth one dribble pull-up from 15 feet. He was back.
| Regular Features, who's got next | Tagged: duke, feature, Frank Jackson, harry giles, Jahlil Okafor, Jayson Tatum, Tyus Jones
Who’s Got Next? Jaylen Brown’s California Dreamin’ & UNC Lands Shooter
Posted by Sean Moran on May 5th, 2015
On Friday night prep small forward Jaylen Brown shocked the recruiting world and committed to California, spurning the likes of Kentucky, Michigan and North Carolina in the process. With his second top-10 commitment in a month, Cuonzo Martin will have all eyes on him as his program makes the leap to become a favorite in the Pac-12 and a contender in the national title race. The 6’7” Brown is considered the No. 1 player in the country by Scout.com and among the top three from both ESPN and Rivals. DraftExpress also lists Brown in the No. 2 spot in their 2016 Mock Draft. The senior is a physically imposing small forward who at 220 pounds will make an impact on the Berkeley campus from Day 1. His playing style is that he prefers to attack the basket off the dribble while his outside shot is steadily improving. The young star is quite often compared to former Arizona star, Stanley Johnson, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and All-American who averaged 13.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game in his lone season in Tucson.
Brown’s recruiting history has been a mixed bag. The Marietta (GA) native took official visits to both Kansas and Kentucky for their Midnight Madness events last fall. He tacked on a UCLA official during the first weekend of November followed by a North Carolina visit for its exciting win over Louisville in January. Instead of cutting his list of college suitors down as his senior year progressed, however, Brown expanded it. After hitting the game-winning free throws in the Georgia 6A state championship, the senior took his last official visit to Michigan in March and then went on a surprise unofficial visit to California immediately afterward. He played his cards close to the vest and kept everyone guessing about where he was headed until the very last minute. He eliminated Kansas, Georgia, and Georgia Tech in the week prior to his announcement, and after his high school basketball banquet last week, he continued a curious trend of some five-star players spurning the college elite in committing to an unheralded Cal program.
| Regular Features, who's got next | Tagged: california, cuonzo martin, feature, Ivan Rabb, jason kidd, Jaylen Brown, Kenny Williams, recruiting, Wheeler
Who’s Got Next? McDonald’s All-American Preview
Posted by Sean Moran on April 1st, 2015
The 38th annual McDonald’s All-American game tips off at the United Center in Chicago tonight at 8:00 PM ET. With the Final Four just around the corner, this star-studded game provides an inside look at the players that will impact the college game as freshmen next season. For example, there are four freshmen on each of the Duke and Kentucky rosters that participated in this game last year. While the diehard recruitnik already knows all about the players who populate the East and West teams, here is a high-level overview of what to watch for tonight for those who are more focused on the college game.
No. 1 Recruiting Class
Arizona currently has the No. 1 recruiting class but only one of its four signees is playing in the game. Kentucky is ranked No. 2 and it only has one player playing as well. What gives? For starters, Arizona has signed three five-star prospects but only shooting guard Allonzo Trier is playing in the game. Trier is an electric scorer who is certain to get his fair share of points tonight. The other future desert Wildcats are small forward Ray Smith, who is the No. 15 prospect in the country, 6’5” point guard Justin Simon (No. 20) and 6’11” forward Chance Comanche (No. 44). Power forward Ivan Rabb (No. 5) has also narrowed his choice down to California and Arizona. As for Kentucky, combo guard Isaiah Briscoe (No. 18) is the lone representative in this year’s game and the physical New Jersey product will do his best tonight by attacking the basket and creating for his teammates. The crown jewel of the Kentucky recruiting class is currently the No. 3 recruit in 6’11” forward Skal Labissiere. The Haitan native has immense long-term potential but he also has the NCAA interested in his background. Guard Charles Matthews, who is not currently ranked in the top 50, rounds out the class. Once the Final Four is over and several current Wildcats announce their NBA decisions, expect this class to grow by several more names and for Kentucky to once again lay claim to the top recruiting class in the nation.
Unsigned Players
A common refrain from both parents and NBA scouts attending the McDonald’s All-American practices was that it is in the best interests of the players to wait as long as they could before making a commitment. That way the families would have an opportunity to see what was going on with the coaching carousel in addition to learning which players are declaring for the NBA. As a result in this shift of thinking, there are a record number of unsigned seniors in this year’s class. Keep an eye on the below names.
| Regular Features, who's got next | Tagged: 2015 McDonald's All-American game, Ben Simmons, Brandon Ingram, feature, Ivan Rabb, Jaylen Brown, Malik Newman, Top Match-Up
Who’s Got Next? Elite Big Man Diamond Stone Selects Maryland
Posted by Sean Moran on March 30th, 2015
Maryland exceeded expectations by going 28-7 in its first Big Ten season and now Mark Turgeon’s club is doing the same on the recruiting front with the unexpected weekend commitment of five-star center Diamond Stone, the No. 4 prospect in the senior class. The 6’10” big man from Milwaukee committed to the Terps on Friday night and in turn significantly raised expectations for Maryland next season.
Stone’s name first popped on the radar in 2012 as he established himself as an overpowering freshman. He won a Wisconsin Division 4 championship that year and didn’t stop from there, having just capped off his fourth title in a row at Dominican High School with a 23-point, 15-rebound performance. Through it all, Stone maintained his status as one of the top players in his class and at times held down the overall No. 1 ranking. Over the past two summers, Stone was a regular with the USA basketball program, winning gold medals at the U-16 FIBA Americas event and at the U-17 FIBA World Championships. He started all 12 games for Team USA and averaged 13.6 points and 7.2 rebounds and 13.4 points and 9.7 rebounds, respectively, during those international events.
Stone’s recruitment has been a long and winding road with many twists and turns. Local powers Wisconsin and Marquette established themselves early with the Golden Eagles rumored to be the leader with Stone taking numerous unofficial visits to the campus right next door. Schools from all over the country soon joined that pair in the race as Stone received offers from Georgetown, Indiana, Duke, North Carolina and UCLA. When Buzz Williams left for Virginia Tech a year ago, Marquette received a commitment from Henry Ellenson and dropped out. The four schools that remained were Wisconsin, Connecticut, Oklahoma State and Maryland, with the College Park school seeming like the longest shot. UConn was discussed as the leader as recently as last summer (and a package deal with Malik Newman was supposedly in play), but Stone took official visits to all four schools in October and liked Maryland the best.
| Regular Features, who's got next | Tagged: diamond stone, feature, maryland, Melo Trimble, recruiting, Under Armour
Who’s Got Next? Cal’s Big Recruiting Weekend & Jayson Tatum’s First Visit
Big Recruiting Weekend in Berkeley Already Paying Dividends
Three-star small forward Davon Dillard committed to California Sunday afternoon after watching the Golden Bears take down Oregon State on Senior Night. It was billed as the biggest recruiting weekend in three years in Berkeley and definitely the biggest weekend in Cuonzo Martin’s short tenure. Lacking a recruit in the class of 2015, California played host to its top target in Ivan Rabb, a 6’10” five-star recruit from the Bay Area, five-star power forward Caleb Swanigan, and the three-star Dillard. While Cal didn’t get the coveted commitment from Rabb, Dillard’s commitment keeps the positive momentum moving. In Martin’s first season, a NIT berth most likely awaits for the Golden Bears (17-12 overall; 7-9 in Pac-12 play). They will graduate their third-leading scorer in David Kravish and there is a good possibility that 6’5” junior Tyrone Wallace could leave school early for the NBA Draft. With Dillard locked up, though, the Bears will get a tough-minded and athletic forward who can finish above the rim and is also a threat from outside the arc. With one good commitment now in the fold, Martin can focus on landing a big man to replace Kravish. Rabb has been Martin’s top target from the moment he took the job in Berkeley and he will look to convince the Bishop O’ Dowd star to stay at home and help get his local school get back to the NCAA Tournament. Along with Cal, Rabb is also considering Arizona, UCLA, Kentucky and Kansas. While Rabb is in the mix for the Bears, it might be harder to sign Swanigan, who has visited schools all over the country including Arizona, Kentucky, Duke, Notre Dame and Purdue. In an extremely important weekend for the future of the program, California put together an impressive showing on the court and then locked up an athletic wing with Martin’s first recruit at the school.
Top Junior Takes First Official Visit
| Regular Features, who's got next | Tagged: caleb swanigan, Davon Dillard, harry giles, Ivan Rabb, Jayson Tatum, recruiting
Who’s Got Next? A Look at the Top McDonald’s All-American Match-Ups
Posted by Sean Moran on February 2nd, 2015
The rosters for the 38th McDonald’s All-American game were released last week, with 24 of the top high school players in the country set to play in Chicago’s United Center on April 1. But before they play in front of a nationally-televised audience for fans hoping to catch a glimpse of the next big thing, they will compete against each other in a series of practices that will be highly scrutinized by media and NBA scouts. Let’s take a look at some of the top practice match-ups that will only be seen by a select few as well as several to keep an eye on during the actual game.
Top Practice Match-Ups:
No. 1 Jaylen Brown, 6’7”, SF, Wheeler (GA) vs. No. 2 Ben Simmons, 6’8”, SF, Montverde (FL)
NBA Scouts will be salivating with this one. The top two players in the country will have two practice sessions to compete against each other in drills and scrimmages. Ben Simmons and Jaylen Brown already faced off once this year at the City of Palms tournament in December, with Brown getting the better of the individual match-up while also leading his team to the championship. While they didn’t spend a lot of time guarding each other in that game, it will be interesting to watch how they attack each other in the practices leading up to the McDonald’s game. Simmons is a unique wing with stellar passing skills and a strong ball-handling ability that allows him to act as a point forward. Brown is very reminiscent of current Arizona freshman Stanley Johnson, someone capable of using his strength to attack the basket and punish smaller and weaker defenders. Perimeter shooting is not a strength for either player at this point in their development, but both have markedly improved over the last year and are more than capable from hitting a few from deep.
Simmons will head to LSU next year to play for his godfather and assistant coach David Patrick, while Brown is still undecided on his collegiate destination. He has taken official visits to Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA, UNC and most likely Michigan while taking numerous unofficial visits to in-state Georgia and Georgia Tech.
No. 11 Malik Newman, 6’3”, G, Callaway (MS) vs. No. 14 Allonzo Trier, 6’4”, SG, Findlay Prep (NV)
Malik Newman and Allonzo Trier are two of the most prolific scorers in the prep game and have been scorching the nets from the moment they both entered high school. They spent three years playing on the U-17 Nike EYBL AAU circuit and as a result have had numerous individual battles. While Newman and Trier are similar in their ability to put points up in a hurry, their high school careers have been quite different. Newman has spent all four of his years in Mississippi while Trier has played in Oklahoma, Maryland and Nevada. Trier is also the more methodical of the two while Newman gets shout-outs from NBA players who drop 52 in a game.
Allonzo Trier will lace up his shoes at Arizona next year and Newman will wait until the spring to decide on his destination.
| recruiting, Regular Features, who's got next | Tagged: Ben Simmons, Brandon Ingram, feature, Ivan Rabb, Jalen Brunson, Jawun Evans, Jaylen Brown, Malik Newman, McDonald's All-American Game
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Aradhana Mahotsavam In Zone 1, 2A & 2B
in Devotion, Public Outreach, Service, Zone 1, Zone 2A, Zone 2B
Sathya Sai organisation members across the USA conducted various service activities and deepened their spiritual practice in April 2016 in grateful observance of Bhagawan’s Mahasamadhi.
In the northeast region, Sathya Sai volunteers organised projects dedicated to Mother Nature and the protection of the environment, including cleaning up parks, river banks, and neighbourhoods, as well as volunteering at a local wildlife sanctuary, organic farming, and creating a Sai Garden at the Assisi Institute in Rochester, New York. Sai volunteers also organised a health fair in Wappinger Falls, served a lunch to the impoverished in Poughkeepsie, New York, and supplied food and provisions to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). In addition, some members of Sathya Sai centres spent the day of Mahasamadhi in silence at a Regional Silent Retreat in Stowe, Massachusetts.
Sathya Sai centre members in South Bethesda, Maryland, embarked on several service projects on 16th April 2016, starting with the annual clean-up of the Occoquan River, which provides drinking water to residents of northern Virginia. In Baltimore, volunteers offered food to the homeless and distributed backpacks and meals to 210 needy students at a local elementary school. The following week, they donated books to disadvantaged school and college students. On 24th April, 25 Sathya Sai volunteers cleaned and packed 900 pairs of eyeglasses for overseas distribution to the indigent. Later that afternoon, many centre members viewed films about inspiring stories of transformation taking place in rural villages of India through Sathya Sai education programmes, as well as through health and rural improvement projects.
In St. Louis, Missouri, more than 30 volunteers served 300 cheese sandwiches to the homeless at the Centenary United Methodist Church. At the New Life Evangelical Center, Sathya Sai volunteers served 120 boxes of pizza along with soft drinks, fruit, granola bars, and brownies to homeless brothers and sisters, with love and humility. All Sathya Sai members worked as one unified family and were grateful for the opportunity to serve and grow spiritually through the act of service.
In Northern California, more than 400 SSIO members came together on 24th April 2016 for a Sai Reflection Day, an event filled with joyful devotional music, prayers, and a collage of seven delightful dramas presented by Sai Spiritual Education (SSE) children. The skits, some written by the children, depicted the teachings of various faiths, with a concluding play, titled Religion of Love, that emphasised the underlying unity of all faiths. The afternoon programme included inspiring talks, sports activities, and games for the SSE students, along with the assembling of first-aid kits for the patients of the Ashland Free Medical Clinic, which is operated by Sathya Sai volunteers. SSIO members were also encouraged to engage in a month-long spiritual practice and were supported in their efforts through a dial-in telephone conference line, where participants could listen daily to spiritual chants, a guided meditation, and an audio clip from one of Sathya Sai Baba’s discourses.
The Aradhana Day observances for Southern California included a month-long period of service initiatives that began in early April 2016 Volunteers from four Sathya Sai Centres joined to provide 250 destitute families with food, toiletry bags, and blankets. On 16th April, three other centres prepared and distributed hot Mexican-food lunches to 550 homeless and mentally challenged people at the Orange County Mental Health Association in Santa Ana, California. With no kitchen facilities available, 55 Sathya Sai volunteers managed to prepare the food with only a few griddles, four microwaves, and a scant number of tables. Meals of peanut butter and cheese sandwiches, apples, granola bars, and juice were also prepared for children living in homeless shelters. The volunteers demonstrated glowing faces as they lovingly organised and loaded food trays into cars and vans for delivery to eleven Southern California locations. Volunteers also prepared and distributed hot meal boxes and water to the homeless in downtown Long Beach on 1st May. Recipients thanked the volunteers as they received the food, often saying gratefully, “God bless you.”
Sathya Sai Baba Centers of Region 9 engaged in devotion and service across the Region. Keeping in mind Sathya Sai Baba’s injunction to Love All, Serve All, devotees spread out across the Region to provide service with LOVE! Projects ranged from food service projects like serving meals to homeless individuals and families to food packing, gleaning citrus trees to cleaning homes, replacing old furniture, cleaning the kitchen and grounds of a shelter, to giving hygiene kits and snack bags to a youth services organization. Finally, many devotees engaged in spiritual practice and self-reflection throughout the day, deepening their understanding of Sathya Sai Baba’s teachings on the unity of thought, word and deed.
SSIO members of Region 10, South-Central USA, commemorated Bhagawan’s Mahasamadhi by participating in daily spiritual practices of prayers, devotional singing, and reading of Sai literature over a month-long period. Special service initiatives across the region included distribution of both fresh and non-perishable food along with clothing to underprivileged residents of local communities. Many members volunteered at food banks, helping to sort, bag, and box food items. On 24th April 2016, meetings were organised with inspiring speakers, beautiful plays enacted by SSE students, musical interludes by Young Adults, and video and poster presentations by SSE students about Sathya Sai Baba’s humanitarian projects.
An initiative undertaken by the Dallas Sathya Sai Centre showcased a Sai Gardening team at the Texoma Earth Day Festival on 23rd April 2016. Fresh vegetables are grown organically in this project, started from seeds, and distributed to needy people. A Sai Garden booth provided information at the festival about community gardening and how to build a raised-bed or tower garden, as well as about composters and composting methods, and the Sai Gardening team hosted a composting workshop in the afternoon. Sathya Sai Education (SSE) children prepared planters using biodegradable cups containing soil and radish seeds, and interested visitors to the booth received freshly harvested organic kale from a Sai Garden.
The SSIO of Trinidad & Tobago organised a national programme of gratitude on 24th April 2016 at Sai Nilayam, its national headquarters. About 250 SSIO members attended the devotional programme, which included addresses by two youth and a captivating drama by SSE children on the theme, “All Religions Are Different Paths to the One God Called by Many Names.”
Every year, SSIO members in Ecuador gather to plan service projects in observance of Aradhana Mahotsavam. However, an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 caused devastation in Ecuador in April 2016, bringing destruction and panic to the local areas and population. Of the two Sathya Sai Schools in Ecuador, in Bahía Caraquez and in Guayaquil, the school in Bahía Caraquez was affected due severely to its proximity to the earthquake’s epicentre. Sathya Sai volunteers immediately sprang into action and transformed the school into a temporary shelter for more than 60 displaced people. Food and medical assistance were provided to those in need with the help of volunteers and 15 doctors. About 10 members of the National Police Corps also availed themselves of the shelter and in return protected the school from miscreants. Members of the SSIO acted quickly to use both schools for the collection and distribution of food and supplies. SSIO members across the country collected and distributed much needed food, supplies, clothes, mattresses, and tents, and offered their heartfelt prayers. Months after the disaster, the SSIO volunteers continue to work as a unified team to assist people in need, in areas devastated by the earthquake.
In preparation for the Aradhana Mahotsavam, the SSIO held a meeting, titled “Active in the Depths of Silence,” at the Chalet de Chorrillos Sacred Heart School on 17th April 2016. SSIO members shared with great enthusiasm the practices of reflection, the “light meditation,” and recitation of prayers, along with Baba’s message to strengthen the inner connection to God. On 24th April 2016, the Aradhana Mahotsavam programme began with the simple recitation of Om Sri Sai Ram, followed by bhajans, practice of the “light meditation,” and sharing of experiences on the importance of developing unwavering, steady faith. The programme concluded with the screening of an inspiring video about Sathya Sai Baba. The participants experienced a sense of unity and belonging to one family.
The SSIO of Venezuela commemorated Swami’s Mahasamadhi by coordinating several activities through its Devotional and Educational Wings during April 2016. The devotional programmes included practice of the “light meditation” as taught by Sathya Sai Baba and bhajans. The Educational Wing led workshops on Bhagawan and organised conversations with children about the significance of the Mahasamadhi. The SSIO also screened educational films on the life and message of Sathya Sai Baba. In addition, members of each Centre presented programmes, including inspiring talks and videos on the Avatar. Poems were written and dedicated to Baba in an atmosphere of bliss.
Ecuador Peru Trinidad & Tobago USA Venezuela
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Few Chinese have heard of Transsion Holdings, a Shenzhen-based company, which has grabbed more than 40 percent market share in Sub-Saharan African countries. In 2016, it outperformed its main competitors like Samsung in terms of feature phone shipments in the African market. Transsion's success there might inspire more domestic competitors to follow suit. But experts also warn that such mobile phone makers need to prepare to face certain challenges when doing business in Africa, such as widespread political instability and low consumption.Few Chinese have heard of Transsion Holdings, a Shenzhen-based company, which has grabbed more than 40 percent market share in Sub-Saharan African countries. In 2016, it outperformed its main competitors like Samsung in terms of feature phone shipments in the African market. Transsion's success there might inspire more domestic competitors to follow suit. But experts also warn that such mobile phone makers need to prepare to face certain challenges when doing business in Africa, such as widespread political instability and low consumption.
Transsion Holdings, a Chinese mobile phone maker based in Shenzhen, has grabbed more than 40 percent market share in Sub-Saharan African countries.
In the first quarter of 2017, the company ranked first place among Chinese mobile phone exporters, shipping 27.4 million units, according to Beijing-based data provider AVC. Huawei, the world's third largest phone maker by shipments, ranked second place.
In 2016, Transsion outperformed its main competitors such as Samsung in terms of feature phone shipments in the African market, according to a report by market research company IDC in March.
However, few Chinese have heard of the company as its mobile phones are not sold domestically.
About 10 years ago, due to rising domestic competition, "a good number of Chinese mobile phone makers started to explore foreign markets, but many have failed as they didn't focus on branding and wanted quick returns," Wang Yanhui, secretary-general of the Mobile China Alliance, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
International mobile phone makers are reluctant to enter the African market due to the low consumption there, Li Yi, chief research fellow at the Internet Research Center under the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Li noted that it could be an opportunity for domestic mobile phone makers. But Li also warned that the path to exploring the African market will not be easy due to the uncertain risks there.
Grabbing opportunities
Transsion is one of the domestic mobile phone makers seeking opportunities in Africa. They narrowed their focus to the market in 2008.
Wang attributed Transsion's success in Africa mainly to the company's founder Zhu Zhaojiang, who is very experienced in overseas markets. Additionally, the company operates locally in African countries to secure its dominance there, said Wang.
At the beginning, the company set up a marketing strategy to "become a leader" of emerging economies, Arif Chowdhury, vice president of Transsion, told the Global Times. The continent has huge potential with a population of more than 1 billion, he noted.
Transsion was right about the market. Africa's population of mobile users accounted for 12 percent of the total individual subscribers in the world and amounted to 6 percent of global revenue, an increase of 70 percent compared to figures from five years ago, according to a CNN report in November 2016.
In total, 215.3 million mobile phones were shipped to Africa in 2016, up 10 percent year-on-year, according to data released by IDC in March.
Tailoring to customer needs
Chinese-made mobile phones indeed have the positive reputation of good functions and low prices and are strongly welcomed by most African consumers.
"Chinese mobile phone makers can produce what you want and are flexible in designing products to meet customers' needs," Rayan Abdelrahman Ahmed Mohamed, a 33-year-old Sudanese, told the Global Times.
Africans love music, loud speakers and two SIM cards, which Chinese mobile phones can provide, he said.
Many larger companies intend to sell the phone's brand instead of the quality of the product, he said. "Why [should] I pay for the brand? I pay for my need."
There are many telecom operators in Africa, and it's not cheap to dial between networks, so we produce phones with dual, and sometimes even four, SIM card slots, said Chowdhury.
African customers, like many other smartphone customers around the world, love taking 'selfies'. But the customers with darker skin say it is hard for them to take good quality photos as many smartphone cameras have poor facial recognition.
Transsion, on the other hand, designs specialized cameras that focus on people's teeth and eyes to ensure photographic clarity.
"We have different brand tactics to provide high, medium and low-end products for our diverse consumers," Chowdhury noted.
Competition and challenges
Recently, the interest in the African market from Chinese mobile phone makers has been increasing; they have been expanding their businesses to more and more countries, but this new venture has invited mixed results from across the continent, according to IDC.
Of the big Chinese mobile phone makers, Huawei saw year-on-year shipment growth to "remain as Africa's No.3 smartphone vendor in 2016, while Lenovo saw flat growth and ZTE and Alcatel both [witnessed trimmed sales]," said IDC.
Huawei and Lenovo didn't respond to the request to give comment on their performance in the African market.
"Price competitiveness has become a key issue in many African markets," said an IDC report released in March citing Ramazan Yavuz, research manager for mobile devices in Africa at IDC.
Both Wang and Li said that vendors have to provide phones which are priced very competitively to aid to the large amount of low-income populations in the continent.
Meanwhile, mobile phone makers face the fact that the cost of phone components is rising. They need to produce good quality products but with affordable prices, as well as to keep companies profitable.
Before raising the value of their phones, Chowdhury said the company will monitor the prices of the components provided by different suppliers by buying a large amount of them at reasonable prices.
"In the short run, Transsion has had less pressure from other competitors in the African market," said Wang, the secretary-general, noting that Africa is a big market, with more than 50 countries, and therefore huge potential.
Most companies will face challenges due to differences in culture, language and regulations when operating overseas, said Wang.
Echoing Wang's statement, Chowdhury said that they have spent $75 million to establish after-sales networks in African countries during the recent few years.
Transsion also has sales networks in 58 countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Egypt.
Moreover, companies need to understand the development and political situation in some African countries, said Li, the aforementioned chief research fellow, noting that it will take at least another 15 years for the market to mature in Africa.
Even for Transsion, it has taken almost a decade for the company to gradually build its brand in order to meet local customers' needs.
Source by: globaltimes.cn
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The Price of Strength
This forum is used to post any stories following members of the Horde, collaborative or otherwise. Alliance characters can participate too. If you expect roughly equal posting from both sides, please post to the Cross-Faction forum instead. For stories taking place in the past, please post to the Backstories forum. For projects that might benefit from one, feel free to start an OOC companion thread in the Roleplaying forum.
Julilee
by Julilee » July 6th, 2015, 5:08 pm
Something was bothering me. It felt urgent, yet, at the same time, distant. There was something I needed to do, but it was maddeningly hard to remember that it even mattered. When I did remember there was something I needed to do, I tried to figure out what it was, but it eluded me until I forgot again in frustration.
Finally, I awakened.
I didn’t know where I was. Disoriented, I focused on the one who sat beside me. It was Kex’ti, looking at me with an expression of shock. “Juli?” he said, disbelief in his voice.
“Kex…?” I tried to say, but my throat was so dry and sore it came out as a rasp.
He broke into the biggest smile I’d ever seen on him. He clasped my hand in his, his touch gentle. I couldn’t make any sense of what was going on.
“What…?” I tried to ask. I raised my other hand to his arm. It took a great effort, and it trembled as I did so. I was so weak.
“Easy,” he said. “You’ve been out of it for a while.” He leaned down and planted a kiss on my forehead, one of his exuberant displays of affection he indulged in when it was only the two of us. I closed my eyes.
My mouth was so dry; I licked my lips, concentrating on formulating the words to speak. I tried again. “No… what…”
He moved, kicking off his shoes and sliding under the blankets with me. When he gathered me in his arms, I could acutely feel how weak I was in comparison to his strength. I’d never been so weak in my life. It made me shudder, and he lifted a hand to tuck my hair behind my ear. “It’s okay,” he told me.
He reached out with his other arm and pulled the end table by the bed closer. I thought I was beginning to recognize the area; one of the private rooms in the field hospital Kenjin had built in the garrison. From the table he took a small carafe of water, its sides gleaming with condensation. He helped me sit up and gave it to me; I nearly dropped it, my grip faltering, but his hand closed around mine, and he helped me sip. That water was the most refreshing thing I’d ever tasted.
“You’ve been out for… Gods… Two weeks?” Kex’ti said. “I heard that you were in Nagrand... but by the time I heard anything, you had already gotten hurt. And you were back here.”
Nagrand. I remembered the road, the overpass I’d gone under. A haunting, whistled tune. Plate, fire, and fur. “The worgen…” I said. Kex’ti nodded, encouraging me. I tried to remember more. “He had a…”
I lapsed into silence. I could picture the weapon he’d had. A great blade, one that required two hands, double-edged and flared. My father could have named the culture it came from and wielded it like an expert. But at that moment, I couldn’t even remember its name.
“What is it called…?” I murmured, confused.
Kex’ti kissed the top of my head, not interjecting. I shook my head and lifted the carafe again, drinking thirstily. Confusion was draining away, but my thoughts were still sluggish. I was tired.
“Is everyone safe?” I asked.
“Relatively,” Kex’ti said. He would not sugarcoat the truth for me, even in this moment. “Before you woke up... we suffered an attack. It was repelled. Taozhu was injured, but he’s recovering now. Just a scrape. He was protecting you, actually.”
I had protected Taozhu the last time Sanctuary Garrison had come under attack. This time, I had lain helpless. “I couldn’t even get out of bed right now,” I murmured.
“Hey,” Kex’ti said. He hugged me, his arms wrapped around me from where he was sitting behind me, supporting me. Just sitting up was too tiring for me to do on my own at this moment. “You made it,” he said. “I knew you would.”
He called on the mists. Their cool rush ran through me, as refreshing as the water. It helped, though my body’s energies had little to build on. I closed my eyes again.
“Sssh,” Kex’ti said. “I’ve got you. You’re all right.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to be gotten. I wanted to be strong, to stand on my own. Kex’ti knew what I was feeling without me having to say the words.
“You are strong,” he said. “If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be alive.”
I leaned my head back against him, feeling his body supporting mine, his arms encircling me. I was grateful he was there. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. But instead of thinking about that, I tried to think of what I could do. I needed to know what was going on. “The attack… what was it? Morinth?” I asked.
“I think so,” Kex’ti said. “Two of her minions. One of which broke Tes’s spine... the draenei.”
His anger was tightly wound; held under strict control. Mine sparked into life. An attack on my people, while I lay helpless, and Tes seriously injured. I was angrier about that than what had been done to me. “What does she want…?” I said.
He took the water and put it back on the table. His hand sought mine, enveloping it. “If I had to guess,” he said, “it’s for people to hurt.”
There were plenty of people in the world who shared that motivation. But it didn’t explain everything to my satisfaction. I concentrated on expressing myself. “Why us?” I asked.
“We are not like her.”
His voice cracked slightly as the anger started to come loose. He was thinking about Tes, and me. I squeezed his hand back as it began to shake.
“We are a force for good and justice,” he said. “We are what she is not, and she hates us for being that symbol of hope.”
He didn’t have to explain any further. This, I already knew, and understood well. “That is what we will face,” I murmured.
He quieted. “What is?” he asked.
I grew confused by the question. “…When… people don’t…”
I couldn’t articulate my thoughts. I understood what was around me, but I couldn’t think clearly. I fell into silence.
Kex’ti filled it by taking a covered plate off the table and helping me eat. My throat hurt with every swallow, but the more I ate, the more an appetite I discovered I had. Even so, the flavorful food Kex’ti always enjoyed preparing was almost too rich for me. I set it aside before the plate was cleaned.
He could barely sit still. He ran his fingers through my hair. It just made me think of how much a mess I had to be. But more than that, I was trying to focus on thinking clearly, finding that some things were easier to think about that others.
“My mind is… fuzzy,” I said.
“It takes a bit to recover,” Kex’ti responded. “The… way you were attacked cut off a lot of circulation to your head. That kind of damage can... take a bit to recover from. But you’re awake. It’ll get better.”
I remembered the explosion. Getting thrown back, hitting the water. Then the ice that formed over my head. I lifted a hand to my bare throat, remembering in a sudden flash how I had struggled to break through. The water had been too deep; I’d had no leverage. My shield, my fist, connecting, but not hard enough. My lungs, filling.
“The water…” I said faintly. He reached over to pick up the carafe again, but I shook my head. “I was… under water. It burned, in my lungs…”
He listened, his ears drooping. I took a deep breath. Now it was air that was blessed to me, the ability to inhale as deeply as I could crave.
“Probably not going to want to go swimming for awhile,” I said after a moment.
Kex’ti had to smile. I just leaned against him, resting. The world could go on without me for a little while longer.
Re: The Price of Strength
I returned to the business of running a guild and a garrison. Kex’ti had done an excellent job while I was down, but he had the Tanaan Offensive to start organizing as the Horde began its push into the Iron Horde’s bastion. Sanctuary Garrison was heavily fortified by the Horde, a stronghold for other advancing the Horde’s other interests in Draenor, and there was plenty for me to do on a day-to-day basis in its upkeep alone.
All of it was tiring, though. I was re-reading a missive for the third time, trying to decide if it merited a response, when a tap came on my office’s doorframe. Naheal stood there, smiling faintly as he looked upon me. “Strange to see you out of armor,” he said.
I set the pen down and leaned back the chair, roping an arm over its back as I looked up at him. It was strange being out of armor, but I didn’t need its weight while I was still recovering. “I’ve been known to wear…” I began.
It happened again. The word wasn’t there when I got to that part of the sentence. I meant the garment that women could wear, with the open bottom, no legs. But the word was nowhere to be found in my brain. By this time, I’d learned how to compensate, and did so relatively smoothly.
“…Other things, from time to time,” I said.
“I haven’t seen you outside your armor in decades,” he said. “Not since…” He looked away. “I saw your cot empty the other night and thought you may have awoken.”
I said, “It’s good to see you.”
It was. Having discovered that my childhood best friend was still alive, I was glad to have him back in my life. Being around him felt more comfortable than anyone else, other than Kex’ti, but that was different.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m well,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
I looked down at the stack of papers on my desk. If anyone could discern there was something wrong, it would be Naheal. He didn’t need to know about my vocabulary issue. He wouldn’t leave it alone if he did. “A little weak, but I’ll recover,” was all I said.
“Do you know what I’m about to say?” he inquired. “I believe I was adamant about it before.”
I looked back up at him. He’d walked up to the desk, and stood looking at me with his arms loosely folded. I knew that look. “No,” I said.
“You need to have a guard with you now more than ever,” he told me.
He’d said this before. The circumstances hadn’t changed, in my opinion. I looked back down at the papers and started shuffling them. “Sanctuary doesn’t exactly have soldiers to spare,” I said.
“That may be true, but…” he began. His hand come down on the papers. I tilted my head, looking up at him sideways. “Jules,” he said. “This guy that did this to you isn’t going to stop until one of you are dead.”
“There’s a line,” I said flatly.
He took his hand back, closing his eyes and bowing his head. “There are some lines I won’t cross,” he said.
I’d meant that there was a line of people wanting to kill me, but the warning he’d interpreted from my statement wasn’t unwarranted. He would admonish me as much as I let him, and some days it wasn’t very much. I propped my chin on my hand, elbow on the desk, as I regarded him.
“I won’t say that I'm not concerned with your safety, but I won’t impose on your freedom,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow. “You say that like you could.”
I saw him bite his lip, but he chose to change the subject. I let him. For the rest of his visit, we discussed Morinth and the current situation instead. An assault on Grim Batol was being planned, with Sanctuary, Borrowed Time, and Grim forces. I wouldn’t be recovered enough by the time it took place, but I trusted Kex’ti would do what Sanctuary knew was needful.
Kex’ti, however, had issues of his own.
It was after the War Council. Kex’ti had made some statements during the meeting that were needlessly provocative, but after Taozhu departed and he and I were left alone in the main hall, I realized that it didn’t much matter in the greater scheme of things.
“I’m only a little mad,” I said.
He was sitting on one of the wooden benches, drinking from his medicine jug. Capping it, he tapped his staff against his spaulder and looked up at me. “Could we speak in your office?” he asked.
We went in and shut the door. I turned, leaning against the desk and looking at him. He looked tired. While I was regaining strength every day, his seemed to be sapping.
“Juli, I am sorry for my outburst,” he began. “It just frustrates and pains me to see him speak so freely. The Grim have good people in their ranks… to see one such as he…”
He spoke of Khorvis, who had been taunting Sanctuary. I sighed and reached for the clasps on my armor. Removing my shield and sword belt, I let them fall to the rug, then shoved them under my desk with my foot. “Provoking the Grim accomplishes nothing. They cannot be shown the error of their ways through rhetoric. Whatever satisfaction you get from voicing your frustrations only amplifies the cause of them,” I said. I’d found it was easier to speak straight when concentrating on another task at the same time.
Kex’ti look another long pull from his jug before responding, his voice remaining level with an effort. “Then maybe they deserve to answer for their words. Bravado only stands as long as it remains unquelled.”
My shoulderguards and gloves came off next. It had been a long day, made longer by the events of the council meeting. It had taken everything I had to hold it together and present a strong face to those present. When Kaelan had questioned Sanctuary’s purpose in front of all assembled, it had been effectively the thing I had dreaded most happening, but I had handled it. I had to, so I did. And I would continue to do, or not do, whatever was needful. “We cannot challenge them,” I replied to Kex’ti, simply. “They would answer our challenge, and win.”
“I could take them in a fight,” Kex’ti snapped. “Where would their confidence lie if their lasher were so easily defeated by a weak, cowardly…” He was going red with anger. “Juli, we can beat them. They brought four times our number to a simple discussion! How afraid they must be! That is fear acting, not confidence!”
“Fear and confidence don’t change the math,” I said. It was getting more difficult to argue with him. I shook my head.
“I would not endanger Sanctuary,” he said. “But, a simple duel would resolve…”
This was enough. I walked up to him. He looked at me, and his anger collapsed. Tears of frustration welled in his eyes. I put my hand on his chest. “Lay your pride on the altar of peace,” I murmured.
“What good am I if I can’t fight for what I believe in?” he asked. “How effective am I at keeping the peace if I can’t protect those close to me? Tes had her spine broken, and is alive by the grace of Aaren’s magic. You… you are stronger. But watching you like that. I knew you were going to wake up. But to be afraid, to doubt like that?”
My hand closed into a fist. I hated hearing this. I didn’t know what I could do or say.
Then he said, “I had to kill Remiaan. Draenor’s Remiaan, Julilee.”
Remiaan had been the woman he had loved and already lost once. The version that would have existed in this Draenor would never have met him, never have known what she could have meant to him, and would have joined with the Alliance. I couldn’t conceive of why Kex’ti would have had to kill her, but I knew Kex’ti often participated in the sanctioned battleground of Ashran. If he had met her there… “Kex’ti…” I said.
“And you know what I got for that?” he went on, bitterly. He gripped his staff. “I got rewarded. I am a Warlord of Draenor. I am Sanctuary’s Warlord of Draenor.”
Kex’ti was strong and gifted in combat. I knew he enjoyed battle. And I knew it was a constant conflict with him when it was peace he fought for. But the depths of his struggle were beyond me, especially now with the right words so impossible to find. I raised my hand from his chest to wipe his tears away with my thumb.
“I just… I can’t do anything but fight,” he said. “That’s all I am. It’s all I’m good for.”
I wanted to tell him it wasn’t true. I wanted to tell him all the other things he was good for. But I couldn’t. So instead I just went up on my toes and kissed him.
But that wasn’t what he wanted. He took me by the arms and moved me back. “No,” he said. “Juli, I believe in Sanctuary. I believe in everything we stand for, and I know, I know–”
“I believe in you,” I tried to say.
“That we are the light in the darkness,” he continued. Then he said, “I love you, but I can’t be weak around you. It’s holding myself to a standard I can’t bear. You have that resolve. I can’t just bear that burden.”
“I don’t see you as weak,” I said. “Ever.” How could I? He was stronger than I was in combat. He was an unstoppable force. If anyone respected Sanctuary, it was because of him.
“I’m mortal, Juli,” he said. “We’re all weak. That’s what Morinth is counting on. It’s what Gul’dan is relying on. It’s what the Grim functions on.”
“You’re not weak, but you are annoying when you contradict me,” I said.
“I am not Jinsai,” he said. “Or Naheal.”
That gave me pause. I didn’t know why he felt the need to compare himself to either of them. “I… know you’re not,” I said.
“I told you, when I joined, how I was. How I can use my mists. You trusted me to keep my Temperance oath, and I have done that. We’ve talked about why we do what we do.” He reached for my hand. “There is a brighter tomorrow in our works.”
“Gods, Kex’ti, I’m sick of talking,” I said. It was truly miserable, not being able to respond adequately. He raised his other hand to cup my face, and I sighed a little.
He said, “We’re partners, Juli. That means we can both be weak around each other, so we can be strong for everyone else. I’m just…” He frowned. “I have cried in front of you. You’ve seen my confidence flee, you’ve watched me cough up blood. Then, you get drowned, and we never talk about that? We just go on as usual? I assume you’re indomitable?”
I felt somewhat blindsided. I’d been working on recovering my strength, on doing what needed to be done for Sanctuary. I was dealing with my speech problems and the slowness in my left side. What more was I supposed to be doing? “Is that what you want from me?” I said. “To cry in front of you?”
“I trust you,” he said, looking at me. “I have shown you that.”
“Do you think I don’t trust you?” I asked, in disbelief.
He rubbed his eyes. “I love you,” he said quietly.
He had never said that before. “Kex’ti…” I said, and hesitated.
“Oh,” he said. He sank visibly.
“No – it’s not—” I said. It was too late. I had hesitated.
He moved his hand to my shoulder. “No, it’s… It’s okay,” he said.
“Don’t,” I said. “Please don’t. I can’t… It’s so hard for me right now.”
“I know that,” he said. “But I know you.”
“You don’t if you think me not crying in front of you means I don’t trust you,” I said in frustration.
“I just… sometimes, I’d feel less afraid if I knew that you’d talk to me if you were upset. It’s hard to be weak when the person you feel so strongly about always seems so, so, so strong.”
His words hurt. It hurt to know that the way I coped hurt him. It hurt that I couldn’t just heal in my own way; that I had to add his needs on top of mine.
“I’m a monk, Juli, not a priest,” he said. “I can infer. I can’t be certain if you never speak it.”
I took a breath. “There is no one I’d rather have by my side.”
He looked uncertain. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, like the kiss hadn’t been what he wanted either. He waited, and I tried to find something else to say, but slowly, as the moments crept by, I came to the realization: I had nothing.
“I can’t… give you anything more right now,” I said quietly.
He looked away. “Okay,” he said.
“Kex’ti,” I said, for the millionth time.
“Okay,” he said again, not listening.
“When I’m weak, it’s… It’s the times I can’t give you anything.”
His gaze returned to mine. Then he took me into his arms. I stood still as he ran his fingers through my hair.
“Do you understand…?” I asked.
He nodded, his scratchy beard against my forehead.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He moved back to look at me. “I can’t take back what I'm going to say,” he said. “But I am going to be honest when I say it, and my trust is in you that you’ll be able to see what I mean when I say it.”
I was afraid, but I nodded.
“I am not a smart person. I’ve known that for a long time. So my words get messed up a lot. I read when I was a boy. Because I couldn’t really do much else, so sometimes I use a word I think sounds right, even if I don’t know what it really means. You know what those words mean, even if I don’t some, or most, of the time I say them. You are going to get better, as far as the words and things go. I know, that right now, that is something that scares you, and that’s something I wish you'd just talk to me about.” He looked hesitant for a moment. “But character means more than word choice. As long as your intent is clear, it’ll shine through even the simplest of words.”
He put his hand on my face again. I turned my face into his hand, breathing in the scent of his skin as I listened patiently. He smelled like leather and dust and the pungent aroma of his medicine.
“And it’s not the people that can understand, or be impressed by those words, that the speeches matter to,” he said. “Because they’ll understand no matter what, if you’re being honest, or you're just using rhetoric. Your actions have a loudness to them. Speak in the same way that you fight. Speak with the same talent, the same basics honed to perfection, and you will never, ever, ever, have to worry about what you say.”
I sighed again. He sought to reassure me, but I had never sought his reassurance, not in this. The only thing I was afraid of was that I was going to hurt him. But he was looking for something else, some way to prove I needed him.
“I just… hope that what I’ve said isn’t something that's going to hurt you, or piss you off,” he said. “I know we’re, uh…” He chuckled. “A little bit on edge.”
“You could never hurt me, Kex’ti,” I told him.
He hugged me. There was nothing left to say. I stood in the strong circle of his arms and wondered if I could ever give him what he wanted.
“I’m really tired,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “Me too.” We separated, and he said, “Juli… I have some things I want to get off my chest.” I looked at him, but he seemed to make a swift decision. “It can wait until morning. Let’s get some rest.”
He kissed me on the forehead. I didn’t question him, not tonight.
Things appeared good on the outside, but it was still difficult. Kex’ti and I were tentative with each other. Threats against Sanctuary and the innocent still loomed. And I still struggled to get over my disabilities. I practiced hard, every day, to eradicate the slowness in my left side, but it lingered. And I got good at compensating for my speech issues, but they just became more and more frustrating.
It was then that Naheal visited again. He found me in my office. I spent more time in there than I had before the attack; trying to catch up on things, I told myself.
I looked up when I realized he was in the doorway. “Oh, Naheal,” I said. “I didn’t realize you were there.”
“I wear plate and have all kinds of mechanical components to my gear and you didn’t hear me come in?” He grinned.
I rubbed my head, pushing the ever-present papers away from me. “Guess I was distracted. It’s… Nevermind. How are you?”
“Aside from a.... client touching a nerve yesterday, I’m doing well. I’m actually here to check on you,” he said.
I twisted my lips, not really surprised, but still. “You don’t need to do that. Kex’ti has half of Sanctuary keeping an eye on me.” Dredaega was outside, in the main hall, on Kex’ti’s orders. I’d found it easier to not argue. Dredaega spent most of his time in the field hospital anyway.
Naheal responded quietly. “You know how I feel about family, Jules. If you’d prefer I keep my distance, then I will, but…”
“That’s not what I was saying,” I said. It was frustrating that I couldn’t clarify better. I sighed and got up. “Just between you and Kex’ti…”
“No, I understand,” Naheal said. “I’ve had plenty of people dote over me in the campaigns I’ve been in. It’s irritating.”
“Are you going to be upset if I tell you not to dote?” I asked.
“No, but I'll ignore you for the most part.”
I sighed again. This was why I often didn’t bother trying to argue with Naheal. I couldn’t control him, and it didn’t matter if he thought he could me, either, because I was going to continue right along the path I chose.
“You said that this is your first campaign, right?” he asked. He leaned against the wall by the door.
“I just want to make sure that it isn’t your last, from either death or crippling injury.”
I looked at him. The quasi-fight I’d had with Kex’ti rose unbidden to mind. “Kex’ti said he can’t feel comfortable being weak around me sometimes if I’m always strong,” I said.
He thought about that for a moment. “Which would you prefer? A soldier that hides their pain or a soldier that asks for help?”
“That’s a false… choice,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be one or the other.” That wasn’t exactly what I’d meant. Words weren’t cooperating.
“Is it?” he said. “By asking for help, you show pain and weakness. You can’t conceal both and ask for someone to help with either.”
I knew he was wrong, but I couldn’t articulate why. But again, it didn’t matter. I just looked at him, and it was his turn to sigh.
“I’m just worried, Jules. You’re at a point I was at not too long ago and I don’t want you to make the same mistakes that I did.” When I still didn’t respond, he said, “There isn’t a way that I can put it without being presumptuous, but… Your people follow your example. You’re as much a pillar of strength in strength as you are a role model when you’re injured. When your people are injured, they’ll follow the example you put out before them.”
The way I saw it, everyone couldn’t turn to someone else for help. “There has to be someone holding the line,” I said.
“Yes, but that someone doesn’t always have to be you,” he said.
I hated a little bit that he was right. I said, “I can’t rely on anyone else.” I couldn’t, because I had to be the one who was strong. I had to take care of myself. But I wouldn’t explain that even if I could. That flat statement was the best I could do.
“Can’t you?” he said. “Kex’ti. Taozhu. Cerryan. Just to name three in Sanctuary right now. If you were to simply ask some of Borrowed Time, I’m sure that they’d help.”
“For a fee?” I said, sarcastically.
“That depends on the individual,” he said, pragmatic and undeterred. “If you were to ask me, personally, for some assistance, I’d provide it without charge.”
I shook my head. This wasn’t going anywhere constructive. “I know. Look, I can’t talk about this right now.”
“Do you know why I died over the Dead Scar?” he asked suddenly.
I looked at him, at his glowing blue eyes. They hadn’t been when we’d first met, but that hadn’t been the true him. The true him had chosen to make a sacrifice, and in time he had finally accepted its price. But I wasn’t in the mood to listen. “Just say what you want to say,” I replied, crossly.
“Because I couldn’t trust others to get Brutallus taken down. You’re treading a dangerous path, Jules, and starting to make the same mistakes that I did, albeit with guild backing rather than independently.”
I made an irritated gesture. “I don’t see any other way,” I said. It was not even close to everything I wanted to convey, annoying me further.
“There is,” he said emphatically. “There’s always another way. I didn’t see it until I was at the helm of Borrowed Time, but you will always have the support of the people around you. You don’t have to go it alone.”
“I’m not alone,” I said. “I’m just – in front.”
“You’re used to being at the head. Maybe try being the heart for a while?”
“I’m not – I was never good at—”
I was failing. Naheal came over to me and lifted his hand to pat me on the head. It was something he’d done when we were children to comfort me, before I outgrew comfort. I didn’t know why I still let him do it sometimes, but right now, I just closed my eyes. “Would you let me have a look?” he asked.
“What?” I said, opening my eyes.
“Shh,” Naheal said, and began channeling the Light.
I tensed, but didn’t protest as he used it to check me for injuries. He had figured it out already before the healing energies told him, but he asked anyway.
“Hmm,” he said. “Have you had trouble thinking lately?”
“It’s… words, I have a hard time finding words. And…” I lifted my left hand, flexing it. “I’m slow on this side. My shield arm.”
“Are the concepts still there?” he asked, lowering his hand.
“Yes, I know exactly what I mean, just the word escapes me.” It didn’t come close to describing how frustrating it was. “The healers say it will just take time.”
“Head injuries can be permanent if they’re not treated properly,” he told me.
“Kex’ti knows what he’s doing,” I said. Kex’ti had ensured I received the best care, and no less.
Naheal folded his arms. “He does, but his tools are generally limited to the mists.” He added under his breath, “If I had Rathas, she’d probably help easy, but…”
“Kenjin and others have helped too,” I told him. “They’ve done everything that can be done.”
He was like a dog with a bone. “Does Sanctuary have a shadow priest in their ranks?”
It took me a moment to remember that there was one. “Yes, Sildei,” I said. He’d been one of the first to join after Sanctuary’s rebirth. He was on assignment working for the Horde in Azeroth.
“I highly recommend having him have a look at you,” Naheal said.
“If you say so,” I said dubiously.
“Shadow priests specialize in mental magic. It’s possible he’d catch something the others miss.”
He was right again. I hate it when he did that. “When he comes back, if I’m not better by then, I’ll ask him. Okay?”
“Fine, fine. As close to a compromise as I’ll ever get from you.” He smirked at me, and I smiled back for a moment.
I hadn’t seen Sildei, however, by the next time I saw Naheal. I was out in the practice field, getting a good workout in versus one of the dummies. I knew when Naheal arrived, but he didn’t interrupt me right away, watching me practice for a while.
“Hole in your defenses, bottom weapon side,” he said eventually.
I took one last swing, then stepped back, lowering sword and shield. I wanted to keep practicing, but there was only so much I could do alone. “I’m overcompensating for the left side,” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“I need to rebuild my endurance.” It was still tiring, or at least, I thought it was. Maybe it was the stress wearing me down.
“How about a live opponent?” he inquired.
I turned around to look at him. “If you’d ever committed to a discipline, then maybe you’d be a challenge.”
“Then I should be easy to beat.”
I’d dueled Naheal before, once when he still wielded a bow, and again when he’d still used undead powers. He’d been excellent with both sets of skills, a match for my own, but I knew he hadn’t taken to the Light so smoothly. Nonetheless, I quickly realized that he was holding back. He could have beat me handily, but instead was handicapping himself. Angered, I drove my sword into the snow and glared at him. “Don’t insult me,” I said.
“This isn’t my first campaign as vanguard,” he said. “I believe I said that before.”
He didn’t get it. He was so dense sometimes, and thought other people didn’t know what he was doing. “You’re not even trying,” I said. “I don’t need you to go easy on me.”
“I’m actually not,” he said. “You got me close there.” The look I gave him was clearly not one of belief, so he walked forward. “Let me show you something,” he said, and removed his gauntlets.
Underneath, his hands were reddened and chapped. I looked at them, then back up at him. I’d known wielding the Light was difficult for him, but I hadn’t realized it hadn’t gotten any better.
“I’m hardly at my peak, either,” he said. “But I’ll never see that again. Instead, I compensate. I learn to fight with this. But my slowness can be mistaken for a lack of trying.”
“I’m sorry,” I said after a moment.
He put his gauntlets back on. “You’re stronger than you know, Jules,” he said.
I simply couldn’t take any more of all this reassurance, comfort, patronization, and other crap I never asked for and didn’t want. “Gag me,” I said, grabbed my sword, and walked away.
He followed me to the inn, of course. This being midday, the only other person there besides us was the bartender. I eyed Naheal over the rim of the cup of water I’d retrieved as I leaned against the bar.
“I don’t need coddled with words either,” I said to him.
“When have I ever coddled you?” he said.
“I’m sure you don’t see it that way,” I said. “But gods, between you and Kex’ti, sometimes I can’t stand another word."
I could never say that to Kex’ti, but Naheal was a safe target. “You want to get back out in the field?” he returned.
“Of course,” I said.
He considered his words briefly. The jerk. “As you are now,” he said, “I’m not sure I can rely upon you and, for once, it isn’t your skill that I’m questioning. It’s your confidence.”
I pressed my lips together for a moment before responding. “My confidence is just fine.”
“Is it?” he asked, searching.
“Yes!” I snapped.
“Who can you defend now?”
That hurt, but I refused to show it, chugging the rest of the water before answering. “Everyone I could before.”
“Then why are you not out there?”
There were a hundred reasons. The top ninety were that there was nothing I could do to make a difference. Almost everyone in Sanctuary was out on assignment. I wasn’t needed in Tanaan; it had already been taken. I could do nothing to impede the Grim that wouldn’t have dire consequences for Sanctuary. And Morinth was untouchable. All I could do was tread water, and try not to drown again. “I don’t need to be out there yet,” I said.
“The Alliance attacked us at the Iron Docks. They continue to attack us in Tanaan. We’re fighting a war on two fronts and you’re telling me that we don’t need capable commanders? People who can put an end to this war before we waste what few resources we have on each other? Wake up. We need Sanctuary now more than ever.”
I hadn’t realized the fighting between the factions had gotten so bad. “What—” I began, but stopped. Something made me reconsider why he was saying all this. “You didn’t need me before,” I said. “Why now?”
Naheal had quit Sanctuary when he realized he didn’t believe in its purpose. Now he directed Borrowed Time, a loosely knit band of mercenaries. What he wanted from me, and by extension Sanctuary, was left up to question.
“Because I’d rather see the bloodshed end where it can,” he said calmly. “I have more blood on my hands than I’d ever care to admit. Someone like you is the best to handle the diplomatic angle.”
Of course; ever plotting, ever assembling people like pieces to the jigsaw puzzle of his master plan for redemption. “Ah,” I said. “Sanctuary is your backup plan.”
“No,” he said. “Sanctuary is the primary plan.”
“Funny way of showing it,” I said, looking at his tabard.
“What, would you prefer to let the Alliance and Horde butcher each other while Gul’dan continues to do his thing?” Naheal pressed.
I scowled at him. “Don’t be an ass.”
“No. You want the truth? That’s what it is. That’s what it’s like out there.”
“That’s always what it’s like.”
“No,” he said again. I was deathly tired of hearing that word out of his mouth. “It’s getting worse,” he said.
I was over this conversation an hour ago. I turned to refill my cup from the water barrel. He was silent for a while.
“You’re afraid, aren’t you,” he said eventually.
“No,” I responded, curtly. I wasn’t even going to dignify that with being insulted.
“Then why do you cower within your walls? Have you given up?”
“I hear that from the Grim,” I said. “I don’t need to hear it from you.”
“I want to know why it is that you’re still here.”
I looked at him. He simply was not going to leave me alone. I summoned up the very last of my patience. “I’m here for Sanctuary.”
“What do you do for Sanctuary while you’re here?” He gestured to indicate the garrison around us. “Paperwork?”
“I organize missions. Yes, write letters. Plan for the garrison. Check on how things are going.” I could have made it sound better if it weren’t so damn difficult to organize the words. I was starting to feel defeated at this point, but it only made me angrier. I set down the cup and started to walk out of the inn.
“And that’s the path you’re choosing to take to lead?” Naheal asked. He came up beside me, and I looked at him.
“There’s no one left to lead,” I said. It was impossible. It was just impossible.
“Then rally people.”
I stared at him. I couldn’t believe he’d said that. Like Sanctuary was something people could be enticed to join. People came to Sanctuary, not the other way around. And more than that… As though I were in any condition right now for diplomacy, or any kind of talking to people. He utterly dismissed all the very real challenges I was facing. At that moment, I couldn’t stand him.
“Just… go away,” I said.
I saw his expression change. That had hurt him. But it changed again just as swiftly, to something resigned, as I turned and walked out.
“…Goodbye, Jules,” I heard him say.
We didn’t speak for a full week after that. At first I was annoyed that he was going to make me come to him to apologize; even if I knew he was sensitive about losing people, I wasn’t the one who had done anything wrong. By the time he and I met up on a mission together, though, my anger had faded.
I was trying to get out more, not because of what Naheal had said, but because I was going to eventually anyway, and he and I ended up on the same team clearing the Blackrock Foundry. We didn’t speak, but we worked smoothly together as a team. In the end, after the mission was finished and the rest of the team had departed, we did speak briefly, and he agreed to come by the garrison.
Once more in my office, I set aside my armaments and started to rummage up some drinks, then noticed the fresh burns up his arms, going under his tabard. They were red and looked painful. “Gods, Naheal,” I said.
He glanced down. “Consequences of using holy weapons when you’re dead,” he said.
I reached for the first aid kit instead. “Come here,” I said.
“Come now, they barely hurt,” he said.
“I can’t look at them without cringing,” I said.
“Then I’ll go put something over them,” he said. I gave him a look. “I’m fine, Jules, really,” he told me, but his tone was flat, like it was whenever he threw himself at his work to avoid thinking about anything.
I sighed and set the first aid kit down. “Okay.”
“So what’s wrong?” he asked.
“I hate it when we fight,” I said, turning to him. He across the table from me, keeping a barrier between us. “You always act like that’s the end, forever. Of everything we…” I gestured helplessly with my lack of words.
“…I didn’t build this, Jules,” he said after a moment.
“Build what?” I said, nonplussed.
“Any of this.” His gaze moved around my office. “Sanctuary’s your group.” He let out a breath. “And it’s not a place I belong in anymore.”
I laid my hand on the table and looked down at it, trying to master the words I wanted to say. I didn’t want to screw this up. “I wasn’t… I’m not asking you to,” I said.
He looked up at me. “I just keep pushing people away, don’t I?” he said presently.
I thought of Kex’ti, and how he thought I didn’t trust him. For once, the words came out like they were supposed to. “We’re a great pair, then, because I don’t know how to let anyone close, apparently.”
Naheal gave me a grim smile, and I smiled back, wryly.
“Can I say something?” I asked. “Assuming the words come out.”
“Sure,” he said.
“I want you – to be my friend,” I said slowly. “Not to be my mentor, or follower, or cheerleader, or taskmaster. I appreciate that you care about me, and want to help me. But I’m going to always follow my own path. My heart. Even if I make mistakes sometimes, I want to make my own choices. You have to respect that.”
Naheal gazed at me with a frown. “Seems like I’ve… gone against one of my core beliefs if that’s what I’ve been doing.”
I nodded a little, not meaning to agree with him per se, but acknowledging his words. His acknowledgment.
“I don’t believe in justice like you do, Jules. I don’t have that kind of faith. Freedom is the ideal that I hold close to my heart. I’m sorry I've been imposing my will on you. That was never my intention.”
I nodded again, losing some of the tension I’d been holding. It was good to hear him apologize.
“But I’m a terrible person to have as a friend,” he said quietly. “Most of the people that have been my friends have been hurt… or killed.”
“I apparently can get killed regardless of your – help,” I said. It wasn’t the best response, but I didn’t know how to deflect his self-reprobation.
He looked away. “She left, Jules.”
“What? Who?”
“Brey. Our relationship is done. She’s still in Borrowed Time, but…”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
I’d rarely seen them together, but she’d seemed to make him happy, and he her. He put his hand on the table as well. He was shaking. I moved closer and put my hand on his arm.
“Naheal…” I said.
He looked down at my hand, then up to me. “Xara’s captured. Half my company’s being mind-controlled by a psycho, and the woman I love…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
I was acutely aware that I still had Kex’ti in this trying time for me. Naheal had lost the support of the person he cared about. “I’m sorry,” I said again, and put my other hand over his on the table.
“I can’t protect anyone, it seems,” he said.
“We all do the best we can,” I said.
“Doesn’t seem like enough most days.”
I was quiet for a moment, mulling that over. That there was always more to be done was a fact I was well-acquainted with as the leader of Sanctuary. “No, it doesn’t, does it,” I said.
He spoke, almost as though talking to himself. “It’s not hard to see where the Grim’s coming from some days. If there are no enemies left to fight, who do we need to protect our people from? They’re too extreme, but I see the perspective.” I sighed, and he looked at me, realizing I wasn’t interested in hearing these thoughts. “Sorry,” he said.
I waited for a few moments, then moved away from him. “No, it’s fine.” I picked up a decanter and two glasses. It seemed like we could both use the drink.
“Sometimes… I think that neither side wants peace, you know?” he said. “Like they’ve been fighting each other for so many years that the idea of not fighting is foreign…”
I grasped that he spoke of the Horde and Alliance and not Grim and Sanctuary. I handed him the drink and listened.
“You know what I’ve always wanted?” he said. He paused. “Something I’ll never really have now, I guess. A family of my own. Borrowed Time’s like my family, but… it doesn’t quite feel right.”
“It’s not really the time or world for children, now,” I said.
He looked down at his hands. “Wouldn’t matter if it was,” he said.
I winced and bit my tongue. It was hard to remember, sometimes, that Naheal was forever separated from the world of the living. He would never father children. “Sorry,” I said. “I always forget…”
He shook his head. “I’ve accepted what I am. It’s hard, but…”
I moved over and put my hand on his arm again, setting down my drink. “Don’t ever say goodbye to me again,” I said quietly.
He looked at me.
“Ever,” I said.
“I thought… you didn’t want to see me again, either,” he said.
I spoke in a low, emphatic voice, holding his gaze. “That will never be the case. There might be times I can’t stand you, but I’ll never want you gone forever.”
He trembled, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t know how to respond. I remembered when I’d told him I respected him, and how he’d had much the same reaction then. Deep down, I knew the things Naheal feared the most.
“I lost you once, so I know for sure I don’t want that again. Okay?” I said to him.
He moved past me. “I… think I need to sit down. Mind if I borrow your chair?”
I nodded as my hand fell away from him. As it did, I remembered the burns on his arms that I’d unthinkingly been touching, and winced again. “I should get a healer for those burns,” I said as he sat down.
“They’ll just be back later,” he said. “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll let you treat them yourself, though.”
“I’ll take it,” I said. I set down my own drink and went to take down the first aid kit, removing salve and bandages from it. Naheal stripped off his gauntlets and unbuckled his armor. The burns were worse than I’d realized, reaching from fingertip to shoulder.
“Tes thought I was nuts for taking this path,” he said.
“You are nuts,” I agreed as I removed my own gauntlets and uncapped the salve, perching on the edge of the table next to him. “Not just because of that, but it’s one indicator.”
I caught him lofting a brow at me. “Gonna criticize my choice in hobbies?” he said.
I scooped up some of the salve and gave him a smile. “I’m not telling you to change. Your shield strap is in the way, take it off.”
He clicked a small mechanism, which released the strap, and the shield fell to the ground behind him. I gently took his arm, then started spreading the salve on the burns. I couldn’t help but let out a slow breath, knowing it must hurt, although the salve would be almost immediately numbing and cooling.
We spoke briefly about armor. Naheal had a tendency to go through shields. When I moved up to his upper arm, however, he took a sharp breath. I glanced at him. “Hurts?” I asked.
“Uhh… kinda,” he said. “Jus—just make it quick.”
After finishing with the salve, I wound the most burned parts of his arms in gauze. We spoke more, about Borrowed Time’s contributions to the Tanaan Offensive, and other things; the nature of the Light, purity, and conviction. Apparently in another timeline I had found a way with the Light, but in this one, it was not for me. In the end, the discussion was nothing significant; but it was pleasant enough just to have his company again, and the words were even mostly cooperative. Eventually I sat back and said, “It would be too easy to stay up all night talking to you.”
“Tired?” he asked.
I shook my head and slipped off the table to start packing up the first aid kit, only to look up when he offered something to me. It was a small, jeweled dagger. I knew what it was; what it meant. I’d thrown it over a cliff once, but he’d retrieved it. I looked back at him, slowly reaching out to take it. I wouldn’t reject it again.
“The style is very different, but if you do find the light inside, I’ll walk the path beside you,” he said.
“I’m not looking for it,” I said. “My conviction lies with justice.”
“Then maybe, one day, it’ll find you.” He watched as I set the dagger on my shelf and put the first aid kit away. “I know I can't fight without magic,” he said. “Couldn’t ever. But you’re a lot stronger than I am. Physically, I mean.”
“I have to be,” I said, not meaning specifically stronger than him; I just had to be strong. It was a simple statement, but something I felt was deeply true.
I leaned against the table and watched as he started putting his armor back on. His movements were easier now. I was glad he’d let me help him, and it dawned on me that others would probably feel the same if I let them help me more. Still, it wasn’t easy.
He looked up at me and smirked, interrupting my thoughts. “What?” I said.
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
He walked up to me and lifted his hand to pat me on my head, like he did. I caught it with my own and pulled it down behind my neck, not letting him pull away for a moment. Things were better between us now, but I knew he still needed to feel some sort of living connection.
“Apparently I’m a godfather now,” he said, off-handedly. I smiled to think of someone asking Naheal to be their child’s godfather. I hoped they knew what they were asking.
“Seems like you have plenty family,” I said, and I didn’t just mean that. He’d called me family before. I wanted him to remember that.
“Maybe… maybe I’m just trying to fool myself into being alive,” he said.
“Naheal,” I said, and I hesitated. It felt like standing on a precipice at that moment. Naheal wouldn’t be Naheal if he wasn’t fighting to protect the ones he cared about. But I knew, instinctively, that there was danger somewhere in that. Somewhere I had made the choice to never go.
“Yeah?” he said, smiling softly.
I stepped back. He slowly, hesitantly, let his hand fall away. “I’ll see you in Tanaan,” I said.
His smile changed to a more regular one. “It’s nasty out there. Bring the good stuff.”
“I know,” I said.
He patted my shoulder. “Take care of yourself. I’ve got a shadow mender I’m talking to that may be able to help with your head.”
“Ah… we’ll see,” I said. “Thanks.”
He took his leave.
I would never look at him the same way again.
by Julilee » July 19th, 2015, 5:24 am
First, Grim Batol was taken. Several things followed that. One was an incident involving Cerryan, Lilliana, and Syreena. It would lead to another.
As you can probably imagine with those three names being together, it was less than good. I was still angry about it when Lilliana showed up at the gates, but to a certain degree I was prepared to deal with it, and that was why I agreed to speak to her.
It was the first time I’d allowed her into Sanctuary Garrison since the acts for which I’d briefly jailed her and her friend. The priestess was changed. She wore red robes of a different style, and a hood covered her head, which appeared to be lacking its former red mane. I knew she had been held captive by Morinth since before Kallavan’s attack on me. It showed in her eyes, which were more brittle even though she successfully put on most of her old unconcerned airs.
She noticed I was studying her as we entered the inn. “Like my new hood?” she asked with a grin.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” I told her, and I meant it, not having wished any harm on her despite our differences. Inside, I took a spot by the fire. Even though it was summer, it remained cold in Frostfire. Snow still covered the ground here, and the bonfires were next to never allowed to go out.
“It’s cool, but thanks.” She eyed me, weighing my sincerity, but didn’t question it. “I’m just happy to be here. I shouldn’t be. And…” She trailed off.
“Thank you for what help your guild offered.” She sounded sincere. “It was not unappreciated, you know. And stuff.”
The bartender brought us mulled cider. I nodded in thanks as I accepted mine, taking the opportunity to reconsider the urge I’d had to respond to Lilliana that of course Sanctuary was going to do the right thing. I didn’t need to rub her face in our virtues right now. Well… I didn’t ever, but sometimes I couldn’t resist. Luckily, this wasn’t one of those times. Instead I simply asked, “Why did you let Syreena maul Cerryan?”
Lilliana stared at me for a few moments, gauging how to reply. “Cerryan wouldn’t lay off, Julilee. You know I don’t insult Sanctuary.”
“So, to teach him a lesson,” I said flatly.
“No,” Lilliana said. “I lost my patience.”
I considered that. “I have only one question for you, then,” I said. “Do you feel any regret for losing your patience and allowing that to happen? Any small sliver?
Lilliana nodded her head. “Yes, and I’m sorry for it. But… I’m only another mortal… I can only take so many insults before I’m going to crack too.”
She looked down at the ground, repentant. I didn’t really buy the act; Lilliana would never truly apologize for anything the Grim did. We commanded no respect from her, or any of her guildmates. I knew that. But I had expressed my position, and that was all I’d hoped to do. I cupped my hands around the warm mug of cider and nodded, mostly to myself. “I assume Syreena won’t face any consequences from within the Grim. She is telling a version of the story where Cerryan struck first.”
“Don’t blame Syreena for any of that,” Lilliana said. “She was only protecting me throughout our argument, you know?”
I looked at her. “I have plenty to blame Syreena for.”
“Julilee.” Abandoning pretense, Lilliana stepped forward. I narrowed my eyes, but she was undeterred. “Your officer… continued to slander the Grim. He slandered my higher officers… he called me a monster in so many words, called me a bad person, repeatedly. There was no way to have a civil discussion with him. It was like he had a brain injury or something… or was a broken record, I don’t know. Then he stood aside while Syreena and I had to fight a rogue that hurt the fuck out of her… and even then, he wouldn’t stop!” She was growing angrier and angrier, and getting right up in my face. “Not one word of civility… not one! Ten minutes of that… to like, freaking excess… I lost it… shoved him… he drew for his weapons… and then it just got ridiculous after that.”
I raised my free hand and firmly moved her back, not spilling my cider. Lilliana snorted.
“He is supposed to be a soldier of Sanctuary,” she said to me. “He has no pride in himself, or in representing you.”
“I have spoken to him about maintaining his patience,” I said evenly. “He understands I view his provocation as a failure to Sanctuary’s virtues.”
“He failed more than that. He failed himself. What happened, although I’m sorry for it, and I apologize that I didn’t have more of a control of the situation… but what happened was his fault.”
Cold anger washed through me. “No one is responsible for someone else’s actions, Lilliana. Ever. Cerryan is responsible for provoking Syreena, but Syreena is responsible for being a monster. And if you dare imply again that it’s Sanctuary’s responsibility to ensure the Grim do not perform terrible acts, I will always disagree.”
Lilliana shook her head. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“That’s exactly what you said,” I said. “You were blaming Cerryan for what happened. You can be very manipulative, Lilliana.” I was glad that the words were cooperating today. Lilliana deserved to be called on her twisted logic.
“I do blame Cerryan. Although yeah, he isn’t responsible for my actions, he is responsible for putting himself into a situation like that.” She eyed me, distaste that she normally kept better concealed showing for a moment before she covered it with a faint smile and provocation. “You’re smarter than that, you get it, don’t pretend you don’t.”
It was useless to try to pin down her hypocrisy. If this was going to be a productive meeting, I had to take what I could get, without submitting. “I will agree he is responsible for putting himself in that position. But you veer close to assigning blame to him entirely, and that’s where I disagree,” I said.
She held up her hands. “I know. I’m to blame. And I’m sorry,” she stated. “I let the insults get to me, there were too many and allowing Syreena to fall was the last straw. But yes, I am sorry.”
Her apology was too glib, now. If she had truly cared what anyone else thought or felt at any point during this conversation, the sentiment was long gone. “I don’t need an apology,” I told her. “Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”
I heard her sigh as I turned to set down my mug on a nearby table. “I just want our guilds to fight side by side, not with one another,” she said. “You know I’ve only ever helped with Sanctuary.”
Memory of Lilliana weaving magic to support Khorvis as his blade clashed with mine in Aerie Peak sprang to mind. The look I gave her was beyond skeptical. “Only ever? That’s a bit of a stretch.”
“Well, you know… we gotta be malleable.” She grinned, unrepentant.
The gulf between us was immense, and it spanned so much more than arguments or scuffles. I saw the full scope of it, even though others didn’t, or did but thought I couldn’t. “Sanctuary and Grim will never be at peace,” I told her. “They will never trust each other.”
“I trust you,” she said, unhesitatingly. It was true; she stood at ease, despite being in the center of Sanctuary’s garrison. I would not have expected to live much longer were our positions reversed and I stood in the Grim’s. “I know what you will do, and what you won’t,” she said.
“You can trust me,” I said. “But I can’t trust you.”
Lilliana chuckled. “You can trust me to fight for the Grim. So you can trust me.”
The former actually meant the opposite of the latter, but there was no arguing with her. There was nothing left for us to discuss. “If you enter our garrison in the future, it will continue to be at my permission. I have business I need to return to, so I’ll see you out.”
She lingered for a few moments, just to prove she could, before moving to the door. “Hey, I may steal something if you don’t watch my like, every move, Julilee,” she said as we walked out.
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Kawhi Leonard, Paul George officially join LA Clippers
(Photo by Zach Beeker/NBAE via Getty Images)
By TIM REYNOLDS
LAS VEGAS (AP) Paul George and Kawhi Leonard are now officially with the Los Angeles Clippers, moves that bring both of them back to their native Southern California.
It might not be forever: Both can become free agents in only two years.
The Clippers completed their blockbuster trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, acquiring George for guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, forward Danilo Gallinari and five first-round draft picks - along with the chance to swap draft places in two other years.
"Paul George is one of the greatest two-way players in our game," Clippers President Lawrence Frank said. "He is both an elite scorer and a relentless defender whose versatility elevates any team. When you have the opportunity to acquire a contributor of his caliber, you do what it takes to bring him home."
George can become a free agent again in 2021 if he chooses to exercise that option, and Leonard will be in the same situation as well. A person with knowledge of the situation said that the deal Leonard signed Wednesday is a three-year max that could be worth nearly $110 million, though the third season is at Leonard's option. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the Clippers did not release contract terms.
The Athletic first reported the three-year term and option provision in Leonard's deal. When Leonard decided that he was leaving Toronto for the Clippers last week, he and the team had talked about a four-year max worth $141 million - but this move, which would make Leonard a free agent after his 10th season, gives him the maximum amounts of flexibility and future earning power.
"This is a historic moment for our organization and our fans," Frank said. "We are grateful and honored that Kawhi Leonard has decided to come home and join the L.A. Clippers. Kawhi is a peerless two-way player, a relentless worker and a natural fit for the serious, professional culture our group has established."
Another major deal got completed Wednesday: Klay Thompson, who will miss part of next season while recovering from a torn ACL, signed his five-year deal to stay with Golden State for nearly $190 million - the largest free-agent one agreed to this summer. Portland's Damian Lillard signed a $196 million extension that begins in two years, but he wasn't a free agent. The Warriors also waived Shaun Livingston, who was part of all five of their NBA Finals teams over the last five seasons.
"He has been a tremendous credit to the Warriors organization and our community for the last five years," Warriors co-chairman and CEO Joe Lacob said of Livingston.
Leonard will cost the Clippers a lot of money.
George is costing them a lot of money and a lot of picks.
The Clippers surrendered their first-rounder picks in 2022, 2024 and 2026, plus sent ones for 2021 and 2023 that were obtained through Miami, to Oklahoma City to complete the George trade. Oklahoma City also has the right to swap first-round picks with the Clippers in 2023 and 2025.
"From the time that Paul and his representation made us aware of what had been transpiring and their subsequent request, our focus as an organization was identifying the best paths for our future," Thunder general manager Sam Presti said. "Resiliency has been a staple of our city and our franchise, and this challenge provided us with another opportunity to demonstrate that."
The Thunder also now have a $10.4 million trade exception.
"Our goal with this transaction was to create value both in the short and long term and help reposition and replenish the organization's future platform," Presti said. "We are thrilled to welcome two extremely talented and efficient players in Shai and Danilo."
It's unclear if Presti is done making big moves this summer. The Thunder has engaged teams in conversations about the possibility of trading All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook, a person familiar with that situation told the AP. Miami is one of the teams that has been part of those talks, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Thunder have not revealed specific details.
Presti said he wished George well.
"We are proud that Paul is a part of our history as an organization and that some of the best basketball of his career was in Oklahoma City," Presti said. "He should be remembered fondly; we wish him and his family the best."
George averaged a career-best 28 points last season even while dealing with shoulder issues that required surgery, and the Thunder couldn't get out of the first round in either of his two seasons in OKC. George was a finalist for both NBA MVP and Defensive Player of the Year this past season, when he led the league with 2.21 steals per contest.
Leonard is also coming off the best season of his career. Leonard averaged a career-high 26.6 points in the regular season and was even better in the playoffs, averaging 30.5 points for the Raptors in their run to the title. He won NBA Finals MVP honors for the second time, adding this one to the one he got as a member of the San Antonio Spurs in 2014.
"His expectation, and ours, is to contend for championships," Frank said.
Also Wednesday:
- The Philadelphia 76ers completed the signings of forwards Tobias Harris (who ended last season with Philly) and now-former Boston Celtics standout Al Horford. Both of those deals were agreed upon last week.
"We're excited to welcome one of the NBA's best frontcourt players in Al Horford to Philadelphia," 76ers general manager Elton Brand said. "He has built his reputation around hard work and a tradition of winning, which are the same qualities that have formed the foundation of the 76ers. Al's playmaking, elite defensive talents and veteran leadership confirm why he is a crucial addition to our roster."
- Washington completed the signing of two-time All-Star Isaiah Thomas to a one-year deal. He fills a major position of need for Washington, which is bracing to be without John Wall next season.
Thomas said he's simply looking for a chance to prove himself again. Injuries have limited him to 44 games over the last two seasons.
"I want to compete. I want to win," Thomas said. "That was one of the most important things in the Wizards' meeting. I'm coming here to win. I don't know any other way. They felt the same way."
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Chi Cubs 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 7 0
Pittsburgh 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0
W: J. Lester (13-5) L: I. Nova (7-7) S: P. Strop (10)
4:05 PM PT5:05 PM MT6:05 PM CT7:05 PM ET19:05 ET23:05 GMT7:05 4:05 PM MST6:05 PM EST6:35 PM VEN3:05 UAE (+1)6:05 PM CT, August 16, 2018
PNC Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Attendance: 21,783
Lester, Happ combine to lead Cubs to 1-0 win over Pirates
MLB Headlines
Sale snaps Fenway skid, BoSox 2-hit Jays
Trout returns to Angels' lineup as DH
Harper, Hoskins rally Phils past Dodgers
Indians beat Tigers 11th straight time
Boone has profane rant, Yanks top Rays
Edman's slam lifts Cardinals over Reds
Athletics hope to stay hot against Twins
Nationals open key series in Atlanta
Giants aim to continue push up standings
Marlins top Padres with 1st walk-off win
(AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
By JOHN PERROTTO
PITTSBURGH (AP) Jon Lester wasn't overly excited about winning for the first time in just over a month.
However, Cubs manager Joe Maddon couldn't have been happier with his performance.
Lester pitched six innings and Ian Happ homered as the Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 1-0 on Thursday night.
Lester (13-5) allowed five hits, struck out eight and had no walks while improving to 3-1 against the Pirates this season. His previous victory came July 15 at San Diego and he had gone 0-3 with a 10.32 ERA in five starts since the All-Star break.
"This isn't going to be like we figured out everything and I'm going to throw six scoreless (innings) every time I step out there," Lester said. "It's a step in the right direction, though."
Maddon was glad to have his ace find his form.
"He's a world-class kind of athlete and they want to be that way all the time," Maddon said. "When you get away from it, it's disturbing and you're always looking for answers. I know he'll rest better and this is absolutely a game to build off because he executed well. Everything was there tonight."
Steve Cishek, Carl Edwards Jr. and Pedro Strop each pitched one inning to complete the six-hitter. Strop hit David Freese with a pitch with two outs in the ninth but converted his 10th save in 13 opportunities.
Happ connected with one out in the fourth inning off Ivan Nova (7-7) for his 13th home run, a drive deep into the right-center seats that was the game's only extra-base hit. There was a fair share of cheers while Happ rounded the bases as he is from suburban Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
"It's always good to come here and see my high school coach sitting in the fourth row behind the dugout," Happ said.
Chicago (70-50) increased its lead in the NL Central to 3 1/2 games over idle Milwaukee while moving a season-high 20 games over .500. Pittsburgh (61-61) lost its fourth straight to fall to .500.
Nova took his first loss since July 3 despite giving up only one run in 6 2/3 innings. The Pirates had won five of his six previous starts and he was 3-0 in that span.
"Every time you lose a game, it's tough," Nova said. "But having a game like this and the position we are in, we need to win, we need to get Ws, especially against a team that's ahead of us."
The Pirates' best scoring opportunity came in the fifth inning when Josh Harrison and Adeiny Hechavarria hit consecutive two-out singles. Lester then struck out Nova, an .044 career hitter.
The Cubs had runners in scoring position in the third and seventh innings but failed to convert.
Chicago's Jason Heyward had two hits.
Cubs: RHP Yu Darvish (right triceps tendinitis/right shoulder impingement) will begin a rehab assignment Sunday with a minor league team to be determined. Signed to a $126-million, six-year contract as a free agent in February, Darvish last pitched for the Cubs on May 20 and is 1-3 with a 4.95 ERA in eight starts.
Pirates: SS Jordy Mercer (strained left calf) was placed on the 10-day disabled list after being injured Wednesday during a loss at Minnesota. Hechavarria started in his place and went 2 for 2. ... RHP Nick Burdi (Tommy John elbow surgery) had his rehab transferred to Triple-A Indianapolis from Double-A Altoona on Tuesday and allowed two runs in two-thirds of an inning against Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
HELLO, NEWMAN
Shortstop Kevin Newman, the Pirates' first-round draft pick in 2015, made his major league debut when he entered on defense in the ninth inning after Hechavarria was removed for a pinch-hitter.
The Pirates purchased Newman's contract from Indianapolis before the game and recalled OF Jordan Luplow from the same club while catcher Jacob Stallings was optioned there. Right-hander Casey Sadler was designated for assignment to open a 40-man roster spot for Newman.
Cubs: LHP Cole Hamels (7-9, 4.22 ERA) makes his fourth start Friday night since being acquired from Texas in a trade. He is 2-0 with a 1.00 ERA for the Cubs.
Pirates: RHP Trevor Williams (10-8, 3.66) has been the starter in seven of Pittsburgh's 13 shutouts this season.
More AP baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports
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Black Skin, White Masks
by Ricardo Nicolau
Remote controlled colonisation: Peripheral artistic programmes are forced to imitate centrally-located institutions and bank on well-known and ‛safe’ names
The title of a well-known book Black Skin, White Masks by the Martinique-born psychiatrist, writer and essayist, Frantz Fanon, published by Seuil in 1952. His book provides an analysis, from a psychological perspective, of the legacy that has been left to mankind by colonialism, starting with the relationship between blacks and whites. Fanon uses psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theory to explain feelings of dependence and alienation experienced by blacks in the “world of whites”. Although it is still considered to be influential and of great contemporary relevance — cited, for example, by Palestinians and Afro-Americans — it was relatively unknown for several decades after its publication. It’s only since the 1980s that it has became an anti-colonial and anti-racist manifesto that is widely read and studied in Anglo-Saxon countries. Before then greater emphasis was placed on subsequently published works, of an explicitly revolutionary nature, offering a psychoanalytic explanation of colonial relations, nationalism, colonialism and liberation movements.
“The explosion won’t happen today. It is too soon… or too late.” These are the opening lines of the introduction to the book Peau noire, masques blancs (Black Skin, White Masks) written by Frantz Fanon in 1952. In the author’s own words, he aimed to provide the first psychoanalytic interpretation of the “black problem” and “dual narcissism” that he believed prevailed in relations between black people and white people. I started reading this book after visiting a solo exhibition by the artist Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, held in the La Ferme de Buisson Arts and Cultural Centre, on the outskirts of Paris. I’m currently preparing an exhibition with this French artist in the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, which will open in April 2012.
The term ‘French artist’ is thought-provoking: in fact, Abonnenc was born and grew up in French Guiana, and is thus simultaneously French and South American (Guiana was a French colony until 1946 and then became an overseas department of France, and as such forms an integral part of the European Union – the only place in the American continent that uses the euro as legal tender). Obviously influenced by his roots, Abonnenc soon developed an interest in the colonial past of France – the country where he pursued his studies and currently works and lives. He also began to study the Portuguese colonial context (it should be remembered that Guiana formed part of the Portuguese empire before it became a French colony), in particular the liberation movements that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. This interest led him to investigate films and documentaries commissioned by these liberation movements and also analyse works by authors who explored the eminently dialectical relationship between colonists and colonised subjects, i.e. between whites and blacks. He paid special attention to the writings of Frantz Fanon, to whom he virtually dedicated his most recent exhibition, hosted in the La Ferme de Buisson, entitled Orphelins de Fanon [The Orphans of Fanon].
Black Skin, White Masks is a pioneering work that still has chilling contemporary relevance. It provides an interpretation of the issue of racism that goes well beyond mere historical data and proposes to analyse the phenomenon from a psychoanalytic perspective. For someone such as myself, who lives and works in Portugal, Fanon’s work inevitably inspires parallels between the relationship between blacks and whites and that between southerners and northerners. After all, according to both national and international news media, Portugal is likely to be the next “country to fall after Greece”. We are the southern nation to whom better-behaved northern countries need to provide management and organisation lessons, for better or for worse. We’re proud of that which distinguishes us from northerners and yet we simultaneously, and somewhat schizophrenically, feel that we owe a debt of obedience – after having our incompetence exposed, in comparison with more methodical Nordic nations.
Numerous opinion articles have been published recently in the Portuguese press, criticising the austerity measures imposed by Germany because they won’t resolve, and are more likely to worsen, the financial crisis that currently engulfs the eurozone – including several texts that defend an authentic insurrection against the debt and deficit dictatorship. A series of articles have also been published regarding Germany’s alleged proposal, yet to be denied (I’m writing this on 31 January), that Greece’s already questionable ‘independence’ concerning its own financial management should be removed, through the nomination of an external manager and imposition of immediate sanctions unless austerity measures are implemented. According to Portuguese columnists this would represent an assault on Greek national sovereignty, and set an extremely dangerous precedent. An article published today in one of the national newspapers states: “Germany now wants to illegalise – for the time being in Greece, but Portugal will be next in line, followed by others – the exercise of national sovereignty by indebted nations. An indebted nation won’t be entitled to take decisions in relation to its own domestic policy. Obviously, Berlin’s proposal only concerns decisions which could undermine financial objectives and payment of debts – the ‘budget commissioner’ nominated by the eurogroup for Greece will only be able to veto decisions taken by the Greek government that have a budgetary impact. But it’s difficult to imagine any government measures that won’t have a budgetary impact. In practise, the ‘budget commissioner’ will be a quasi-colonial governor, guaranteeing that the rights of the ‘metropolis’ (i.e. the creditors) will prevail under all circumstances over the rights of the local populations. This is a form of colonisation from a distance, i.e. remote-controlled colonisation, financial occupation.”
In Portugal (the next “country after Greece”) this “precedent” inevitably has greater significance than in other countries, but my key concern in this text is to explore, with the aid of Frantz Fanon, the permanent oscillation between, on the one hand, a sense of blame and inferiority – that to a certain extent leads us to accept measures imposed by organised, non-defaulting, methodical, serious and enterprising countries – and, on the other hand, a sense of pride and haughtiness through which we defend our creativity, imagination and spontaneity, which enables us, for example, to improvise and come up with last minute solutions. My method, if I can use this term – given that Fanon himself states “we should leave methods to botanists and mathematicians” – consists of using the line of analysis provided in Black Skin, White Masks, often copying entire sentences, but substituting the words “black” and “white” with “southerner” and “northerner”.
Why did Frantz Fanon write this book? He said it was because he wanted to shed light on a new form of humanism and contribute to a greater understanding of mankind. Why did I decide to explore his work? Because by substituting the term “Colonial Adventure” for “Capitalist Adventure” or “colonisation from a distance” or “remote-controlled colonisation” it’s possible to explain how the acronym PIGS (for Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) was invented, and predict how “victim countries” will develop in the future, alongside countries that have created a form of “dual narcissism”.
But before embarking upon my interpretation of Black Skin, White Masks, I’d like to provide a small introductory note:
I work as a curator in a Portuguese contemporary art museum that has a semi-private management structure (the Serralves Museum has a public-private foundation). Until now, this status has guaranteed a certain degree of stability and immunity in relation to governmental changes, which in countries such as Portugal almost inevitably leads to alterations in cultural policies. My position has exposed me to the economic crisis and a wide array of different consequences, some of which are extremely disturbing. As a result, reading Fanon’s book, in addition to providing supporting material for preparation of a solo exhibition by a specific artist, also helped me to reflect upon the relationship between art and culture and the so-called financial crisis. The issues raised by the present financial crisis don’t begin and end with the lack of money. Obviously, sponsors and patrons have reduced their support, which leads to fewer resources for organising exhibitions, but the truly disturbing issue, more than the financial cuts themselves, are the ‘ideological’ cuts. This crisis represents an opportunity for administrators of cultural institutions to do away with everything that they don’t understand, which irritates them because it highlights their own ignorance, because it doesn’t attract enough visitors, because it implies expenditure that wouldn’t be understood by a community that now exercises zealous moral scrutiny over all expenses on ‘non-essential products’.
Today, more than ever, we’ve started to hear that it is reprehensible during a period of austerity to continue to lavish money on the personal whims of artists and irresponsible and egotistical curators. The conclusion: artistic programmes that previously stood out from the rest, because they took advantage of the peripheral status of the respective art centres and museums (peripheral locations can also deliver advantages), now risk having to imitate centrally-located institutions, and bank on well-known and recognised names, as well as exhibitions that some people believe may be of interest to large audiences. At the start of the present economic crisis it was claimed that the shortage of money would lead, in the case of museums, to a healthy and unprecedented focus upon local communities, and artists who are less international, less interchangeable and perhaps more singular. But it soon became obvious that the struggle to maintain sponsors would ultimately foster an attempt to imitate centrally-located institutions and markets. Instead of paying greater attention to the world around us – looking at small structures, spaces managed by artists, titles published by small publishing houses – museums now run the risk of mistakenly attempting to transform themselves into imitations of large museums, i.e. chasing the yardstick applied by administrations, patrons and sponsors – and in the process lose their distinctiveness, which differentiated them from ‘larger’ institutions.
It may appear to be somewhat exaggerated to talk about a new form of colonisation, but the truth is that if museum curators transform themselves into ‘budget commissioners’, by guaranteeing that the same names exhibit their works in all countries, we may end up with a form of “colonisation from a distance, remote-controlled colonisation, financial occupation”, as identified by the Portuguese journalist in relation to Berlin’s attempts to undermine national sovereignty. There is a risk that this crisis will lead to a slow strangulation of all contemporary art museums that are committed to offering fresh insights on established art history. Inferiority complexes may lead to the worst form of provincialism – in which some try to mimic others, who they consider to be more civilised. That brings us back to the essential issue… between North and South.
It’s a fact: northerners believe they are superior to southerners. For the southerner there’s only one alternative: to become a northerner.
Does the southerner suffer from an inferiority complex? Is that why he wants to become a northerner?
Anyway, all forms of unilateral liberation are imperfect.
The South reveals a mixture of aggressiveness and passiveness.
The soul of the South is a construction, based on myths of spontaneity, exacerbated sexuality and virility.
And is the perception of the lazy southerner well entrenched amongst northerners?
The myth of spontaneity: if I’m a southerner, I’m automatically merged with the world, including the earth.
And, in addition to the inferiority complexes harboured in southern nations, are there guilt complexes in the North?
The northerner is also enslaved by his superiority and behaves in accordance with a neurotic orientation
Whenever a southerner protests, there is alienation, humiliating insecurity, self-accusation.
Individuals strive to fit into pre-established categories. First and foremost: a lazy southerner is someone who other men consider to be a lazy southerner. It’s the methodical, hardworking northerner who creates the lazy southerner.
To colonise me is to strip me of all my value and originality. They call me a parasite of the world, and tell me I have to walk as quickly as possible, to keep up with the northerner.
Emotion pertains to the South, in contrast with the rationality of the North. Sensitivity, essential violence. I marry the world! I am the world!
When northerners feel excessively mechanised they return to the south.
Good naturedness.
Intensity, poetry, freedom.
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What is the South?
by Nikos Papastergiadis
A highly ambivalent concept, the South oscillates between a clarion call for antipodean rebelliousness and stigmatic expression of the cultural cringe
The south is not a place in the world; it is a space where people meet to imagine the possibility of other ways of being in the world. It is a ‘little public sphere’. It is where strangers encounter each other and through dialogue produce some form of exchange and mutual understanding. The raw matter of this little public sphere is the democratic right to give voice to one’s beliefs and the cosmopolitan principles of curiosity and respect for the other. Today, we are aware of the fragmentation and commercialisation of public spaces. There has been a steady erosion of the available spaces for public debate. However, there has also been a proliferation of media outlets through which private views can be made public. Each time we find a place to meet, whether it is in the context of a journal, a website, an exhibition or a conference there is the possibility of building a little public sphere. I am drawn to those events and sites that are not just magnets for like-minded people, but also assume the function of a platform for generating an understanding of the predicament we share. The little public spheres play a crucial role in the delivery of this option. They require participants to position themselves as interlocutors of the contemporary. What counts is not whether you are based in New York or Melbourne, but how you follow the flows.
So while the South is a big and spherical concept, it is nevertheless a useful heading for understanding a certain set of relationships within the global network of little public spheres. In the recent past it has been revived as a possible frame for representing the cultural context of not just regions that are geographically located in the South, but also those that share a common post-colonial heritage. Over the past decade the idea of the South has captured the interest of historians, activists, political scientists and cultural practitioners. It has been used to explore the legacies and links that shape the lives of people who are dispersed across a vast region. In geopolitical terms the South is not confined to the southern hemisphere as it captures elements that are located on both sides of the equatorial divide. The only constant for those who identify with the concept of the South is a dual awareness that the Euro-American hegemony in global affairs has concentrated power in the North, and that survival requires a coordinated transnational response.
I understand the concept of the South as a loose hemispheric term that refers to a series of places that share similar patterns of colonisation, migration and cultural combinations. For me, the South is also expressive of a cultural imagination that looks outwards from its own national base, going against the grain of its colonial past. This appeal to a more open-ended identity is, in one critic’s view, a betrayal of a deep imperial history. In other words, any use of the language that draws from a metaphoric association with the cardinal points of cartography risks being embedded in the naturalistic discourse of magnetic polarities.
South is an ambivalent concept. It oscillates between a clarion call for antipodean rebelliousness and the stigmatic expression of the cultural cringe. However, in this current phase of globalisation there is a further twist in the geopolitical polarisation – whereby the isolation of a region is not a consequence of its physical remoteness, but of a negative process of bifurcation – and parts of cities, rural areas and significant parts of a region are increasingly bypassed or ‘splintered’ from the emergent forms of exchange. It is therefore crucial to stress that the South does not refer to a geopolitical entity that possesses a singular territorial bloc with an attendant unified cultural and political identity.
In the South many people may share many common negative sentiments and political ideologies. They may start by feeling the same sardonic pain of cultural belatedness, and may reach a conjoined stance against the political humiliations of the North. However, beyond this kindred untimeliness and shared sense of opposition what are the subtle bonds that affirm a sense of community?
The South in geopolitical terms has been described as a kind of defensive reaction to the hegemony of the North. However, in the case of this magazine and my essay, it can also be a deliberate act of rapprochement, a path that both ‘swerves away from the influence of predecessors’, and heads towards a ‘third space’. The relational energy that connects personal and historical claims not only curves away from the compulsive trajectories that head North, but also draws force from the swirling gestures of rapport with other like-minded southerners.
More than two decades ago the Australian political scientist Alan Davies suggested that “we should spend less time in awed upward contemplation of the great metropolitan centres and a good deal more looking sideways at the experience of similar small nations, whose solutions should be better scaled to our problems, and whose definition of their problems are more likely to help us understand our own”. He imagined a form of cultural exchange that would reveal insights and develop skills that would be more worthy of emulation because their fit would be closer to our own experiences. The transferability of knowledge would not be about adopting and applying models, but in grasping what Davies called the “nuances of likeness”.
What blocks the potential for a relational understanding of geopolitical scale and socio-cultural texture? Is it due to our fears of facing the insecurities and horrors within, as well as a failure to define a measure of our own worth and common bonds? The models of explanation that have been prominent in the humanities and social sciences tend to reinforce a view that privileges defensive psychic reactions and imbalances in the global system. For instance, Freud’s insight into the “narcissism of minor differences” is an account of the disproportionate violence directed towards proximate rivals, while Paz’s exegesis of the self-hatred in the “Malinche complex” is reliant on a paradigm that underlines the potency of negative cultural identifications.
The South is, as Michael Taussig would say, a “murky” concept. It embodies the “nightmarish medium of domination”, but as it diverges from its intended axis, invents new relations and sweeps up the missing it impugns the prison-house of its own language. From this perspective, the South does not always arrive after the North. Our sense of becoming is not doomed by a primal loss, because as Borges promised in “El Sur”, “reality favours symmetries and slight anachronisms”. The South, as he said in his favourite story, exists, “on the other side of Avenida Rivadavia”. Borges gives us the phantasmagorical hint that the South is found in the rugged recovery of memories. To find such a place we are usually told to choose between a specific place, unique voice or permanent exile. However, I place greater faith in the sparkling intelligence of the antipodean intellectual who, according to Peter Beiharz, not only leaves home in order to return, transmits messages from across the horizon, and maintains an open line with the past, but also “lives out all three modes of activity”.
Dear South,
In 2009, while living in Filopappou, I wrote this essay: “What is the South?” It was a reflection on the idea of the South as a cultural modality and as a regional optic, or on what I call ‘spherical consciousness’. The idea of spherical consciousness comes from Herodotus. In Herodotus’s account of history we must remember that his account of events is informed by the principle that everything is in eternal motion. The centre of the world is the sea. He sees things not from a specific vantage point within terra firma, but as if he was also a traveller, a sailor, a mere passer-by. His approach towards other people and cultures is not to regard them as adversarial enemies or monstrous subhumans, but rather as equals who have developed different values and traditions. To comprehend these differences Herodotus recommends that we observe, enquire and relate them to our own values and traditions. Looking out towards the horizon Herodotus had no idea of what lay beyond. He did not have an aerial perspective. There were no real maps. He overcame the doubt and anxieties that normally cloud the imagination when it considers what lies over the horizon. Herodotus proceeded by reassuring himself that he would ask his neighbour, and his neighbour’s neighbour to guide him through the unknown parts of the world. This kind of horizontal thinking, a set of connections, which unfold and cascade into new connections, has always given me hope.
During the time I lived in Greece, a young artist who had just returned from a residency in Australia described his positive experiences: “everyone was so friendly, everything was so efficient,” and then he added with considerable emphasis, and “SO CHEAP”. I thought to myself that this is what going South usually means. Now of course, the world financial system is spinning around different axes and thrusting in unpredictable directions. Even well-positioned friends of Greece are saying crazy things: “Why not default?” said a Greek in the South. “It worked for Argentina. Within a few years the financial markets will have forgotten and forgiven everything.” I have no doubt that traders and bankers have the capacity to convince themselves that there are opportunities in catastrophe. But now the troubles that are befalling Greece do not just fall on Greece. Greece is not the sole author of this crisis, and the consequences spread far beyond its shores entangling others. Now is the time to think about the crisis in terms that go beyond the polis, the state and the nation. We need a new kind of spherical consciousness.
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Best Sports Cars ever MADE
Sports Cars / October 14, 2018
From terrain-traversing SUVs to ‘Bahn-burning sedans and coupes, there are few types of cars that Mercedes has yet to master in some form.
(Mercedes-Benz/Wieck)
Mercedes-Benz likes to claim that they invented the automobile all the way back in 1886, and while that claim has been heavily disputed, there’s no arguing they’ve made some of the most incredible machines in the automotive world since then.
With a new generation of three-pointed stars rolling out in recent years, we decided to take a look back at the brand’s history and pick the 10 best from the last 130 years. Unfortunately, no AMG models were included because, well, we figured that wouldn’t be a fair fight to the rest of the Benzes.
The Motorwagen had three wheels, a bench seat, and a crank used for steering, and the two-stroke piston engine went on to set the precedent for future early automobiles.
(Mercedes-Benz USA/Wieck)
How could we possibly disclude “the first automobile” from the list? In 1886, German engine designer and moustache aficionado Karl Benz was awarded German patent number 37435 for the first vehicle designed to be propelled by an internal combustion engine. It had three wheels, a bench seat, and a crank used for steering, and the two-stroke piston engine went on to set the precedent for future early automobiles. Only 25 were made over the course of 8 years, and each one cost $1, 000, equivalent to about $27, 000 in this day and age. It’s no S-Class, but cars may not be the same as we know now without it.
With the first CLS-Class in 2004, Mercedes-Benz proved that sedans could be sleek and sexy.
(Mercedes-Benz)
This one may be a bit of a head-scratcher, but allow me to elaborate. With the first CLS-Class in 2004, Mercedes-Benz proved that sedans could be sleek and sexy, and now almost every luxury automaker is scrambling to turn all their 4-doors into “coupes.” As a result, thousands of buyers are sacrificing a little bit of rear headroom for a whole lot of curb appeal. The design treatment has even carried over to SUVs, which Mercedes has finally adopted as well with the GLE-Class and GLC-Class coupes – but I’ll spare you my feelings on that particular trend.
The 230 SL, pictured here, eventually evolved into the 280 SL, which remains one of the best-looking and timeless roadsters of all time.
Source: www.nydailynews.com
- Sports Cars Lamborghini
- Sports Car Hatchback
- Street Car Race
- Best Car to Street Race
Mama from Bosstown
@HardwoodJungle Was it all bc of the drawbridge being stuck and everyone rerouting? I still see police cars racing down my street even now.
Monday 12, June 2017 03:58 AM
Playoffs Bun
@Playoffs Bun: My street is a racing strip at night for bikes and loud cars
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BREAKING NEWS: TCU APPROVES B.A. COUSELLING PSYCHOLOGY PROGRAMME
The 3rd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE August 2nd-5th 2019
SECOND SEMESTER TIME TABLE
JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR 2019/2020
SUMAIT UNIVERSITY AND IUA TO IMPLEMENT MoU
SUMAIT UNIVERSITY DONS PROMOTED
DR. SHEIN COMMENDS INTRODUCTION OF SOFT SKILLS TRAINING PROGRAMME, PRAISE DIRECT AID
DR. AL-MUHAILAN: SUMAIT UNIVERSITY TO BE GLOBAL UNIVERSITY
The Abdulrahman Al-Sumait Memorial University (SUMAIT University) was built on the foundation of the former University College of Education Zanzibar (UCEZ) established in 1998 by a charity organization, Kuwait based Africa Muslims Agency (AMA/Direct Aid) founded in 1981.
Thus, the University is the product of its founder, Dr. Abdulrahman Hamoud Al-Sumait (1947-2013), an accomplished physician, philanthropist, educator, researcher, author, pioneer and AMA founding member from whom the university bears its name.
The University is located at Chukwani, on the Island of Zanzibar in the United Republic of Tanzania about 5.5 kilometres from the seaport of the old Stone Town, 2.5 kilometres from Abeid Karume International Airport and just 150 metres away from the west coast of the Indian Ocean.
The University occupies an area of 120,000 square metres granted by the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar. It is charmed by beautiful green scenery of exotic trees and fragrance of blooming flowers. SUMAIT University was approved as a private University by Tanzania Commission for Universities (TCU) on 14th May 2014 at its 63rd Meeting held on 27th March, 2014.
According to the TCU rules, all registered students prior to the award of university upgrading status continued to graduate at the Khartoum based International University of Africa. Students who registered during the 2014/2015 academic year will graduate from SUMAIT University beginning 2017.
SUMAIT University is a moderate progressive Higher Learning Institution which promotes morality, modesty, gender equality and Islamic Culture in shaping the individual life and developing the human resources for nation building. It advances knowledge, education, learning, research and community participation.
The University is proud of its national and internationally recruited academic staff with student population a mixture of international breeding from Tanzania and Africa at large. It is indeed conspicuous that the University vision, mission and objectives are towards global competitiveness; thus placing itself in optimistic horizon and propels towards academic excellence. We welcome all students from Tanzania and abroad to SUMAIT University to develop professional carrier and enjoy the peaceful value based environment.
Vision, Mission, & Ojectives
The Vision of the University is to become a centre of excellence and a valued member of the global academic community in education and other related fields with emphasis on implementing practical skills, research, consultancy, services to the community and integration of basic and applied knowledge in the society in a religious environment to perpetuate morality.
The Mission of the University shall be to advance education, expand, transmit, enhance and preserve broad fields of knowledge for the benefit of the people of Zanzibar in particular, Tanzania, Africa and the world at large.
The objectives of the University shall be to advance knowledge, wisdom and understanding through teaching, research, extension and consultancy and by the example and influence of its corporate life and subject to the provisions of the Charter and any other applicable law.
Sumait University Offers non degree programs.
For those who want to join certificate course for the academic year 2017
GET ENROLL NOW
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Land reclamation worker’s salary just $227 a month
Posted by Volunteer Writing Team on November 20, 2015 in Articles, Stories
By Jiang Haolie
It is unthinkable to survive in Singapore earning just $227 a month, or $1.19 for every hour of backbreaking work. Bidut (not his real name), a reclamation worker is doing just that. For comparison, an indoor job at McDonalds would pay five to six dollars an hour; it would earn you Bidut’s daily wage in just two hours. It is even more absurd that his company pays the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) four times his salary for the levy — at $950 a month — to hire him.
Before taking on this job, Bidut was promised by his recruiting agent in Bangladesh two times his current salary in what he termed was a “signed contract paper”. This contract paper that he shows me turns out to be titled “Affidavit” and not a contract. It also says absolutely nothing about an agreed salary.
At face level, it appears that Bidut is a simple victim of an agent-employer scam but as I query him further about his experience, it becomes clear that he did not fall for a scam. He walked into it fully aware that it came with hardly favourable terms.
“If don’t accept now, cannot come Singapore,” he laments as he recalled agreeing to the terms of the job. He needed a job urgently. “Family very big.”
This was yet another unfortunate turn of his work experience in Singapore. A year ago, he had to return to Bangladesh after a workplace injury. Fortunately, he recovered fully and has received due compensation. For a while he tried to help out with the family farm or business, but soon discovered that it could not sustain another son as an employee. He had no choice but to accept inequitable recruitment terms in order to get his current job in Singapore.
If he could pay a larger amount in “agent money”, he might have been able to get a job with a better salary, but he just didn’t have the cash in hand. “Agent say [to get] other job must pay much more, like $5,000 or $6,000,” Bidut explains. With only $2,000 in hand, this $227/month job was the only one he could get.
As a veteran worker, aware of recruitment procedures, being scammed would not be an accurate description of Bidut’s predicament. Desperation is.
And indeed, the desperation for work and a better life is a common circumstance that recruitment agents and employers prey on. In the same evening that I hear of Bidut’s plight, I also meet Islam Mohammad Saiful. Saiful (right) arrived in Singapore a week ago for his third stint working here as a scaffolding worker. He expected to receive his work permit from his employer within the fourteen days that his In-Principle Approval (IPA) stipulated.
On the fourteenth day, his employer demanded a kickback of $4,800 for his work permit. The company even prepared a form for him to sign, agreeing to a salary deduction of $400 a month for the next twelve months, to make up this amount.
He recounts his coordinator relaying his employer’s demands to him, “Boss say have to pay! Boss say have to pay! Boss say have to pay!”
Nonetheless, Saiful, a veteran worker aware of MOM laws like Bidut, staunchly refused. Perhaps he is a wee bit more financially secure compared to Bidut.
“I know it’s not allowed. I study the IPA.” Singapore law says that local employment agents can only charge one month’s salary for a one-year term of contract. “So that’s illegal,” he remarks to me with a cheeky pride. “He ask me to sign. I don’t want to sign. He say, ‘You don’t sign, you go back Bangladesh yourself’. I say no money for ticket, he say don’t care.”
Pushed to a corner, Saiful approached TWC2 for assistance following the advice of his friend. Now with evidence of the written demands of his employer, he hopes to obtain MOM approval for transfer to another company in spite of the difficulty. He tells me that if he fails to obtain a transfer and loses his job, he’ll have to return home. From there, the cost of paying another agent to get yet another job would be prohibitively high. In his words, “that’s why got problem!”
As a sole breadwinner of a family five and two siblings still schooling back in Bangladesh, Saiful is insistent on fair working terms. And it is his right. (But see editorial comment below.)
Bidut, on the other hand has to make do with his one-dollar per hour salary. His family situation is such that he has to accept what comes his way. As he leaves, he shows me a gesture of his neck being cut, requesting us not to complain to the Ministry of Manpower on his behalf for fear of losing his present job however pathetic the pay.
Bidut’s story illustrates a moral issue that Singapore is slow to see. The government takes in four times what this worker makes in basic salary every month. The recruitment agent insists on getting about nine months’ worth of basic salary. It is the worker who is squeezed to deliver such largesse to state and agent. Where is the public interest ‘good’ that can possibly come with such practices, when we produce an underpaid class unable to survive on what they earn? The desperation so produced cannot be contained for long and when it plays out, it will have social effects on the larger society.
Even when on the face of things, a worker is promised a decent wage as in Saiful’s case, we see an employer trying to armtwist him into giving a kickback, choosing the moment when the worker is most vulnerable — i.e. when he has just paid his agent but yet to earn a single cent in salary — to do so.
Singapore does not do enough to eliminate extortionate agents’ fees and kickbacks. There is a tendency to use the excuse of jurisdictional boundaries, or to sit back and expect the worker to produce proof. Jurisdictional boundaries can be overcome with proper legislation; our anti-corruption and anti-sex tourism laws are examples. Rather than expect workers to produce proof, audit requirements can be set to prevent employers from even attempting to profit from such practices in the first place.
As so often is the case, the crux of the matter is really the lack of political will.
The general principle is this: When workers lose their jobs because their employer breached a rule or two and thus caused the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to revoke the work permits the employer had previously obtained, the ministry tries to be compassionate towards the workers. If they are required to stay on in Singapore to...
Posted on September 25, 2012 in Articles, Facts, research, analysis, Stories
By Davina Tham Imagine sleeping ten hours a night, watching TV and movies all day, and getting friends to pay for all your meals. Most people would call this heaven. But for Mahmudul Hasan, this was a lifestyle wracked with anxiety and frustration, waiting for the work and the salary he was promised but never...
By Nguyen Minh Quan Unlike injury cases, workers’ complaints about salary and deductions usually don’t take more than a few months. However, Bangladeshi national Badal, 34, has been in limbo for ten months. His case probably won’t be settled soon. The longer the process is, the more difficult it will be to collect evidence from...
Posted on June 18, 2014 in Articles, Stories
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Monarch Air Group provides private jet charter flights in and out of Evansville, Indiana, USA. Often called “River City”, Evansville is the third-largest city in southwestern Indiana, on the Ohio River. It is also the commercial, cultural and medical hub of its state. The city’s economy is known for its diversity, stability, and vitality. There are many things to see and to do. The most popular tourist attractions include Casino Aztar, Victory Theatre, University of Evansville, Reitz Home Museum, Angel Mounds State Historic Site, Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science, Children’s Museum of Evansville, Mesker Park Zoo, Burdette Park, and much more. The city is served by Evansville Regional Airport (EVV / KEVV), which is located 5 miles from the center of Evansville, and Owensboro-Daviess County Regional Airport (OWB / KOWB), which is situated 39 miles from Evansville.
The Executive Car Service setup was a TOTAL disaster and almost ruined my trip. Chris Fink is awesome, but this man in Jersey was an absolute disgrace. Very disappointed with that firm.The crew stellar. Better than outstanding. I was blessed to have them transporting me on thus very important day trip.Chris' follow-up and communication was outstanding. He is Top-Notch.
Most of all, the questions from NBAA will quickly reveal how knowledgeable the person on the other end of the phone is about what they are selling. ARGUS and Wyvern both certify brokerage houses, but keep in mind, within any company that may have dozens of brokers, the quality and know-how of the individual brokers varies much like massage therapists at a spa. Remember, you're spending a lot of money to charter a plane. If the broker doesn't have time now to answer questions about their experiences, how they source aircraft, and so forth, what will you get when there's a problem?
Joel Thomas and his great team at Stratos makes booking a private charter easy. They keep in contact with you from the start right through to after the flight, which gives my travellers a piece of mind. Everything is always exactly planned to our specifications. Stratos really goes above and beyond in their industry - they are simply the best at what they do.
Charter Jet Airline is equipped with thousands of executive jet charter, business jet charter and various other international private jet charter. Our private jets fly over various airports and countries of USA and Europe with dynamic fleet and largest private charter flights. The jets are operational all throughout the week and month and 24/7 customer services. We have reasonable private jet hire cost depending upon the needs and also provide easy payment options for private aircraft rental. Our jets are available according to the empty leg charge, round trip, multi-city journey and also a convenient private jet cost per hour. The jets are the finest and most powerful in their class with powerful speeds to save your time over travelling.
There are some amazing aircraft out there for families. The Embraer Phenom 300 aircraft for example. Many people consider it a light jet but actually it’s really a medium jet. You’ve got six seats, a surprising amount of room on it, and yet it is priced extremely cost effectively. The world’s bestselling private jet is the Citation XL which has got the combination of cost effectiveness, space and range. The medium jet sector is extremely popular with families because you have the fantastic Gulfstreams and Bombardier Globals. They are expensive aircraft, there is no getting away from that. The volume in the private jet market is in the smaller or medium jets.
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A DANGEROUS MIND.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 10:59AM
By Peter M. DeLorenzo
Detroit. The latest Muskian nightmare roiling this industry emerged at a press event yesterday in Palo Alto, California, when Elon Musk declared that: 1. Newly-developed Tesla autonomous technology will put a fleet of robotaxis on the road by the middle of 2020. 2. Up to one million Tesla vehicles will be configured to take advantage of this technology and become part of the shared robotaxi network, with no humans required. And 3. “The fundamental message that consumers should be taking today is that it’s financially insane to buy anything other than a Tesla. It will be like owning a horse in three years,” according to Musk.
Well, isn’t that special. The rocket impresario, who should stick to rockets by the way, is promising that he has discovered the magic technical silver bullet that will save his downward trending company and transform the transportation industry in eighteen months. We have certainly heard these outlandish statements from Musk before, as he furiously tried to will his boutique auto company into something more; but this time he has clearly lost all touch with reality. You have to remember that companies with far deeper pockets than Musk’s recurring corporate flim-flam act have been expending billions of dollars on AV technology, and not a single one of these companies is suggesting that their advanced autonomous technological developments are ready to be unleashed on the streets and byways of America sans driver.
That this latest charade from Musk is yet another desperate act in an attempt at saving his floundering company is obvious. Where it differs from other Muskian braggadocio is the fact that he is insisting that his AV technology is safe for mass application and consumption. Sorry to disappoint all of the St. Elon acolytes out there, but this is the insane part. Unleashing a fleet of zombie Teslas on the streets of America curated by a notorious nanosecond-attention-span personality such as Musk is the quintessential definition of flat-out crazy. You can’t even squint hard enough to suggest that this is, in some way, shape, or form, rational thought. It’s a case of an intermittently brilliant mind that has wandered over the line into the Abyss of Darkness. A dangerous mind that is so obsessed with pushing his perpetually sinking car company into some sort of elevated stratosphere that he is willing to treat real people as so much collateral damage.
This is insanity writ large, automotive or otherwise. The hubris on display by Musk in this unfolding debacle is almost incalculable. Think about this for a moment. Yes, Musk as an entrepreneur has accomplished much, and he can and should be lauded for his rocket achievements, but this is something entirely different altogether. Completely ignoring the very sketchy performance of his company's own "hands-free" driving features, Musk has now crossed over into that twilight dimension where his grip on reality has become fleeting.
He now steadfastly believes that all of his thought balloons are heroic and visionary, that everything he touches is beyond failure and that the rest of the world is just too ill-equipped to comprehend his greatness. After all, we’re collectively just too dim to understand. The final component of his slip into the Abyss of Darkness is on full display with this latest act, which can simply be expressed by the idea that if people are too dense to keep up with his brilliance, then he will do what’s best for them whether they understand it or not. And oh, by the way, while he’s at it he will propel Tesla to the pantheon of corporate America.
It’s encouraging that a large portion of the media and analysts on Wall Street have grown tired of St. Elon’s act. The countless overpromising followed by the reality of those boasts when they come up woefully short have taken its toll on the blind reverential loyalty that used to be reserved for every utterance by Musk. Now, it’s thankfully in very short supply. Yes, there were a few holdouts in Palo Alto who have had their Muskian chips surgically implanted at the base of their skulls and who chanted huzzahs at the feet of their Master, but this time Musk has gone too far.
And this time there should be consequences.
This country is 25 years away – at least – from widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles. Yes, there will be scaled deployment in limited, commercial applications primarily in urban centers over the next two decades, but driverless Teslas careening around less than two years from now? It is a recipe for disaster the likes of which simply defies calculation.
I have been around this business since childhood. First growing up in a hardcore auto family deeply immersed in the business, followed by my own exploits in advertising and marketing over two decades, then creating the content for this website for the last coming-up-on 20 years. And I am here today to tell you that I have never seen or heard anything more irresponsible and flat-out dangerous than what went down in Palo Alto yesterday.
Cooler heads must prevail, which ultimately means that Elon Musk must be prevented from getting even remotely close to executing this plan.
And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.
Article originally appeared on Ujian-nasional.info ~ the bare-knuckled, unvarnished, high octane truth... (http://ujian-nasional.info/).
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Home / South Africa / South Africa Springboks RWC 2019 Alternate S/S Replica Rugby Shirt
South Africa Springboks RWC 2019 Alternate S/S Replica Rugby Shirt
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Episcopacy, priesthood and marriage
It is quite well known that both Archbishop Hepworth and Bishop John Broadhurst were baptized as Catholics. Indeed, I think that the Archbishop was also ordained a Catholic priest. As some have pointed out (with varying degrees of glee), Anglicanorum Cœtibus specifically excludes those who were baptized Catholics from membership.
Those baptized previously as Catholics outside the Ordinariate are not ordinarily eligible for membership, unless they are members of a family belonging to the Ordinariate.
It seems to be generally felt that this scuppers the right reverend gentlemen's chances: out of the frying pan and into the fire, in fact.
I'm pretty sure that something will be worked out. Ordinariates in the Western Rite exist more or less as parallel dioceses; one does not become a 'member' of it in such a way that one is not a 'member' of another diocese or is not permitted to worship in it. Ordinariate Catholics will simply be entitled to worship in their own churches in their own way, and worship in other churches if they want to, or welcome other Catholics to worship and receive the sacraments (Holy Communion, at any rate) in theirs.
The bishops will simply be rejoining the Church of their baptism, and, no doubt, will habitually worship in the Ordinariate churches, even if theoretically 'belonging' to the wider Latin rite. With respect to the gentlemen, I do not imagine that issues of fathering and needing to baptize their children in an Ordinariate will arise.
They will, presumably, not even need to be 'received'. I expect that there will need to be some sort of official dispensation from the canonical irregularity of their position, they will need to make a (very) good general confession, and their marital situation will need to be regularized. That one will be interesting. Both (I presume) married outside the Catholic Church (Archbishop Hepworth twice, I understand), and therefore their marriages will be regarded as null. Not really a problem; marriages can (and no doubt will) be convalidated.
The next step is interesting. Will Bishop Broadhurst, as a baptized and married Catholic of the Latin Rite be eligible for ordination? It would require a different level of dispensation, I think, if he cannot automatically 'belong' to the Ordinariate, even if it will be his normal place of worship. But it should surely not be above sorting out with a bit of good will. After all, where Rome legislates, Rome can dispense from its own legislation, and surely will in this case.
People have pointed out (sometimes with unholy and uncharitable glee) that Archbishop Hepworth will not even be able to receive Holy Communion as a former priest in an invalid second marriage. I am not sure about that. Certainly, both his marriages will be regarded as invalid, but his second marriage could be convalidated (and probably will be). Former priests have often been dispensed for valid marriage. So much for any prevention of the reception of Communion. The more pertinent question is whether he will be permitted to exercise his priesthood. His courage in leading so many to Catholic Communion would suggest that it would be unjust not to make an exception. But this will have to be balanced against the probable explosion of outrage from those who have left the priesthood to marry and who have felt the cost keenly, having never left the Church's communion to become Anglican or anything else. 'Why may we not also excercise our priesthood', they will say, with justice, 'we, who have borne the heat and burden of the day'.
I don't know how this will work out. Perhaps it has already been decided. But it will be interesting.
//Later comment. Having been away for a couple of days, it strikes me (duh!) that what AC is referring to in the paragraph quoted above is not clergy returning to Catholic unity, but rather existing Catholics who might seek to transfer to an Ordinariate. I apologize for the fact that it took a trip to Ireland to clear my brain cells enough to see this; I claim in mitigation that I was misled by someone else's interpretation.
Sir Watkin said...
It may be worth noting that Bishop Broadhurst is in a somewhat different position from Archbishop Hepworth.
He was (I believe) baptised in infancy as a Roman Catholic but not brought up in the Faith. He only became a believer as a teenager/student, and that in an Anglican context (and was then confirmed as an Anglican)
Sixupman said...
A situation redolent of those expositionns, within Evelyn Waugh's novels, as to Catholicism in practice, is it not?
fr. A.R. said...
There is no chance that ab. Hepworth is reconciled with the catholic church as a married priest. He has been ordained as a real catholic priest, but he has since committed apostasy, and attempted marriage twice. He, may be, will face the request to leave his present wife, if he wants to be reconciled as a priest, but this is quite unlikely. Infact he has surely received the dimission from clerical state, and so the second marriage should be the only one valid or which can be validated (the first was null and caused the dimission).
In my opinion he can be taken back, not in a Ordinariate, not as a priest, not as a Ordinary, but as a married lay man. Because of the grave sins of apostasy and of attempted episcopal ordination he cannot in any way be appointed as a
chief and guide to other. But he will be a great model of humility, repentance and penitence and a witness to the truth he has, finally, found.
GOR said...
Yes Father, I’m sure the Ab. Hepworth case will be watched closely by priests who left the priesthood to marry – with or without a dispensation. I understand that Pope Benedict has been open to requests from some such priests to return to active ministry. I know of one case in a parish close to my old one in Ireland, but that was following the death of the priest’s wife. Whether that had a bearing on the granting of the permission to return to active ministry, I don’t know.
However, given how cases of higher clergy in similar situations were handled (Ab. Milingo comes to mind…), and other things being equal, there may be more openness to the return of priests in that state who desire it.
Why is it that Roman Catholics have such difficulty with the English language?
I have no particular axe to grind on the topic of priestly celibacy. When I looked at it (a little) I got the impression that it was probably more of a TRADITION than anything else. I am no expert!
It seems to me that with all the dispensations being so generously given (quite rightly) to former Anglican clergy, it will be increasingly hard for the church to ask our young catholic men to embrace celibacy, and never marry, when they feel God is calling them to priesthood? Presumably it follows on from the dispensations given to the FAC's that there is an understanding that there can be a vocation to priesthood AND a vocation to marriage at the SAME TIME?? As I say, I have no axe to grind what so ever. I know amazing priests who are so given to their parishes that there is no way that there would be room in their lives for a wife & children, likewise I know FAC married priests who's ministry and witness is enhanced and enriched by their wife and children. Shouldn't this be a matter of personal calling?
I am interested to hear the views of others...
Alan Harrison said...
As a potential ordinariate member, Father, I'm not too sure about the concept of "baptism as a Catholic".
What if the Revd Joe Bloggs applies to join the ordinariate as a "remould", and it turns out that he was a sickly baby, baptised as an emergency by Staff Nurse Philomena O'Reilly?
Little Black Sambo said...
"... baptised as an emergency by Staff Nurse Philomena O'Reilly?"
Sounds pretty Catholic to me?
On the matter of clergy married according to C of E rites, are you saying that these marriages are invalid and will need validation, or have I misunderstood? A great many married clergy have already been reordained; what happened about their marriages?
clergy married according to C of E rites, are you saying that these marriages are invalid
Only if (i) they (or their wives) were baptised as Roman Catholics, and (ii) the necessary dispensation for a non-R.C. marriage was not obtained.
(There used to be an exception for those who had "formally defected", which would cover people like Bishop Broadhurst, but this was recently revoked.)
LBS: no, it isn't ordination that invalidates a marriage, but (Roman) Catholic baptism. All those who are baptized Catholic are required to marry according to Catholic form, and if they do not do so, their marriage is regarded as null.
There are various ways of sorting it out, however, including convalidation (a taking of the vows again according to the proper form) or, in certain cases, sanation (or 'sanatio in radice') which supplies the Church's consent to the original taking of vows. It happens from time to time.
Providing there is no other impediment, such as ligamen (a previous marriage where both parties are still alive), it usually can be sorted out without too much difficulty.
Little Black Sambo: If I may anticipate Pastor’s reply it would be that the issue is not with the validity of CofE marriages but the invalidity of a Catholic priest’s marriage without having a dispensation from the Holy See (i.e. laicization).
A priest may apply for a dispensation from celibacy or religious vows which, if granted, allows him to contract a valid marriage – but as a layman, not as a cleric. He remains a priest but may no longer licitly function as a priest except in one circumstance: hearing the confession and absolving someone in danger of death.
In the aftermath of the 60s many priests left the priesthood and married, some after applying for and receiving a dispensation. Many did not apply for a dispensation, so their marriages were then and still remain invalid. Some didn’t request dispensations because they intended to continue to function as priests – but outside the normal ambit of the Church. The Sacraments they administer – presuming proper Matter and Form – would be valid, but illicit. But their own marriages would not only be illicit, but also invalid.
One of the ‘side’ issues I see with how married Anglican clergy are dealt with in the Ordinariate is the case of such priests who may be of the view: “If them, then why not us?” Obviously, the circumstances are very different - but I expect the subject to surface.
Thank you, most informative. (My word, I am beginning to see why we are going to have to learn canon law!)
Boy Bishops
Pædophilia—you've read the book, now see the film....
Zapatero to meet the Pope
The New Cardinals
How will it all work out?
Tibernautism
Bishop Alan Hopes to head the English Ordinariate
Beelzebub's Kazoo and other Catholic newspapers
More Irish Clichés
Modified Rapture
Ushaw and the hermeneutic of continuity
Forward in Faith
The Benedict Bounce and the Tartan
The Closure of St Cuthbert's, Ushaw
Begorra, begob and bedad. A few Irish clichés.
Why the Pope will probably not be invited to Irela...
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Bernice Summerfield: Escaping the Future review
This is it! Escaping the Future ties off not only Resurrecting the Past and Present Danger, but plots going back seven years. Why has Irving Braxiatel manipulated the lives of Bernice Summerfield, Peter, Jason Kane, and everyone else at the Collection? Turns out it was all because of the Deindum.
The final scene between Benny and Braxiatel is excellent
In a large way, Escaping the Future is a lot like a Russell T Davies Doctor Who finale — The Parting of the Ways, Last of the Time Lords, Doomsday, or Journey’s End. It has to tie off Part One, but also provide an emotionally satisfying pay-off to an entire arc of stories. Except writer Eddie Robson has to square not 12 previous episodes, but three times as many. I don’t know that he entirely succeeds, but I don’t know that anyone could entirely succeed. The Deindum have to be big enough of a threat to justify everything Braxiatel has ever done, but they also have to be defeated in the story’s 70-minute runtime. But also they can’t actually be in the story a whole lot, because the story needs to give Benny, Peter, Brax, Hass, Adrian, Bev, Doggles, and Joseph stuff to do.
I think within these constraints, Escaping the Future works fine. The mechanics of fighting a time war are developed from Present Danger, and the idea that Benny and company come up with for striking back at the Deindum is convoluted but natural, and gives most of the characters a real role. The story has to cover a lot of ground, and sometimes it’s pretty noticeable that Lisa Bowerman’s narration is taking in a large number of events, but the range has always used a lot of narration, so it kind of gets away with it. The Deindum themselves are pretty disappointing enemies, though; Present Danger helps a little if you read it first, but they never quite feel important enough to be the Key to All Manipulations. Being told Brax had Jason killed because of something the Deindum did kind of cheapens Jason’s death somehow.
I think this is because one wants the whole thing to revolve around Benny and Braxiatel. Certainly, the parts where it does are the best parts. That’s what the range has come back to time and again over the years, especially in The Wake. It’s even more underwhelming to have Brax’s interest in Benny blamed on the Deindum, too; it just makes her an arbitrary cog in a machine. But still the scenes between the two of them are the best parts. Benny gets to confront him finally, but she can’t, not completely, because she actually does need him to fight the Deindum — it’s a great dilemma. And Lisa Bowerman and Miles Richardson are as delightful as ever in their two roles, and one wishes the story capitalised on that more. There’s a sort of glimpse that Benny is starting to think like Brax, but the story pulls back from it. Still, the final scene between the two of them is excellent.
All the other characters get their moments. It’s great to hear the whole Collection gang (sans Jason) together again one last time; this is the last audio appearance of Hass, Adrian, Bev, Doggles, and Joseph, I believe, barring the anniversary special Many Happy Returns. Though I was initially sceptical about the Collection set-up, I found that during the Life Worth Living era it really solidified for me, and I came to like and love these characters. I’ll miss them, but they get a good outing here. Each one gets something to do that drives the story forward, one last time. For some, it’ll disappoint me if we never hear from them again, but I do have to say that if this is Hass’s final story, it’s a good ending to it.
I feel silly telling you if you should buy this or not. If you’ve been listening to the Bernice Summerfield range up until this point, you can’t miss this story. If you haven’t heard any of it before, well, I wouldn’t start here. This is a worthwhile conclusion to a long chapter in the life of Bernice Summerfield, but it’s not the end — the story never ends.
Escaping the Future (by Eddie Robson; starring Lisa Bowerman) was released by Big Finish Productions in October 2010.
Steve Mollmann
Steve Mollmann is a English professor originally from Cincinnati, Ohio; he currently resides in Tampa, Florida. He primarily studies science and science-fiction in British literature of the nineteenth century to the present. He is currently at work on a book about the scientist as a character in the Victorian novel. He has written and co-written several works of tie-in fiction, including the original series Star Trek novel A Choice of Catastrophes. You can read his thoughts on topics such as comic books, his childhood, Farscape, and the deeply terrible science-fiction of the 1890s at Science's Less Accurate Grandmother.
The Diary of River Song: Series Four review
Bernice Summerfield: Year Zero review
Bernice Summerfield: Treasury review
Bernice Summerfield: New Frontiers review
Bernice Summerfield: Legion review
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Kim Bartowski
Kim is a creative director with 12 years of experience working for entertainment, travel and luxury brands. She arrived at Digitas in 2007 and is currently a group creative director overseeing an integrated team on American Express and heads up all mobile projects for DTAS North America. Since joining Digitas, she's directed worldwide campaigns and productions for Delta and American Express, and pitched and won the Comcast business.
Prior to joining Digitas she was in Miami working on the many niche and luxury brands in the region. She launched campaigns for the opening of the W Hotels in South Beach and Ft. Lauderdale, and created brand campaigns and imagery for clients like the Ritz-Carlton among others. Before Miami, she was an art director at top Philadelphia agency—Red Tettemer, where she created campaigns for vast amounts of cable TV networks including: the launch of Rainbow Network’s WE tv (Women’s Entertainment Channel), AMC, and Comcast just to name a few. During those five years she worked heavily on Comcast as they quickly became the biggest cable network in the US.
In addition, Kim has won a number of awards for the work she’s done including One Show, Communication Arts, FWA and a feature in Contagious Magazine. Kim graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology and lives in New York City with her husband Michael Ferrare.
Finding Your Mobile Niche
Four ways existing brands have created powerful, focused mobile experiences.
Andrew Carlson, Kim Bartowski - NO. 672
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R. M. Hare
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Twentieth century philosophy
Name: R.M. Hare
Birth: March 21, 1919
Death: January 29, 2002
School/tradition: Analytic philosophy
Main interests
Notable ideas
Universal prescriptivism
Immanuel Kant, A. J. Ayer, J.L. Austin, Ludwig Wittgenstein Peter Singer, Bernard Williams, Thomas Hurka, Brad Hooker
Richard Mervyn Hare (March 21, 1919 – January 29, 2002) was an English moral philosopher who held the post of White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1966 until 1983, and then taught for a number of years at the University of Florida. His meta-ethical theories were influential during the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed, during that time, he was one of perhaps a half-dozen of the leading philosophers of ethics in the English speaking world.
2 Influences
3 Hare's work
4 Universal prescriptivism
4.1 Example
5 Relativism
6 Hare's work in applied ethics
7 Major Works
9.1 General philosophy sources
Some of Hare's students, such as Brian McGuinness and Bernard Williams went on to become well-known philosophers themselves. The one who is perhaps best known outside philosophical circles, Peter Singer—known for his work in animal rights and animal liberation—has explicitly adopted many elements of Hare's thought.
Hare was born in Backwell, Somerset, and attended Rugby School in Warwickshire, followed in 1937, by Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Greats (Classics). Although he was a pacifist, he volunteered for service in the Royal Artillery and was taken as a prisoner of war by the Japanese from the fall of Singapore in 1942, to the end of the Second World War. This experience had a lasting impact on Hare's philosophical views, particularly his view that moral philosophy has an obligation to help people live their lives as moral beings (King 2004). His earliest work in philosophy, which has never been published, dates from this period, and in it he tried to develop a system that might "serve as a guide to life in the harshest conditions," according to The Independent.
He returned to Oxford after the war, and in 1947, married Catherine Verney, a marriage that produced one son and three daughters. (Hare's son, John E. Hare, is also a philosopher.) He was elected fellow and tutor in philosophy at Balliol from 1947–1996; honorary fellow at Balliol from 1974-2002; and was appointed Wilde Lecturer in Natural Religion, 1963–66; and White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, 1966–1983, which accompanied a move to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He left Oxford in 1983, to become Graduate Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Florida at Gainseville, a post he held until 1994.
He died in Ewelme, Oxfordshire, on January 29, 2002, after suffering a series of strokes.
A product of his time, Hare was greatly influenced by the emotivism of A. J. Ayer and Charles L. Stevenson, the ordinary language philosophy of J. L. Austin, the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, utilitarianism, and Immanuel Kant.
Hare held that ethical rules should not be based on a principle of utility, though he took into account utilitarian considerations. This distinguishes him from classical utilitarians, such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. His book, Sorting Out Ethics, might be interpreted as saying that Hare is as much a Kantian as he is a utilitarian, but others disagree with this assessment. Although Hare used many concepts from Kant, especially the idea of universalizability, he is still a consequentialist as opposed to a deontologist, the latter of which Kantianism is usually identified with.
Hare's work
Hare himself wrote that his main interests were theoretical and applied ethics. He insisted on a distinction between descriptive and prescriptive elements in the meaning of moral statements. (This distinction is very close and possibly equivalent to the distinction between descriptive or observational ethics—the observation of what ethical beliefs or principles actually follow or observe—and normative ethics, or the study of what ethical beliefs or principles people ought to or should hold and observe.) Hare noted that the reasons for moral statements differ from culture to culture, and if that were the only thing that counts, the result would be relativism. But, he held, objectivity is attained because of the prescriptive element. Moreover, it is the universalizability of a prescriptive statement, common to different cultures that share a moral language, that makes possible the development of a cross-cultural normative ethics ("A Philosophical Self-Portrait").
According to universal prescriptivism, moral terms such as "good," "ought," and "right" have two logical or semantic properties: Universalizability and prescriptivity. By universalizability, Hare meant that moral judgments must identify the situation they describe according to a finite set of universal terms, excluding proper names, but not definite descriptions. By prescriptivity, he meant that moral agents must perform those acts they consider themselves to have an obligation to perform whenever they are physically and psychologically able to do so. In other words, he argued that it made no sense for someone to say, sincerely: "I ought to do X," and then fail to do X. This was identified as a major flaw in Hare's system, as it appeared to take no account of akrasia, or weakness of the will. Jordan Whyatt also offered many influential ideas on this topic.
Hare argued that the combination of universalizability and prescriptivity leads to a certain form of consequentialism, namely, preference utilitarianism.
Hare departed from Kant's view that only the most general maxims of conduct be used (for example, "do not steal"), but the consequences ignored, when applying the categorical imperative. To ignore consequences leads to absurdity: For example, that it would be wrong to steal a terrorist's plans to blow up a nuclear facility. All the specific facts of a circumstance must be considered, and these include probable consequences. They also include the relevant, universal properties of the facts: For example, the psychological states of those involved.
An example of Hare's argument would be this:
Supposing one require a large sum of money, and asked a friend to lend it to him. She refuses. One claims that it is wrong for her to refuse. "Wrong" is a moral term, so, according to Hare, one must abide by its logical properties. The first property, universalizability, demands that one formulate a description of the situation using only universal terms. So one says:
Whenever I ask a friend for a large sum of money, it is wrong for her to refuse to give it to me.
But this violates the universalizability requirement, insofar as the description contains the terms "I" and "me," which do not designate a universal property, but denote an individual instead. So one tries again:
Whenever someone asks a friend for a large sum of money, it is wrong for them to refuse the request.
This new description satisfies the universalizability requirement, because all its terms are universal. Now the description must also satisfy the second requirement, that of prescriptivity. That is, one must determine whether he is willing to act on the universal formulation.
At first, one might argue that it does not apply to someone else. If one considers it wrong for his friend to refuse to lend him a large sum of money, it is his friend, not him, who should be acting accordingly.
However—and here is where the two properties combine and the philosophically interesting results appear—universalizability requires that the same judgment be made, and prescriptivity that the same action be taken, irrespective of one's particular position in the situation. In other words, just as one had to deprive the description of its particular (non-universal) terms, it is now impossible for one to exclude himself from the possibility of being in the situation that your friend was in. According to universalizability, if one were not the one asking for money, but the one who was being asked, the same moral judgment—that whenever someone asks a friend for a large sum of money, it is wrong for them to refuse the request—ought to apply; and, according to the rule of prescriptivity, one would have to act accordingly.
If one were not prepared to act accordingly, he would be violating this rule; and in fact one wouldn't be uttering a moral judgment at all, according to Hare.
To re-enter the moral discourse, one would have to modify your original judgment so that, once universalized, one would still be able to act in the way it would ask him to act. By a series of universal conjectures and prescriptive refutations—akin to philosopher Karl Popper's falsificationism (Freedom and Reason, chapter 4)—one would eventually arrive at the right moral judgment, which would be the one he would prefer in all the possible situations.
In each case, however, one cannot simply put oneself in another's shoes, as it were; one must also adopt the universal properties of the perspectives of the other person. Universal prescriptivism, thus, leads to preference utilitarianism. And so, according to Hare, does Kantianism: To demand, as Kant's first formulation of the categorical imperative does, that one could will that her maxim be a universal law, is to ask the moral agent to prescribe the judgment that she could accept were she in any of the positions involved, which of course, is exactly Hare's point.
Hare was resigned to the idea that the content of moral propositions could not be shown to be subject to truth conditions, and, therefore, could not be subject to objective, universal standards of truth. While this suggests that moral relativists have the upper hand from a foundational standpoint, Hare said they were mistaken in one important respect: All moral propositions and arguments are subject to at least one universal standard, namely, logic. According to Hare, this fact also makes moral discourse intelligible.
Hare's work in applied ethics
Besides his interest and work in meta-ethics, Hare also worked in applied ethics, using his normative theory to illuminate many fields. These included bioethics, political philosophy (especially questions about rights), environmental ethics, education, and philosophy of religion. He published books of essays in each of those fields.
In addition to his work in ethics, Hare wrote on Plato, Greek Philosophy, practical inferences, and philosophy of religion.
Some other philosophers have also used Hare's universal prescriptivism in applied ethics. Peter Singer, for example, uses it as a means of judging conduct, though, unlike Hare, Singer bases his system on a principle of utility.
The Language of Morals. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1952. ISBN 0198810776
Freedom and Reason. Oxford: Oxford Universiy Press, 1963. ISBN 0195085655
Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. ISBN 0198246609
Applications of Moral Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972. ISBN 0333114213
Essays on the Moral Concepts. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972. ISBN 0520022319
Essays in Ethical Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York Oxford University Press, 1989. ISBN 0198240716
Sorting Out Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. ISBN 0198237278
Essays on Political Morality. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. ISBN 0198249942
Essays on Bioethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. ISBN 0198239831
Essays on Religion and Education. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. ISBN 0198249977
Objective Prescriptions and Other Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. ISBN 0198238533
"A Philosophical Self-Portrait," in The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. London: Penguin, 1997, 234-235. ISBN 0141018402
In addition his works in ethics and applied ethics, Hare also published several other books:
Plato. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. ISBN 019287585X
Greek Philosophers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0192854224
Essays on Philosophical Method. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972. ISBN 0520021789
Practical Inferences. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972. ISBN 0520021797
Founders of Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Most of the anthologies in English on ethics published in the last two decades of the twentieth century contain one or more essays by Hare.
King, P.J. One Hundred Philosophers. Barrons, 2004. ISBN 0764127918
Seanor, Douglas and N. Fotion, eds. Hare and Critics: Essays on Moral Thinking. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. ISBN 0198242816
The Independent, Obituary: Richard Hare Retrieved June 22, 2015.
All links retrieved June 17, 2019.
R. M. Hare. Resources on Hare, including writings by and about him.
Could Kant Have Been a Utilitarian? By R. M. Hare.
The Language of Morals, e-text.
R. M. Hare history
History of "R. M. Hare"
Retrieved from http://web.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=R._M._Hare&oldid=1020908
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Helen Marten © Tate
The Turner Prize may seem out of date, but it created the UK’s contemporary art scene
December 8, 2016 8.40am EST
Louise Wilson, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Louise Wilson
Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Louise Wilson is currently BALTIC artist trustee.
Northumbria University, Newcastle provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.
The news that Helen Marten won the 2016 Turner Prize this week was met with great and well deserved acclaim. Established by a group called the Patrons of New Art in 1984 and now in its 32nd year, the Turner Prize is exactly one year older than the winning artist herself.
It was set up to encourage and promote a wider interest in contemporary art throughout the UK, which it certainly has achieved, but today commentary is frequently disparaging – it has been called “boring”, “irrelevant” and “lumbering” in recent years.
As such, it was refreshing this year not only to encounter the breadth and ingenuity of Marten’s work but to hear, in her acceptance speech, of her distaste for “hierarchical” art prizes and her pledge to share the prize money with her fellow nominees. She revealed a sense of something progressive and pioneering.
I’m a practising artist, who was nominated for the prize in collaboration with my twin sister Jane in 1999. And like Helen Marten, we also had our first solo museum show at The Serpentine Gallery around the same time. We were nominated alongside fellow artists Tracey Emin, Steve McQueen and Steven Pippin. That year, the much acclaimed Oscar-winning director and video artist Steve McQueen won. This was a period in which the Turner attracted much less negativity in the press. So it’s interesting to reflect, 17 years on, on what kind of impact the prize has had on the wider British contemporary art scene.
Turner copycats
What is certain is that the prize has been very successful in its mission statement of promoting and widening access to contemporary art. The Turner is still considered by many to be the benchmark of success for artists both nationally and internationally. Its format has been copied, adopted, modified and embraced internationally – from the Vincent Award in Amsterdam and the Hugo Boss Prize in New York to the Duchamp Prize in Paris and the Abraaj Capital Art Prize in the UAE.
The prize continues to thrive and without its impact we might well have been facing an even more serious threat to the vision for the arts in education, which is currently struggling enough – as evidenced in the Department of Education’s adoption of the EBacc system, whereby all creative subjects including GCSE Art are no longer seen as essential to the secondary school curriculum. Without the Turner, I believe there would have been a real possibility of an incurable challenge to the diversity and potential for the creative industries in the UK.
But following the Turner’s example, art prizes have blossomed in the UK in recent years. There’s the International Artes Mundi Prize in Cardiff, the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture in Wakefield, John Moores Painting Prize in Liverpool and – open to all UK undergraduates – the Woon Foundation Prize in Newcastle.
Art prizes are everywhere, it would seem, but there are some that are now starting to shift away from the familiar hierarchical format of the Turner Prize in pioneering and timely new ways.
In March this year, The Freelands Foundation announced a new award worth £100,000 for women artists, who are still dismally underrepresented within the art world. The award is the first of its kind to challenge this hierarchy by supporting a regional arts organisation to present an exhibition alongside realising a significant new work by a mid-career female artist living and working in the UK.
And last month, BALTIC Centre of Contemporary Art, Gateshead – the first venue outside of London to host the Turner Prize in 2012 – launched its own New Artists Award to be given to four emerging artists. This will be the first UK award ever to be selected solely by artists. Each recipient will receive the same amount as the Turner Prize winner – £25,000 – to create a new work that will be exhibited at BALTIC for 13 weeks, along with a £5,000 fee.
The legacy of The Turner prize is to continually recalibrate, revise and transform conceptions of contemporary art. The UK art world has changed immeasurably since 1984 and it is now a global enterprise. Yet it is a powerful testament to the strength and resilience of the creative industries in the regions that we have as many contemporary art galleries, art museums, artist-led organisations and arts-based education and research projects in colleges and universities.
And this message is only getting stronger. At the opening of the new Tate Modern earlier this year, the introduction of the new Tate Exchange initiative was announced, placing art education and access for all at the heart of the UK’s foremost public contemporary art museum – and creator of the Turner Prize.
Infrastruktur, Nicole Wermers, 2015 at Tramway in Glasgow. Andrew Milligan/PA Wire
Turner shortlisted artist: the prize machine stifles art
Duncan Campbell, It for Others 2013. Courtesy of Duncan Campbell and Rodeo Gallery.
Turner Prize has become middle aged – but that’s no bad thing
© Assemble
Turner Prize win must not restrict Assemble’s work to the zone of ‘art’
Switch House, Tate Modern. © Iwan Baan
What the new Tate Modern tells us about the museum of the future
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Serena beats Sharapova at Australian Open
photo by Agency photo
Serena Williams poses with her trophy after defeating Maria Sharapova of Russia in their women\'s singles final match at the Australian Open 2015 tennis tournament in Melbourne on Saturday.
By Agency
01st-Feb-2015
Serena Williams won her sixth Australian Open and 19th career Grand Slam with a hard-fought win over bitter rival Maria Sharapova on Saturday, consolidating her place among the game's legends.
The 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) triumph means the American world number one overtakes 18-time major champions Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert to go clear second on the all-time Open-era Grand Slam winners' list, three behind Steffi Graf.
Australia's Margaret Court, who played many of her match before the Open-era, has 24 titles. Evert, commentating on ESPN, backed Williams to eventually overtake Graf's mark "if she stays healthy, if he stays motivated".
"Standing here with 19 championships is something I never thought would happen, I went on the courts with just a ball and a racquet and hope and that's all I had," said Williams, at 33 the oldest woman to win the Melbourne title.
"I'm just so excited to have this title," she added, revealing that she had been "throwing up" when she went off court during a rain delay in the first set.
The American has been battling a cold all tournament and was coughing during the match.
The first Australian final in a decade to feature the tournament's top two seeds was a one-sided affair in the opening set, although Sharapova rallied to make a contest of it in the second, saving two championship points before falling to a third.
The win extends Williams' decade-long run over the Russian to 16 matches, with the second seed hailing her rival's "incredible achievement".
"I've got to congratulate Serena on creating history and playing some of her best tennis," she said.
"I haven't beaten her for a really long time but I love every time I step out on the court with her because she's been the best and as a tennis player you want to play against the best."
An intensely focused Williams outgunned Sharapova, cannoning down 18 aces, including a 203 kmh (166 mph) thunderbolt and glaring at her opponent during key moments as Sharapova struggled to stay in the match.
Sharapova made a disastrous start when she double faulted to go down a break in the opening game, succumbing to pressure as Williams aggressively stood inside the baseline and easily read the Russian's intent.
The American pounced on any tentative shots from Sharapova who resorted to drop shots in a bid to vary her tactics and avoid getting into a slugfest with the game's most powerful hitter.
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Police told to open fire if attacked
By bdnews24.com
06th-Nov-2015
Police top brass has ordered its forces to fire if attacked following the killing of two policemen on duty within a span of 15 days.
The police headquarters have issued a set of six guidelines for the security of its personnel across the country.
A circular signed by Bangladesh Police Headquarters AIG (Confidential) Md Moniruzzaman was issued to ensure the safety of weapons, vehicles, and logistics. It also contained the licence to fire if attacked.
Copies of it have been sent to the police commissioners, DIGs of various ranges, and RAB director general.
The circular begins by pointing at certain lapses. "Of late, police personnel have been killed or gravely injured by criminals because they were not in proper riot gear and not been correctly briefed or guided by senior officers. It has also been observed that senior officers or those in charge are often not accompanying the force."
Police personnel have been asked to follow the instructions to ensure their personal safety under the circumstances.
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Revenge of the Killer Shrews – A Horror Comedy
An Action-Monster-Thriller sequel fifteen years in the making!
Back in the year 2000, Bart Grieb released his first short film: Taming of the Killer Shrews. Based on a 1959 feature monster movie by Ray Kellogg which had recently come into the public domain, Bart’s film launched his career. Now, he’s back for more!
Armed with an 80 page script and an excited cast and crew, Bart is ready to bring back the magic with a feature-length sequel. Kellogg’s original film has fans worldwide, and we hope that all of you will join them in getting this movie made! With your contribution, this film will be able to achieve high production values with diverse sets, thrilling action sequences, and killer special effects.
Your contribution will help to make this film as good as it can be. The money will be used toward prosthetics, special and practical effects, stop-motion animation, model work, sets, and props. To do justice to a script that includes boat chases, car explosions, and swashbuckling criminal masterminds, we need your help!
To thank you for your support, there are many perks listed on the right-hand side of this page, including early access to special content, digital downloads of the script and film upon completion, original concept artwork, props from the set (including a shrew itself!), and even a special walk-on role in the movie!
If we don’t reach our goal, the money we raise will be used to make a short version of the film, which will bring the same production values as we intend for the feature, and which will be used to raise funds to finish the feature in the future.
Click here to contribute.
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Tags: Horror Comedy, Revenge of the Killer Shrews
Categorised in: Horror Movies, Independent Horror Film
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Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis
The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis is Senior Minister at Middle Collegiate Church, a 1000-member multiracial, welcoming, and inclusive congregation in New York City. She is an activist, preacher, and fierce advocate for racial equality, economic justice, and LGBTQ equality. Middle Church and Jacqui’s activism for these issues has been featured in media such as The Today Show, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The New Yorker, Essence and The Huffington Post. Jacqui is a frequent contributor to MSNBC.
Jacqui is the Co-Founder of The Middle Project, which hosts an annual conference to train faith leaders to build multiracial congregations. Jacqui earned her Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and earned a M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in Psychology and Religion from Drew University. She has been adjunct professor at seminaries across the country, including Princeton Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary, and the Graduate Theological Union. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Jacqui is the first African American and first woman to serve as senior minister in the Collegiate Church, which was founded in New York City in 1628. She is the author of The Power of Stories; 10 Essential Strategies to Grow a Multiracial, Multicultural Congregation; and the children’s book, You Are So Wonderful!
Pam Campos-Palma
Reverend Leah D. Daughtry
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