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https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2018/07/24/dow-jones-develops-automated-security-tool/
CIO Journal.
Dow Jones Develops Automated Security Tool
Open-source tool scans for vulnerabilities within AWS
Sara Castellanos
BiographySara Castellanos
@SCastellWSJ
sara.castellanos@wsj.com
Jul 24, 2018 2:47 pm ET
Pedestrians pass in front of a News Corp. signage displayed outside Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. headquarters in New York, Jan. 25, 2018. Photo: Bloomberg News
Dow Jones & Co. has developed an open-source tool that scans for security vulnerabilities within the Amazon Web Services cloud platform and in some cases fixes them automatically, in an example of how cybersecurity is becoming increasingly automated.
The tool was developed over the past year partly in response to the growing need for automation in cybersecurity amid cybersecurity talent shortages and the fast-paced nature of software development, said Jaswinder Hayre, chief information security officer for Dow Jones.
Dow Jones, which is the publisher of the Wall Street Journal and WSJ CIO Journal, and is owned by News Corporation, announced the tool’s release earlier this month.
More enterprises are taking advantage of public cloud platforms such as Amazon.com Inc.’s AWS, but business teams sometimes overlook security configurations for all the data they’re storing in the cloud, Mr. Hayre said. Cybersecurity employees at large enterprises also face challenges with tracking and managing security configurations for information within the hundreds of AWS accounts that companies create, which is why the tool is beneficial, he said.
“There’s just not enough security folks to go around,” said Mr. Hayre, who reports to Ramin Beheshti, chief product and technology officer for Dow Jones. “We need to make security for the masses, and the way you do that is security automation, or this concept of security as code.”
AWS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The number of unfilled cybersecurity positions is expected to reach more than 1.8 million globally by 2022, according to a 2017 report from (ISC)2, a nonprofit association, WSJ Pro Cybersecurity recently reported.
Companies now are using automation to sift through many thousands of security alerts that would typically have required human attention, and automation tools have been widely deployed to remediate ransomware and phishing attacks so far. However, automated security technologies have not been widely adopted among the Fortune 500 in part because existing security services do not trust machines to make decisions without human intervention, said Avivah Litan, an analyst with the research firm Gartner Inc., in a previous interview.
The new tool, called Hammer, uses application programming interfaces to connect to the AWS accounts that an enterprise uses, Mr. Hayre said. It then scans for security vulnerabilities in, for example, cloud-based storage devices called S3 buckets, where businesses often store unstructured data such as images, Javascript files and logos. Data in such storage devices is sometimes left exposed to other AWS users because employees forget to secure them, he said.
If a security vulnerability is found, the tool will automatically send a message to a security professional within the company. If the employee does not respond right away, it will reconfigure privacy settings so that only certain IP addresses within the company will have permission to access the data stored in the bucket.
Last year, basic contact information about Wall Street Journal subscribers was left exposed to other AWS customers as a result of improper security configurations. The new security tool can find and fix such vulnerabilities for Dow Jones and other companies because it’s free and open-source, he said.
“Security is one of those things where we feel like we’re all in this together — us and every other company in the world,” he said.
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SHOW CONVERSATION HIDE CONVERSATION (5)
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Laws of the State of Illinois Enacted by the General Assembly
Av Illinois
(5) Employ a caretaker or custodian for Old Salem State Park; and
(6) Employ such other persons at such times as may be required for the care, preservation and protection of Old Salem State Park and for the accommodation of the public.
APPROVED April 3, 1919.
PAUPERS.
AMENDS ACT OF 1874. § 1. Adds section 22a and amends sec- § 29. Overseer to keep action 29, Act of 1874. count—copies.
§ 22a. Commitment—removal.
(House BILL No. 334. Approved JUNE 28, 1919.)
AN ACT to amend section 29 of an Act entitled: “An Act to revise the law in relation to paupers,” approved March 23, 1874, in force July 1, 1874, as amended, and to add thereto a new section to be known as section 22a. SECTION 1... Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: That section 29 of an Act entitled: “An Act to revise the law in relation to paupers,” approved March 23, 1874, in force July 1, 1874, as amended, is amended and there is added to said Act a new section to be known as section 22a, the amended and additional sections to read as follows: § 22a. No feebleminded girl or woman between the ages of fourteen and forty-five years shall be kept in, committed to, placed or received in any poor house or poor farm. No male child under the age of seventeen years or female child under the age of eighteen years shall be kept in any poor house or poor farm for a period of more than thirty days. Provided, that nothing in this Act contained shall be so construed as to require the removal of any person now an inmate of any poor house or poor farm, unless the Department of Public Welfare, in its discretion, shall deem such removal necessary. § 29. The overseers of the poor in each town in counties under township organization (whether the poor are supported by townships or otherwise), and of each precinct in counties not under township organization, shall keep an accurate account, showing the name of every person relieved or supported in their town or precinct; the place of his birth; the manner in which he is relieved or supported whether in whole or in part at the expense of the county or town; the amount of the aid furnished; whether the dependency was on account of idiocy, lunacy, intemperance, or other cause, stating the cause. Before the first meeting of the county board in September of each year [each overseer of the poor shall file two copies of this account with the county clerk of his county. The county clerk shall within five days after the adjournment of the September meeting of the county board in each year transmit one of such copies to the Department of Public Welfare. APPRoved June 28, 1919.
POWER OF COUNTY BOARD. § 1. Amends section 28. Act of 1874. § 28. Powers of county board.
(SENATE BILL No. 80. APPROVED JUNE 28, 1919.)
AN ACT to amend section 28 of “An Act to revise the law in relation to paupers", approved March 23, 1874, in force July 1, 1874, as amended. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois. represented in the General Assembly, that section 28 of an Act entitled “An Act to revise the law in relation to paupers”, approved March 23, 1874, in force July 1, 1874, as amended, is amended to read as follows: § 28. The county board of any county in this State in which the poor are not supported by the towns thereof, as provided by law, shall have power (1) To acquire in the name of the county by purchase, grant,
gift or devise, a suitable tract or tracts of land upon which to erect
and maintain a county poor house and other necessary buildings in collnection therewith, and for the establishment and maintenance of a farm for the employment of the poor, and to erect and maintain such buildings and establish and maintain such farm, but they shall not expend for the purchase of any such land or the erection of any such buildings a sum exceeding three thousand ($3,000.00) dollars without a two-thirds majority vote of all the members of the county board. Any such county shall have power by contract with another county or counties, to jointly secure by purchase or otherwise, necessary lands, and erect and maintain a poor house and other necessary buildings for the maintenance of the poor of such counties. (2) To receive in the name of the county gifts, devises and be: quests to aid in the erection or maintenance of the poor house, or in the care and support of poor and indigent persons. (3) To make all proper rules and regulations for the manage. ment of the county poor house and poor farm and of the inmates of the poor house. Provided, that no such poor farm shall be let or rented upon the principle of the highest bid for the use of the land and the lowest bid for the maintenance of the county charges or upon any plan which may tend to the detriment or neglect of the inmates or the waste
or deterioration of the property, but shall be conducted by the county.
only through its officers, agents or representatives. (4) To appoint a keeper of the poor house and all necessary agents and servants for the management and control of the poor house and farm and prescribe their compensation and duties. (5) To appoint a county physician and prescribe his compensation and duties. (6) To appoint an agent to have the general supervision and charge of all matters in relation to the care and support of the poor and prescribe his compensation and duties. (?) To make all proper and necessary appropriations out of the county treasury for the purchase of land and the erection of buildings, as authorized by this Act, and to defray the expenses necessary in the care and maintenance of the same and for the support of the poor, and to cause an amount sufficient for said purposes to be levied upon the taxable property of the county and collected as other taxes. (8) Upon the vote of a two-thirds majority of all the members of the board to sell and dispose of the whole or any part of the poor farm of the county in such manner and upon such terms as they may deem best for the interest of the county, and to make and execute all necessary conveyances thereof, in the same manner as other conveyances of real estate may be made by a county. In case of the establishment and maintenance of a joint poor farm, the approval of the county board of each county shall be necessary for action under any provisions of this section. Such joint poor farm may be dissolved or abandoned by agreement of the counties interested, or upon petition to the County Court, upon such terms as are equitable and just to the counties concerned. All poor houses, poor farms and institutions provided and maintained by counties for the support and care of paupers shall be known as county homes. APPROVED June 28, 1919.
PAWNERS’ SOCIETIES.
REGULATIONS. § 1. Amends sections 3 and 6. Act of § 6. Sale of unredeemed 1899. property — time limit for claim of net Sur§ 3. Amount of loan limited Dlus.
(SENATE BILL No. 312. APPROVED JUNE 28, 1919. )
AN ACT to amend sections 3 and 6 of an Act entitled, “An Act to provide for the incorporation, management, and regulation of pawners' societies and limiting the rate of compensation to be paid for advances, storage and insurance of pawns and pledges, and to allow the loaning of money upon personal property,” approved March 29, 1899, in force July 1st, 1899. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: That sections 3 and 6 of the Act to provide for the incorporation, management and regulation of pawners’ societies and limiting the rate of compensation to be paid for advances, etc., approved March 29, 1899, in force July 1st, 1899, be, and it is hereby amended to read as follows: § 3. When the corporation has disposable funds it may make advances on all goods, chattels and savings bank deposit books offered, embraced within its rules and regulations, but in no case shall the amount loaned to any one person exceed the sum of one thousand dollars ($1,000.00). § 6. If the property pledged is not redeemed within the time fixed and agreed upon, the same shall, after one year from the expiration of the time of the pledge, he sold at public auction without redemption, under the directions of said corporation, to the highest bidder for cash, at which sale said corporation may be a bidder and a purchaser, and the net surplus of the proceeds of such sale, after paying the cost of the sale and the amount due said corporation, shall be paid to the pawnes or pledger or his legal representative or assigns on demand at any time within two (2) years after such sale. But said pawner or pledger, or his legal representative or assigns, shall have no right to said net surplus or to demand, or recover the same after the expiration of said two years. APPROVED June 28, 1919.
PENSIONS.
HOUSE OF CORRECTION EM PLOYEES' PENSION FUND.
§ 1. Amends Act of 1911—how fund § 9. Retirement after twenty years
created. notice—annuitant. § 2. Term “employee” defined—with- $ 10. Retirement account of disability — after three years — notice
—where filed. - --§ 11. Certificate of disability. § 4. Board of trustees — power and duty—investments—city treas- § 12. Marriage by beneficiary — to
§ 5. Board of trustees — how com- under Act of 1911 — term ... elected and term of "child” or “children” defined. oil 1 ce. § 13. Deductions certified monthly to § 6. When membership in board shall treasurer. cease — vacancies how filled— power and duty of board — § 14. Exemptions—no assignments.
beneficiary of fund. § 15. Interference with enforcementAnnuity payments. penalties—repeal.
(SENATE BILL No. 299. FILED JULY 11, 1919.)
AN ACT to amend an Act entitled, “An Act to provide for the setting apart, formation and disbursement of a house of correction employees pension fund in cities having a population earceeding 150,000 to: habitants,” approved and in force July 1, 1911. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: That an Act entitled, “An Act to provide for the formation and disbursement of a house of correction employees’ fund, in cities having a population exceeding 150,000 inhabitants,” approved June 10, 1911, and in force July 1, 1911, he amended as follows: That the board of inspectors of the various houses of correction, organized under an Act of General Assembly of the State of Illinois entitled, “An Act to establish houses of correction and authorize the confinement of convicted persons therein,” approved April 25, 1871, and maintained thereunder in cities having a population exceeding 150,000 inhabitants, shall have power, and it shall be its duty to create a house of correction employees’ pension fund which, shall consist of two (?) per cent of the salary or wages of the employees, deducted in equal monthly installments from such salaries or wages at the regular time of times of the payment thereof, but not to exceed two (2) dollars per month
and three (3) per cent of the gross earnings of the house of correction, and three (3) per cent of the fines and costs collected for violation of city ordinances where the persons convicted of such violations have been incarcerated in the house of correction for the non-payment of such fines and costs. § 2. The term “employee” under this Act, shall include all persons in the employ of any such house of correction under and by virtue of an Act entitled, “An Act to regulate civil service of cities,” approved and in force March 20, 1895, and for those who were appointed prior to the passage of such Act and who were in the service of such house of correction July 1, 1911: Provided, however, that the provisions of this Act shall not apply to temporary or probationary employees, nor to those defined as “sixty-day employees,” nor to any employee who is fifty or more years of age at the time this Act is in force and effect and who at said time has not been in the service of such house of correction for at least ten (10) years: And, provided, further, that this Act shall apply only to those employees who voluntarily accept and agree to comply with its provisions. Any employee on sick leave or leave of absence from such house of correction who has contributed to said pension fund, will be considered a member of said pension fund, and will be entitled to all benefits and anniuties under this Act, while he or she remains on said sick leave or leave of absence from said house of correction: Provided, the said employee does not take employment other than at such house of correction while on sick leave or leave of absence from such house of correction, and if said employee goes to work at employment other than at such house of correction while on said sick leave or leave of absence, from such house of correction, he or she will not be considered an employee of such house of correction, and will not be entitled to any benefits under this Act: And, provided, further, that any woman employee contributing to said pension fund, who marries and then takes a leave of absence for reasons other than sickness of self, will not be entitled to any benefits or annuities under this Act, while on such leave of absence, unless she is employed at least three (3) months of each year at such house of correction. Any employee, a part of whose salary may be set apart hereafter to provide for the fund created by this Act, shall be released from the necessity of making further payments to said fund by filing a written notice of his or her desire to withdraw from complying with the provisions of this Act, with the board of trustees hereinafter mentioned, which resignation shall operate and go into effect immediately upon its receipt by said board of trustees. Any employee who has contributed to the said fund for three (3) years or more, and who shall be dismissed or resigned from the service of the said house of correction, may, upon application made within three (3) months, after such dismissal or resignation, receive one-half (1/2) of the total amount paid into said fund by such person so dismissed or resigned. Any person in the employ of the house of correction July 1, 1911, shall be eligible to become a contributor to said pension fund, and
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Ken Orski
Revisiting the Senate Highway Bill
As Rep. DeFazio observed, getting to know the finer details of the Senate highway bill (MAP-21, S. 1813) has taken on new significance now that a House-Senate conference negotiation on the reauthorization measure has become a reality. Understanding the Senate bill is important because the Senate measure is likely to become the basis of any final bill. The House bill (H.R. 4348) is little more than a 90-day extension of the current program (through September 2012) with the Keystone XL pipeline amendment attached to it. It is silent on nearly everything addressed by the Senate bill. And, equally, it is silent on nearly every issue germane to the transportation reauthorization except for a detailed set of environmental streamlining provisions. Read More ›
Mike Wussow
Why Washington state should invest in passenger rail
Over at Transportation Issues Daily, Cascadia Center director Bruce Agnew has written a guest post arguing in favor of continued investment in passenger rail in the state of Washington. [Washington] successfully competed for $750 million in new federal rail funds for projects with BNSF Railway from Vancouver, Washington to Blaine. These projects have multiple benefits from more passenger service to better freight access to ports and safer highway/rail grade crossings. … The state should encourage public private partnerships for new and expanded train/bus ferry centers linked by more passenger rail. … [M]ore trains requires more public investments in the BNSF line. Since they carry millions passengers every day, the state should explore new revenue options with them as partners. The Read More ›
Cascadia Center
Greyhound Lines looking for new Seattle home
Image via Wikipedia The last time Greyhound Lines had to look for a home in Seattle, Calvin Coolidge was still president. But with an eviction notice earlier this fall, the bus line will need to move from its Stewart Street location by April 2013. As Crosscut’s C.B. Hall writes, the company says if a location can’t be found, it’ll need to leave Seattle. It’s a test, he says, to Seattle’s “commitment to mass transportation.” Greyhound officials, according to Hall’s reporting, say the company’s preference for a new home would be at or near King Street Station in Pioneer Square. According to Hall’s Crosscut article, “Greyhound’s first choice, says [Greyhound] district manager Mike Timlin, ‘would be to go in with King Read More ›
U.S.-Canada agreement will speed-up train service
Image via Wikipedia An agreement signed between the U.S. and Canada will make traveling between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, Wash., faster and more efficient. The “Beyond the Border” accord, signed by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama, includes provisions for pre-clearance. That means, among other things, that travelers heading south from Vancouver will no longer have to undergo inspections in both Vancouver and Blaine, Wash. The inspection functions will be consolidated in Vancouver. From the Cascadia Center’s official statement in support of the accord: By eliminating duplicative inspection functions and increasing the speed of travel between Canada and the U.S., the Beyond the Border accord serves as a long-awaited landmark agreement. … By December 2012, with Read More ›
The Precarious State of the Highway Trust Fund
On November 18, President Obama signed into law a bundle of appropriation bills for FY 2012 including appropriations for the U.S. Department of Transportation. The measure had been passed earlier in the House by a vote of 298-121 and in the Senate by a vote of 70-30.
The bill provides $39.14 billion in obligation limitation for the highway program, a reduction of
almost $2 billion from FY 2011; however, an additional $1.66 billion is appropriated for highway-related “emergency relief.” The transit program is funded at $10.31 billion (incl. $1.95 for New Starts), a $400 million increase from FY 2011, and Amtrak at $1.42 (incl. $466 million for operating expenses). The discretionary TIGER program is retained at $500 million, a
slight decrease from FY 2011.
Thousands descend on Orlando, Fla., to talk transportation technology
Experts focus on technology’s role in moving people and goods quicker, safer, cleaner
By Larry Ehl
When you travel today — whether by car, bus, rail, plane or bike — technology made your trip safer, faster and cleaner than in the past. That technology may have been obvious to you (hybrid vehicles, GPS) or not (traffic light synchronization, interstate weigh-in-motion for trucks).
Yet our transportation network can be much, much safer, efficient and cleaner. Every year nearly 40,000 people are killed on our highways. Congestion cost about $101 billion and 4.8 billion wasted hours in 2010. Transportation accounts for nearly 30% of our greenhouse gases.
Making transportation safer, more efficient and cleaner was the focus of a recent conference — the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) World Congress, held Oct. 16-20, in Orlando, Fla. — attended by about 8,000 public- and private-sector transportation specialists from more than 65 countries.
Seattle voters say “yes” to tunnel
Future waterfront visualization. (Photo source: WSDOT)
Though one hesitates to say something in Seattle is ever actually finished, in the land of indecision, it appears that a decision has finally been made. With nearly 60 percent in favor, Seattle voters told their elected officials on Tuesday to move forward with a tunnel replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
As The Seattle Times reports, the defeat of the effort to recall the earlier decision to build the tunnel sets into motion the final bureaucratic and regulatory approvals that will move the project forward rapidly and allow “the state Department of Transportation (DOT) to tell its tunnel contractors by Sept. 1 to move into final design and construction.”
The future of high-speed rail in the Northwest
Washington state’s Legislative Committee on Economic Development and International Relations held a hearing in Seattle to examine the future of high-speed rail in the state of Washington as well as the Northwest. Cascadia Center’s testimony, done jointly with All Aboard Washington, can be watched in the clip below. Video of the entire hearing can be found at TVW.
New Electric Car Charger: Consider the Source
Reposted from Discovery News By Bruce Chapman The Japanese have come up with a new electric car charger that can provide a Nissan Leaf (for example) a complete charge, good for 200 miles, in only five minutes. It’s a potentially serious advance. However, it is important with all these stories to note that energy is still needed to CHARGE a car. You save gasoline (and its fumes) in this process, but you don’t save net energy. If one lives in an area that generates energy through hydropower, it’s all a plus; almost the same with nuclear power; less so with natural gas; none at all or even a minus with coal or oil.
Adjusting to fiscal and political realities
Innovation Briefs, now
in their 22nd year of publication, are published by Ken Orski. Cascadia
Prospectus reprints them with permission. The content of Innovation
Briefs does not necessarily represent the view of Cascadia Center of
Discovery Institute.
While we do not know the exact level of funding the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will propose in its draft legislation, to be unveiled in the first week of July and marked up the following week, we do know it is going to be far less than the current (FY 2010) funding of $52 billion —$41 billion for highways and $11 billion for transit. What will be the consequences?
That the Federal Government “must learn to live within its means” has become the fiscal conservatives’ elliptical way of stating their opposition to deficit financing. This principle found its way into the House T&I Committee’s “Views and Estimates for Fiscal Year 2012” report and has been reaffirmed since in countless statements and briefings by congressional sources.
The practical implications of this policy for the federal-aid transportation program are unambiguous: federal budget authority in FY 2012 and beyond will be limited to tax receipts flowing into the Highway Trust Fund. Those revenues (plus interest) will amount to an estimated $36.9 billion in 2011, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)– $31.8 billion will be credited to the Highway Account and $5.1 billion to the Transit Account. Over the next ten years, CBO estimates these revenues will grow at an average rate of a little more than one percent per year, largely reflecting expected growth in motor fuel consumption. (“The Highway Trust Fund and Paying for Highways,” testimony of Joseph Kile, Asst. Director of CBO, before the Senate Finance Committee, May 17, 2011).
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Australian archbishop convicted of concealing child sexual abuse
Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide (CNS/Darren Pateman, EPA)
An Australian court has found the Archbishop of Adelaide guilty of concealing child sex abuse by a fellow priest in the 1970s.
Archbishop Philip Wilson was convicted of failing to inform the authorities of allegations against Fr James Fletcher. He had denied being told about the abuse by some of the victims, however Magistrate Robert Stone rejected his claims that he had no memory of the conversations.
Fr Fletcher was convicted of nine charges of child sexual abuse in 2004 and died in jail two years later. One of his victims, Peter Creigh – who waived the right to anonymity – said he had described the abuse to the then Fr Wilson in detail in 1976.
Magistrate Stone said Archbishop Wilson knew “what he was hearing was a credible allegation and the accused wanted to protect the Church and its reputation”. He found that Creigh was a credible and reliable witness.
Another victim said he disclosed abuse in the confessional when he was 11, but Archbishop Wilson told him he was lying and made him recite 10 Hail Marys in reparation.
Archbishop Wilson is the most senior Catholic in world ever convicted of concealing abuse.
In a statement he said: “I am obviously disappointed at the decision published today. I will now have to consider the reasons and consult closely with my lawyers to determine the next steps.”
Archbishop Mark Coleridge, President of the Australian Bishops’ Conference, also said: “Archbishop Philip Wilson has today been found guilty of failing to inform police about allegations of child sexual abuse. Archbishop Wilson maintained his innocence throughout this long judicial process. It is not yet clear if he will appeal the verdict.
“The Catholic Church, like other institutions, has learned a great deal about the tragedy of child sexual abuse and has implemented stronger programs, policies and procedures to protect children and vulnerable adults. The safety of children and vulnerable adults is paramount for the Church and its ministries.”
After the verdict, Creigh said: “The decision will hopefully unravel the hypocrisy, the deceit, and the abuse of power and trust that the Church has displayed.”
Archbishop Wilson faces up to two years in jail when he is sentenced on June 19. Before the start of his trial, the archbishop revealed he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The magistrate has the option of suspending the sentence, but prosecutors want a custodial sentence.
Archbishop Philip Wilson
Archbishop Wilson to stand aside after conviction for concealing abuse
The Archbishop of Adelaide will stand down from administrative duties, and may formally resign at a later date
Church now facing its own #MeToo moment, says Australian archbishop
‘People are prepared to speak up in a way that they would never have done before,’ the Archbishop of Brisbane said
Australian prelate maintains innocence after charges of hiding abuse
Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide has been charged with concealing child abuse by a priest
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Category Archives: Underdogs
FOX- 25 YEARS AND COUNTING
By Brittany L. Reid on October 20, 2012 | Leave a comment
Logo of the Fox Broadcasting Company (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It began with a new television station’s struggle to find just the right type of entertainment to bait its audience hook, line, and sinker. Who would’ve thought that the wrong content would be what they were looking for….or perhaps we should say the most unorthodox content? The year was 1987 when FOX, a novice network practically out of the womb, premiered a show about a family of underdogs that would slowly begin winning the hearts of Americans. A shoe-salesman, his fashion-forward wife, his ditzy daughter, and his wannabe-player son would spend the next few years taking the television audience on a journey of the rarely acknowledged every day life of the unconventional family.
The context of this show, “Married…with Children,” would begin a tradition that seemed to be the key for future hit shows on FOX. The network would go on to syndicate programs with the pitch of the “underdogs struggling to achieve.” FOX would utilize real life scenarios in both factual and fictional settings, and play on the opinions and sympathies of America to debut the oddest elements of television programming, from attacking animals, to focusing on taboo subjects like drugs, sex, sexual orientation, and more. The network would become renowned for cultivating shows like “The Simpsons” (following a similar foundation of “Married…with Children,” but in an animated format), “Beverly Hills 90210,” “In Living Color,” “Malcom in the Middle”, “American Idol,” and more. From reality competitions, to pushing the patience of the FCC, the network became its own type of Underdog, one that would go on to even make fun of itself in the programs it featured throughout the years.
While it’s only been a quarter of a century since the debut of this network, there is no doubt that FOX has become an integral part of the American family, simply because everyone has someone in their family with that same attitude as FOX: the reckless, over-dramatic, leap before you look type of relative who takes chances and somehow, always seems to still come out on top. Now, at the brink of young adulthood, the network celebrated its 25th Anniversary on Sunday, April 22, 2012, with a look at its history. Such a nostalgic sendoff allowed the audience to see how it has grown with FOX over the years. It is only natural to wonder just what the next 25 years will have in store for the underdog that always seems to be…..as Charlie Sheen would put it, “WINNING!!!!!”
Posted in: 25 Years, American Idol, Anniversary, Beverly Hills 90210, Charlie Sheen, Family Guy, FCC, FOX Broadcasting, Malcom in the Middle, Married With Children, The Simpsons, The X Files, Tiger Blood, Underdogs, Winning
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CACC Melbourne Boardroom Briefing w/ International Guest, President & Vice Chancellor – UVic
By admin13 October, 2019
Click to Register: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/cacc-melbourne-boardroom-briefing-w-international-guest-president-vice-chancellor-uvic-tickets-74367103007
Canadian Australian Chamber of Commerce (CACC)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/o/canadian-australian-chamber-of-commerce-cacc-10814133727
Queen's College, The University of Melbourne
1–17 College Crescent, Parkville, VIC 3052
Parkville, VIC, AU, 3052
CACC Welcomes International Guest of Honour, Professor Jamie Cassels, President & Vice Chancellor of the University of Victoria (UVic), British Columbia, Canada
Please join us for breakfast with President Cassels and representatives from UVic to network and learn more about UVic’s international collaboration interests related to: indigenous education, clean energy and technology development, oceans science, climate change and assistive technologies.
PLEASE NOTE THIS MEETING IS BY INVITATION ONLY.
PROFESSOR JAMIE CASSELS
President & Vice Chancellor, University of Victoria
(British Columbia, Canada)
Professor Jamie Cassels is the seventh President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Victoria. He is a legal scholar of international stature, a nationally-recognized master teacher and scholar, and a talented university administrator noted for his outstanding leadership and vision.
Before becoming UVic’s President in 2013, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Law from 1998-2001 and as Vice-President Academic and Provost from 2001-2010. As Provost, he was instrumental in formulating UVic’s strategic direction and as president, further evolved the University’s strategic framework. He continues to be a strong advocate of excellence in teaching and of research-enriched learning.
Prof. Cassels has been a professor of law for 38 years, and is a member of the Bar of British Columbia. He is the author of numerous books and articles and has received awards for his scholarship and teaching, including a 3M National Teaching Fellowship. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2004 for his scholarly and service contributions to the legal profession. He holds a BA in law and philosophy from Carleton University, an LL.B from the University of Western Ontario and an LL.M from Columbia University.
He has been consulted by organizations and governments at all levels on issues of public significance, and has also been active in many professional and community organizations including the Continuing Legal Education Society, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada, and the United Way.
7:30AM – Light Breakfast / Networking
7:45AM – Welcome
7:50AM – Guest of Honour Remarks
8:10AM – Discussion with Q&A
9:00AM – Boardroom Briefing Concludes
MEETING FACILITATOR
STEWART GILL OAM
Master/Head of College, Queen’s College
(Melbourne, Australia)
Stewart Gill is currently Master/Head of College of Queen’s College within the University of Melbourne. He is a graduate from the Universities of Edinburgh, Toronto and Guelph – the latter two on a Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship and currently serves as the Ambassador for the Association of Commonwealth Universities in Australia. Stewart is a past President of the Association for Canadian Studies in Australia and New Zealand, the founding Chairman of the Pacific Asia Network of Canadian Studies, and the immediate past President of the International Council for Canadian Studies. He serves on the editorial board of Australasian Canadian Studies and The International Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue Internationale D’Etudes Canadiennes and was formerly on the editorial board of Canadian Foreign Policy.
In 2016 he was awarded an OAM for services to tertiary education and the wider community.
About the University of Victoria:
LEARNING AT THE EDGE
UVic is a place where breakthroughs happen and changes emerge. Here, on the stunning west coast of Canada, we challenge the conventions of the status quo and inspire new perspectives. Our campus is full of green spaces, modern buildings, thoughtfully designed lecture and lab facilities, and state-of-the-art libraries. We’re proud to be a community where disciplines intersect, generating unique insights in one of the most extraordinary environments in the world. We’ve nurtured freedom and discovery for bright minds for more than 50 years, and our graduate students and faculty have a legacy of achievement with original research that creates vital impact around the world.
CREATING VITAL IMPACT
As leaders in oceans and climate, Indigenous and cultural studies, and global development with a conscience, our research is vital and world changing. We are out in front in the fields of matter, alternative energy systems, fine arts, genomics and proteomics, and advanced computing technologies. Right now, we’re exploring ways to build healthier societies, foster cultural knowledge and traditions, and put our values into practice at home and abroad.
OUR EXTRAORDINARY ENVIRONMENT
Here, on the tip of an island on the edge of the continent, Victoria is a modern capital of nearly 367,000 people and one of the most liveable cities on the planet. Renowned for its cultural heritage, outdoor lifestyle and community-driven neighbourhoods, it’s easy to find your place here. With unparalleled access to mountains, forests and ocean, and one of the mildest climates in Canada, ours is the perfect home for year-round hiking, cycling and kayaking. If it’s urban living you’re after, there’s a robust arts and music scene and a coffee and culinary culture fed by local farms and outdoor markets. When you need your big-city fix, Victoria is a gateway to nearby Vancouver, BC and Seattle, WA. If it’s contemplation and nature you’re seeking, head for the nearby beaches.
THE EDGE OF INNOVATION
Building on our strengths in environmental studies, earth and ocean sciences, and sustainable approaches to business and law, our programs make differences to people, places and the planet. Newer graduate offerings reflect areas of emerging interest in neuroscience and the performing arts, while our deep commitment to professional programs launches and advances fulfilling careers.
About the Queen’s College:
Founded in 1887, Queen’s College is an academic community designed to complement undergraduate or graduate university education. The large range of activities, the academic and pastoral support, facilities, and the daily interaction with such a diverse community, from visiting senior scholars of international repute through graduate students to undergraduate, allows students to discover and develop skills and experiences they never thought possible. It provides the environment and resources to create a transformative university experience as a true community of scholars. At Queen’s, we pride ourselves in providing opportunities for personal growth across academic, sporting, and cultural interests beyond what you could obtain from other accommodation options.
Queen’s College is a residential community of diverse and enquiring minds.
At our college, we pride ourselves on providing opportunities for personal growth and across academic, sporting, and cultural interests beyond what you could obtain from other accommodation options.
The importance of these values has been stressed from the very beginning of Queen’s history, arising from our founder, E. H. Sugden, a man of both sciences and arts, a champion of women’s education and of access to education for all.
Interested in this job?
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Posts Tagged ‘Boston’
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Amman, Beirut, book reviews, books, Boston, debut novels, displacement, family drama, family saga, fiction, Hala Alyan, historical fiction, Jaffa, Kuwait City, Middel East, Nablus, novels, occupation, Palestine, Palestinian American, Palestinian fiction, refugee fiction, relationships, Salt Houses, Six-Day War, truth on July 6, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American poet and a psychologist, and both her vocations and her heritage are evident in her debut novel Salt Houses. She has a poet’s sense of imagery and language, her book is the story of Palestinian displacement over several generations, and her insights into the psychological wounds of war, statelessness, and resettlement are astute and moving. While I haven’t experienced being a refugee, I’ve volunteered with resettlement so I’ve enjoyed the hospitality of people who are at once American and something else, people who feel they belong everywhere and nowhere.
The main characters of Salt Houses are the progeny of Salma, matriarch of a family living in Nablus when the book opens. It is 1963 but the pain of fleeing Jaffa fifteen years earlier is fresh for Salma. Her younger daughter Alia is about to marry Atef, who is Alia’s brother Mustafa’s best friend. They live well in Nablus, even though Salma is a widow. The book moves forward a few years at a time, and in 1967, Nablus, too becomes a part of their past, when the Six-Day War scatters them. Salma goes to Amman, Alia and Atef join Alia’s older sister and her husband in Kuwait City. As you may recall, Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait City in 1990, and so Alia’s generation is the next to flee a war with a fraction of their belongings, leaving behind jobs, neighbors, and a home. Alia’s children end up even more scattered, in Paris, Boston, Beirut, and Amman. In Beirut they again experience war, although they don’t flee. By the end of the book, Alia’s grandchildren travel from many countries to visit with her and Atef. Life goes on around them, but each generation retains the sense that within themselves, they are never far from where they come from, wherever they go. And where they come from, originally, is Palestine.
Through it all, Atef lives with trauma from the 1967 war that he can manage only by writing letters in secret in his study, letters he can never send. He also copes by focusing on his children, being present with them so that he doesn’t slip into the past. Alyan describes Atef’s feelings for his firstborn, “. . . he loves Riham beyond reason, a love tinged with gratitude, for when she was first placed in his arms, tiny and wriggling and red-faced, he felt himself return, tugged back to his life by the sound of her mewling. The arrival of Riham restored something, sweeping aside the ruin of what had come before.”
These family relationships form the heart of the story, which Alyan tells well. You want to know whether the tempestuous Alia and her equally strong willed daughter Souad will make peace, whether gentle Riham, so like her grandmother Salma, will be happy with her much older husband. Will Abdullah become radicalized? Will Manar find what she’s seeking? The many small dramas that make up a family’s life provide plenty for the reader to savor as the pages turn.
What makes this much more than a standout family saga is the greater narrative: the story of ordinary Palestinians – professional people, whose children watch too much TV and eat too much sugar, who work and worry about the same things families like theirs worry about around the world — caught in a cycle of loss and displacement, the shadow of each generation’s pain resting on the next. They are resilient, and fortunate in many ways, but also perpetually grieving for what could have been, perpetually speaking with the wrong accent, and yet perpetually seeking and making home wherever they are.
This is a beautiful book and an important one. I think it’s safe to say that most Americans have only a tenuous understanding of the Middle East, and even though this is a novel it gets at human truth in a universally recognizable way. Definitely, we should all learn the facts of the region’s history and geopolitics, but it can’t hurt to also try to understand the feelings of people who just want the best for their families, as my wise grandmother used to say. whenever we talked about places caught up in conflict. Salt Houses offers one way to begin to understand.
Vacation reading: After Rain, The Peabody Sisters, Gramercy Park, and Wildwood
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged After Rain, Annunciation, art, biography, bookconscious, Bookconscious Theory of the Interconnectedness of Reading, books, Boston, Botticelli, Carl Van Vechten, Carole Klein, fiction, Filippo Lippi, Gramercy Park, history, Horace Mann, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Maine, Megan Marshall, MFA, nature writing, nonfiction, reading, reviews, Roger Deakin, short stories, The Peabody Sisters, trees, vacation reading, Wildwood, William Trevor on June 20, 2017| 1 Comment »
Ok, Wildwood: a Journey Through Trees I mostly read before vacation, but finished on Saturday. Roger Deakin, who died before this book was published, was a fascinating man. He renovated his Elizabethan farmhouse, which was more or less a ruin when he bought it, and was well known for his nature writing. What I most enjoyed about Wildwood is his delight in his subjects, whether the rooks in a nearby wood, the people who love the natural world as he does, artists, trees, hedges — he was apparently insatiably curious about the planet and the people on it and I learned all kinds of interesting things as I read, from how cricket bats are made to where apple trees originated. I found this book while shelf-reading (a project in libraries, in our case undertaken every summer, whereby staff compare a list of books that should be on the shelf to the actual books on the shelf, to check that they are where they should be). It was a serendipitous find of the highest order. I’d like to read Deakin’s other work, if only for the language. Here’s a bit from a chapter on a trip to the Pyrenees:
“We collect sweet, fresh chestnuts, easing them from their hedgehog husks. Following a steep-sided holloway veined with the exposed roots of beech, holly, hazel, chestnut, maple, ash, and oak, we drink from the woodland springs. As noon approaches, crickets begin singing hesitantly, and young lizards venture on to the sunny track.”
Even if I wasn’t already interested in his subject (and I am a little bit tree mad since reading The Hidden Life of Trees), I’d read that all day.
On our vacation to Maine last week — the first weeklong trip the Computer Scientist and I took alone in nearly three decades — I packed only a few books. One I’d been wanting to read for some time: The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall. I reviewed her book about Margaret Fuller back when I was still writing a column, but this book came to me via my neighbor, who loved it. You may recall I wrote here about her family inviting me to choose books from her collection after she died — this was one of those titles. I’d been waiting for a good time to read it. I figured a week in Maine was a good time to take on a meaty history book and it was. I really thoroughly enjoyed it, both because the Peabody sisters are fascinating women and because I love learning about the history of New England in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Marshall spent twenty years working on this book, explaining in her introduction that she had to learn to read the sisters’ handwriting and that of their family and friends in order to complete her research. I really respect the effort that went into the book, and the fascinating details of the may interwoven lives the Peabody sisters touched. If you don’t know much about them, the eldest, Elizabeth, coined the term “transcendentalism” before any of the men who later made it famous, and was an incredibly gifted thinker and writer. Her legacy to aAmerica, among other things, is kindergarten. Mary, the middle sister, was a teacher and writer who helped Elizabeth with her work and later, helped her husband, Horace Mann, with his. The youngest, Sophia, was an artist and also married Nathaniel Hawthorne. Marshall brings them and the people they knew to life, illuminating the social, cultural, and religious environment that shaped them and the day to day lives they led. I thoroughly enjoyed The Peabody Sisters and would like to wander around Boston and Salem visiting the places where these fascinating women lived and worked. I’d also like to read biographies of some of the rest of their circle, starting with Horace Mann.
When I was just about finished with The Peabody Sisters we visited Elements, a used bookstore, coffee house and bar in Biddeford (much like Book & Bar in Portsmouth. I was fairly restrained in my purchasing, but I did buy Gramercy Park: an American Bloomsbury by Carole Klein. It seemed to be similar in spirit to Marshall’s book; rather than covering one family’s impact on a period, it covers one neighborhood’s impact on several periods. Klein begins with Samuel Ruggles, who wished to preserve some open space as Manhattan expanded north, and began planning to create the neighborhood with its exclusive park in the center in 1831. By the 1840’s homes were being built around the park. Straight through the 1930s, when Klein’s book ends, a parade of interesting New Yorkers lived in Ruggles’ lovely neighborhood, and many more visited. I enjoyed reading about the many writers and artists but also about people I knew less about, like architect Stanford White and inventor and Cooper Union founder Peter Cooper, critic, novelist, artist Carl Van Vechten (who was a close friend of Gertrude Stein, James Weldon, Langston Hughes, Bessie Smith, and F. Scott Fitzgerald). Again the book made me want to walk the neighborhood — I’ve been to the Strand several times and never realized how close I was to Gramercy Park. Klein wrote several other books that I am interested in tracking down.
My final vacation read was a collection of William Trevor’s short stories, After Rain, that I found on the free cart at work (librarian benefits: we see donations before anyone else does). I’d never read the much acclaimed Trevor but as longtime bookconscious readers know, I enjoy short fiction. This book was a little sadder than I am in the mood for lately — world, local and family events offer enough difficult emotions for the time being. But I persevered because Trevor really is a master at this form. “The Piano Tuner’s Wives” and the title story were my two favorites. The former opens simply: “Violet married the piano tuner when he was a young man. Belle married him when he was old.” The story goes on to tell of the two marriages, “He had given himself to two women; he hadn’t withdrawn himself from the first, he didn’t from the second.” It’s a lovely story.
“After Rain” is set in in a little “pensione” in a small town in Italy where a woman named Harriet visited for years with her parents, and has fled when a relationship ended. In a rain storm, Harriet takes shelter in the “Church of Santa Fabiola” and looks at an Annunciation, “by an unknown artist, perhaps of the school of Filippo Lippi, no one is certain.” When Harriet walks back to her hotel, she is still thinking of the painting: “While she stands alone among the dripping vines she cannot make a connection that she knows is there. There is a blankness in her thoughts, a density that feels like muddle also, until she realizes: the Annunciation was painted after rain. Its distant landscape, glimpsed through arches, has the temporary look that she is seeing now. It was after rain that the angel came: those first cool moments were a chosen time.” Beautiful. And true — I’ve felt that way, where the connection I was trying to make was just beyond me.
The painting Trevor refers to is this one:
Panel, 176 x 170 cm
Duomo, Volterra, by Fra Bartolomeo and Mariotto Albertinelli
I wrote not that long ago about attending a talk at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum about another annunciation painting and buying a book abut the exhibit. On Sunday, just before we moved the former Teen the Elder (now nearly 24) out of his house in Boston, we stopped at the Museum of Fine Arts to see the Botticelli exhibit, which included some works by Fillipo Lippi. I’ve always loved when my reading and life intersect.
Born a Crime, Why We Broke Up, & A Journey Into the Transcendentalists’ New England
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 19th century, A Journey Into the Transcendentalists' New England, Atheneum, Book Bingo, books, bookstores, Born a Crime, Boston, Concord, guides, Johannesburg, Lemony Snicket, libraries, Maira Kalman, memoir, nonfiction, reviews, South Africa, Trevor Noah on February 14, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Ok, so it didn’t snow today, or last Friday, but it snowed Saturday-Monday and I read three more books.
One book bingo square I filled is “A book from one of the library’s new shelves.” I chose Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah. It’s as much the story of his remarkable mother as it is his story. Noah explains apartheid and the post-apartheid years in Johannesburg and describes his childhood and adolescence, as well as his family history. As the child of his unconventional mother and father — a black Xhosa woman and a white Swiss man, Noah is considered colored, or mixed race, in South Africa, and his very existence was illegal. Growing up his black relatives and their neighbors considered him white; he thought of himself as black.
Noah has a conversational style and as you might expect, a gift for finding humor even in extreme hardship. And it’s clear that despite repeatedly describing beatings he received from her, Noah’s mother is the reason he survived his childhood. In one story he explains that she frequently told him things a child perhaps should not hear, but she had her reasons: “My mom told me these things so I would never take for granted how we got to where we were, but none of it ever came from a place of self-pity. ‘Learn from your past and be better because of your past,’ she would say, ‘but don’t cry about your past. Life is full of pain. Let the pain sharpen you, but don’t hold onto it. Don’t be bitter.’ And she never was.”
For my “book whose title that begins with W,” my second born suggested Why We Broke Up. I got it at the library book sale at one point, because we both love Maira Kalman and they loved Daniel Handler as Lemony Snicket — A Series of Unfortunate Events was one of the first series they read without me reading it aloud. Why We Broke Up is is the story of Min, a teenager who is writing to her two-timing jock ex-boyfriend, Ed. She’s explaining what’s in a box of stuff she’s going to leave on his porch as soon as she’s done writing the letter. Her best friend, Al, is driving her to take the box of stuff back. I enjoyed it, although I’m not sure the second born would — they’d probably want to know what in the hell Min saw in Ed (ok, lust, popularity). I couldn’t decide if Ed is a serial shit, a victim of his own popularity and co-captain privilege, a product of the patriarchy, or unreliable because of his own troubled childhood. Min is awesome, except that she’s dim about Al, who is superior to Ed in every way. Al is awesome, and at first I thought kind of unbelievable but then I realized no, there are kids who are kind of mature beyond their years. A little painful to read for someone who made her share of dumb decisions about which boys to spend time in high school, but I like the way it’s told, and I LOVE the illustrations.
Finally I read “A book with a red cover,” one that I’ve owned for years but had only flipped through: A Journey Into the Transcendentalists’ New England by R. Todd Felton. I bought this in Concord, MA, when we went on a family day trip after reading about — and some works by some of Concord’s famous residents, particularly Thoreau. I’ve been reading and thinking a good bit about 19th century Boston, especially because the Computer Scientist and I have spent more time there this year. This book is an introductory guide to the places and people who were important to the Transcendentalist movement. It’s full of photos and maps, but no visitor information, so it’s more a guide in the sense of giving an overview than a tourist guide. It made me curious about The Boston Atheneum – a private library, still in existence today. And it made me aware of some of the history of places I’ve already been — I didn’t know The Atlantic Monthly was founded by a group called the Saturday Club, which met at The Omni Parker House. Nor did I know that the building attached to the Brattle Book Shop on West Street, now occupied by a restaurant called Papagayo, was once Elizabeth Peabody’s bookstore, where Margaret Fuller and Peabody held “conversations” for thinking women and so many of the great writers and thinkers of the day came to talk and buy books.
I love history and reading this, as well as a biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner that I’m about halfway through, makes me want to go through my shelves for more Boston history. I could read something in that vein for the “A biography or memoir” square, since the Gardner book would fit the “book about art or artists” square (she collected art, befriended artists, and founded the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. For this evening, I’m after “A book with a number in the title.”
And, there is snow in the forecast.
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LOS ANGELES, CA, USA - AUGUST 25: Singer Gwen Stefani poses in the press room at the 66th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards held at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on August 25, 2014 in Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by Celebrity Monitor)
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Celebrating Women Leaders: Profiles of Financial Inclusion Pioneers
“We would not be here without the visionary work of the pioneers who came before us, especially the women leaders who fought to build the very first banks for women in countries with seemingly insurmountable barriers,” writes Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO of Women’s World Banking in the forward of a new online book, Celebrating Women Leaders: Profiles of Financial Inclusion Pioneers. The book shares the stories of 31 women leaders from around the world who made the financial inclusion landscape what it is today.
Those recognized in the book include practitioners, academics, researchers, regulators, thought leaders, financiers, and more. Among them, the industry’s earliest pioneers, like Ela Bhatt, founder of Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), as well as those who joined more recently, like Ruth Goodwin-Groen, Managing Director of the Better Than Cash Alliance, and Jennifer Riria, CEO of Kenya Women Holding. Full disclosure: of the 31 included in the book are also CFI leaders and partners, including Anne Hastings, Elisabeth Rhyne, Essma Ben Hamida, and Jayshree Vyas.
The book was the idea of Samit Ghosh, CEO and Founder of Ujjivan. Ujjivan and Women’s World Banking worked together on the project, with young women working in the sector researching, conducting interviews, and writing the leader profiles.
Recognizing the incredible progress that has been achieved in financial inclusion for women, Samit during his portion of the book’s forward mentions an area in drastic need of leadership and improvement in moving forward: gender imbalance in inclusive finance organizations. Although many institutions tailor their efforts to extending financial services to women, in India, to give one example, only 20 percent of MFI staff are women. More women leaders are clearly needed.
The online book will function as an ongoing project for years to come with the stories of more pioneering women added and shared.
The final sentences of the book’s forward, from Samit, reads: “I hope we carry on this work and include most of the women who are doing this great work from around the world. This will be a great source of inspiration for future generations.”
To access Celebrating Women Leaders: Profiles of Financial Inclusion Pioneers, click here.
Fifty-Eight Percent of Women in India Report Difficulty Accessing Credit, Savings or Jobs Because of Their Gender
Adding Gender to the Microfinance Bottom Line
More Women on Boards: How Do We Get There?
Want to Fix the Financial Inclusion Gender Gap? Ask Better Questions
Women and Financial Inclusion: What More Can We Do to Address the Systemic Barriers Women Face?
Findex Lead Discusses Gender Gap, Account Usage, and More
Leveraging Social Capital to Expand Women’s Financial Opportunities
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Vol. VI Number 2, Spring 2006 Getting Theirs
Vol. VI Number 2, Spring 2006 Book Reviews
Getting Theirs
Female chauvinist pigs (FCPs) and feminism.
by Julie Ann Ponzi
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture
A review of Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, by Ariel Levy
Never judge a book by its cover, but give a good cover its due. It's impossible to ignore the mud-flap girl on the cover of Ariel Levy's eye-opening book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. There she sits, in all her naked glory, familiar arched back and thrusting breast silhouetted in hot white against a background of lurid pink, leaning come-hitherishly against the title's super-sized "PIGS" in bold black caps. Like the female chauvinist pigs (FCPs) Levy discusses in her book, the mud-flap girl means to entice and amuse her onlookers as she "pimps out" (as the kids say) the vehicle she adorns. Beyond that, she just flaps in the wind and gets splattered with mud.
In the popular culture of America today, Ms. Levy argues, FCPs are women who promote the sexual objectification of other women, and of themselves. But, unlike their truck-driving male counterparts, they believe that in doing so they are emancipating women from the patriarchal male agenda of the past.
As part of their emancipation, these "raunch feminists" want to appropriate to themselves the kind of sexual liberation they believe men have always enjoyed. To this extent, they understand themselves to be rebelling against feminism's tendency towards anti-male, anti-sex prudishness. But as Levy notes, female chauvinist pigs do not generally consider themselves opponents of feminism. They believe that their sexual abandon is the natural conclusion of feminism and the sexual revolution and, more importantly, that it will put the final nail in the coffin of the old "double standard." Levy is not impressed. She wonders whether, by dressing like prostitutes and aggressively seeking sex as a conquest and end in itself, FCPs are emancipating themselves from a "male agenda" or just fulfilling the worst of men's wild desires.
Nevertheless, examples of this kind of feminism abound and are described with astonishing detail by Levy, who threw herself into this study with commendable journalistic gusto. She interviewed everyone from the producers and "stars" ofGirls Gone Wild to old-school feminists like Susan Brownmiller. She absorbed the thinking of high school "hotties," who use sex to achieve social status, and of a particular brand of lesbian dubbed "bois" (pronounced "boys") who pride themselves on the type of masculine promiscuity made famous by the so-called "Spur-Posse" scandal. Of the ins and outs of "raunch culture," it is hard to imagine a more thoroughgoing, entertaining survey.
Levy is at her best when describing how crass and un-erotic the raunch culture is. One of her many examples is Paris Hilton—considered by devotees to be the über-chick, the ultimate in sexy. Hilton once told a Rolling Stone reporter that her boyfriends described her as "sexy but not sexual." Levy notes, "Any fourteen-year-old who has downloaded her sex tapes can tell you that Hilton looks excited when she is posing for the camera, bored when she is engaged in actual sex."
But despite her clear-eyed insights, Levy can't quite bring herself to indict feminism for its role in all this. Too much seems to be at stake for her: her politics, her upbringing in a family of feminists, her education at Wesleyan, her firm—almost quaint and precious—belief in the natural irrelevance of gender difference. All these seem to inhibit her drawing the conclusions to which her research and arguments naturally point. Instead of condemning feminism and the sexual revolution for what they have wrought, she insists that they have been misunderstood by "raunch feminists." Although the FCP may think she is upholding the one true Feminism, Levy argues she is actually tearing down the sisterhood that supports her.
To Levy FCPs are "Uncle Toms" who have sold out to "get theirs." FCPs are certainly getting theirs (and maybe a few other people's), but there is nothing inconsistent in their feminist thinking on the matter. Feminism exalts the masculine over the feminine. It always has. The "sisterhood" was conjured up precisely to empower the united sisters to scale the citadels of patriarchy, demanding the right to do what men do and to be treated like men. And they succeeded. So now what? In a post-feminist world, why should liberated, masculinized women stick around to boost the morale of a bunch of "girly-girls" talking about their "sisterhood" and sentimentalizing the good old days? With their "raunch" and other hyper-macho strutting, the FCPs are doing just what their feminist grandmothers taught them to do—bursting the shackles of constructed femininity, asserting their existential freedom to have it all. Yes, they are "getting theirs," and consistent, unblushing feminists will celebrate them for it.
Levy laments that when she first noticed this trend among her friends and associates, she "tried to get with the program, but [she] could never make the argument add up in [her] head." She thinks that her aversion to raunch stems from her understanding of true feminism. It doesn't. But it's at least possible that it stems from a nascent understanding of true femininity. If so, her sensible aversion to the FCPs' debased, and debasing, behavior could be an opening for a fruitful dialogue about natural and conventional sex differences. Unfortunately, she shies away from inquiring into the politics or principles of any serious person with whom she thinks she disagrees. She reserves all her venom and vitriol—not for the egregious female chauvinist pigs so vividly described in the book, but for George W. Bush, the Religious Right, and abstinence-only education. She actually has some interesting things to say about abstinence-only education, but her observations are marred by a cartoonish caricature of its advocates.
Still, she proves herself a voice worth listening to, and this book certainly won't be her last. If you have a young daughter, as I do, you have a duty to read it. Levy is right about this much: raunch culture is not a sign of the moral progress we have made, but of how far we have left to go.
Julie Ann Ponzi is a fellow of the Claremont Institute.
The Real Ben Franklin
Mussolini’s Brain Trust
by Myra Moss
Viewing "Italian Fascism" as an authentic expression of fascism as an intellectual movement.
Our Literature of Extremes
by Jeffrey Hart
The radical individualism of American letters.
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COD Writing Students Help Battle Illiteracy, Hone Skills Through Literacy DuPage Partnership
HomeTop News at College of DuPage2018July 2018COD Writing Students Partner with Literacy DuPage Partnership
By Mike McKissack
Students in the “Writing in the Community” class at College of DuPage recently had the opportunity to put their professional writing skills to the test, partnering with Literacy DuPage to strengthen the organization’s profile in the fight against illiteracy in DuPage County.
For COD student David Knake, who recently completed the College’s Professional Writing Certificate program, the experience was invaluable.
“Writing in the Community was one of the most valuable classes I ever took at COD,” he said. “The curriculum included writing in an effort to raise money, as well as writing recommendation reports to showcase the things we learned about the organization and how they can improve their institution. Literacy DuPage did a fantastic job letting us help with their organization and gave us critical feedback on the projects we completed. This class was not only a great way to provide us with professional writing experience, but also gave us the confidence to continue writing for organizations and jumpstart our writing careers.”
Dedicated to empowering adult learners to achieve their goals through literacy, Naperville-based Literacy DuPage is a community-based organization serving more than 30 communities in DuPage for over 40 years. The non-profit recruits and trains volunteers to provide free tutoring to adults seeking to improve their English speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Literacy DuPage Executive Director Therese McMahon credits the College with providing a talented group of students, many with an interest in community work. the partnership provided the students with an invaluable learning experience.
“This partnership provided students with a wide range of projects designed to help build their skills and gain experience in a professional setting,” she said. “They worked on key elements that every non-profit organization needs, including interviews with clients, fund raisers and grant proposals.”
McMahon said that as a small organization of less than a dozen staffed employees, the students provided a great service to Literacy DuPage and the community.
“The students were so creative,” she said. “They worked with our marketing personnel to come up with fundraising ideas, one of which raised $3,000. They also came up with other great ideas that we plan to implement in the future.”
College of DuPage Associate Professor of English Dr. Steven Accardi said that he asked Literacy DuPage to partner with the class not only because of the opportunity for students to gain crucial educational experience working with a non-profit organization, but also because of the important and positive work Literacy DuPage does for the local community.
“While students gained professional experiences, met with professionals in the field, and added lines to their resumes, their work directly impacted our community,” he said. “The success stories drew attention to the positive effects Literacy DuPage has on its tutors and learners, which in turn attracts more tutors and learners to participate in the program; and the grants and fundraising projects attracts donors, which in turn supports and sustains the mission of Literacy DuPage. Everyone in the community benefits when we all support each other.”
Accardi said Literacy DuPage and the Writing in the Community course plan to continue this partnership in the future and added that COD and its students are uniquely positioned to gain the greatest impact from such partnerships with local organizations.
“Unlike university students who return home during winter and summer break, our students are already home,” he said. “They live in the community, work in the community and are impacted by the community. Now, by writing in the community and applying the writing techniques and rhetorical strategies from the Professional Writing program, they improve our community.”
Knake credits the experience and the College as a whole in helping him find his career path. He will attend Miami University in Ohio this fall and plans to double major in Professional Writing and Comparative Media Studies.
“College of DuPage helped me figure out my strengths and weaknesses and pushed me further toward a career where I can apply my skills,” he said. “Coming out of high school I wasn’t very confident in my writing ability, but after two years of taking professional writing courses at COD, I’ve gained the skills and self-assurance to write on a professional level.”
Aimed at students who are interested in community writing, already working at a community organization, or creating their own community space, the Writing in the Community course is part of the College’s 18 credit-hour Professional Writing Certificate program, which teaches students to communicate effectively in a variety of professional settings across a wide range of fields, including business, government, health care, industry, nonprofit and technology.
Registration for the fall 2018 semester at College of DuPage is ongoing for new and returning students. The fall term begins Monday, Aug. 20, and includes 16-, 12- and two 8-week sessions. To register, students can visit myaccess.cod.edu; stop by the Registration office in the Student Services Center, Room 2221; or call (630) 942-2377.
College of DuPage is regionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Serving approximately 26,000 students each term, College of DuPage is the largest public community college in the state of Illinois. The College grants seven associate degrees and offers more than 170 career and technical certificates in over 50 areas of study.
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Joel Mensah Matt Mitchell Pat Dembley RJ Williams Devin Watson Jalen McDaniels Sports Men's college basketball College basketball Basketball College sports Men's basketball Men's sports
Boise State Mountain West San Diego State
Watson leads San Diego State past Boise State, 71-65
By JAY PARIS - Feb. 16, 2019 09:46 PM EST
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Devin Watson paced San Diego State with 19 points, Jalen McDaniels added 18 and teammates Matt Mitchell and Joel Mensah also scored in double figures as the Aztecs beat Boise State, 71-65, on Saturday.
SDSU (16-9, 8-4 Mountain West) won for the sixth time in its last seven outings and ran its home conference winning streak to 12 games in splitting the season series with the Broncos (11-15, 6-7).
Boise State, which earlier this year embarrassed SDSU with a 24-point drubbing in the conference opener, was led by Justinian Jessop's 19 points.
SDSU, after a sluggish first half, went ahead 45-35 with 14 minutes remaining when Watson hit his second three-pointer in three minutes, with his two free throws separating his long-range shots. The Aztecs outscored the Broncos 14-2 over a four-minute span to enjoy their biggest cushion of the game.
The Broncos mounted a few charges at the Aztecs, but SDSU countered them by handling the ball better and improving its aim.
Boise State pulled to within four points with 45 seconds to play on RJ Williams' put-back and then a free throw by Pat Dembley, who replaced an injured Williams. Jessop's three-pointer later sliced it to 68-65 before Watson's free throw helped seal the win.
Boise State bolted to a 5-0 lead as it was clear the Aztecs were in for an uneven first half. They would take a one-point lead some five minutes in but then they went nearly five more minutes before converting another field goal.
SDSU missed on nine of its initial 13 shots from the floor. Twelve minutes into the game the Aztecs had more turnovers (six) than field goals (four). McDaniels was among those misfiring, hitting but one of his first six shots.
But the Broncos couldn't take advantage with the Aztecs staying close thanks to their work at the free-throw line, sinking six of their first seven attempts. When McDaniels, who paced the Aztecs with eight first-half points, sank his second straight shot SDSU took the lead, 23-22, three minutes before halftime.
Boise State went on 6-0 run as again the Aztecs were sloppy with the basketball, with Jessup's three-pointer pushing the Broncos ahead 29-24 before they exited with a four-point advantage.
In the opening 20 minutes, SDSU was 9 of 25 (36 percent) with 10 turnovers, which is more than it had in the entirety of two of its last four games.
Boise State: After three straight games against California schools the Broncos won't travel east of UNLV for the remainder of the regular season.
San Diego State: The Aztecs' offense needs to overcome its slow starts down the stretch. For the second time in its last five games it had 25 first-half points.
Boise State plays visiting Utah State on Saturday.
San Diego State faces No. 7 Nevada at home on Wednesday.
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Bubble Banter: Oregon, Tennessee headline Saturday’s early winners
By Rob DausterMar 8, 2014, 11:16 PM EST
There are eight days left until Selection Sunday. Every morning from now until the bracket comes out, we’ll help you get caught up on the happenings with impact on the bubble from the night before.
Our latest bracket projection can be found here.
Oregon: I’m not sure if Oregon was still on the bubble entering Saturday’s date with No. 3 Arizona, but they sure aren’t after knocking off the Wildcats in Eugene.
St. John’s: The Johnnies picked up a double-overtime win at Marquette that they absolutely couldn’t afford to lose. It’s their sixth top 100 win and just their second away from home. But with just one top 50 win on their resume (Creighton), an RPI of 64 and two sub-100 losses, Steve Lavin’s crew is going to have some work to do in the Big East tournament if they still want to dance.
Tennessee: In a matchup that was billed as a de-facto NCAA tournament play-in game, the Vols jumped all over Missouri, pounding the Tigers 72-45. With the win, Tennessee improves to 7-7 against the top 100, but they have just two top 50 wins and four sub-100 losses. In other words, this victory certainly does not lock up a bid for Tennessee. They need to win at least one game, and maybe two, in the SEC tournament to avoid sweating out Selection Sunday.
MORE: Browse through all of our conference tournament previews
Stanford: The Cardinal entered Saturday having lost their last three games after knocking off UCLA, and they nearly lost to Utah, surviving a one-point win after blowing a big second half lead. But a win is a win, and this win should be enough to keep the Cardinal in the NCAA tournament for now. They have four top 50 wins, six top 100 wins and just one loss to a sub-100 team that came on the road in league play. Winning their first game in the Pac-12 tournament would make Selection Sunday much less stressful.
Pitt: How lucky are the Panthers? They scored five points in the final 2.4 seconds — a Lamar Patterson three and a short jumper from Josh Newkirk after Clemson turned the ball over on the ensuing inbounds — to force overtime before pulling away from Clemson to land a much-needed road win. It’s the sixth top 100 win for the Panthers, although their best win on the season is still No. 47 Stanford. It’s an empty profile, and beating Clemson isn’t going to change that, but with six of their eight losses coming to top 25 foes — and the other two coming against top 75 opponents — Pitt is still in a pretty good spot. Perhaps more than any other team on the bubble, Pitt cannot afford a loss in the first round of their conference tournament.
Cal: The Bears quite simply had to beat Colorado at home on Saturday, and while it took overtime to get the job done, Mike Montgomery’s boys got the win they needed. It’s their fourth top 50 win — which includes their win over Arizona — and improves their record against the top 100 to 7-11. Their work isn’t done yet, however. The Bears probably don’t want to risk losing their opener in the Pac-12 tournament.
BYU: The Cougars handled their business against LMU in the quarterfinals of the WCC tournament, meaning that they no longer are at risk of suffering a loss to a sub-100 opponent. A win over San Francisco would push them to 8-6 against the top 100 with wins against Texas, Stanford and Gonzaga. Getting to the finals should be enough, although they may be able to withstand a loss in the semifinals.
WATCH: Doug McDermott’s scores 3,000th point, career-high on Senior Night
Dayton: The Flyers have won nine of their last ten games, including wins over UMass, Saint Louis and, on Saturday, Richmond to close out the season. Dayton now has an 8-6 record against the top 100, an RPI in the top 50 and four top 50 wins, which is enough to get them on the right side of the bubble as of today. Avoid a bad loss in the Atlantic 10 tournament, and the Flyers will likely host a game in the First Four.
Gonzaga: The Zags survived a battle from Santa Clara in the WCC’s quarterfinals, advancing when David Stockton hit a driving layup with 1.4 seconds left. The win was important for Gonzaga because their profile is not all that strong. They’re 8-4 against the top 100, but have just a single top 50 win and two losses to teams ranked outside the top 150.
West Virginia: A win over Kansas gets the Mountaineers back into the conversation, but with just a 5-12 record against the top 100 and 14 losses on the season, this group still has a lot of work to do. They might need a run to the finals of the Big 12 tournament.
LOSERS:
Georgetown: The Hoyas entered Saturday afternoon as one of a handful of teams sitting right on the bubble’s cutline but with a chance to go into Philly and knock No. 6 Villanova, a potential No. 1 seed. It didn’t go well. Georgetown got smoked, meaning that they’ll enter the Big East tournament with a 17-13 record and an 8-10 mark in the Big East. The Hoyas have three top 25 wins and five top 50 wins, but they were swept by Seton Hall this season and lost to Northeastern back in November. Here’s the bigger concern: all of a sudden, the Hoyas are looking at a situation where they will have 14 losses on Selection Sunday if they don’t win the Big East’s automatic bid. That’s a lot of losses.
Arkansas: The Razorbacks suffered their second loss to a sub-100 team, getting blown out on the road by Alabama on Saturday. Throw in Kentucky’s recent collapse, and all of a sudden their profile doesn’t look quite as strong. They have four top 50 wins — including one at Rupp — and are 8-8 against the top 100.
Missouri: The Tigers were one of a handful of teams sitting on the bubble’s cutline entering Saturday. They badly needed a win over fellow bubbler Tennessee on Saturday, and instead they went out and lost by 27. Missouri is now 7-8 against the top 100, but their only top 50 wins are against Tennessee and UCLA. The good news for Missouri is that this loss doesn’t hurt their profile all that much. Losing to an RPI top 50 team on the road isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Like the Vols, they have work to do in the SEC tournament if they want to dance.
Providence: Losing at Creighton on Doug McDermott’s Senior Night is not a knock on a team’s resume, so this loss doesn’t make the Friars worse off as they head into the Big East tournament. The issue is that they lost an opportunity to land a marquee win, which would have made Selection Sunday so much less stressful. As it is, the Friars probably need a win or two at the Garden to feel comfortable. They’re 6-10 against the top 100 with a notable home win over the Bluejays, a bad loss to Seton Hall and a mediocre RPI (55).
Utah: The Utes had a chance to beat Stanford on the road on Saturday, but they ended up losing by one after being unable to get a shot off on their final possession. Utah had four top 50 wins and a 6-9 record against the top 100, but with their non-conference SOS checking in at 346th, they needed this win to have a real shot of earning an at-large bid.
Green Bay: The Phoenix are talented. Kiefer Sykes is as athletic as point guards come and Alec Brown is an NBA prospect. But Green Bay lost to Milwaukee in the Horizon semifinals, putting them in a position where they’re likely headed to the NIT. They’re 24-6 overall with a win over Virginia, but they have just four top 50 wins and three losses to sub-150 teams. Such is the life of a mid-major.
Marquette: The Golden Eagles were a good way off of the bubble’s cut line entering the day. At this point, they are probably going to need to win the automatic bid to dance.
Colorado: The Buffaloes have a strong enough profile to dance, but the concern is how it will be weighed in their time without Spencer Dinwiddie. They had a shot to beat Cal in regulation and in overtime at the buzzer, but failed to do so. Most projections have Colorado in the dance and missing the First Four.
Bubble games still to be played:
9:00 Santa Clara at Gonzaga
Follow @robdauster
Tags: Bubble Banter
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X-Men Movies Coming to Disney+ in Certain Markets
By Charlie Ridgely - November 29, 2019 11:06 am EST
Marvel fans have flooded to the new Disney+ streaming service over the last few weeks to rewatch many of their favorite movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The majority of the films from the ever-popular franchise are on the service, including the record-breaking Avengers: Endgame. There are also a bunch of older Marvel animated shows for fans to enjoy on Disney+. However, the one missing element that people have been hoping to see is the roster of X-Men films produced by Fox, that were acquired by Disney as a part of the purchase of 21st Century Fox.
There are currently no X-Men films streaming on Disney+, but it looks like that is about to change in some regions. Australian website Finder.com is reporting that eight of Fox's X-Men titles are about to make their way to the streaming service.
According to the site, Australia's version of Disney+ will be getting X-Men, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class, Wolverine, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and X-Men: Apocalypse on Friday, December 20th. The only PG-13 X-Men title not on the list is Dark Phoenix, which hit theaters early this year. The omission of Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and Logan isn't necessarily surprising given their R rating.
There has been no word as to the availability of these movies on the United States version of Disney+. It would make sense for them to be added to the roster, given their popularity and the fact that they line up with the ratings of the MCU. Then again, there's always the concern that fans could confuse the X-Men movies with the MCU, and that may be enough to keep them off of the service.
Disney does also control Hulu, and has already confirmed that it will use the service for some of its more adult-oriented content. For example, all of the FX TV shows will be heading to Hulu to stream early next year. If Disney doesn't want all of the X-Men movies on Disney+ in the United States, there's always the chance they could be used to bolster the Hulu movie roster.
Do you hope to see the X-Men films on Disney+? Let us know in the comments!
Marvel's She-Hulk Disney+ Series to Start Filming In July
Black Widow Marvel Legends Exclusive Comics Figures Unveiled
Guardians of the Galaxy #1 Review: A Robust Revival Delivers on All Fronts
The Mandalorian: Here's What Gina Carano Would Look Like as She-Hulk
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Tag Archives: barsoom series
By TheCinescopePodcast on August 2, 2013 | 2 Comments
Superman. Flash Gordon. Star Wars. Avatar. These characters/films share a common ancestry through Edgar Rice Burrough’s classic novel A Princess of Mars. The creators of these and so many others at some point in their lives picked up this story and were absorbed into the world of Barsoom, introduced to a man named John Carter, a man transported to a world apart to have adventures the likes of which no one had ever seen. The fantastical world created by Burroughs, as well as Carter as the ultimate hero, inspired 100 years of film and storytelling, though the original story itself did not come to the silver screen until 2012.
I was not familiar with the character nor the world of John Carter until I learned of Disney Studio’s film adaptation, directed by Finding Nemo (my review) and Wall-E director Andrew Stanton. I wasn’t much excited about the film until the month or so before its release, when the director began to tweet about it and retweet advance reviews and content regarding the film’s upcoming release, at which point I became very excited. Through the narrow tunnel I was viewing the film through, comprised of the director’s Twitter feed, I thought that the film was going to be a big success, with me even tweeting the following:
Okay. I have this gut feeling that John Carter is gonna be huge. I’ve read nothing but good advance reviews. I’m getting really excited.
— Chad Hopkins (@Chadadada) February 29, 2012
As the film’s release approached, my excitement grew and grew until…well, it flopped. John Carter, which had an estimated budget at a whopping $250 million, received negative reviews online in the week leading up to its release, with the critic consensus over at RottenTomatoes.com stopping at a 51% “rotten” rating. The film only opened to $30.6 million domestically in its first weekend, though it fared better overseas, earning $70.6 million outside of the US. Looking back now, though, the film has surpassed its production budget, with a total worldwide gross of $282,778,100. So why the bad reputation?
John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood by Michael D. Sellers
The film’s theatrical run came and went without me going to see it; my interest in the film had been stripped away by its poor reception and apparent status as “Disney’s biggest flop ever.” However, several months later, a good friend of mine who knows of my interest in film showed me that Amazon.com was offering a free Kindle edition of Michael D. Sellers’ book John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood, a book about the production of the John Carter film and why it failed the way it did. I figured that I’d go ahead and download it to read at a later point in time, but I actually forgot about it for quite a while until I randomly came across it on my Kindle Touch a few weeks ago. Since I alternate between non-fiction and fiction books, I put it next in my queue, expecting it to be mildly interesting at best. When I finally picked it up, though, I was completely absorbed.
Sellers opens the book by admitting his own bias; he has been a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series all his life, saying that it was Burroughs’ writing that “gave [him] the confidence to pursue a life that has had its share of adventures and misadventures, first in service to [his] country, and later in pursuit of dreams that [he] believed in.” Throughout the book, his passion for the series and sincere hope that the film would do well on the big screen is incredibly evident, which makes the whole book endearing in a way. But, even more than his personal connection to the film, I found his extensive research to be exhilarating, with every detail scoped out and reviews and statements pulled from every corner of the Internet, making the book seem like a very long and detailed dissertation – in a good way! Let’s walk through the contents of the book and what Sellers uncovered through his research.
Edgar Rice Burroughs had no experience in writing before he wrote A Princess of Mars, the first story about John Carter, for a pulp magazine in 1911. He simply needed money and thought that he “could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any [he] chanced to read in those magazines,” so he grabbed some paper and wrote, selling the story rights to All-Story Magazine, who published the story in serial form over several months. It proved to be immensely popular, so the author, who would also create the character Tarzan, followed the first story up with eleven more. Throughout his life, he tried and failed to bring his Barsoom series to film, but the technology of the time was simply not as capable as it needed to be in order to set a film on the planet Mars.
After Burroughs’ death in 1950, filmmaker Ray Harryhausen tried to bring John Carter to theaters, but even he, a Hollywood legend, was unable to convince others that it could be done despite the impossible setting. In the early 1960s, several of Burroughs’ works were republished in a sort of revival, with the stories even coming to Marvel Comics in the 1970s. This revival brought the property to the attention of filmmakers like George Lucas and James Cameron, both of whom would later borrow heavily from Burroughs’ universe in their films Star Wars and Avatar. It was partly due to this revival that the property first came to the attention of Disney in 1986. They purchased the film rights and began production, with producers set, screenwriters hired, and tentative casting of Tom Cruise as Carter and Julia Roberts as Dejah Thoris. When Cruise didn’t like the script, new people were brought in to rewrite it. At this point it was 1992, and the budget estimation was placed at $120 million, which would have made the film the most expensive ever made at that point. More rewrites were ordered, this time by George R. R. Martin (author of A Game of Thrones) and Melinda Snodgrass (who wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation). The project was scrapped, though, and the rights to the project reverted back to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. in 2000.
Paramount bought the rights to the books in 2001, but, long story short, that didn’t work out either, with the company giving up in 2006. At this point, Andrew Stanton, director of Pixar’s highly successful films Finding Nemo and Wall-E, became interested in making a film version. He had become acquainted with John Carter through the Marvel comics of the 1970s and also read the books, so, seeing that the rights were again available, he convinced then-Disney studio chief Dick Cook to purchase the rights and green light a film adaptation. Cook trusted Stanton and his track record, so he placed full control in Stanton’s hands.
Here’s a list of a few of the things that went wrong during the production of John Carter:
Disney CEO fires Dick Cook (who greenlit the film) and several other key membrs of Disney Studios; Cook replaced by Rich Ross
MT Carney hired as Marketing Chief by Ross, despite no previous experience with promoting films
Ross decides to not offer John Carter full marketing benefits like he later would with The Avengers
Social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter) not regularly updated or promoted
Decision by Carney to remove “of Mars” from original film title, simply giving it the ambiguous title “John Carter“
Awful trailers for the film; missed opportunities to bank on Stanton’s previous successes with Finding Nemo and Wall-E
Failure to engage existing fan base in promotion of film
Failure to debunk online rumors about swelled budget and reshoot schedule
Film marketed more towards children than to a broader audience
That’s not a list of everything that led the film down the path it took, but those were some of the major decisions made (or not made) by Disney that helped contribute to the film’s ultimate failure. During production, Sellers did what he could as a fan of the original Burroughs books to promote the film by creating TheJohnCarterFiles.com, contacting Disney directly with ideas to engage the ERB fan base, and making a couple of fan trailers by compiling clips from Disney’s awful “official” trailers. While he did have success with his site and his trailers caught the attention of Andrew Stanton himself, none of it was enough to put the film on a more successful path. It seemed that Disney had not even given the film a chance despite highly successful early test screenings and the track record of Stanton.
So, that’s the history behind the film. Halfway through the book, or maybe even earlier than that, my interest in the film and the series on which it was based grew to such a high level that I decided that I would jump straight into Burroughs’ Barsoom as soon as I could. Sellers’ descriptions of A Princess of Mars, as well as the incredible stories of fan dedication to ERB and his work, convinced me that this was something worth looking into and checking out for myself, so I purchased the first seven books of the eleven-book Barsoom series by Burroughs and dove right in.
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The first thing I noticed about this book while reading is the way Burroughs writes. His sentence structure, choice of words, and descriptive prowess all join together beautifully to form sentences that are almost romantic in their presentation; that is to say, not “lovey-dovey” romantic but expressive and artistic. All of these wonderfully composed sentences build into a story that carries with it the largeness of the world and the larger-than-life qualities of the characters within it.
John Carter is the ultimate “good guy”; his intentions are all noble, he always strives to do the right thing morally, and his abilities are such that he may struggle in a fight, but he always comes out on top. What more could you want from a good guy? And truthfully, it’s not so much that he is guaranteed victory but rather that he is guaranteed the opportunity for victory. His immense strength and superior endurance, as well as his previous wartime experience, give him an advantage over most opponents that he crosses paths with, but as his opponents grow more ferocious, the supposed assurance of success becomes less and less assured. He is not a flawed character, but, instead of detracting from his likability, it makes him more interesting. He’s a character of ultimate good, and reading about his outlook, his treatment of others, and his various adventures is always thrilling. The fact that the story is told from his perspective adds a layer of wonder to the book, with the reader experiencing and discovering Barsoom at the same time that Carter is rather than having it spoon fed to us by an exterior source.
The Tharks are probably the most interesting part of the story – a tribe of four-armed green Martians that stand fifteen feet tall. They hatch their young from eggs that are incubated over a period of several years, and, upon hatching, they are randomly divided among the women Tharks, who teach them how to speak and fight. They are a warlike tribe, but they have a strict code of honor that all must adhere to, making interactions between characters fascinating. The politics of the Tharks is interesting as well; when one kills another, the belongings and status of the dead one are transferred to his conqueror, a system that allows John Carter to rise in rank within this society in a short period of time. The Green Martians are typically an emotionless species due to the lack of personal relationships between anyone. They do not marry, nor do they love anyone at all, and even “friendship” is a term not used in their communities, so, when John Carter comes and displays signs of affection for animals, or friendship for Tars Tarkas, it is interesting to see how they all respond to it. The interactions between Carter and Tars Tarkas are probably my favorites of the book, even more so than those between Carter and Dejah Thoris.
Dejah Thoris, like Carter, is a pretty one-dimensional character in a way that makes sense for the genre, so it doesn’t take away from the quality of the story. She is described as incredibly beautiful, and it doesn’t take long for Carter to fall deep in love with her, and, likewise, her with him. Reading about his confusion in her mannerisms and unwillingness to flat-out share her feelings is entertaining because it is something that I’ve gone through before as well…who doesn’t want the object of your affection to express the same affection for you? The lengths to which Carter dedicates himself to a task for the protection of Dejah Thoris is what makes her character so wonderful; she is what Carter is fighting for throughout the book, she is his motivation to commit to fighting against such evils as the people of Zodanga and other enemies he comes across.
Perhaps the best part of the book is that it is simply immeasurably, impossibly fun. From the humor found in Burroughs’ description of Carter’s first attempts to walk on the surface of Mars to the swashbuckling, Errol Flynn-like fights between Carter and his adversaries to the classic tale of the fight for the right to true love, I enjoyed every step of the way through this book and am excited to read the following books in the series. Reading this book was possibly the most fun experience I’ve had while reading in several years. By the time I had finished, I was even more excited to see the film…how could a film based on something this great be anything short of amazing?
John Carter (2012)
Now that I’ve seen and greatly enjoyed the film, I simply can’t understand why it at least didn’t do well critically. Maybe my anticipation for the film gave me tunnel vision so that the only possible outcome was for me to love it, or maybe it was because I liked the book so much and was so willing to accept the changes from the source material. I don’t know for sure the reason, but I definitely liked this film quite a bit.
I must admit that the opening scene, referring to the scene with the Therns giving Sab Than of the Zodangans the weird “Ninth Ray” weapon, was pretty confusing because it wasn’t from the book. Sure, there is brief talk of the nine rays present on Barsoom, but they are not explained in detail and are certainly not used as weapons, nor are Therns present at any point in A Princess of Mars. Despite this, though, the film moves on pretty quickly to what is in the book, that being the news being delivered to a young Edgar Rice Burroughs that his dear uncle John Carter has just passed away. He is handed his uncle’s diary with instructions that he alone shall read its contents, and, with that, we are whisked into the past, where we meet John Carter, a Civil War veteran searching for gold.
The John Carter of Stanton’s film is unlike the Carter of the book in the sense that he is not a flawless hero. When we first see him, he is rude, rebellious, and selfish, disrespectful to authority, etc. All of this, while different from the book, is a means to an end; despite his character flaws, he is still a character with the same deep-down morals as his literary counterpart. These values emerge throughout the film as he’s faced with difficult choices at difficult moments, such as when he saves Colonel Powell from being killed by Indians despite the fact that he had just escaped from a cell where Powell had been keeping him in custody. There are other moments like this in the film, where Carter is faced with the decision to either do what he wants, what benefits him, or to do what is right and protect others. Obviously, he wouldn’t be John Carter if he didn’t go with the latter option. This alteration from Burroughs’ Carter is acceptable because it gives him character in a medium that desperately needs character growth for it to work. If Taylor Kitsch had played the Carter of the book, a man with zero character flaws or chances of defeat, the film would have done worse than it already did, so Stanton made a smart decision here, and Kitsch plays the role as written very well.
Another great deviation from the book is the character changes in Dejah Thoris. No longer seen as nothing more than the object of beauty, she is given the status of head scientist for the city of Helium, and she’s a pretty accomplished warrior as well. This gives the character a chance to have a more active role in the film, allowing her to be a part of the fight against Zodanga for the people of Helium. Despite the character changes, Lynn Collins is still quite beautiful as the princess, so that quality from the book is still present here.
The visuals of the film are incredible, with the use of real-world locations grounding it a bit. However, that doesn’t stop the creatures who inhabit Barsoom, namely the Tharks and Carter’s pet calot, Woola, from being appropriately “out of this world.” The design of the airships used by the Heliumites and Zodangans, though possibly not in line with how Burroughs originally described them (I pictured giant, flying pirate ships while I read), works here because it brings the technology into the 21st century; what’s more “out of this world” from 19th century America than 21st century America? All of the special effects are flawless, with the design of the Tharks being a great example. Because they were filmed using motion capture on actors wearing stilts, the facial expressions and movements of the Tharks are quite realistic, and Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas is one of my favorite aspects of the film.
There were certainly aspects of the book that I think could have worked really well in the context of the film, particularly the story being told from Carter’s point of view, the idea of discovering the world along with him. There are two scenes in the film that feature voice-overs from Kitsch, both being moments when the young Edgar Rice Burroughs is reading from Carter’s diary. During these scenes, we hear the diary being read aloud by Carter, giving us plenty of exposition. It may not have actually worked in the film, which is why I’m not upset that it wasn’t utilized, but I think that there were definitely moments when maybe a montage of time spent with the Tharks could have been compiled, featuring a voice-over detailing Carter’s experience. Like I said, this may not have worked, and I liked the way the film approached the storytelling regardless, so it’s not a strike against it. I can also understand why the episodic nature of the book, which I really liked, was not carried over into the movie; A Princess of Mars is more like a series of short stories, each with its own mission and antagonist, which can be attributed to the fact that it was originally serialized in a magazine. The lack of a central antagonist or villain in the film, though, might have caused unnecessary confusion, so it makes sense that Stanton consolidated bits of the story for the purpose of centralizing one general plot.
Michael Giacchino’s score is fantastic as per usual, with it definitely being in the same vein and style as John Williams’ scores to Lucas’ Star Wars saga without ripping it off. It has all of the grandeur of the planet and the adventure at hand, but it also captures the more intimate moments, such as the scene at the Temple of Issus or the interactions between Carter and Dejah Thoris. He utilizes the choir especially well, with the wide range of possibilities of the voice being used in several different styles, from ethereal to warlike to romantic to adventurous. Giacchino has always been a master of diversity and variability, with his ability to both broaden and focus his music to encompass large, epic moments on the screen or to focus onto the smaller moments with the use of only a small handful of instruments.
Ock, Ohem, Oktei, Wies, Barsoom!
My adventures on Barsoom have been quite a fantastic experience for me. I never expected to like this universe or this character as much as I do, but Burroughs created a world that I was all too happy to be sucked into with zero resistance at all. His world is built with beautiful complexity and a rich culture that is so different from our own that reading about it is an incredible pleasure, and the characters are wonderfully fun to read about. Michael D. Sellers’ book managed to give me a peek into Burroughs’ world, just enough of a peek to make me curious and draw me in. A Princess of Mars is one of the most fun books I’ve ever read, so I can’t recommend it enough, and Disney’s John Carter film, while not perfect, is a perfectly acceptable and enjoyable adaptation that is given a lot more bad criticism than it deserves. I promise that, if you give it a chance, you’ll have at least a small amount of fun…hopefully more, because I had a blast.
All sources used in writing this post have been linked to within the post itself. For individual, less-detailed reviews of each of these items, as well as the ratings I gave them, follow these links:
John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood by Michael D. Sellers – Review
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs – Review
John Carter (2012) – Review
John Carter (2012) – Michael Giacchino – Review
Thank you for reading! I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it! I’d love to hear your opinion of John Carter, and I’d also love to have your feedback! What other kinds of posts would you like to see here on ChadTalksMovies?
Posted in: Books, Editorial, Entertainment, Film, Movies, Music, Scores | Tagged: a princess of mars, andrew stanton, avatar, Barsoom, barsoom series, bob iger, calot, chad likes movies, chad talks movies, chadlikesmovies, chadtalksmovies, dejah thoris, dick cook, disney, disney pixar, disney/pixar, edgar rice burroughs, erb, errol flynn, facebook, finding nemo, flash gordon, game of thrones, george lucas, george r. r. martin, helium, hollywood, James Cameron, john carter, john carter and the gods of hollywood, julia roberts, lynn collins, melinda snodgrass, michael d. sellers, michael giacchino, mt carney, ninth ray, Ock, Ohem, Oktei, paramount, pixar, ray harryhausen, rich ross, rotten tomatoes, rottentomatoes, sab than, star trek, star trek the next generation, star trek tng, star wars, superman, tars tarkas, taylor kitsch, tharks, the avengers, the gods of hollywood, therns, thoats, tng, tom cruise, Twitter, wall e, Wies, willem dafoe, woola, zodanga
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The security risks unleashed by rogue technology may far outweigh any productivity gains.
CFO MagazineRisk & ComplianceRisk Management
At Forrester Research Inc., analysts get to try out the latest cool technology for themselves: PDAs, Wi-Fi laptops, nifty storage devices. Their jobs also call for reviewing much more mundane technology, like network "sniffing" software and intrusion-detection devices.
Testing such tools has led to some interesting security problems at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based technology-research firm. "We've pretty much experienced all the rogue technologies out there," says Richard Belanger, Forrester's chief technology officer. "We've found unauthorized Wi-Fi hot spots, had our computers infected by employees using their laptops from home without a firewall, and discovered copyrighted material on corporate laptops that had been downloaded using music file-sharing tools. But that's what the analysts are there for; we've got hundreds of people trying every cutting-edge thing. Occasionally they get burned, and we [in IT] have to apply the cure."
Most companies can't cure such ills as easily as Forrester can, which is why corporate IT departments are trying to stop trouble caused by rogue technology before it starts. Observers believe there is plenty of trouble brewing. "In our estimation, 40 percent of organizations have wireless [networks] they don't even know about," says John Pescatore, vice president for Internet security at Gartner, a Stamford, Connecticut-based technology research firm. "And the vendors tell us [the figure is much higher]."
A clarification: in IT parlance, "rogue technology" doesn't suggest anything about deceitfulness or a lack of principles. In many cases, the "rogues" are well-meaning employees who try to wring more productivity from fewer IT dollars but haven't paid enough attention to security risks or costs. Perhaps without management's knowledge, they bought a PDA with their own money and accessed the network, or they set up a Wi-Fi hot spot in a remote part of the firm. Or maybe they sent an instant message to a colleague via Yahoo or AOL, not realizing the chat would be vulnerable to interception since it occurred beyond the corporate firewall.
"These are honest, well-intentioned workers, but they're also stupid, and they're everywhere," says Jack Gold, vice president of Meta Group, a Stamford, Connecticut-based technology research firm. "You tell them not to use this stuff in a corporate context or to at least inform IT before they do it," laments Gold. "But you don't want a police state."
Chinks in the Armor
On the other hand, "anything goes" is no way to run a business. For one thing, rogue technology can actually lead to lost productivity. "If employees are setting up their own tech solutions, they're not doing what they're being paid to do," says Forrester CFO Warren Hadley. "And when something goes wrong—say, a virus infecting their laptop—they go to the IT help desk, which absorbs IT's resources." Moreover, he says, "if someone sets up a rogue Wi-Fi access point, it can open up the entire corporate network to an outsider."
Forrester executives speak from experience. "We saw a burst of rogue Wi-Fi activity nine months ago," says CTO Belanger. For about $90 each, some Forrester employees bought their own wireless hubs and used them to help their workgroups access the network. Unfortunately, those hubs "basically allow[ed] any outsider with a Wi-Fi card in their PC to get into the corporate system," remembers Belanger. Fortunately, he says, "we were using our network sniffing and intrusion-detection system and saw this weird traffic on the backbone network. We eventually tracked it down to an unauthorized hub right on our campus."
Wireless technology, in fact, is proving to be the chink in the armor at many companies. "Last year we discovered that American Airlines's wireless local-area network at Denver International Airport was operating without any encryption and had even pasted the IP addresses of curbside terminals on the monitors," says Thubten Comerford, CEO of White Hat Technologies Inc., a Denver-based network security assessment firm.
Comerford adds that many employees don't recognize the risks of using wireless devices. "They'll install a wireless access point on what they see as their network in their part of the building, but behind the corporate firewall," he explains. "This way, they can go from desk to conference room to between floors without having to plug in. You've now got this laptop 'walking around' connected wirelessly, but also broadcasting at the same time. Anybody in the building—and possibly outside—can listen in and pick up passwords, user names, and otherwise get to sensitive data."
Even seemingly safe PDAs can enable unauthorized wireless access. "A lot of these new pocket PCs have built-in wireless, and it seems reasonable that if you're floating around at Starbucks with one of these with no firewall, it's just a matter of time before some mastermind figures out a way to hack it," says Galen Schreck, a Forrester research analyst.
Instant Mess
The threat of rogue technology isn't limited to wireless applications. According to research firm IDC, some 76 million employees worldwide sent instant messages in the workplace in 2003—more than half using free IM software, such as Yahoo or AOL, downloaded off the Web. The problem, explains Schreck, is that "normally, corporate E-mails are sent through company-provided applications, where there is an opportunity to filter them—HR can see if you're talking about inappropriate things, for instance." But that's not true of instant messages transmitted by unauthorized software; they require specialized software to filter content.
Meta Group's Gold agrees that IM is another open window. "IM is important in a corporate context—just so long as it is corporate IM," he says. "But people do stupid things, sending a message to a colleague or a friend about the company's financial information, like, 'We're going to have a loss this quarter—don't tell anybody.' Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, this would be material information."
Peer-to-peer applications such as Kazaa, the oddly spelled music-downloading technology, create other vulnerabilities. Kazaa is designed to allow music lovers to easily share audio files, but if an employee downloads the software to an office machine, it may just as easily allow company files to be shared with other Kazaa users. "We had to rebuild 10 laptops here that had been corrupted by Kazaa installations," says Forrester's Belanger. "They really mess with other programs. Moreover, there's the risk of copyright liability. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen."
Then there are USB tokens—nifty little storage devices also called fobs or key chains. "You can plug one of these $100 tokens the size of a thumbnail into a standard USB port on a PC and walk away with 256 megabytes of data," says Alex Cone, CEO of CodeFab Inc., a New Yorkbased software consulting firm. "A person with little integrity could easily steal data from the corporate network by putting it on the fob." Of course, a determined intruder could print out data and stuff it in a briefcase, but a fob tucked away in a shirt pocket is "much harder to police."
Reining in the Rogues
So how can firms stop the use of rogue technology? One defense is a technology security strategy. "We require rigid standardization so that everyone is running the same laptop with the same system image and the same software on it," says Belanger. "Then we give users guidelines about installing additional software and modifying the system image."
Those standards apply to any technology that employees use in the workplace, even when they use their own money. "We call it the 'embrace the technology' approach," says Schreck. "If you want to buy a PDA, that's OK, as long as it's a PDA we've approved. The same is true with wireless access points. My group here wanted an access point, but before we deployed it we told IT. They said, 'If you want to buy it, please set it up in a secure part of the network and, by the way, turn on these specific settings.'"
Of course, gentle guidance doesn't always work. To detect the presence of rogue technology, Forrester is rolling out Cisco Systems's new Security Agent system. Other companies are buying content-monitoring tools from vendors such as Vericept or network sniffing devices from companies such as AirMagnet. Installing a firewall on personal Wi-Fi-enabled laptops is also becoming de rigueur. And for those times when all else fails and a virus invades, CodeFab and partner Illuminex Inc. are at work on FireBreak, which employs a distributed, scalable network of "tar pits" and "sticky honeypots" that slow the intrusion until its source is found.
In short, IT is on the job. "IT usually is the first to get blamed for these problems, but the fact is that IT is doing all it can," says Gold. "CFOs have to realize you can't give people flat budgets and expect they can cope with new threats. The tools to close the borders have to come from somewhere."
Russ Banham is a contributing editor of CFO.
The damage camera-phones cause in the workplace is only beginning to be recognized.
"If you're Intel, do you want workers happily snapping pictures of their colleagues while in the background is the company's secret new technology?" asks Meta Group's Jack Gold. But managers often don't look twice at camera-phones, thinking of them more as telephones, or perhaps E-mail devices.
New jamming devices, however, are being developed to counter the threat. Iceberg Systems, for instance, is beta-testing technology that would deactivate the imaging systems in camera-phones once they cross into specific locations. Meanwhile, some companies, such as Samsung, have recognized the danger, and reportedly banned the devices altogether. —R.B.
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Public Health Award Winners Announced
Ramsey County sent this bulletin at 04/03/2017 09:08 AM CDT
Ramsey County Public Health Award Winners Announced
Three Awardees to be Recognized at April 4 County Board Meeting
Saint Paul, MN., — Three groups working to address health issues in the community will receive 2017 Ramsey County Public Health Awards at a meeting of the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday, April 4, 2017. The awardees will be honored for their exceptional contributions to improving the health of individuals, families and communities in the county.
The 2017 Ramsey County Public Health Award winners are:
Minnesota Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome’s YouthACT Thundercats, a youth group working to improve outcomes for individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
The Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center at the Science Museum of Minnesota, a program that engages youth in leadership opportunities to use Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) skills to address personal and community health issues.
Interfaith Action of Greater Saint Paul’s Department of Indian Work for their efforts to improve the health of the local American Indian Community through the East-Metro American Indian Diabetes Initiative.
Award recipients were selected for their leadership, advocacy, collaboration and work to improve community health in Ramsey County. Nominations for the awards, which are sponsored by Saint Paul – Ramsey County Public Health, were submitted by the public earlier this year. This is the third year public health has recognized individuals and groups for their work.
"Education, prevention and community partnerships are foundational elements of good public health practice,” said Ramsey County Board Chair Victoria Reinhardt. “Our 2017 public health award recipients all embrace these vital practices as they work in different areas to improve the health of people and environments in Ramsey County.”
The award presentation coincides with National Public Health Week, April 3 -9. “The role of local public health is not only to provide services, but to lead, facilitate conversations, engage the community and support the good work of others striving to enable all people to attain and sustain good health,” said Anne M. Barry, Director of Saint Paul – Ramsey County Public Health. “The Ramsey County Public Health Awards spotlight the innovative efforts of individuals and groups working across different sectors to meet basic needs for healthy growth and development in our community.”
Nominations for the 2018 Ramsey County Public Health Awards will be accepted starting in January of next year. Find more information on the awards, including a list of past honorees, at www.ramseycounty.us/publichealthawards
Additional Background on the 2017 Ramsey County Public Health Award Winners
Minnesota Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome’s YouthACT Thundercats is a youth group working to improve health, education, employment, housing and criminal justice for individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). YouthACT Thundercats are between the ages of 15 and 25 and include individuals with an FASD and their allies. They are committed to the prevention of FASD and participate in a variety of panels and events to raise awareness of this disability and share their personal stories about living with this condition.
YouthACT Thundercats are committed to building self-advocacy skills as well as advocating for others with an FASD. They have testified at legislative hearings, hosted community meetings, and participated in panel discussions at numerous conferences and high schools across the state. The group provides a youth voice that educates, raises awareness and informs the field of FASD in Minnesota.
FASD is a range of effects that can occur when a developing baby is prenatally exposed to alcohol. FASD can include physical disabilities as well as difficulties with behavior and learning. These conditions are life-long and irreversible. In Minnesota, approximately 7,000 babies are born each year with prenatal alcohol exposure.
The Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center (KAYSC) at the Science Museum of Minnesota is an after-school program that engages youth ages 11-25 who have been historically underrepresented in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Youth in the program are taught engineering and design skills in various STEM fields and encouraged to innovate ideas and solutions to personal and community health issues.
KAYSC youth collaborate with community groups to address health equity issues in a variety of ways. One youth crew studying low-income families’ lack of access to fresh, healthy food, engineered an aquaponics system to grow food indoors during Minnesota’s cold winters. With further research, they found residents weren’t aware of places nearby where they could buy fresh, healthy food, so they developed a food access map app with information and recipes to promote healthy eating and cooking.
Another KAYSC youth crew worked with community partners to study barriers to transit use in the Frogtown neighborhood. The youth canvassed thousands of homes and analyzed hundreds of data points to determine the best ways to educate the community about transit options. Their creative solutions included more visible bike racks, spoken word poems, a community mural, and an “Open Mic on a Trike” bicycle they engineered with a portable speaker for use at block parties.
Interfaith Action of Greater Saint Paul’s Department of Indian Work has led efforts in Ramsey County to improve the health of the local American Indian community through the East-Metro American Indian Diabetes Initiative (EMAIDI). The initiative brings together multiple partners to work collaboratively to address health disparities among American Indians who are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with — and more than four times as likely to die from complications of — diabetes compared to Caucasians.
Over the last year, community partners working on EMAIDI have yielded multiple successes. Participants in the Family Education Diabetes Series have shown positive behavior changes with resulting improvements in weight, blood pressure and blood sugar/glucose levels. A men’s center group has been the catalyst for increased physical activity, healthy eating alongside with increased social support and culturally valued activities. Native youth were engaged in a new group that offers leadership development and creates a network to learn and establish pathways towards healthy living.
A diabetes school education curriculum was adapted to focus on Medicine Wheel philosophies of “walking in balance” — mind, body, spirit and community. American Indian students created personal digital stories about what contributes to healthy living and participated in a day-long traditional lacrosse event and a 5K.
Contact: Chris Burns Communications Manager, Ramsey County Health and Wellness, 651-266-2537.
Update your subscriptions, modify your password or e-mail address, or stop subscriptions at any time on your Subscriber Preferences Page. You will need to use your e-mail address to log in.
If you have questions or problems with the subscription service, please contact subscriberhelp.govdelivery.com.
All other inquiries can be directed to govdeliveryhelp@co.ramsey.mn.us.
This service is provided to you at no charge by Ramsey County.
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State High Football Suffers First Loss To Central Dauphin
Video posted November 7, 2016 in Centre County Report, Sports by Centre County Report
State High suffered its first loss of the regular season Friday night to Central Dauphin, 13-10. The Little Lions begin postseason play this Friday against McDowell at Clarion Univeristy.
football , little lions , state college high school
Bryce Zielinski
Senior / Broadcasting Journalism
Throughout his entire life, Bryce developed a passion for sports journalsim. After graduating from Shenendehowa High School in Clifton Park, New York, he went on to attend Penn State University to pursue a degree in Broadcasting Journalism.
Bryce is a senior at the Pennsylvania State University from Reading, Pennsylvania who now resides in Albany, New York. He is in the pursuit of a major in Broadcasting Journalism with a minor in History. Bryce is interested in pursuing a career in sports journalism such as a talk-show host, analyst, or a play-by-play broadcaster.
Bryce is a member of Centre County Report, which is fully broadcasted by students and is the capstone broadcast journalism course in the College of Communications at Penn State. The award-winning weekly program serves a dual purpose—as a source of news and information for Centre County residents and as a real-time laboratory for Penn State students.
Bryce has interned at ESPN Radio 104.5 The Team in Albany, New York. He assisted in the live production of the local daily talk show by working in the control room and gathering sound bites from various local sports teams such as the New York Yankees and New York Jets. He has on-air experience from the internship as well.
In addition, Bryce has also interned at FOX 23 News in Albany, New York in the Sports Department. Along with the local on-air anchor, he was tasked with gathering footage of local sports and editing the footage in preparation for the evening news.
Sports has always been a passion for Bryce and he enjoys the world of sports in every capacity. His ultimate goal is to become an on-air sports talk show anchor or a sports analyst, but would love to work in sports in any way.
Haunted Valley
Centre County Report: November 4, 2016
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Was El Dorado a real place?
Revision as of 10:08, 20 August 2019 by Ewhelan (talk | contribs) (Created page with "==Introduction== El Dorado is a name that evokes limitless riches and wealth. The tales about this fabulous city of gold inspired countless expeditions, that often had tragic...")
2 The story of El Dorado
3 The gold man of the Musica
4 Civilizations in the Amazon
5 Lake Parime
El Dorado is a name that evokes limitless riches and wealth. The tales about this fabulous city of gold inspired countless expeditions, that often had tragic consequences. Furthermore, the story of El Dorado was to play a very important role in the history of Latin America. Those who sought the fabled city helped to explore the continent and even destroyed native civilizations. Moreover, the name El Dorado has entered popular culture and the story has inspired countless movies and books. The question arises, was the story of El Dorado based on a real city, lost in the jungle, that was part of some undiscovered civilization. This article will argue that there was a historical basis for the story of the fabled city of gold.
Spanish Conquistadors
The story of El Dorado
The kernel of the story of El Dorado is as follows. It was a lost city of gold, people by an Amerindian population, in the midst of a remote jungle. The city was part of a sophisticated culture, that was fabulously wealthy in precious metals and gems. After Columbus's arrival in the Americas in AD1492, the Spanish Conquistadors were able to conquer two great Empires, the Aztecs, and Inca and many smaller kingdoms. They seized huge quantities of gold and other precious metals. The Spanish, despite their wealth, had an endless thirst for gold. Even after the conquest of the Inca and Aztec Empires and their fabulous wealth did not satisfy the Europeans. For many decades the Conquistadors continued to look for Amerindian communities to subdue and to take their gold. In the late 16th century, stories emerged about a city in the heart of the jungle, and it became popularly known as El Dorado. The tale inspired many men to risk their lives in the search for the fabled city. There were many attempts to find El Dorado, all unsuccessful [1]. The first known expedition to find the lost city was that of Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada in the late 1530s. He explored the areas dominated by the Musica people and seized vast qualities of gold. Some say that these Conquistadors did much to spread the story of El Dorado. In 1540, Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana went in search of the city and traveled deep into the jungle and they were the first Europeans to explore the Amazon River, but they found no gold or city. Many of the members of this expedition died from attacks by natives and disease. In 1560 two Conquistadors Pedro de Ursúa and Lope de Aguirre set out to find the city. Aguirre killed de Ursúa and took sole control of the mission. He possibly went mad and he and his men committed many atrocities. However, they did manage to travel down the Orinoco River and made it all the way to the Atlantic, which was first. Aguirre later tried to make himself a king but was eventually killed. A film was made based on his life by Werner Herzog ‘Aguirre the Wrath of God’ (1972). There were a number of other Spanish expeditions and even a German mission to find El Dorado, but they ended in disaster and the death of many explorers. The great English sailor Sir Walter Raleigh heard the story of El Dorado and launched two missions to find the fabled city and its immense riches. During these, he fought with both the Spanish and the native tribes and lost many men. The English King James I had ordered Raleigh not to go on his second expedition because it was putting a peace treaty with Madrid in jeopardy[2]. When Raleigh returned to England he was incarcerated in the Tower of London and executed. The expeditions to find El Dorado played a very important role in the exploration of South America, but they often had devastating consequences for native peoples. The explorers massacred many, burnt their village and spread lethal diseases. By the 18th century, many began to doubt the story of El Dorado. However, some continued to risk their lives in the jungles to find the fabled place, in the hope of becoming fabulously rich. Even today there are still those who hope to find the site of the city, which by now would be in ruins [3]. For example, an Italian researcher has investigated an area in remote Peru, in the hope of finding El Dorado. However, no evidence for the existence of the fabled place exists and it remains a mystery.
A Muisca gold representation of a coronation ritual
The gold man of the Musica
The Musica tribe are regarded as one of the greatest pre-Columbian cultures on a par with the Maya and Incan. They inhabited an area in what is now modern Columbia from at least 1200 B.C and they developed a very sophisticated series of states and a confederation of states. They became very rich through trade and they especially valued gold which they believed had magical powers. It is believed that the story of El Dorado was inspired by the tales and the rituals of the Musica. When a new king was crowned he had to undergo, a series of rituals. In one ceremony the newly appointed king was taken to Lake Guatavita, which was sacred to the Musica [4]. He would be covered in gold dust and placed on a raft with a treasure trove of gems and other valuables. In the center of the lake, the king would wash the gold dust from his naked body and throw valuables into the Lake, as a sacrifice to a deity. During this time, the new King was known as the ‘Golden One’ or ‘Gilded Man’. This was apparently mistranslated by the Spanish and as a result the phrase El Dorado gained common currency. Lake Guatavita because of the many sacrifices, was believed by the Conquistadors to hold a great deal of treasure and possibly inspired the story of a fabled city. In the 1540s, some Spanish adventurers tried to drain the lake in order to seize all its gold and other valuables. However, they only recovered a small amount of precious metal. Later attempts also failed. However, modern archaeologists have managed to recover some amazing golden artifacts from the lake, including one that seems to portray the ritual with the king on the raft that may have inspired the stories of El Dorado [5].
A 16th century map showing El Dorado
Civilizations in the Amazon
Many people in the 18th and 19th century mocked the idea of a lost city that was fabulously wealthy in the inhospitable and wild jungles of South America [6]. Some believed that this was not the case such as the British adventurer Percy Fawcett. His expedition to discover a legendary city in the heart of the Amazon was lost and it inspired the movie ‘Lost City of Z’ (2015). However, modern archaeologists, using advanced technology has made some astonishing discoveries about the Amazon basin, which have forced experts to rewrite the history books. Using satellite imagery and other technologies they have identified a large number of settlements. Many of them now are little more than large earth mounds. Before the arrivals of the Spanish and the Portuguese, these settlements were once home to a large population, especially from 1200-1500 AD. Archaeologists have unearthed some of these mounds and they have found evidence of pottery and other artifacts. It appears that they were once large fortified settlements. Researchers have found dozens of these especially in Brazil and it is believed that there may be many more. It is possible that diseases brought by the Europeans led to the collapse of these societies. Previously researchers believed that the Amazon could not support a large population, because of the lack of resources and especially arable land. However, the people who lived in the Amazon before the arrival of Europeans were very sophisticated and they even built a network of roads in what is today near-impenetrable forest [7]. Archaeologists have found evidence that the people created a system of gardens, which allowed them to grow food in the heart of the Jungle. Moreover, they have also found evidence of fish-farming. It has been estimated based on the dimensions of the settlements that they could be home to thousands of people. The Amazon it appears is not pristine virgin forest and is an environment that was much influenced by human activity, for millennia. It is believed that these cultures went into decline when diseases brought by the Europeans, cause the population to collapse. It is believed that the original inhabitants of these settlements or ‘cities’ are the ancestors of the tribal people who now live in the jungle [8]. Moreover, the Amazon jungle has many deposits of gold. The stories of the settlements in the jungle and gold mines may have played a crucial role in the development of the legend of El Dorado. Indeed, one of these jungle cities could have been the model for the Lost City.
Lake Parime
One possible origin of the El Dorado is the story of Lake Parime. This was a legendary lake reputedly to be found in what is now the uplands of Guyana [9]. There have been a number of attempts to locate the lake. In the stories about El Dorado, the city is on the shores of this lake. Indeed, during the Renaissance, the city was shown on the shores of the Lake on many maps. Walter Raleigh in his expedition to find the fabled city, sought out the body of water Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag.
El Dorado has become a by-word for wealth and fabulous riches. It is now widely agreed that there never existed a city of that name. It is, in short, a fable or a myth. However, like many other myths, it has a basis in historical fact. The famous fable of the Lost City in the jungle was based on real-life societies and places. It is almost certain that the great Musica confederation and their coronation rituals for their kings encouraged the idea of a wealthy city in the jungle. It is entirely possible that memories of the settlements that once flourished in the jungles of what is now Brazil also contributed to the development of the fable. Then the gold that was found in Amazonia also contributed to the development of the story. In short, while El Dorado never existed, it was based on actual historical societies and events.
Naipaul, Vidiadhar Surajprasad. The loss of El Dorado: a colonial history (London, Pan Macmillan, 2001).
Bandelier, Adolph Francis Alphonse. The Gilded Man:(El Dorado) and Other Pictures of the Spanish Occupancy of America (London, D. Appleton, 1893).
↑ Nicholl, Charles. The creature in the map: a journey to El Dorado. University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 13
↑ Meggers, B. J. (2001). The continuing quest for El Dorado: round two. Latin American Antiquity, 12(3), 304-325
↑ Meggers, p 310
↑ Bahn, Paul. Archaeology, Theories, Methods, and Practice. 2nd edition. London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 1991), p 123
↑ Bahn, p 137
↑ Meggers, p. 113
↑ Heckenberger, et al, "Amazonia 1492: Pristine Forest or Cultural Parkland?", Science (2003), pp. 1710–14
↑ Heckenberger, et al, 1739
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Tag: saloon
The Old West Lives: Tourism’s Glory Days In Tombstone, Arizona
They ride high in the saddle in Tombstone. Cause a man’s gotta do, what a man’s gotta do. And what most men and a lot of the women in this historic Wild West town gotta do is dress up like cowboys, gunslingers, dancehall girls and regular town folk and party like it’s 1889.
Tombstone is a dot on the map of southern Arizona, about 40 kilometres off the 1-10 that runs through a sun-baked landscape that anybody who has ever watched a Hollywood cowboy movie would instantly recognise.
It’s a hot, dry, inhospitable landscape. You don’t come across Tombstone by accident. You have to be heading there and the attraction is its name – one of the best known of all the old Wild West towns. It’s redolent of outlaws and lawmen, the site of the O.K. Corral and its infamous gunfight. And it draws tourists from around the globe who find, once they reach this otherwise unprepossessing place, that it’s a lot better than they were expecting. And a lot more fun.
Tombstone was founded in 1879, quite late for an Old West town, and its fortunes were built on silver mining. From 1877 until 1890, local mines produced more than $US50 million in silver bullion. In the heady days of the 1880s, Tombstone had a population of 14,000 and proudly boasted four churches, a school and two banks. A little less proudly perhaps, it also had 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls and numerous brothels.
The miners and cowboys, who weren’t above regular cattle rustling forays into Mexico, kept the town jumping.
The glory days lasted for little more than a decade, however, when rising water levels in the mines made extraction unprofitable. By the late 1890s, Tombstone was virtually a ghost town.
It was tourism that uncovered the gold in thar hills. When the inhabitants began to leave Tombstone for more economically viable climes, much of the Old Town was boarded up and left undisturbed under the baking desert sun. Tourism began to take off in the mid-20th century; luckily, most of the main thoroughfare, Allen Street, remained intact.
Nowadays, some 500,000 tourists a year come to Tombstone, which has a population barely exceeding 1500 people. The Bird Cage Theatre is a favourite. In the 1880s, the saloon and gambling hall operated 24 hours a day; its name comes from the small mezzanine rooms overlooking the main hall where prostitutes plied their trade. Whiskey-fuelled brawls regularly took the place apart and gunfights barely raised an eyebrow but the main claim to fame was a poker game, with a minimum $US1,000 buy-in, that ran for eight years without a break.
When it was closed in 1889, the Bird Cage was boarded up with all its contents still in place and remained that way until it reopened in the 1930s. Most of the interior, from the wallpaper, light fittings and red velvet curtains to its magnificent cherrywood bar, is original.
It helps that the highway connecting the I-10 with areas to the south, skirts Allen Street; the dusty red dirt street is closed to regular traffic. Visitors dodge horses, carriages and stage coaches while the locals, dressed in character for the Wild West, provide Kodak moments.
Each day at 2pm, there is a re-enactment of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, where Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp and his brothers went up against a bunch of ornery outlaws in October 1881. Allen Street is lined with museums, saloons, restaurants with staff dressed as dancehall hostesses, and – inevitably – lots of gift shops.
Even the Boot Hill graveyard, which operated from 1879 until 1884, is carefully preserved and tourist-friendly.
It’s easy to get a little sniffy about this kind of pasteurised history, a Westworld where nothing goes wrong, where gunfighters have a jauntily self-mocking tone beneath their carefully-cultivated menace (so as not to scare the little kiddies), and the tourists play along with the joke. It’s a theme park to be sure but Tombstone has a careless charm that gets under the skin and gently eases away any niggling doubts about historical authenticity.
Tombstone, a town that would otherwise have quietly faded away, finds its fortune in acting out the past. In taking history out from under its bell jar, everybody goes home happy at the end of the day. Which is infinitely better than going home in a pine box.
Words and photos © David Latta
Author davidlattaPosted on September 23, 2011 Categories TravelTags Allen Street, Arizona, Bird Cage Theatre, Boot Hill, cattle rustling, cowboys, Doc Holliday, gambling hall, gunfight, miners, O.K. Corral, poker, saloon, silver mining, stage coach, Tombstone, tourism, Westworld, Wild West, Wyatt Earp1 Comment on The Old West Lives: Tourism’s Glory Days In Tombstone, Arizona
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Ernie (SAID) Boxall
10 minutes read!
A paid gig. A garden centre in Brighton for 4 x 30 minutes of Christmas stories for families with children up to eight years of age. What an opportunity for some travel and meeting people and showcase storytelling. Train tickets purchased and the timetable worked out, I will arrive in Brighton about midnight and then look around the town for a place to eat. One of those open 24 hours, where I can lay my head down for an hour or so. What’s to worry about?
Let’s start outside my street where the bus stops to take me to the station. The 17.10 to Leamington. I arrived at 17.05 to sit with an elderly woman who had been there a while. We spoke a few words and then I glanced at my watch, 17.20.
At 17.40 we both figured that the company had simply withdrawn that bus and the next one was the 18.00. A long wait, but I had plenty of time before the 21.10 train to Birmingham for the first connection. At 18.00 the bus came, except it wasn’t the 18.00, it was the 17.10, nearly an hour late because of traffic. Still, no worries, I was on.
Twenty minutes later, the bus was in traffic jam again, under a mile from the station.
“You’d be best get off and walk,” the driver told both of us. I needed no second invitation. I picked up my rucksack, slung it over my back and set off, eventually walking through the station reception area, buying my tickets and sitting down to wait a few minutes for the connection. It arrived without too much wait.
New Street Station:
New Street Station: 20.30: Plenty of time to catch the 21.10 to Milton Keynes for stage three. Had a coffee and wandered down to the platform. There was a train in, going to Euston (I think) via Milton Keynes, but it was the one before mine so I thought I’d wait-better stick to the plan, right? Out went the train and just wait for mine.
“The 21.10 to Euston via Milton Keynes has been delayed after a passenger was hit on the rails,” I think those were the words, but I can’t be sure. What the delay was going to be though, no one seemed to have any idea.
“I’ve got to be in Milton Keynes by 10.30,” I told the man on the platform “do you have any idea when it will be?”
He didn’t know, but suggested I should have caught the train which had just left, that was going to Milton Keynes! Grrrrr.
Milton Keynes:
I arrived at Milton Keynes around midnight. Just a few minutes after the train to Clapham Junction had pulled out. Why was that significant? Yes! That was my next destination. This time the guard on the platform was really helpful.
He told me to forget my plans, go to Euston, change for the underground to Victoria and then to Three Bridges.
That was the last but one stop on my schedule before Brighton.
This part of the journey was easy, a doddle compared with what I had just put up with. The experience had been frustrating but nothing to worry about.
Three Bridges:
At last, one more stop before Brighton. One more train journey before I can lay my head down somewhere. But No!
The line between Three Bridges and Brighton is undergoing maintenance at the moment. There is now a coach laid on which takes over an hour. Just one more little dig in the ribs, one more turn of the screw. At least I would be able to sleep for a while and to be fair I did. Until! At last, Brighton Station.
Brighton:
We all, I think, climbed off the bus weary and worse for wear. I know I did. But that was OK because I had sussed out a 24-hour eatery on the seafront and it was just under a mile away. It was, however, 2.45 am, there weren’t too many people about to ask which way the seafront was, and the people who were around, weren’t really ‘around’ if you know what I mean. The aroma of marijuana was thick in the air, even though the number of people in the area could be counted on one hand.
I walked in one direction until I came to a shop and asked directions. I was on the right road.
“It’s a straight road until you reach the seafront and then turn left.”
I know what you’re thinking! Once again he’ll meet a gremlin, a spanner in the works. No! He was spot on, straight for about 1,000 yards and turn left. Only, when I turned left it seemed that every nightclub in Brighton had closed at the same time and poured its contents out onto the street, in various stages of inebriation and dress (or undress for the older readers). Every eating place from McDonald’s to the fish and chip shop was heaving with humanity, squealing, shouting, laughing. I needed Buddies Restaurant but I have to say I was a bit wary of asking anyone where it was. But, in the end, through trial and error, there is was. A bright restaurant, with lights blazing and outside tables. It was packed.
Buddies Restaurant:
Now, Buddies, I have since found out, is famous in Brighton. It certainly was on Saturday morning, but the staff found me a table for one and a menu of staple restaurant foods. I decided that the fish and chips, with garlic bread and a pot of tea, would probably last me the longest and thus mean the least time wandering the street. It worked. I was able to make the meal last from 4 am until just gone 5, and then sort of melted into the background until 6 am. The staff didn’t seem to care. They were still busy with people coming-or staggering in. (I have to praise the staff here. They were brilliant). The noise all night was deafening, many of the customers were in that state where they were either ‘jack the lad’ or ‘Sally the ladette’.
Through it, all the staff smiled took orders and served promptly. It did strike me later, that fish and chips at 4 am was a bit out of the ordinary.
The Last Leg?
Refreshed, food-wise anyway, I left the restaurant to make my way back to the station to catch a bus to the garden center. It was still only 6 am so I thought a stop off at another, quieter café would at least give me the chance to get my head down for an hour or two. I bought a coffee, found a quiet corner, set my alarm and put my head down. A sort of sleep came. I woke at around 8.30 am and leaving the untouched coffee went for my bus on the final part of the journey.”Wyevale Garden Centre please.”
“That bus doesn’t go from here, take the 7 into town and catch the 2!”
“OK, no problem. I had been told that morning that the bus to the garden centre left from outside the station, but no problem. “When’s the next bus to the centre?”
“20 minutes. It would be quicker to walk!”
So I walk back the way I’d come earlier that morning to catch the bus to the garden centre. It was, by now about 9.10 and I’d seen that the journey would take 20 minutes, which would be fine. Except, the only bus to the garden centre was ‘due’ in 18 minutes which was cutting it fine. The traffic in the town was snarled anyway and I had no idea whether that would increase the travel time.
Now I was worried…not frustrated or angry (too tired for that), worried that I would miss the stipulated 10 am arrive time and forfeit the contract.
Last resort, a taxi.
I arrived at the garden centre at 9.50 am, had the stand set up by 10 am and ready to go at 10.30 am.
Wyvale Garden Centre:
The rest of the day was smooth sailing. I told my stories, the children sat through (mainly) and the parents were happy with the event. I was home in two hours less than it took to get to Brighton and time to sleep.
Frustrated-At times
Angry-Not really
Worried-Only once.
Result: A story to tell. An invite to return in December. A life lesson learned. Plans are great until the first shot is fired, then just handle it. Nothing to worry about!
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on November 29, 2018 by coyoterainmaker.
← Location, Location, Location. Your Business Is Your Story…Don’t let it stagnate! →
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This article is from
Creation 5(2):13–17, October 1982
Browse our latest digital issue Subscribe
Editor’s note: As Creation magazine has been continuously published since 1978, we are publishing some of the articles from the archives for historical interest, such as this. For teaching and sharing purposes, readers are advised to supplement these historic articles with more up-to-date ones suggested in the Related Articles and Further Reading below.
Interview with John Mann*, M.B.E.
Creation magazine: In 1969, John, you were awarded the M.B.E. by the Queen for the major part you played in the development of a biological solution to the cactus problem. Most people today have no idea how bad the actual situation was.
What was it really like?
Dr John Mann: Well—the cactus invasion of Australia was probably history’s greatest recorded invasion of a country by a plant weed in any part of the world. A single, yellow flowering prickly pear was brought to Australia in 1839. By 1914 it had covered 60 million acres so densely, that it was impossible to do anything of value with the land. Families were driven off their blocks. They had attacked it with everything they had, and any special machinery or chemicals that they could invent.
Where was this?
It was in the good grazing, dairying and grain growing country in Queensland. In fact, to try and solve the problem the Government was offering people blocks of land on the condition that they could maintain a 2m (6ft) wide strip free of prickly pear around their boundaries. But this proved virtually impossible. Men broke their hearts over it because it was growing up behind them as fast as they were getting rid of it. They were in absolute despair.
How was this problem solved?
Well, our actual concept was, and still is, that since the plant in its native country generally doesn’t increase to pest proportions, it must be controlled by either organisms or conditions. So in 1913 researchers were appointed to go around the world to each place where cactus grew to see if there were any creatures that could be used for the likely destruction of cactus in Australia. They actually came back bringing with them some Cactoblastis cactorum which is the insect that did the spectacular work eventually, but they could not get them to breed.
Was this idea of insect control an original idea, unique to Australia? Had anything like that ever been done before?
Yes. In 1902 some insects had been imported from Mexico into Hawaii for the control of lantana, but this was only on a small scale. In 1914 a few insects found by a Mr A. Kobele in Mexico were introduced from Hawaii to Australia for lantana control, however it was the success of our campaign against the prickly pear which has given the impetus to later efforts in entomological control.
Did this suggestion of biological balance have any evolutionary concept behind it?
Not that I have ever heard about.
Researchers were appointed to go around the world to each place where cactus grew to see if there were any creatures that could be used for the likely destruction of cactus in Australia.
One of the chief roles you played in this area was being the person who actually got the Cactoblastis to breed in Australia. Was this a problem?
Well, I’d been breeding insects since I was 15, so no, there weren’t really many difficulties with Cactoblastis, although we were working under very spartan conditions. All we had was an old wooden building with wooden floors, lino, and one antique telephone. The techniques we had to devise were necessary because there weren’t any push-button methods in those days. I had to run an electric light cable from the main house down to the quarantine cages. I then put whatever number of electric light bulbs inside the insect cages that I estimated would give the warmth that they required to breed. As long as I kept them properly warm, they bred quite easily. People working with the sophisticated glasshouses and quarantine insectaries today, probably cannot conceive the trouble we had.
Were any safeguards necessary?
Oh yes. Once we started getting Cactoblastis eggs under quarantine conditions, we bred them in untold millions. It was necessary to test them on all sorts of plants to prove they would eat cactus and nothing else.
How long did this take before you knew it would work?
It was obvious within 12 months that we had a winner, the more discerning men on the land saw it too. All those abandoned or empty pear leases were suddenly ‘acquired.’
Do you remember any humorous events in the research program?
To be honest, the problem was so urgent that we were too dead serious about the job to have anything funny to say about it. Skeptical landholders would come and look in our cages and make caustic remarks about whether a couple of insects were going to do anything good. They poked all sorts of fun at us, even in print, but those men lived to regret the day that they didn’t own several thousand acres more of the prickly pear country we cleaned up.
Since that time, you have received much recognition for your work apart from the M.B.E. What else resulted from it?
Many things I guess. I was appointed Entomologist to the Government Department of Lands and made a Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society. The Entomological Society of N.S.W. made me a Fellow and I served on many government committees amongst other things.
But isn’t it also true that you had your work published by the Smithsonian Institute, were made a life member of the Entomological Society of Queensland and appointed as State representative on the Australian Weeds Committee, becoming eventually chairman of the Noxious Weeds Committee, a member of the Agricultural Chemicals Distribution Committee and a member of the Interdepartmental Committee for Woody Plant Control and had a genus in your honor—amongst other things.
Yes—amongst other things.
Have you addressed many science conferences since your success with Prickly Pear?
Yes, I have given many lectures on the work of biological control at science conferences, to almost every local government authority, many grazier and primary producers organizations, and on ABC radio.
John, when you retired in 1970 you were the Director of the Alan Fletcher Research Station, in charge of scientists doing research on insect and biological control, but you don’t have a university degree.
No, it was quite humorous really. When this was announced at my farewell dinner, I could see the intrigued look on the face of some of my scientific colleagues. One professor leaned over to me and said, ‘Well it never showed.’
In the 1930s what was the influence of the concept of evolution on society in Australia?
The concept of evolution at that time was not as universal as it is now. There were lots of debates about it, a lot of questions asked and being answered. In the 1920s I used to get copies of the magazine put out by the Victoria Institute in England. They were men of high degree and they wrote against evolution. Their magazine influenced me greatly.
Ignacio Baez. wikipedia.org
Cactoblastis cactorum caterpillar on a cactus plant.
Were there any Australian men of science who influenced you?
Yes, one man who influenced me was the Professor of Anatomy at the University of Adelaide. He wrote the Progress Prize Memorial Lecture, ‘The Ancestry of Man.’ He wrote about the discovery of an exceedingly early fossil anthropoid in America. This fossil animal was named ‘Hesperopithecus.’ Not only was it named but its complete form, both male and female, were shown as a whole page illustration in an English illustrated Weekly, as part of an article on ‘The Early Humanoid in America’, by Professor Elliot Smith. But the anatomy professor pointed out the only evidence on which this was based, consisted of a single water-worn molar tooth, and that there were other learned authorities of the day such as Dr Smith Woodward, had suggested that it was the tooth of a bear. When I read that in 1923, I thought to myself, ‘Well, evolutionary theory appears to have been built upon 99% imagination and 1% fossils’ so I maintained that as a Christian I would believe in the Bible until somebody could come up with any definite proof that men had evolved from animals.
Did the concept of evolution worry you at all?
No it did not! It had no practical effect on my work.
But surely people had already begun to produce evolutionary family trees for the insects, which must have affected your work.
They had, but they were so practically useless that in my publications I made no reference to them. One gentleman had built up a key for flies. It was a fine looking tree. However after he had sent it to the Linnean Society in Sydney for publication, he found more insects which altered his whole concept, so he sent them a telegram and told them not to publish his key until further notice. Finally he almost turned it upside down with his next key. So I said to myself, ‘Well I believe God; and I believe the Bible; and these men are not producing anything concrete that would make me disbelieve. Until they do I am just going to go on as I am.’
Has there been any time in your life when you really considered yourself as an evolutionist of any sort?
No, I have really never felt that way. Although when I got deeper into scientific work, I did think about the possibility that God used evolution and I went along for a time with that in the back of my mind … In my work with the flies I thought that theistic evolution was a possible answer to the theories that were put forward by some of my colleagues. But in later years I threw that overboard because I couldn’t see that it was consistent with the Bible. At one stage I accepted the Gap Theory (as it became known later) but as I advanced further in my work, not only as an entomologist but as a Christian, I couldn’t see that this could be tenable either, so I rejected it as well.
So you rejected evolution for both scientific and Biblical reasons?
Yes, to my thinking, it wouldn’t fit either way.
Did your schooling influence you in any way about creation?
Well one man did. He taught us astronomy. He had a model which showed the movements of the sun and the moon and certain stars and planets. I remember distinctly one day he stopped his machine and said, ‘Boys never let anyone tell you that these things happen of their own accord. There is a Supreme Being who guides these things in the way they go.’ I have never forgotten that, even though it is over 65 years ago.
It was fairly safe to say that insects feeding on cactus would not eat any other type of plant.
When you look at the relationship you discovered between cactus and the Cactoblastis, do you see it as an example of a system created by God?
Yes, I certainly believe it is. When God created organisms He created their food too. If they are deprived of that specific food they die. Our specific tests on Cactoblastis showed that. The list of plants that we tried to get Cactoblastis to eat was absolutely enormous, and I would say that 85% of the plants that we had to test were almost a waste of time. Firstly because cactaceae as a group of plants are quite separate from most other groups. It was fairly safe to say that insects feeding on cactus would not eat any other type of plant and secondly, we fairly well knew that the insects wouldn’t be able to live on most of them, simply because the Cactoblastis was a gregarious internal borer. To begin to test it on wheat and oats and things like that was simply ridiculous, but we had to do it, just to prove it was safe to use them. Our results showed without a doubt that these insects had a group of plants which they could live on and nothing else. And that’s usually what is found right throughout the insect kingdom. Organisms keep to one group of plants for their feeding.
Didn’t they attack any other plants, even when they were starving?
They did crawl over some and they made a few small marks where you could see that they had made an attempt to feed on such things as potatoes and melons, and tomatoes, etc., but they couldn’t live on them. They never even began to breed on them. To me that was overwhelming evidence that they had a particular group of plants to live on and would not live on any others. We also found they were confined to certain types of cacti. There are quite a lot of groups of cactus that they will not feed on.
Throughout your life you have given talks on God as Creator and the importance of creation, particularly using your butterfly collection. Why have you done this?
Well, a long time ago I took a stand that I believed in Creation and so whenever I spoke to a meeting of people, Christians or non-Christians, I often brought up the subject of Creation and the contrasting philosophy of evolution. I would tell them exactly where I stood. At the conclusion of one meeting, a chap came to me and said, ‘Look I’m glad you said that about evolution and creation because you are the only person I have heard publicly say that sort of thing.’
Are you pleased then to see the various creation science movements throughout the world, and one very much on your home front here in Australia?
Oh, yes very pleased indeed. When I saw Dr Carl Wieland’s advertisement about his Creation Science Society in South Australia, I wrote to him. I have a copy of his first magazine here [Ed. note: this was the first Creation Magazine ever produced—June, 1978], the one he told me he had typed out himself and stapled together. I wrote to him and I joined, because I was so delighted to think there were people of position who still believed in the Word of God.
How do you personally view the effect of the increase in evolutionary thought?
Devastating! Young people in schools are being taught it as a straight-out fact. It is not a fact. It is a tragedy. People who are brought up as evolutionists, cannot be brought up to believe in God.
*Now deceased. Return to top.
The curse and the cure
Cactus spines, sharper than you may think!
A thorny issue
Green power (photosynthesis)
Did plants evolve?
Kingdom of the plants: defying evolution
Pulsating plants
Plants and animals around the world
Exploring the World of Biology
by John Hudson Tiner
Hallmarks of Design, 2nd Edition
by Stuart Burgess
Evolution's Achilles' Heels
by Nine Ph.D. scientists
Chemicals to Living Cell
Let the Earth Bring Forth
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Dr. Morehouse Featured In The Oprah Magazine
Dr. Ruth Morehouse was quoted in the July-August issue of The Oprah Magazine in an article by Audrey Edwards entitled Why You Don't Want To Have Sex. Dealing with the fact that many modern women find themselves losing sexual desire, even in the midst of a loving and committed relationship, the article contains the following:
Turning away from sex may be a way for women with children to reclaim their bodies as their own. "Women start to view sex as one more thing they have to do for someone else," says Ruth Morehouse, Ph.D., co-director of he Marriage & Family Health Center in Evergreen, Colorado. "Women feel stretched so thin that saying no to sex gives them some sense of control over their lives."
Many women in long-term relationships also lose interest in sex because they don't want the kind of sex they've been having. "When two people have been together for a long time, sex often gets routine and stops feeling personal," says Morehouse. "There's not always the sense of being a unique, cherished individual." Often women want something more, but they're afraid of making their husbands feel inadequate. "When the intense physical attraction they experienced early in a relationship fades, sex may leave them thinking, Is that all there is?"
For things to get better, stresses Morehouse, women need to take the risk of figuring out what they want sexually- something many still don't know- and to accept part of the responsibility for having an unsatisfying or boring sex life. "If you're giving in to the peace, going through the motions, you're not really there, " says Morehouse. "You're helping to keep the relationship stagnant."
"People say their relationships are their priorities, but they don't act that way," says Morehouse. "Women need to see sex as a way to connect with themselves and their partners, rather than as something they're doing for someone else." Focus on the possibilities of sex, she urges, and how great it can feel.
The Oprah Magazine, July-August, 2000. Why You Don't Want To Have Sex by Audrey Edwards, pp. 178-181, 270.
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Catherine Cohen Opens Up
September 5, 2019 in Interview, Obsession, Sex & Love, Story
Chris Murphy
Posted in Interview, Obsession, Sex & Love, Story
We're all going to die anyways
London Girls on Obsession
Story by Chris Murphy
Photos by Remi Riordan, Makeup by Eddie Gee, Assisting by Rosie Yasukochi
I remember the moment I met Catherine Cohen. It was during the first month of my freshman year at Princeton; I had just finished my callback for a musical theater comedy troupe and was making a list of all the things I could have done better during the audition (don’t worry, I ended up making the troupe). Enter Catherine Cohen—curly, brunette hair bouncing to and fro as she breezily walked down the steps on the way to her callback which, of course, she also booked. I obviously knew who she was – though only a junior, Catherine had made a name for herself across campus as a vocal powerhouse and a force to be reckoned with on stage.
Full of self-loathing post-audition, I began to pack up my things when Catherine came over to me. “Wait… are you Chris Murphy?,” she asked. I nervously shook my head yes. “Oh my god, I’ve heard so much about you!” And with that she was gone. It was such a small moment for her—so natural for her to reach out and be kind—yet so monumental for me, a ball of exposed nerves masquerading as a freshman. I had no idea at that point that Catherine and I would end up joining that musical theater club, that we’d sing together every other day in our a cappella group, and that we’d become lifelong friends in the process. Simply the fact that Catherine Cohen even knew who I was—and was nice to me too—was more than I could process. From that moment on, I was, in a word, obsessed.
Now, more than 8 years later, Catherine has outgrown our college a capella group and collegiate theatrical productions and has become a bonafide comedy sensation. You might know her from her hit podcast “Seek Treatment” with co-host Pat Regan, her recent “New York Times” Profile, or her episode of HBO’s “High Maintenance.” Maybe you know her from her one woman show “The Twist… She’s Gorgeous” at Joe’s Pub or the weekly “Cabernet Cabaret” she co-hosts with Henry Koperski at Club Cumming. Wherever you first encountered her, one thing is clear: Catherine Cohen is everywhere, and people are—dare I say—addicted to her.
I met up with my old friend Catherine for martinis at Anfora in the West Village to discuss life, love, and obsession.
Ok. I know the things that you’re obsessed with: Boys. Lena Dunham’s ‘Girls’. Fun Coats. Lying Down/Being in Repose. Cups of meatballs. Rockstars…
[Laughs] Oh my god. You know everything about me.
But what do I not know about you? Because I do actually know everything about you.
Well, I just want my entire life to feel like… a dinner party where you’re there for like six hours and everyone’s at the table and you gesture to a painting on the wall and you say “my friend painted that” and then everyone has their own bottle of wine and then we just sit and talk forever and then you go lay down with your lover and you tell them that you feel a sense of longing that resembles pain… only in the way that mist that resembles rain.
I’m undone.
I’m paraphrasing a [Henry Wadsworth] Longfellow poem.
You’re also obsessed with poems. Why do you think you’re obsessed with poems?
I’m obsessed with poetry. It’s the only thing I care about. It’s so dense. It’s so immediate. It feels new every time. You have to be patient with novels but poetry is just like… a needle in the vein.
People love to put more meaning onto poems which is lovely and what not, but I think the beauty of poetry is that it’s just words on a page. A deer can just be a deer and not represent anything more than that.
I have chills. The way I try to write— It’s like this stream of consciousness thing where it’s like if I don’t get this out my heart will fall out of my mouth and that’s the kind of poetry I like. I don’t like things that are as measured. But I think often to achieve that effect you do have to be measured and patient and that’s something that I struggle with. I’m trying to be patient and understand that sometimes to achieve that gut punch effect you have to do the work…
Sit in the uncomfortable moment?
Yes. Just how I like my shows to feel so raw. But often that does require me to sit backstage before and be like “what do I [actually] want to talk about? Is there something I want to say?”
That level of planning and thoughtfulness.
You have to care. Confession: You have to care so fucking much and not caring is not cool and people who don’t care are fucking losers.
They’re insane.
You pretend you don’t care about how you dress, about how you act, or how you spend your time. It’s like that is the most unattractive, boring thing. I fear boredom. I fear… hobbies.
Never had one never need one. If you have a hobby you don’t love your life. As someone who has known you for years and years, I know that everything you make comedy about is authentic and real to you. It’s not, like, ironic or tongue in cheek. Like in your old sets you used to have poems, you used to write poetry.
And I want to do more of that. But yeah, I never lie on stage. Everything I say is a true story. It doesn’t interest me to make up something for a joke. I want to say something that’s true… so that people feel like less alone.
Is that your goal via comedy? To make people feel less alone?
Well, that’s why I like to go to shows. So that I can hear some secrets to make me feel less crazy. And that’s what I want my shows to feel like.
The community aspect is so insane because I remember your first “Cabernet Cabaret” show at Club Cumming. It was amazing, but only like… a solidly packed house.
It was pretty packed.
[Laughs] Ok, for the record: it was pretty packed.
But, we’ve had some empty ones.
Now when you’re at Club Cumming you can’t even see the stage because there are so many people there. What does that feel like?
That’s the best thing in the world. All I want to do is create a community and throw a party. I hate being alone. So, I make people come to me. I want to feel like I’m in the past, like I’m in a coffee table book. When I’m at Club Cumming, I feel like that. At Club Cumming time seems to stop and I’m in this removed place where you can forget about the outside for a second and dive into something more.
You are radically honest about your life on stage. Do you find it easier to be honest with your fans or your friends? Or is it the same all the time?
I don’t know. There are certain things in life that I haven’t worked through that I don’t want to talk about on stage. Umm, like I’ve been dealing with my vocal health stuff.
Yes, I’ve been there.
And I don’t want to talk about that onstage yet because I haven’t wrapped my head around it and I don’t know how I feel about it yet so it doesn’t interest me. But, like with the break up, like when Charles* broke up with me, I went to Club Cumming the next day and I was just like screaming about it on stage because I knew how I felt about it. And it was such a release…
Good for your soul. Good for processing.
Yeah and Henry [Koperski] came up to me during the show and I was like, “is this funny or sad or too dark?” And he said something like “no, I think it’s really important to talk about this stuff.” And I was like “oh good, that’s what I want.”
I feel like you’ve always been an open book for anyone who takes the time to read it. And now it feels like everyone in the world is reading the book. Did you always know you were going to have fans to this level?
I don’t know. I feel like it’s easier now with social media. Like, people who aren’t famous can have fans because, like, they can have their own community online, so that’s cool. I’m just really flattered to have people like my stuff. And I feel like I can be real with fans and talk to them like they’re friends.
Ok, this is a little bit of a dishy question. We went to college together, obviously. And like there were some people who were not that nice to either of us who now seem to be… jumping on the Catherine Cohen bandwagon.
Who are you thinking about?
Jessica* and Lance*, for instance.
[Laughs] Yeah, what I will say is people are coming out of the woodwork in very interesting ways. And I will never forget in what ways they were lying within the woodwork before.
[Laughs maniacally] You heard it here first.
If you mistreat me, I’ll never forget it. And if you were kind to me when no one else was, I’ll never forget it.
That’s the thing, you’ve got to remember it all. I don’t want to talk myself up, but like I got you from the moment I met you.
Yeah, you did. But I also feel like I have to remind myself that people who were rude to me in college or didn’t give me the time of day, they have their own shit that they’re insecure about.
You’re right. That’s very empathetic of you. I have no fans and I’m not in a space to be like “oh you were rude to me, but that might not be about me.”
It’s never about you. It’s harder in romantic stuff because my ego is so fucking massive. The Charles* stuff has definitely been a learning opportunity and it’s already inspired a line in a new song that I want to play you.
Oh my god. You have to.
It’s different. It’s more stream of consciousness. A little messier. A little more low key. Low key only in the sense of like… not low key, but less presentational and more emotional.
More emotional. I literally have a note in my phone that says “Catherine Cohen is a well of emotion.”
Oh my god. Well I had a boyfriend tell me I was a waterfall of negativity when I was 22.
[Laughs] I feel like there’s a little bit of a narrative going around right now that you’re an overnight sensation?
Is that a narrative?
A little bit. But I know you’ve been doing shows every night for the past six years. I’ve seen the content of your act change so much in the three years I’ve been in NYC. How would you describe your transition from more character based comedy into stand-up and cabaret?
I enjoy making character videos because they’re basically just different versions of myself. They’re people I mock but they’re people I love because I see myself in them. But, I’m not interested in wigs at the moment.
I would like to go on record as being the first comic to be fully anti-wig. I’m anti-wig in any capacity — whether it’s at brunch or whether its on stage.
Yeah, and I feel like the character stuff is just a way of finding this version of myself that I’m like settling into.
That’s always been there. That’s been there since 2011.
Two thousand and forever. But I was just too scared to access it.
That’s a big thing: fear. It’s scary to get up there and be yourself in front of people, warts and all. How do you deal with that?
Do you know what’s especially tricky? Because when you start you’re in this straight male community…
Straight *white* male dominated community.
Yes. You get it. And I was nervous to be hyper feminine at first — hyper emotional, hyper personal, hyper sensitive. And now it’s the leaning into that that has proven the most rewarding.
That’s how you’ve set yourself apart; it feels so authentic. There’s a line in the “New York Times” profile of you that is so funny to me because it references “the persona [Catherine] is playing at Club Cumming” insinuating that you are, in some way, playing a character. What, if anything, is different between the person Catherine Cohen and the persona Catherine Cohen you portray on stage?
It’s just me if the rules don’t apply.
If you’re in total control.
If I’m unfettered. If I’m ignoring social niceties. It’s not [really] a character or a persona. It’s just the real me in that moment.
The real you, sometimes with a blowout.
I’m just a feminist that’s obsessed with good dick.
That is a core struggle for many feminists. Wow, now I’m getting nostalgic for good dick… is there anything or anybody you are really obsessed with right now either in comedy or music? You always had cool girl indie music tastes.
Yeah, I love indie music. I’m listening a lot to the new Girlpool album. The new James Blake album… Half of my mind is like deeply musical theater… I think about Sondheim every day? What [else] do I like? Ariana Grande. This girl Caroline Rose is really good. King Princess. Rilo Kiley is the only music I ever care about.
“Portions For Foxes.” [You] killed the solo [in our a cappella group] from 2011 to 2013.
And Sufjan, of course–I want him to murder me. And this girl called Mallrat. I think she’s Australian. And I like any music that is talky like Pavement. I also love this band Car Seat Headrest. I’m addicted to Mitski. She’s a queen.
Speaking of addicted, is there a difference between addicted and “obsoosed”? What’s the difference between being addicted to someone and “obsoosed” with someone? Or is it one and the same?
It changes with the wind.
I’m obsessed with ranking things. So now you have to rank boys, sex, fucking, dating, and love in order, best to worst. What you need most. What you need least.
In this moment?
In this moment. In this one singular moment.
In this very moment, I need fucking. Boys. Sex. Love. and then dating [laughs].
That absolutely scans for me and I see that for you, too. I think dating is hard last. I thought you were gonna put boys last, actually.
[laughs] I love boys.
Boys – yet another thing that brought us together. What about your catchphrases: “Coocoo loo loo”. “Laa Tee Da Too”. “Obsoosed”. Seek Treatment.
Pat [Regan] came up with Seek Treatment. And addicted came from [Chicago comedian] Sarah Squirm. She said that once and I thought it was the funniest thing in the world.
I also want to know what you’re “obsoosed” with, fashionwise?
I Rent The Runway, as you know. I mean I can’t afford nicer stuff. I just shop at Zara and TopShop. And when I want something nice I Rent the Runway. I do a lot of vintage and second hand stuff. I love Beacon’s Closet.
Clearly, something about you seems to be resonating with the masses. Do you feel like something has clicked or do you feel like you’re just doing the same thing that you’ve been doing and people are just now starting to pay attention?
A combination. I’m always getting better at what I do by doing it more. The slot at Club Cumming has turned me into… has given me everything. It has made me so confident… so certain about my ability to command a crowd even when it’s not going well and I’m just really grateful for that.
That was a huge turning point.
I have this energy and feeling on stage that I… I got this. And it’s because of Club Cumming.
*The names have been changed to protect the identities of those mentioned.
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JODI-POPS DE VANGUARDIA.
dereksmusicblog ♦ January 3, 2017 ♦ 1 Comment
Innovator, pioneer and visionary are just three of the words that were used to describe German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. His career spanned six decades and nowadays, he’s regarded as one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th Century. Karlheinz Stockhausen was also one of the pioneers of electronic music, aleatoric music, serial composition, and musical spatialisation. He was also a highly respected academic who taught and influenced many musicians and composers.
This included members of Can, Jean-Michel Jarre, Tom Constanten of the Grateful Dead, avant-garde musician Jon Hassell, composers Gerald Shapiro and Gerald Barry. Students travelled from far and wide to study under Karlheinz Stockhausen. Among them, were brothers, Joern and Dirk Wenger, who had travelled all the way from Paraguay to study under Karlheinz Stockhausen.
After the demise of their band The Rabbits, Joern and Dirk Wenger were keen to complete their musical education. Having heard The Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, the brothers were inspired to create their own experimental music. However, they wanted to take this further. So they travelled from Asunción in Paraguay, to study arts at the Folkwang University of the Arts. That was where they encountered Karlheinz Stockhausen. He taught the two brothers music. The time the Wenger brothers spent studying under Karlheinz Stockhausen was a hugely important and influential part of their musical education.
After their time studying under Karlheinz Stockhausen, the Wenger brothers returned home and began building their own studio. This they christened the Jodi Experimental Studio. The Wenger brothers then spent their time recording what they called spontaneous pop. Some of their recording found their way onto Jodi’s 1971 debut album, Pops de Vanguardia.
Nowadays, Pops de Vanguardia is a real rarity that’s much in demand among record collectors. Given demand outstrips supply, prices of original copies of Pops de Vanguardia are prohibitive, and beyond the budget of most record collectors. Recently, though, Out-Sider Music, an imprint of Guerssen Records reissued Pops de Vanguardia complete with five bonus tracks. They’re a reminder of the Wenger brothers’ spontaneous pop.
Its roots can be traced to Joern and Dirk Wenger’s childhood in Asunción, Paraguay. Their family were industrialists who owned a factory that made paint related products. That factory would later play an important part in the Wenger brother’s musical career.
When they were growing up, their father and grandfather brought a variety of musical instruments into the family home. They taught Joern and Dirk how to play these instruments. Before long, Joern, the eldest brother, could play piano, guitar, violin, bandoneon and solfege. Soon, both brothers had mastered several different instruments. Like teenagers the world over, music began to play an important part in the Wenger brothers’ lives. It offered an escape from the reality of growing up in Paraguay.
Following a coup d’état on the 4th of May 1954, Paraguay was ruled by dictator Alfredo Stroessner. That was the case until 1989. During this period, Paraguay expanded economically and underwent a degree of modernisation. However, the Stroessner regime was an oppressive one. Human rights abuse was commonplace and those that opposed the Stroessner regime did so at their peril. As a result, Paraguay wasn’t the ideal place for the Wenger brothers to embark upon a musical career.
Just like in other countries ruled by dictators, artists, writers and musicians were viewed with a degree of suspicion by the authorities. They were often seen as subversives. However, Joern and Dirk just wanted to make music. That was what they wanted to pour their youthful energy and enthusiasm into. However, they too had a dream.
The Wenger Brothers dreamt of building their own recording studio, and were determined to make this a reality. They had even identified the perfect site for their studio. This was within a disused part of the family factory. With that part of the factory not being used, the two brothers were given permission to turn their dream into reality in 1966.
Once the studio was complete, it was christened the Jodi Experimental Studio. The brothers took the first two letters of each of their christian names (Joern and Dirk) and combined this to create the Jodi name. Joern was sixteen, and Dirk who was nineteen, set about experimenting musically and creating what they called spontaneous pop.
The Jodi Experimental Studio became a musical laboratory, where the two brothers were able to experiment with a myriad of different musical instruments. They were also able to experiment with the latest music recording techniques. There was only one problem.
Paraguay didn’t have a music industry as such. This meant that Joern and Dirk didn’t have access to much of the equipment musicians elsewhere took for granted. Especially effects units. This meant that the brothers had to work out a way to replicate reverb or echo. To do this, Joern and Dirk often laboured long into the night seeking a solution. Usually, they managed to do so as their creativity blossomed.
This continued during 1967. The two brothers immersed themselves in an eclectic selection of music seeking inspiration. Two albums made a big impression on them, The Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. Sometimes, the Wenger brothers listened to the Bee Gees and James Brown, other times to Little Richard, Louis Armstrong or Oscar Peterson. For the Wenger brothers this was part of their musical education. However, some of these artists would inspire and influence Joern and Dirk when they decided to form their first band.
Up until then, the Wenger brothers had spent most of their free time experimenting musically. They were dedicated to honing and perfecting their songs. Now two brothers were ready to record and release their first EP. To do that, required a little help from their friends.
When they decided to form their first band, the Wenger brothers were still at school. So they decided to enlist some of their friends from the Goethe School, in Ascuncion. Gilberto González, Naldo Nardi, Rodrigo Campos and Willy Schubeius joined the Wenger brothers in their new band, which they named The Rabbits.
Joern who was three years older than his brother Dirk, became The Rabbits de facto leader. He played organ while his brother Dirk played one of the two sets of drums. Gradually, the nascent garage band’s music began to take shape. While Joern and Dirk had spent months honing their sound in the studio, the rest of the band had some catching up to do. Soon, though, The Rabbits were on the same page. Now they could record their debut EP.
For The Rabbits’ Lo Más Nuevo EP, they decided to record Never Funny, Buscándote, Gloria and Todos Los Instantes. On these tracks, The Rabbits combined elements of psychedelia a and garage rock. Once the recording was complete, The Rabbits took the EP to the Guarania label.
When the Guarania label was formed on August 13th 1955, it became Paraguay’s very first record label. Just under fourteen years later, and it would release copies of The Rabbits’ debut EP. Only 300 copies of the Lo Más Nuevo EP were pressed and released later in 1969. Alas, there was no followup.
Not long after the release of the Lo Más Nuevo EP disbanded. This was the end of the first chapter in the Wenger brothers’ career.
The next chapter began when the Wenger brothers travelled from Ascuncio in Paraguay to Germany. Their destination was the Folkwang University of the Arts. That was where the brothers studied arts. Their music teacher was none other than
composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. He was already regarded as a musical pioneer and one of the most innovative and influential composers of his generation. Studying under Karlheinz Stockhausen was the perfect way to complete the Wenger brothers’ musical education.
After completing their studies at Folkwang University of the Arts, the Wenger brothers returned home and began work on their next project. This they called Jodi, after their recording studio where the project came to fruition.
Between 1969 and 1971, Joerk Wenger wrote much of what later became Pops De Vanguardia. Some of the material had been recorded before the sessions in 1969. Some were recorded as far back as 1966. Each of the twelve tracks were recorded at the Jodi Experimental Studio.
Two reel-to-reel recorders were used to record the Wenger brothers. Joern plays the majority of the instruments, including guitar and organ. He also takes charge of the lead vocals. Meanwhile Dirk plays drums and percussion. Eventually, Jodi had enough material for an album. These twelve songs would become Pops De Vanguardia, which was released later in 1971.
Before that, critics had their say on Jodi’s debut album. Sadly, the critics didn’t understand the eclectic and innovative nature of Pops De Vanguardia. With its groundbreaking fusion of garage rock and psychedelia, Pops De Vanguardia was way ahead of its time.
When Pops De Vanguardia was released later in 1971, the album failed commercially. Just like the critics, record buyers never understood the album. Pops De Vanguardia passed record buyers by. That’s despite Jodi showcasing a new and groundbreaking sound on Pops De Vanguardia.
Opening Pops De Vanguardia is Experimento (Experiment), which literally bursts into life. The experimental psychedelic rock of the previous track continues. Guitars and the rhythm section explode into the life, and with Joern’s vocal, power the arrangement along. Washes of swirling Hammond and bursts of bubbling bass are added. Later, so are flamboyant flourishes of Hammond organ. Jodi play with freedom and confidence. So much so, that Joern whistles during another blistering and memorable psychedelic rocker. It’s another heady brew from Jodi, and one to drink deep.
Recuerdos De Un Amigo Ruso (Memories Of A Russian Friend) is another psychedelic track. A lone piano is played, the tempo quickening as the rhythm section, chirping, choppy guitars and Joern’s urgent vocal combining. It’s a mixture of drama, urgency and emotion. Later as Joern scats, the arrangement becomes melodic. Soon, though, the emotion returns and memories come flooding back on this poignant psychedelic song.
Just a lone guitar plays before the drums, vocal and washes of Hammond guitar enter on Reflexiones Heladas (Icy Reflexions). Joern stabs at the Hammond organ as effects transform his vocal, and add a lysergic sound. Later, as he vamps the arrangement is rocky and psychedelic. Again, effects are used, but used sparingly. They help create the groundbreaking psychedelic rock sound that Jodi pioneered in Paraguay.
The tempo increases on Onda Suave (Mild Wave). A scrabbled guitar joins the bass to create an understated arrangement. They provide the backdrop for Joern’s lead vocal and harmonies. It’s the interplay between the lead vocal and harmonies that are key to sound and success of another memorable and melodic song.
Washes of swirling Hammond organ are joined by a scorching guitar and drums on Primavera Amarilla (Yellow Spring). Stabs and swirling washes of Hammond organ join the bristling, searing guitar licks. Meanwhile, Dirk keeps a steady beat, adding occasional drum rolls and fills. Soon, they’ve locked into a groove and are playing with an inventiveness. This materialises when Joerk unleashes an ascending effects laden organ solo. Effects are added to the guitar as innovative instrumental unfolds. It’s a marriage of R&B, rock and psychedelia and is without doubt, one of the best instrumentals you’ve never heard.
An urgent scrubbed guitar drives and powers the arrangement along Arrivederci along. It’s accompanied by Joern’s vocal and multi-tracked harmonies. They’re reminiscent of Big Star, and a generation later, the Teenage Fanclub. Meanwhile, effects launched above the arrangement, adding a futuristic and cinematic sound. Jodi continue combine garage rock, psychedelia with proto-punk to create groundbreaking and melodic musical fusion.
Jodi showcase their versatility on Jodi-Ritmo (Jodi Rytmus). Joern’s guitar has a surf rock sound. Meanwhile, he unleashes a snarling proto-punk vocal. Behind him, the the rhythm section and percussion add to the sense of urgency. Later an organ is added, augmenting and briefly replacing the vocal. When it returns, it continues to showcase the bravado fuelled, proto-punk style vocal that Rotten, Strummer, et al would later claim as their own. However, this was nothing new, as Joern Wenger was one its pioneers.
Flourishes of swirling organ are to the fore on Imagen En Rojo (Red Image). They’re joined by the rhythm section. Dirk’s drums keep a steady beat. Meanwhile, Joern lays down a bass line and plays the organ. It plays a starring role, swirling, stuttering and breezing along, on this R&B inspired instrumental which sounds as if was recorded in Memphis, not Ascuncion. Jodi were it seems, a truly versatile band.
Sueño De La Catedral (Cathedral Dream) is an organ driven track where Jodi showcase their psychedelic rock sound. This they do with an organ that replicates the sound of a cathedral organ. They’re never played this way. Joern powers his way across the keyboard, adding flamboyant flourishes and delivering a vampish vocal. Dirk lays down the heartbeat, while Joern is transformed into Lizark King on one of Jodi’s finest moments.
Guitars are at the heart of Fantasmas Del Sonido (Sound Fantasm), and with the rhythm section helping to drive the arrangement along. Soon, they’ve locked into a groove. Joern lays down the guitar and bass lines. Meanwhile, Dirk plays drums and percussion. All the years two brothers have played together has paid off. They’re a tight unit, who don’t necessary stick to the script. Sometimes, it seems their playing is inventive and off the cuff. Occasional fills and flourishes are added, during this driving, genre-melting instrumental. Everything from surf rock, R&B and rock have been combined to create one of the great lost instrumentals.
It’s all change on Cancion Cariñosa (Loving Song). Jodi return to their melodic garage rock sound. Again, the guitar and vocal play leading roles. Joern’s vocal is tender and heartfelt. He plays his guitar with speed and accuracy, using the occasional effect to produce a variety of sound.This range from a chirping to choppy sound, on what’s a hook-laden paean.
The psychedelic sound of Jodi returns on Espiritu Fosforecente (Glowing Spirit), which closes Pops de Vanguardia. A choppy, effects laden guitar combines with washes of Hammond organ and drums. Joern’s vocal is deliberate and powerful, as Jodi draw inspiration from Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, the Rolling Stones and even Cream. It’s an experimental fusion of rock and psychedelia. This proves a potent and heady brew that proves irresistible. Jodi it seems have kept the best until last on Pops de Vanguardia.
That’s not the end of Out-Sider Music’s reissue of Pops de Vanguardia. It comes complete with five bonus tracks. This includes three previously unreleased tracks, a track from a private EP and Buscándote from The Rabbits’ 1969 EP Lo Más Nuevo. It’s two magnificent minutes of psychedelic rock at its very best.This is a tantalising taster of The Rabbits Lo Más Nuevo EP, which nowadays is almost impossible to find.
The other bonus tracks include Sentimental Moment (Momento Sentimental) and Awake (Despierte). Both memorable and melodic reminders of late sixties guitar pop. Little Butterfly (Pequeña Mariposa) is a beautiful and timeless indie pop song. However, the best of the bonus tracks is Poor Man, Rich Man. Jodi combine blues, psychedelia, rock and effects. Joern sounds not unlike John Lennon, on this innovative and genre-melting track. It’s a reminder of a truly talented group, Jodi which featured the Wenger brothers Joern and Dirk.
Pops de Vanguardia was just the start of Jodi’s career. Jodi went on to release two further albums. They transformed the career of Jodi, when commercial success and critical acclaim came their way. Their music was popular across South America. This was a far cry from 1971, when Jodi released their debut album Pops de Vanguardia.
Critics failed to understand what was a groundbreaking album of where Jodi combined elements of blues, garage rock, indie rock, proto-punk, psychedelia and rock. There were even elements of avant-garde and experimental musical on Pops de Vanguardia. It’s was an ambitious album that deserved to find a much wider audience upon its release in 1971. Sadly, that wasn’t the case.
Since then, a new generation of record buyers have discovered the music of Jodi. Their rarest album is their debut album Pops de Vanguardia. It wasn’t a commercial success, and very few copies of the original album exist. Those that do, are prized possessions among record collectors. So Out-Sider Music’s recent reissue of Jodi’s debut album Pops de Vanguardia is a welcome one.
Jodi’s debut album Pops de Vanguardia showcases the combined and considerable talents of the Wenger brothers. It should’ve been the album that launched their career. Instead, it failed commercially, purely because the critics failed to understand Jodi’s ambitious, groundbreaking and genre-melting album.
Nowadays, though, Jodi’s debut album Pops de Vanguardia is belatedly receiving the recognition it deserves. So much so, that Pops de Vanguardia is regarded by some musical connoisseurs as a lost genre classic.Pops de Vanguardia is a true musical hidden gem that showcases the versatile and multitalented Wenger brothers, as they embarked upon a new chapter in their musical career as Jodi.
Posted in: African Roots ♦ Avant Garde ♦ Experimental ♦ Krautrock ♦ Pop ♦ Psychedelia ♦ Rock ♦ Uncategorized
Tagged: Dick Wenger, Guerssen Records, Jodi, Jodi Experimental Studio, Joern Wenger, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Lo Más Nuevo, Out-Sider Music, Pops de Vanguardia, The Rabbits
← THE STAINED GLASS-THE STORY OF ONE OF SAN FRANCISCO’S SEMINAL LOST GROUPS.
CREAM-CLASSIC ALBUM SELECTION. →
joern wenger
Hi Derek, I was impressed about all the info you have about Jodi. Best regards from Asuncion, joern
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DesignWrites is a news hub brought to you by Bird & Bird's International Intellectual Property Group. Read more about us >
Legal considerations throughout the lifecycle of a design
Ewan Grist
1 October 2013, London
From a legal perspective, the lifecycle of a design following its creation can be divided into three closely related and equally important phases:
protecting the design;
exploiting the design; and
enforcing the design against infringements.
In each phase, it is critical for the design owner to work closely with its legal advisor to ensure that there is a co-ordinated and consistent strategy in place from the start.
In this article, we will look at the UK as an example but the principles are the same in all jurisdictions.
Protecting the design
Once a design has been conceived, the designer should turn their attention to the most appropriate means for protecting that design without delay, and in any event before the design is disclosed to the public. All too often, designers neglect this fundamental step in a rush to get the design to market, only to realise, too late, that the design is inadequately protected. One factor in this unfortunate tendency to overlook the design protection may be the perception that obtaining design protection in the UK will be complex and timeconsuming. At first glance, this does appear to be the case. Designs can be protected in the UK by a patchwork of interlocking and overlapping regimes, each with its own set of rules for registrability, excluded matter, term, territory, validity and infringement. However, this apparent complexity also offers a great deal of flexibility by allowing designers to pick and choose the most appropriate and cost-effective means to protect their designs, depending on their particular commercial circumstances. In simple terms, designs can be protected in the UK by one of more of the following rights:
registered or unregistered Community designs (under Regulation 6/2002);
registered or unregistered national designs (under the Registered Designs Act 1949 and the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 respectively); and
copyright as artistic works (under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988).
The table above set outs a high level overview of the key characteristics of each regime. The decision as to which of these rights is the most suitable means for protecting a given design will depend on a number of factors, including:
the territory in which protection is required. This will of course be determined by the current and anticipated geographical scope of the designer’s commercial operations. Should it be anticipated that equivalent protection is also desirable outside of the EU, such protection should generally be sought at the same time as protection in the EU (so as to avoid disclosure in the EU being novelty-destroying to applications elsewhere).
the duration of protection required. In fast moving sectors, such as fashion and electronics, designs may have only a relatively short useful life span and hence a relatively short period of protection, such as the 3 years offered by the unregistered Community right, may suffice; and
the value of the design to the designer. Whilst it is of course cheaper and easier to rely on unregistered rights alone to protect a given design, the protection afforded by unregistered rights is less robust because such rights are shorter in duration and require proof of copying. Furthermore, the deterrent effect of possessing a formal registration cannot be underestimated. Depending on the commercial importance of the design, the designer may wish to seek registered rights, notwithstanding that the design may also be protected by unregistered rights.
It should be noted that the registered Community design in particular is becoming increasingly widely used for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is a single, unitary right, enforceable throughout all 28 EU Member States. Secondly, it is cheap and easy to obtain (OHIM does not substantively examine design 15 16 applications, unlike trade mark applications, and so a registration can be obtained in a matter of weeks). Thirdly, it subsists for a maximum of 25 years, often longer than the useful lifecycle of a given design. Fourthly, the Community design regime provides for a grace period of 12 months (allowing the design to be ‘tested’ on the market before deciding whether it is worth registering) and a deferral of publication of up to 30 months (allowing the designer to establish a filing date, but take more time to develop the product before publicly disclosing it). In light of these advantages, it is perhaps unsurprising that over 750,000 Community designs have been registered at OHIM to date, with approximately 80,000 new designs being added every year.
If however the designer is seeking to rely on their unregistered rights alone (as may well be appropriate in certain cases), it is critical that they are able to evidence how, when and by whom the design was created, so as to be able to establish title to the design should it become necessary for enforcement purposes. Detailed written records of the design process should be maintained as standard practice, together with details of the employment and commission agreements of all those who contributed to the design.
Exploiting the design
Once the designer has determined their best strategy for protecting their designs, they will then wish to commercialise the design to exploit its value. Typically, this exploitation will simply be by the sale of products incorporating the protected design. However, just as with any other intellectual property right, designs (whether registered or unregistered) may also be licensed to third parties for exploitation and the normal considerations for such licensing arrangements will apply. Any exploratory discussions with third parties to this end should be expressly subject to a non-disclosure agreement.
Enforcing the design against infringements
The more commercially successful the design proves to be, the more likely it is that competitors may seek to mimic it for their own products. This tendency to copy successful designs is exacerbated by two factors in particular.
Firstly, the public’s understanding of design law (and more particularly the concept that a design per se can be legally protected) is poor. Whilst everyone can be expected to know that, say, a counterfeit Rolex is unlawful, the same cannot be said for products which merely look like a famous product but not branded as such. The upshot is that many parties dealing in these ‘knock off’ products, either manufacturing them or putting them on the market, are often genuinely unaware that they might are infringing the designer’s IP rights.
Secondly, a large proportion of these knock-off goods originate from the Far East, where design owners inevitably struggle to prevent the bulk manufacture of knock-off products, which then inevitably find their way to the UK market.
It is therefore extremely important for designers to have a co-ordinated and rigorous enforcement policy in place to take action against knock offs products quickly and efficiently.
Court action against infringers
Prior to initiating court action, the design owner will typically wish to issue a cease and desist letter to potential infringers in an attempt to avoid the need for further action. Care must be taken when issuing cease and desist letters as such letters are likely to constitute an actionable threat to bring infringement proceedings. It is therefore important that the design owner is confident of its rights before taking such a step.
In the event that a cease and desist letter fails to achieve its objective, a designer may wish to bring an infringement action against a third party to obtain an injunction (which can be panEuropean, if based on a Community design) to prevent further sale of the infringing product, as well as damages and/or an account of profits and ordered publication of the judgment. Interim injunctive relief is also available, with a decision typically issued in 6 – 8 weeks.
There has long been the concern that enforcing designs against infringers before the courts will be both costly and unpredictable in practice. However, in light of the recent spate of high profile design cases across the EU (such as the Apple v Samsung battles), courts throughout many EU member states are becoming increasingly comfortable with design law and now offer effective fora for disputes to be confidently resolved.
In the UK, infringement proceedings can be brought either in the High Court or the Patents County Court (the PCC, shortly to be renamed the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court). Whilst High Court proceedings remain relatively expensive, the PCC now offers an effective and relatively low cost forum for the resolution of lower value design cases, especially those involving SMEs or individuals. The PCC is staffed by a specialist judge and employs a more streamlined procedure to deal with, for example, disclosure of documents and crossexamination. Costs are limited such that the losing party will be liable for a maximum of £50,000 (based on a “scale costs” regime) and recoverable damages are limited at £500,000. A decision from the PCC can be expected within a year of proceedings being commenced.
Customs enforcement
Under the EC Customs Regulation 1383/2003 (to be replaced by Regulation 608/2013 in 2014), the owner of a design right may apply to the Customs authority in one or more EU Member States requesting that Customs searches for and seizes suspected infringing products entering or exiting the EU. Whilst the practice varies from country to country, in general, if suspected goods are detained and the importer/exporter is unwilling to surrender the goods for destruction, Customs will continue the detention pending the outcome of infringement proceedings. A Customs enforcement programme is an extremely effective means of prevent infringing goods from entering circulation in the EU. Whilst there is no fee payable for making the application to Customs, enforcement action must usually be taken soon after a detention is made and so the design owner should have resources in place to effect this.
Other means of enforcement
Other means of monitoring for design infringements, such as attending the relevant trade fairs and monitoring online auction websites should also be considered as part of a comprehensive enforcement effort.
Originally published in DesignWrites 2nd Edition.
Tagged with: Design enforcement, Design exploitation, Design protection, DesignWrites 2nd Edition, Ewan Grist, Lifecycle of design, UK
Ewan's practice focusses on protecting and enforcing hi-tech or otherwise innovative product design and associated branding in a range of different areas, including medical devices, telecommunications and retail & consumer goods.
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Neighbors Remember Local “Kid” Who Died A Green Beret Hero
By Robbie Owens September 3, 2012 at 5:44 pm
Filed Under:Army, Green Beret, Mesquite High School, Sergeant, Soldier Death, Soldier Killed, United States Army
U.S. Army Sgt. Jeremie Border with his parents, Robert Harris and Mary Border, at Jeremie’s Green Beret graduation.
NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) – U.S. Army Sgt. Jeremie Border wasn’t always a stern-faced Green Beret. Longtime neighbors in his Mesquite neighborhood still remember the energetic kid who loved sports — especially football.
“Every weekend you’d see their house rolled with toilet paper, that’s the thing they do out here,” said a smiling Mary Counts. “I remember the toilet paper rolls,” agreed neighbor Nancy Mitchell, nodding, “And playing ball out in the streets.”
But, both neighbors acknowledged heavy hearts as they thought of the mom who had raised her children alone, preparing now to bury her only son.
“As a mom, I just can’t imagine,” Counts said. “I can’t imagine what she’s going through.” With her voice starting to break she said, “It’s just kind of a shock… it’s one of our own.”
Mary’s husband, John Counts, carries a couple of sympathy cards door to door — collecting notes for the grieving family as a way to let them know how much their neighbors care.
“That boy’s over there fighting for our lives, fighting for us, and he gets killed… and that’s bad,” says John, now overcome with emotion.
Sgt. Border was a 2002 graduate of Mesquite High School. Even now, Head Coach Robbie Robinson remembers Border fondly.
“Outstanding kid, you can’t say enough good things about him,” says Coach Robinson. “Those guys did something here that nobody else has ever done, you know, in winning a state championship, really special bunch of kids.”
Family members say Border became a special young man — the adoring younger brother as his sister married, a devoted son to his mother Mary Border and stepfather Robert Harris, and ultimately “the baddest of the bad”, an Army Green Beret.
“Each time he had to go on a tour, they’d have a big ‘to do’ for him, ” recalled Nancy Mitchell. “We all felt happy for them.”
But, now, those same neighbors are grieving for them– and making plans to make sure the Border family knows how much they care.
“I thank him for being there for me,” John Counts said, once again losing his battle to hold back tears. “I’d give anything to bring him back.”
Sgt. Border was a 2006 graduate of McMurry University in Abilene. School president Dr. John Russell released a statement extending “heartfelt prayers and condolences to Jeremie’s family as we remember his friendship and honor him for the ultimate sacrifice he made in service in to our country.”
Flags on McMurry campus are being flown at half-staff in his memory.
“He died a hero,” added Mary Counts.
Robbie Owens
More from Robbie Owens
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About Our Research Projects and Library Digital Collections
The DHHC is an interdisciplinary research initiative designed to meet the growing need for coordination and collaboration of education, research, and outreach efforts in the rapidly evolving areas of reality capture, geomatics, three-dimensional digital technologies, visualization, and Global Information Systems (GIS). DHHC specializes in the application of these combined techniques relating to heritage sites, land management integration, and museum and collection documentation. These areas of specialization span the natural and social sciences, and emphasize cross-disciplinary engagement and research. More broadly, our methods and approaches are supportive of technology learning and high demand workplace skills, useful across domains and including strong global impact.
The DHHC works to preserve and protect the world’s cultural and natural heritage through education and global engagement by creating interdisciplinary approaches to 3D research and curriculum that address real world issues and concerns. Our primary research areas focus on cultural and natural heritage digitization with emphasis on projects relating to climate change impacts on heritage, environmental integrated management, rock art and stone architecture digitization, museum collection 3D strategies, historic preservation and condition assessments, karst and cave site documentation, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) spatial database and digitization research support, and research relating to ethics, standards, and interpretation initiatives relating to 3D and Geographic Information Science (GIS) applications.
The DHHC leverages the latest in terrestrial laser scanning and imaging tools, GIS, GPS and field survey technologies, along with VR, AR, and visualization strategies, to document heritage sites, landscapes, and objects. These approaches are brought together to create digital learning tools and online collections, made available through the USF Libraries. Our work is developing and supporting new means of research and inquiry using these technologies, workflows, and approaches.
Transforming information access and solving real-world challenges that promote stewardship, preservation, and sustainability.
The Digital Heritage & Humanities Collections (DHHC) in the USF Libraries, uses the latest in Reality Capture, 3D, and spatial documentation strategies to record heritage sites, landscapes, and objects from around the world. We are creating digital learning tools and library collections from these data that promote heritage preservation, research, education, and tourism interpretation strategies.
Our work in applied historic preservation, leverages digital technologies to rapidly record, analyze, visualize, and share 3D, GIS, and imaging information. Our projects are having local, regional, national, and international impact – increasing stewardship and conservation, and helping guide 3D and spatial data research standards and ethics into the future with actionable results.
Much of the world’s cultural and natural heritage is endangered or imperiled.
Climate change, illicit trafficking and looting, natural catastrophes, war and conflict, over-visitation, and development pressures, all can cause damages that may be irreversible. Even objects thought protected and preserved in museums can be susceptible to loss. Working with agencies, governments, communities, and the public and private sector, USF’s Digital Heritage and Humanities Collections is meeting these preservation challenges through the use of advanced spatial and imaging technologies.
We are digitizing the world around us in ways that promote research, education, and new means of exploring and visualizing heritage through the development of library archival collections and applications.
Along with collaborators and partners around the world, we are assisting with the rapid need for digitization of imperiled heritage and with the science of historic preservation, archaeological visualization, and museum and library science studies.We bring the past to life for classroom, and are developing new ways for libraries library collections and applications development.
Learn more about DHHC
The DHHC team uses the latest kit in 3D, Imaging, and spatial data capture tools- from terrestrial laser scanners that scan landscapes, to high-end imaging and structured light scanners to digitize artifacts and objects. Our imaging gear includes 360, spherical, and VR kit, and we also use drone-based videography, imaging, and spatial mapping in our data capture workflows. Global Positioning Systems and GIS mapping technologies are additionally integrated into our documentation approach. Numerous 3D, GIS, image based software packages allow for the post-processing, visualization, and sharing of our project data. Our 3D Print Lab supports the use of 3D data for tactile and visualization development, and our VizLab and VR Studio allows for immersive and shared experiences and research.
View Facilities & Equipment
Our faculty, staff, and student team members are responsible for ensuring the preservation of historical landmarks and artifacts through documentation of digitally rendered 3D models. Meet and read about the talented team behind the Digital Heritage & Humanities Collections, and the work that they do.
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After the US-North Korea summit: Not all quiet on the nuclear front
Maya Janik
Credit: Sean Gladwell/Bigstock.com (via: bit.ly)
Asien und Afric, DOC Einblicke, USA und Amerika
While the agreement that Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un reached in Singapore de-escalated the situation between the two countries in the immediate term, it is fragile and might generate adverse consequences, if multilateral negotiations with regional actors, and a realistic action plan will not follow soon. The different expectations of both sides and fissures within the US administration that are already taking shape, and the lack of strategy on how to proceed are the largest potentially destabilising factors that can spoil the process. The biggest risk is that, if the talks fail, we may see yet another escalation of the crisis, making any future engagement of North Korea in denuclearisation negotiations even more difficult.
Reports on immigrant families being separated at the US-Mexico border and the subsequent nationwide uproar against Trump’s immigration policy dominated the media coverage over the past week, effectively pushing developments between the US and North Korea that followed the Singapore summit to the background. Yet, last week saw some significant developments, which indicate that dark clouds are already gathering on the nuclear horizon.
Recent statements of US officials and stakeholders in Northeast Asia, as well as reports[1] that Pyongyang has advanced its nuclear infrastructure in recent months, call for cautious optimism at best, regarding further developments between the US and North Korea.
It may seem that the vision of long-lasting peace – the door to which was allegedly opened by the Singapore summit – is starting to crumble only now. In reality though, it is questionable whether there was ever any reason to believe that the summit could change the situation in the long-term. In order to understand why the prospects for a breakthrough in the North Korea nuclear debate were fragile from the beginning, a careful reading of the joint declaration of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un is key, as is the knowledge of diverging security interests of the United States and North Korea, regional power constellations, and geopolitical dynamics.
The major problems that may generate adverse consequences, and that are ultimately the reason for current fissures between the US and North Korea, are twofold: First, the different interpretations by North Korea and the United States of what has been agreed to in the joint statement and diverging expectations and security interests with regard to how to proceed. Second, fissures in the United States’ approach, the lack of a forward-thinking strategy and Donald Trump’s unpredictability make for potentially detrimental consequences.
Clashing expectations and security interests
Statements from both the US and North Korean leaders that followed the summit, suggest that both sides have different interpretations of what was agreed upon during the summit in Singapore, and envision different steps to follow.
The most important passage of the joint statement, which is most sensitive and likely to generate tensions between Washington and Pyongyang, is the one which commits the DPRK to work towards “complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”. While this might sound like a unilateral commitment on the part of North Korea, a denuclearisation of the whole peninsula is by no means something Pyongyang can achieve alone. In fact, it refers to the denuclearisation of both North Korea and South Korea, the latter of which is protected by the nuclear umbrella of the United States, its key security guarantor. Therefore, a denuclearization of the Korean peninsula would ultimately also mean dismantling the US nuclear umbrella in Northeast Asia.
While the US removed its nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1992, it still uses nuclear-powered ships and submarines for the military exercises it conducts with South Korea and Japan. The suspension of the US-South Korea joint military exercises that were scheduled for this year, as was recently announced by Donald Trump, is however only a part of the bigger picture. In the long term, Pyongyang will insist on the permanent removal of US military assets from South Korean land and the coastal waters of the peninsula, thus dismantling the US regional umbrella and ending the US-South Korea-Japan alliance and US military presence in the region, something Pyongyang considers a threat to its stability and security.
For the United States on the other hand, denuclearization refers only to North Korea. Despite the announced cancellation of US joint military exercises with its allies, which were planned for this year, it is questionable whether Washington will make any further concessions to Pyongyang. Several statements Trump has made indicate that the US favours applying the so-called ‘Libya model’[2] in regard to North Korea’s denuclearisation process: a comprehensive and full denuclearisation without any concessions, prior to the regime fully abandoning its nuclear arsenal. For Pyongyang however, the ‘Libya model’ is not an option. Rather, Libya serves as a warning sign to Kim Jong-Un to not to give up its nuclear weapons by destroying or giving them away, in order not to end like Gaddafi.
In view of the importance Pyongyang attaches to nuclear weapons, it is difficult to imagine that it will abandon them easily. Nuclear weapons are the cornerstone of Pyongyang’s policy. The rapid advancement of its nuclear programme over the past few years was deliberate and the result of strategically calculated decisions. Possessing nuclear weapons is for Kim an assurance of survival, which has been guiding North Korea’s foreign policy since the partition of the peninsula following the World War II.
Against this background, the question arises whether Kim Jong-Un actually has any intention to denuclearise and if so, what motivated him to engage into talks with Trump in the first place. One possible scenario is that Pyongyang wants to buy time while covertly continuing its nuclear weapons program and making its status as a nuclear power an accomplished fact.
One possible scenario is that North Korea – without intending to fully abandon its nuclear weapons program – might push for a phased approach, meaning that each step it takes towards denuclearisation would be accompanied by concessions on the part of the US and that the international sanctions, most notably those from the UN, will end. Improving North Korea’s economic situation, which has suffered from the sanctions especially in the past few years, is something Kim Jong-Un will desperately need for the survival of his regime in the long term. There are a number of examples from the past when Pyongyang used negotiations of its eventual denuclearisation to receive aid and other concessions, while in reality continuing the development of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
An easing pressure on Pyongyang through loosening or lifting international sanctions is also something China would want to see as an outcome of the US-North Korea deal, and therefore will put pressure on Pyongyang to demand this concession. Shortly after the Trump-Kim summit, the spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Geng Shuang, suggested that the UN Security Council (UNSC) should consider loosening or lifting sanctions against North Korea if the country complies with UN resolutions and makes progress in diplomatic negotiations.
Although early this year China backed economic sanctions imposed by the UNSC against North Korea[3], China is not interested in inducing economic damage on the norther part of the Korean Peninsula in the long-term. A dramatically deteriorating economic situation in the northern part of the Korean peninsula that could risk the collapse of the Kim regime, would affect the stability in the region considerably, and spark a massive influx of migrants from North Korea to China. China’s decision to back the sanctions was only a way to pressure Pyongyang to immediately stop its nuclear and missile tests in order to prevent an escalation of the situation.
Washington’s policy: Friction instead of a strategy
There are also clear indicators that there is not a unified position in Washington with regard to specific results to be achieved by the Pyongyang regime, eventual concessions to be made by the US, and whether North Korea should be offered a deadline to denuclearise or not.
The lack of a strategy of the US on to how to proceed with negotiations is reflected in the contradictory and uncoordinated declarations of US officials, which suggest that a strategic approach is missing. Earlier this month, officials were indicating that they expect North Korea to denuclearise by the end of Trump’s first term in 2020. This position was confirmed by Secretary of Defence, James Mattis a week ago when he announced that North Korea will be presented with tasks and a specific timeline for implementing the agreement. However, only one day later, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made clear that there will be no deadline for nuclear negotiations with North Korea.
The disagreement over whether Pyongyang should be given a specific timeline or not is one thing. A much more important question on which opinions within the US administration differ is whether the US should offer the regime any concessions in parallel to the North Korean regime’s denuclearisation efforts. While the ‘Libyan model’ is an approach that is favoured by Washington, Trump’s announcement to cancel upcoming military exercises with its East Asian allies is not fully consistent with that approach.
However, as talks proceed, Trump will most likely face growing pressure from the Pentagon to maintain a strong position against Pyongyang and not to make any one-sided concessions. This argument is supported by the fact that just last Saturday, a day before US and North Korean officials met to discuss next steps, a report appeared in the US news that cited several unidentified US officials, who – referring to the latest US intelligence assessment – argued that over the past months, North Korea has increased its production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons at multiple – so far undeclared – sites.
Facing pressure from his fellow Republicans, Trump’s rhetoric is already changing from sweet talk to a harsher tone. Only two weeks ago, right after the summit, Trump ensured that the Pyongyang regime no longer poses a nuclear threat. But last week Trump declared that North Korea still poses an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security, its foreign policy, and economy.
It is difficult to predict how the Trump administration will move along, given that its stance towards North Korea and how to progress is changing almost on a daily basis. The risk is that, as soon as Trump sees himself confronted with reality and the complexity of negotiations, and when he realises that Kim Jong-Un might not accept the US President’s conditions, or demands concessions from the US, Trump may well go back to his ‘fire and fury’ rhetoric and terminate all talks via Twitter.
It is also important to remember that Trump’s shifting stance on whether North Korea still poses a threat or not, does not change the fact that in official US security documents and defence policy, North Korea remains a threat to US national security. Trends set out by the US Nuclear Posture Review from 2018[4], which places increased emphasis on its nuclear forces – as compared to the document from previous years – are unlikely to change in the near future regardless.
Preventing yet another crisis
The diverging expectations of both sides regarding mutual concessions and next steps, as well as Washington’s inconsistent position and Trump’s unpredictability, make for disruptions that could generate adverse consequences, rather than achieving peaceful relations between the two countries. If not addressed at an early stage of negotiations, these factors might seriously impede further talks, or even risk an escalation of the situation, so that we find ourselves at best where we were last year.
Both North Korea and the United States proceed with their activities on the nuclear front in line with their respective security and defence policies. North Korea’s nuclear sites will remain active until Kim Jong-Un orders a halt. Therefore, it is not surprising that improvements to the infrastructure at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear plant are continuing at a fast pace, as reported by monitoring experts at 38 North[5], and according to satellite imagery collected on 21 June 2018. Additionally, North Korea’s advancement of enriching uranium in undeclared nuclear sites continues. The US on its part will continue building its missile defence programme to protect itself against the North Korean nuclear threat[6] until anything concrete has been decided, which makes negotiations an even more urgent task.
In order to prevent the recent agreement descending into chaos, multilateral negotiations must take place instead of unilateral decisions by Washington and Pyongyang. The involvement of regional stakeholders in talks between the US and North Korea – most notably China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan – would not only allow for mitigating adverse consequences and increasing predictability, but also for coordinating all actors’ positions. All these actors have a strategic interest in the North Korean issue and are already are trying to shape the process behind the scenes.
China and Russia have been actively engaged in deescalating the situation between Trump and Kim since last year, when at the height of tensions, they initiated a ‘dual suspension’ plan that proposed freezing nuclear missile tests by North Korea in exchange for the cancellation of US-South Korean annual joint military exercises. The fact that Trump and Kim met and took de-escalatory steps, which is ultimately what China and Russia proposed, highlights the interest and role of the regional powers. Especially China, which is a growing power and North Korea’s strategic ally, needs a seat at the table. The meetings that took place between Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-Un, before the latter went to Singapore to meet with Donald Trump, underscore Beijing’s influence on its strategic ally in Pyongyang and the fact that it wants to play a central role in negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear programme. The opportunity for restarting the six-party-talks[7] is there. It only needs to be grasped quickly.
[1] In a report from 30 June 2018, NBC News cited several unidentified U.S. officials, who – referring to the latest US intelligence assessment – argued that over the past months, North Korea has increased its production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons at multiple – so far undeclared – sites.
[2] In 2003, after nine months of secret talks with the US and the UK, then leader of Libya Muammar Gaddafi agreed to abandon his country’s entire nuclear arsenal. The components of the nuclear program were shipped to the US or destroyed. In 2011, despite having given up his nuclear arsenal, Gaddafi was overthrown and killed by US-backed rebels.
[3] The decision was announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on January 5, 2018 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-china/china-says-will-limit-oil-refined-product-exports-to-north-korea-idUSKBN1EU135
[4] The US Nuclear Posture Review determines the role of nuclear weapons in the US security strategy.
[5] A programme of the Stimson Center.
[6] On 26 June, 2018, US officials announced that the US military is preparing to install missile defence radar in Hawaii that could identify any ballistic missiles that are fired from North Korea.
[7] Launched in 2003, the six-party talks were a series of multilateral negotiations with the purpose of finding a solution to security concerns and the North Korean nuclear program, attended by North Korea, the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. These negotiations were initiated after North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003. North Korea withdrew from the six-party-talks in 2009.
Category: Asien und Afric, DOC Einblicke, USA und Amerika
Tags: Featured, North Korea, security
Maya Janik holds a Master of Science in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a Magister of Philosophy in Political Science, summa cum laude, from the University of Vienna. Her research focuses on international relations, security, and conflict management in the post-Soviet region.
Culture in the Age of Globalization
China’s media in Africa: Expansion, perception, and reception
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Committee’s rejection of a Do Not Knock register can’t be the end of the debate
Home/Consumer Stories • Media • News /Committee’s rejection of a D …
Sep 17, 2012 Consumer Stories, Media, News
The Consumer Action Law Centre, the organisation behind the national ‘Do Not Knock campaign’, says a Federal Parliamentary committee’s rejection of a private members bill designed to establish a do not knock register has heightened the importance of the Do Not Knock sticker and the need for Government and industry to get behind the Do Not Knock campaign.
A survey conducted by Consumer Action earlier this year found that 56 per cent of shoppers feel the greatest pressure to purchase when visited at home, and 77 per cent of respondents said they disliked door-to-door sales – indicating that the Australian public is tired of persistent doorknockers.
The Committee’s report also highlights the importance of a number of ACCC cases before the Federal Court which will test the legal standing of the Do Not Knock sticker. If the court confirms that the sticker represents a request that a salesperson leave the property and they ignore it, the salesperson could be opening themselves up to significant fines under the Australian Consumer Law.
‘The Committee and industry have both pointed to the sticker as a reason why further protections aren’t needed at this stage, and we’re hopeful that the ACCC’s case will confirm our view of the legal status of the sticker. But, if it doesn’t, the Federal Parliament needs to be willing to revisit this issue and either amend the law to make the sticker legally binding, and reconsider a do not knock register,’ said Gerard Brody, Director of Policy and Campaigns at Consumer Action.
‘The Do Not Knock stickers have been a resounding success but we know from complaints coming through the Do Not Knock website that there are plenty of sellers ignoring them or coming up with excuses as to why the Australian Consumer Law doesn’t apply to them. So if our politicians are going to point to the stickers as a reason why we don’t need further consumer protections, they need to make sure the sticker is adhered to.
‘We’ve sent out tens of thousands of stickers and have research that shows only three percent of Australians have a positive opinion of door-to-door sales, so it’s clear that many Australians are looking for a way to opt out of door-to-door sales. We’re urging all parliamentarians to ensure the rejection of the Do Not Knock Register Bill 2012 isn’t the end of efforts to protect vulnerable consumers from high pressure door-to-door sales,’ said Mr Brody.
Consumers wishing to order a Do Not Knock sticker can do so at www.donotknock.org.au.
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On November 7, 2019 November 7, 2019 By drjamesstrongIn British politics, UncategorizedLeave a comment
It’s often said that UK general election results fail to represent the electorate accurately. There’s some truth to this.
The UK’s First Past the Post (or Single Member Plurality, if we’re being comparative political scientists about it) electoral system distributes parliamentary seats to parties based not on the share of the vote they win in the country as a whole, but whether they come first in any of 650 separate constituencies. This rewards larger parties, and those with more concentrated vote shares, over smaller, more diffuse parties. To put it into context, at the 2015 general election the SNP won 8.62% of the seats in the House of Commons with 4.7% of the national vote, while UKIP won 0.15% of the seats on 12.9% of the vote. 2015 was a bad year for the Lib Dems anyway, but they, too, usually lose out similarly.
The advantage of this system is supposed to be that it makes forming stable single-party majority governments easier. That, in turn, promotes what is known as ‘responsible’ government. Voters can choose a party confident in the knowledge that, if it wins, it will probably be able to get its manifesto commitments through parliament. If, at the next election, they judge that it has failed, they can relatively easily vote it out. Under FPTP, voters choose a government. Under more proportional systems, they choose a parliament – and parliament chooses a government. What the government actually does in a more proportional system will likely reflect post-election elite bargaining as much as voter choice.
At the same time, however, FPTP allows parties to gain absolute power (and in the UK’s ‘elective dictatorship’, with its doctrine of absolute parliamentary sovereignty, it usually is absolute power) despite only winning a minority of the votes cast. As figure 1 shows, no government elected since 1945 has won a majority of the votes cast, yet all but three have won a majority of seats in the House of Commons. On two occasions – the Conservatives in 1951, and Labour in February 1974, the party that came second in terms of vote share won more seats and wound up forming the government.
Over time, the share of the vote needed for a majority has fallen, as voters have shifted allegiances away from the two largest parties. As figure 2 illustrates, the Conservatives won 49.7% of the vote in 1955, and a majority of 60. Labour won 35.2% of the vote in 2005, and a majority of 66. In 1951, the Conservatives gained 1.07% of the seats in the House of Commons for every 1% of the vote they won. In 2005 Labour gained 1.57% of the seats for every 1% of the vote. The exaggerative bias of the system has worsened.
As figure 3 shows, in 1951, 96.8% of voters voted either Labour or Conservative. In 2010 just 65.1% did so. To put it another way, nearly 97% of voters in 1951 voted for either the outgoing Labour government or the incoming Conservative government. In 2010, 35% of voters chose a party that had not been in power in the postwar era.
Ailsa Henderson has shown that voters are generally satisfied with the electoral system provided their preferred party wins power at a national level at least some of the time – but that they start to lose faith in the fairness of the system if their side never gets to win. What Figure 3 shows is that, since the 1950s, the proportion of voters whose side never wins has gradually risen. That partially explains the legitimacy crisis facing parliament in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. As Rob Saunders has put it, “When four million people vote UKIP, as in 2015, and are rewarded with a solitary MP, we should not be surprised if they view parliament as something done to them by an external elite”.
One reason why most pollsters failed to predict the Brexit vote was that a large number of people who did not vote in general elections turned out for the referendum. Those people disproportionately voted Leave. As figure 4 shows, turnout has fallen in line with the share of votes going to Labour and the Conservatives. In 1950, 84% of eligible voters actually voted. In 2001, just 60% did so. As Oliver Heath argues, the decline in turnout arose especially among working-class voters, as Labour shifted toward the middle class under Tony Blair: “the class divide in participation has become greater than the class divide in vote”
If we then look at the interaction between declining turnout and partisan dealignment – the increasing willingness of voters to switch parties between elections, and to vote for parties other than the two largest – the picture becomes even more bleak.
As figure 5 shows, the share of possible votes won by the two largest parties has plummeted from well above 50% – 80% of all eligible voters in 1951 voted either Labour or Conservative – to below 50%, with a particular nadir in 2005. Just 41.5% of eligible voters voted either Labour or Conservative in that year. Out of everyone eligible to vote in 2005, nearly 60% did not vote for one of the two parties that had wielded absolute power in the UK since 1945. Given Henderson’s findings about faith in democracy, that looks like a problem. Given Heath’s findings about the differential decline in faith in voting among working class voters, it looks like an especially acute one. While it isn’t true that working class voters determined the Brexit result – there aren’t enough of them left to win a majority on their own, and in fact most Brexit voters were comfortable, middle class, English conservatives – working class resentment at a political system that appeared to be failing to represent them clearly is part of the story.
How does all of this play out at a constituency level? In a multi-party system, you don’t need to win a majority of votes in your local area to get elected to parliament. You just need to win more votes than any other candidate. I wondered how many MPs were actually elected despite a majority of voters in their constituency voting for someone else – an important question in light of current debates around the merits of tactical voting.
I found, as table 1 shows, that some 26.8% of MPs elected in the 2017 election won less than 50% of the vote in their constituency. That was actually lower than I expected. It reflected the shift back to big-party voting that characterized the 2017 election, with Labour and the Conservatives winning 82% of the vote between them. It also reflected the relative concentration of their votes. Smaller parties, generally, were more likely to win seats despite winning less than 50% of the local vote – this was true of all 35 of the SNP’s seats, for example – generally because they had to beat both Labour and the Conservatives in order to win.
MPs elected on: <50% of vote
n %
All MPs 650 174 26.8%
Con 317 74 23.3%
DUP 10 5 50.0%
Green 1 0 0.0%
Ind 1 1 100.0%
Lab 262 40 15.3%
LD 12 11 91.7%
PC 4 4 100.0%
SF 7 4 57.1%
SNP 35 35 100.0%
Spk 1 0 0.0%
26.8% doesn’t sound too bad. That means that 73.2% of MPs won more than 50% of the votes cast in their constituency, giving them the right to claim to speak for the majority of local people. I looked these figures up after claiming in a lecture that less than 50% of MPs won more than 50% of the vote, and had to correct myself.
The picture looks different, however, if we again factor in turnout. Once we consider the share of available votes won by each MP, rather than just the share of votes cast, the number of MPs able to claim they speak for a majority of their constituents falls precipitously. As table 2 shows, just 27 MPs – 24 Labour, 2 Conservatives, and the Speaker – won more than 50% of the available votes. 95.8% of MPs won office despite a majority of eligible voters in their constituency either not voting, or voting for someone else.
MPs elected on: <50% of vote <50% of constituents
n % n %
All MPs 650 174 26.8% 623 95.8%
Con 317 74 23.3% 315 99.4%
DUP 10 5 50.0% 10 100.0%
Green 1 0 0.0% 1 100.0%
Ind 1 1 100.0% 1 100.0%
Lab 262 40 15.3% 238 90.8%
LD 12 11 91.7% 12 100.0%
PC 4 4 100.0% 4 100.0%
SF 7 4 57.1% 7 100.0%
SNP 35 35 100.0% 35 100.0%
Spk 1 0 0.0% 0 0.0%
These figures further underline the problems with the UK’s electoral system. Most MPs win office with the support of a minority of eligible voters in their local area. Most governments win absolute power with the support of a minority of actual voters, and an even smaller minority of eligible voters, in the country. People lose faith in democracy when it seems to be incapable of representing their views adequately. That is clearly happening in the UK, now.
On April 12, 2018 April 14, 2018 By drjamesstrongIn British politics, Syria, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Putting all my writing on parliamentary war powers in one place:
Action or inaction? What are May’s political options? Times Red Box, 12 April 2018: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/james-strong-action-or-inaction-what-are-may-s-political-options-pb87brl8f
Parliamentary war powers: The pros and cons, PSA Political Insight, 12 April 2018: https://www.psa.ac.uk/insight-plus/blog/parliamentary-war-powers-pros-and-cons
Key point: May’s best option in terms of domestic politics is to offer the US logistical and intelligence support, avoiding the need either to bypass parliament or to risk losing a vote. If she wants to do more than that, she’ll have to take significant political risks.
The war powers of the British parliament: What has been established, and what remains unclear? British Journal of Politics and International Relations, February 2018: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1369148117745767 (non-paywalled pre-publication version here: https://drjamesstrong.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/strong-war-powers-update-rev-final-as-submitted.pdf)
Key point: Parliament has no legal war powers, but most MPs expect a say over future military combat operations. Future governments will face two related choices – do they think they can afford to bypass MPs, and do they think they can win a vote? What they do will depend on how they answer these questions (we’re in scenario 4 right now):
Interpreting the Syria vote: Parliament and British foreign policy, International Affairs, September 2015: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-2346.12401
Key point: The Cameron government’s defeat over Syria said more about party politics than it did about military strategy. Had Cameron successfully done a deal with Ed Miliband, the 2013 Syria vote could have been won.
Why parliament now decides on war: Tracing the growth of the parliamentary prerogative through Syria, Libya and Iraq, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, June 2014: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-856X.12055
Key point: Cumulative precedents set in parliamentary votes on Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2013 established a convention that MPs should have the chance to veto military combat deployments.
On December 6, 2017 December 6, 2017 By drjamesstrongIn BrexitLeave a comment
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Perhaps I’ve read too much Tony Blair, and absorbed the idea that there’s always a ‘third way’ somewhere. I think there is a form of Brexit that gives both Leavers and Remainers something that they want. I call it Medium Brexit.
Medium Brexit might also be called ‘hard in theory, soft in practice’ Brexit, but that’s a bit wordy. It involves all the trappings of hard Brexit – leaving the Single Market and Customs Union, removing the UK from ECJ jurisdiction and ending free movement of people into the UK from the (rest of the) EU.
At the same time, it also involves using the UK’s new-found independence judiciously. Having the right to ban all EU citizens from coming to work in the UK, but using it sensibly. Having the right to deviate substantially from EU regulations, but doing so only where it truly offers benefits that outweigh the costs – including the costs of increased barriers to entry to the EU market, and the costs of establishing a hard border on the island of Ireland. No longer being subject to ECJ oversight, but retaining existing jurisprudence and giving the Supreme Court the right to draw on ECJ judgements in determining its own stance.
Medium Brexit gives the Leavers much of what they want. Not necessarily a dramatic change in policy, but a repatriation of previously pooled sovereignty. Parliament would have the right to copy or to ignore new EU regulations. The Courts would have the right to emulate or set aside ECJ decisions. Ministers would have the right to admit or to exclude EU workers, to direct them towards sectors with specific needs – like agriculture, science, finance and healthcare – and to deny them whatever benefits they choose, but would not be obliged to do anything unless they thought it best for the British economy and for British society.
Medium Brexit also offers Remainers some of what they want. In particular, it leaves considerable room for regulatory alignment with the EU, avoiding a race to the bottom in areas like workers’ rights and environmental protections, and allowing European co-operation in areas currently working well, like financial and medical regulation. It would allow for movement between the UK and the EU – not unfettered movement, but not the travel bans and mass deportations of some nightmare scenarios. It would minimize – again, not necessarily eliminate, but perhaps reduce to a tolerable level – the need for border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Theresa May’s biggest mistake was treating the question of what Brexit should mean as one she should answer alone. She should have consulted, openly, widely and for as long as it took to thrash out a compromise vision. Had she done so, we might have wound up with something that looks like Medium Brexit. Hard in terms of sovereignty, soft in terms of divergence. Not perfect, by anyone’s criteria. But perhaps acceptable to a majority – unlike anything May has come up with alone.
On June 9, 2017 June 9, 2017 By drjamesstrongIn British politics, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Theresa May’s great gamble failed. She hasn’t resigned yet, but she will. Her credibility is shot. Her majority is gone. Though the Conservatives can probably form a government with support from the Democratic Unionists of Northern Ireland, it will be weak and wobbly at best, not the ‘strong and stable government’ May promised. Even if she tries to stay in power, her party will probably get rid of her. Who comes next is unclear. Whatever the outcome, we can expect another election before the end of the year – and when that happens, all bets are off.
This was May’s election, and her defeat. She asked the electorate for a personal blank cheque – for Brexit, and whatever other challenges are to come. They refused. Jeremy Corbyn fought a far better campaign – a more interesting manifesto, with more carefully thought-out policies, smarter media work (!), and a more inspiring message. One of several reasons for the wide variation in pre-election opinion polls was that different pollsters used different approaches to estimate likely turnout. It looks like those (e.g. YouGov) who assumed respondents who promised to turn out and vote actually would got closer to the result than those who assumed past trends would continue this time around. In other words, it looks like more young people voted this time – though we’ll find out more in time.
So what does this all mean? What happens next? To begin with, Theresa May stays Prime Minister, at least until her party colleagues replace her. With DUP support she’ll be able to get her core policies through parliament, just. But something will have to change. To begin with, it is difficult to see how the government can credibly begin Brexit negotiations in 11 days’ time. May’s plan was to secure a personal mandate and a parliamentary cushion to allow her to cut whatever deal she saw fit. She failed. Given the choice, the electorate refused to endorse her proposal for ‘hard Brexit’. As I said in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum last year, there is no majority in the country for any possible version of Brexit. Nor is there a majority for simply accepting whatever Theresa thinks is best.
Jeremy Corbyn will also stay on as Labour leader. He’s proven that you don’t need to be slick to inspire voters (especially the young). He’s also demonstrated that there is appetite in the country for more left-wing policies. I expect many of the MPs who have rebelled against his leadership to rally, but I still doubt he’s an election-winner.
That final point worth noting is that the nature of this hung parliament makes a further election later this year highly likely. The government will struggle to get anything done. And when that happens, all bets are off. If it’s Boris Johnson versus Jeremy Corbyn, there’s no telling what will happen. After all, we’ve just had another demonstration of the challenge of conducting accurate UK opinion polls. Constituency results deviated even more wildly from the national swing. The Conservatives took seats in Scotland and lost them in England, reversing the recent trend. More people voted for either Labour or the Conservatives than have done so for several elections. All this makes knowing what will happen at the second 2017 election that much harder. I’ll make only one prediction. Mayhem will follow.
2017 Election Digest
On June 7, 2017 June 7, 2017 By drjamesstrongIn British politicsLeave a comment
I spent hours trying to write my take on tomorrow’s election, but I haven’t really been following it that closely and I felt I was just rambling nonsensically. I think the Conservatives will win, with an increased majority. I think it is unlikely but not impossible that either Labour will win or that the Conservatives will win by a landslide. I quite hope Ed Davey re-takes my home constituency of Kingston and Surbiton for the Liberal Democrats. I’m conscious that there is a lot of uncertainty and that the range of possible outcomes is very wide. So I decided simply to put together a reading list of links for anyone looking to enlighten themselves.
To begin with, if you have literally no idea what’s going on you might want to try the BBC general election FAQ page – which begins with the question “what is a general election?”. You can also use this page to find out which constituency you live in and who your local candidates are:
You can get more detail here:
http://democraticdashboard.com
You can then find a breakdown of where the parties stand on the key issues here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39955886
This page provides an overview of opinion polls showing how people intended to vote at different stages in the build-up to the election:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk
And there’s a model showing how this might translate into seats in parliament by Dr Chris Hanretty of the University of East Anglia here:
http://electionforecast.co.uk
Lord Ashcroft’s version, which is based on constituency-level polling, comes to similar conclusions:
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2017/06/ashcroft-model-update-potential-majorities-seat-seat-estimates/#more-15313
This post, by polling expert Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University, talks about why the polls are so confusing:
This post, by famed American poll aggregator Nate Silver (someone who looks at all the different polls and weights them depending on how reliable the same polling company has been in the past), explains the uncertainty that still surrounds the vote despite the number of polls taken:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-the-u-k-polls-skewed/
As does this earlier post:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-u-k-snap-election-is-riskier-than-it-seems/
This post, from BBC Newsnight Policy Editor Chris Cook, tries something different. It looks at where the main parties have sent their leaders to campaign, and uses this to estimate how well they think they are doing:
There’s a bunch of other stuff out there, but this is already more than most people will read. So I’ll wrap up with two final links.
This page tells you who to vote for in your local area to vote against the Conservatives:
https://www.tactical2017.com
This video sums up the election campaign quite well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7iUYWMD77w
Book launch: Public Opinion, Legitimacy and Tony Blair’s War in Iraq
On May 22, 2017 May 22, 2017 By drjamesstrongIn Iraq, UncategorizedLeave a comment
I was very pleased to see a full house turn out for a special panel discussion event at LSE on 27 April marking the publication of my book Public Opinion, Legitimacy and Tony Blair’s War in Iraq (Routledge). In particular I am grateful to guest panellists Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman of King’s College London and Professor Juliet Kaarbo of Edinburgh University, and to my colleagues Professor Toby Dodge for chairing the event and Sophie Wise for organizing everything. A podcast is available here but I’ve also reproduced the text of my talk below. This isn’t quite what I said – turns out I’m not that good at reading – but it’s what I meant to say.
Public Opinion, Legitimacy and Tony Blair’s War in Iraq
Democracies are not supposed to fight unpopular wars, but Britain did just that in Iraq. Professional politicians are not supposed to court career disaster by ignoring what the public wants. Tony Blair did exactly that when he ordered British forces to help overthrow Saddam Hussein despite hostile opinion polls, critical media commentary and both the largest parliamentary rebellion and the largest street protests against any government, ever.
In this book, I ask how it was possible that Britain wound up fighting a war in Iraq that so many British people considered illegitimate. It’s a complicated question. I begin by asking why public opposition failed to prevent the invasion, and show how, from a foreign policy analysis perspective, it wasn’t that surprising. I then consider how the arguments ministers made in the pre-invasion period constituted the legitimacy deficit that followed. Finally, I look at the consequences and implications of what very much deserves to be known as Tony Blair’s war.
In the first part of the book, I present what I call a ‘holistic’ account of British public opinion towards the prospect of war in Iraq during the period between January 2002 and March 2003. My holistic approach combines traditional survey methods – opinion polls – with an original content analysis of 2,115 newspaper comment pieces, 333 parliamentary speeches, participant accounts and the treasure trove of detail and documentation released by the Chilcot Report.
I argue that a holistic approach better reflects the goals of a foreign policy analysis study. As a foreign policy analyst, I’m not really interested in what public opinion objectively was. I’m interested in how political elites contested and constructed a certain idea of public opinion, and how that affected decision-making.
I also argue that a holistic approach helps compensate for some of the shortcomings of survey methods. Echoing critical analyses by Herbert Blumer and Pierre Bourdieu, I argue that opinion polls unreasonably assume that every citizen has a prior view on every foreign policy question, that they weight every individual equally when in reality some are more influential than others and that they reflect the concerns of elites with the resources to commission polls. In short, I argue that the latent views of the passive mass matter only when they are likely to be activated across the board – like when a referendum is proposed. Otherwise, I argue it is the active, elite public that really counts.
I still use opinion polls – they both reflect and shape elite discourse, and do affect decision-makers too. Slide 1 shows aggregate poll results in the pre-invasion period. It makes clear that for most of the build up to war, most poll respondents opposed the use of force in Iraq.
Figure 1: Aggregate UK opinion poll data on the prospect of British military action in Iraq, January 2002-March 2003. Source: ICM/YouGov.
These results didn’t stop the war for two main reasons. Firstly because, in Douglas Foyle’s classic terms, Tony Blair was an “executor” – he thought public support was desirable, but not necessary. Ultimately, he thought it was his job to lead rather than follow public attitudes. Secondly, and relatedly, because Blair predicted that people would ‘rally round the flag’ if it actually came to war. It is well documented that support for war spikes once the fighting starts. People don’t want to look disloyal, and many resign themselves to the inevitable. Blair was right. In the final week before the invasion support went from 38% to 54%.
As Slide 2 shows, most British newspapers also predominantly opposed the invasion of Iraq.
Figure 2: Distribution of views expressed in newspaper commentary, by publication.
The picture was not actually as negative as this slide suggests, however. For one thing, it combines editorial lines and the views expressed by commentators. The Observer, for example, printed more anti-war than pro-war commentary, but its editors ultimately broke with their counterparts at its stablemate the Guardian, and supported the invasion. More crucially, the papers that most strongly supported the invasion sold more copies than those that opposed the invasion. During this period the strongly pro-war Sun, for example, sold fifteen times as many copies as the anti-war Independent, nine times as many as the Guardian and 1.7 times as many as the Mirror. On average pro-war publications sold 1.88 million copies and anti-war publications 1.24 million copies. Compounding this advantage still further was that the government’s most vocal supporters were the right-wing publications that traditionally opposed Labour governments, and its main critics were the left-wing publications that traditionally supported Labour.
Figure 3: Distribution of net average views expressed in parliamentary speeches, by party.
As slide 3 shows, finally, the government also enjoyed the support of Conservative Party MPs in the House of Commons, while the small Liberal Democrat party offered the most consistent opposition and the government’s own back-benchers also took a more anti-war than a pro-war stance. This meant the government did not need to worry about being punished by voters for ignoring their opposition – it would make no sense to switch from Labour to the Conservatives over Iraq given the Conservatives supported the war. Combined with the massive size of Labour’s 2001 election victory, it also ensured the government could survive back-bench rebellions fairly comfortably. Tony Blair then capitalized on this advantage still further by threatening to resign if MPs voted against him. Forced to choose between their most successful leader ever and Saddam Hussein, many Labour MPs backed Blair.
So from an FPA perspective it makes perfect sense that British domestic opposition failed to stop the war in Iraq. A holistic approach also allows us to consider how the direction and the intensity of public attitudes interacted. How much public attitudes matter depends on how much public actors care about the issues at stake. Slide 4 shows what share of the source material investigated during this study came from each month during the pre-invasion period.
Figure 4: Average salience of Iraq War across parliament, press and polls.
As we can see, there were three increasingly significant spikes in public interest, around March and April 2002, September 2002 and then early 2003. The first was driven by President Bush’s condemnation of Iraq as part of an ‘axis of evil’ during his first State of the Union speech in January, and Blair’s subsequent visit to his Texas ranch in April. The second was driven by widespread debate in Washington during August 2002 over the prospect of war in Iraq, by the Blair government’s failure to respond sufficiently quickly to media demands for more information and by the speculation that followed. The third was driven by the UN inspection process, the deployment of troops and ultimately the start of the war.
Figure 5: Salience-adjusted average monthly press, parliamentary and poll positions on the prospect of war in Iraq (1= entirely pro-war, -1= entirely anti-war).
Slide 5 combines data on the direction and intensity of attitudes in polls, parliament and the press. It shows spikes in opposition in March 2002, August 2002 and February 2003 followed by a rally effect across all three source types in March 2003. Crucially, what the holistic approach shows is that the first two spikes declined largely because the government released more information that calmed speculation. In April 2002 Blair made clear publicly that he supported confronting Saddam Hussein but that there was no immediate prospect of military action. In September 2002 Bush promised to work through the UN while Blair released the now-notorious ‘dossier’ on Iraqi WMD. In February 2003 Blair successfully blamed France for scuppering the UN process while the inevitability of war bred resignation among opponents.
This observation – that the government’s communications efforts changed few minds but lowered the salience of Iraq as an issue – then plays into the discussion of legitimacy in part 2.
Tony Blair tried to argue his way to war in Iraq. He made set-piece speeches, held press conferences and published information dossiers. He took questions from MPs and live television audiences. He led five major House of Commons debates in addition to his weekly question time grilling. He even appeared on MTV. He claimed he wanted a full, open and well-informed public debate on the prospect of war in Iraq, and on the surface he appeared to act that way. Surface appearances can, however, mislead.
In the second part of the book, I discuss how both the content and the form of Blair’s arguments in the pre-invasion period constituted the legitimacy deficit surrounding the war. I define legitimacy as a discursive construct, as a product of public debate. Echoing debates amongst scholars of legitimacy between advocates of political definitions – in which legitimacy derives from public consensus – and normative definitions – in which legitimacy derives from abstract principles, I present two ideal types of communicative legitimacy. At the political end is a model derived from the social theory of Michel Foucault – though I claim no particular expertise in Foucault’s work. From this Foucauldian perspective, legitimacy reflects political consensus and political consensus reflects power. Legitimacy is, in other words, simply a product of power, lacking any distinct normative value. At the normative end, meanwhile, is a model derived from Jurgen Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action. From this Habermasian perspective, legitimacy derives not just from political consensus, but from a consensus achieved in the right way. For Habermasians, legitimacy emerges from a public debate based on truthfulness, openness to everyone looking to participate, and flexibility on the part of all involved.
I argue that the main driver of the legitimacy deficit surrounding the Iraq War was the clash between the Blair government’s explicitly and repeatedly professed commitment to seeking deliberative legitimacy in Habermasian terms, and the much more manipulative, Foucauldian reality of how it actually behaved. Though I find that ministers generally did not lie outright, they were often economical with the truth, especially when discussing the evidence underpinning their beliefs. Though Blair in particular engaged in a range of communication exercises, he still sought actively to control the timing of debates and who participated in them. Even members of the Cabinet found themselves shut out of key discussions, and Blair took certain fateful decisions alone. Finally, though some individuals like Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and (in particular) Attorney General Lord Goldsmith showed some willingness to revisit their views in the face of new evidence, most ministers and officials stuck resolutely to their established positions regardless of developments.
I further highlight a range of more specific shortcomings in the government’s communication campaign that further undermined its arguments. In particular, I talk about the claims that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction in violation of UN Security Council disarmament obligations that threatened British national security, that there were good grounds in international law for invading Iraq in March 2003, that overthrowing Saddam was the morally proper thing to do and that the Blair government possessed sufficient political authority to make that decision in the first place. I find each claim problematic – both in terms of Habermasian criteria, and more prosaically in terms of how persuasive they were.
Threat and WMD
By making clear pre-invasion statements about the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programme, the government both undermined its claim to legitimacy in Habermasian terms and set itself standards it later struggled to meet.
To begin with, the government got key judgements wrong. MI6 failed to spot that one of its sources based his description of Iraqi chemical weapons on the movie The Rock, starring Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage. It was slow to admit as much. More generally, the Joint Intelligence Committee fell victim – admittedly, in line with several allied intelligence communities – to groupthink. Having repeatedly underestimated Iraq’s WMD capacity in the past, the JIC interpreted new intelligence as the tip of the iceberg. It also failed to update its assessments as new information came in – for example, treating the fact that UN inspectors found no banned material as evidence that Iraq was successfully concealing an active WMD programme and not considering the possibility that there was no programme to hide.
More damagingly, ministers drew conclusions that went beyond what the JIC advised. Blair wrote in his foreword to the dossier that Iraq’s WMD posed a “current and serious threat to the UK national interest”. Chilcot concluded that Blair did indeed believe that, but that the JIC did not. Indeed, MI5 advised Blair that Iraq lacked the capacity to threaten Britain directly and that it had showed no sign of intent. Blair similarly wrote that “I believe the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt” that Iraq was developing WMD. Again, Chilcot concluded that Blair did indeed believe “beyond doubt”, but the JIC thought differently. Jack Straw summed up the issue. He told Chilcot that “all the little bits of information, however patchy and sporadic, all pointed in one direction”. The problem, however, was that – as the JIC advised both Blair and Straw – the information available was indeed “patchy and sporadic”. Indeed, Chilcot found that MI6 had no sources with first-hand knowledge of either Iraq’s capabilities or its intentions during this period. Blair described the evidence as “extensive, detailed and authoritative”. He seems genuinely to have believed it was. It was not, and he was in a position to know it was not.
Finally, the WMD dossier itself conflated the sort of neutral information exercise Blair claimed it represented – the sort of exercise required of a government seeking legitimacy in Habermasian terms – and more Foucauldian policy advocacy. Though Lord Hutton’s inquiry concluded there was nothing intrinsically wrong about the fact that the JIC consulted Alastair Campbell on the wording of the dossier, since the JIC didn’t accept phrasing that didn’t fit the intelligence, there is still a difference between publishing intelligence assessments – which are usually balanced, nuanced and uncertain – and publishing the dossier, which was clearly designed to make the case for war. One particular element that later proved controversial was the claim that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order to do so. Journalists interpreted this as a claim that Iraq could attack Britain in that sort of timeframe. But the JIC’s assessment referred specifically to battlefield weapons, which don’t have that kind of range.
The government, in other words, was neither entirely truthful in presenting its case to the public, nor flexible in the face of contradictory information. It wasn’t that ministers lied about what they believed – it was that they believed things that were wrong, and failed to publicise how weak the evidence was on which their beliefs relied. To some extent, this worked. Though critics challenged the dossier, and it changed few minds – polls suggested just 4% of respondents shifted stance after the dossier came out, mostly anti-war to undecided – it did dampen damaging speculating over the summer of 2002. At the same time, however, the dossier established unrealistic criteria. Had the government said “we don’t really know what’s going on in Iraq, but it doesn’t look good” it would not necessarily have looked dishonest later on. But it would probably have faced much stronger opposition.
An independent commission famously described NATO’s intervention in Kosovo as “illegal, but legitimate”. Britain’s UN Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock later described the Iraq war as “legal, but of questionable legitimacy”. Chilcot refused to comment on the substantive question of whether or not the invasion of Iraq was in fact legal, but described the process by which ministers took legal advice as “far from satisfactory”. As Philippe Sands QC, a leading international lawyer, put it – “far from satisfactory” is “a career-ending phrase” in civil service language.
Part of the problem lay in the “deliberate ambiguities…necessary to get a consensus” on UN Security Council Resolution 1441 – as British ambassador to the US Christopher Meyer put it. Part of it lay also in Blair’s refusal to involve Attorney General Lord Goldsmith in negotiations surrounding the resolution, fearing either that involving him would lead to leaks, or that he would set legal standards impossible to reconcile with the political realities. As a result, Chilcot concluded that the British government voted for SCR 1441 despite the fact it “didn’t really know what it was voting for”. It took Straw and Blair until a week before the invasion to agree an interpretation. Blair clearly believed Iraq would quickly be caught refusing to co-operate with UN weapons inspectors. When that did not happen, he had to disparage an inspection process he worked hard to establish, and then search for ‘smoking guns’ he knew were unlikely to be found.
More damaging, still, was the fact that Blair believed both that Britain should uphold international law and that it was morally proper for powerful states to use force to overthrow regimes, like that in Iraq, that abused their own people. Blair believed in regime change, and he believed his own moral judgement was superior to that of those who criticised him – even the Pope himself. He never acknowledged, let alone resolved, the clash between what international law actually allowed and what he personally believed it should allow. That meant he had to downplay his strong commitment to regime change because it clashed with his equally strong commitment to acting within the law. This led to contradictions – he railed against the injustice of leaving Saddam Hussein in power and promised to do just that if Saddam complied with UN inspections. He described his “enthusiasm” for regime change and called it a “myth” that he sought it in Iraq. Blair was not truthful, in that he downplayed how strongly he believed in regime change, and failed to discuss the clash between his legal and moral positions. He was not open, in that he tried to exclude the Attorney General from policy discussions. He was not flexible, given he repeatedly rejected legal advice that did not match what he felt he could negotiate in Washington and New York, and ignored moral counsel that contradicted what he personally thought. No wonder his Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell accused him of having a “messiah complex”.
The claim that France prevented agreement on a ‘second’ UN Security Council Resolution failed all three Habermasian criteria but, interestingly, did not lead to punishment after the invasion. It was a rare example of how normative and political legitimacy can play out differently.
Then International Development Secretary Clare Short later described this claim as “one of the big deceits” of the entire pre-war period. As Ambassador Greenstock told Chilcot, Britain never secured the minimum nine votes needed to pass the ‘second’ resolution – so France’s threat to veto it was not decisive. As Blair told Bush in a private letter on 11 March 2003, however, French President Chirac’s clear determination to take a stand did “provide some cover” for Britain’s failure at the UN. Ministers and officials actively blamed France and encouraged press and parliamentary critics who echoed that blame. They continued despite frantic French efforts to clarify Chirac’s 9 March statement that “whatever the circumstances, France will vote no”. When French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told Jack Straw that Chirac was still open to compromise, Straw ignored him and insisted that he “read the comments differently” – as if his interpretation of French foreign policy carried more weight than that of the French foreign minister. British ambassador to Paris Sir John Holmes wrote to London that “our position can hardly surprise the French, nor the fact that we are using Chirac’s words against him…he did say them, even if he may not have meant to express quite what we have chosen to interpret”.
No-one in Britain suggested taking France’s position – that military action might yet be necessary, but that it was not justified yet – seriously. That betrayed a lack of flexibility. Ministers maintained that France had closed off all room for compromise, despite French officials insisting the contrary. That reflected a lack of truthfulness. Finally, the government tolerated suggestions – mostly from public commentators – that France did not really deserve to have a say – that its objections were unwarranted in some way. Blair’s insistence that he could legitimately ignore an “unreasonable” veto at the Security Council underpinned this stance. This showed a lack of openness. Despite these shortcomings, the argument worked. YouGov found 70% of British voters rejected Chirac’s stance. Labour MP and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee Donald Anderson attacked France. A series of Sun editorials compared Chirac to “a cheap tart” and a “worm”, contrasting his “arrogance and greed” with Blair’s “highest moral principles”.
On 28 July 2002 Blair wrote to Bush “I will be with you, whatever”. Cabinet neither discussed nor even knew about this letter. In public, Blair maintained “no decisions have been taken”. At the end of October he formally offered British ground troops to the US for planning purposes. In mid-January 2003 he privately gave up on the UN inspection process and approved invasion plans. Again, Cabinet was not told. It is true that the government faced widespread and at times unreasonable press hostility. It is true that some Cabinet ministers leaked everything they heard about Iraq to the press at the earliest opportunity. It is true that some parts of the government’s argument could not have survived a full, frank, open and flexible public debate.
But the Blair government, and Tony Blair in particular, repeatedly claimed they sought a proper public deliberation. In making that claim, then failing so dramatically to meet it, they created the conditions for the legitimacy deficit that followed. At the same time they made inconsistent, irreconcilable and incorrect arguments that became impossible criteria for success.
That the Stop the War movement failed to stop the war made a good deal of sense. That it nevertheless wound up widely regarded as illegitimate made sense, too. Ultimately the approach the government took proved neither properly deliberative nor persuasive.
What we learn from all this is simple. How governments talk about foreign policy matters. It influences public debate, though more by raising and lowering the salience of an issue than by persuading people to adopt a different view. It determines both the political and the normative legitimacy of a decision. It establishes criteria for success. The clash between deliberation and persuasion in the Blair government’s case for war in Iraq explains a good part of the legitimacy deficit surrounding it. Shortcomings in the specific arguments made explain the bulk of the rest. It would perhaps have been better not to have talked so much after all.
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Robots, Evil Twins and Lessons in Conformity
Posted on May 20, 2017 March 17, 2019 by ekinyasin
In early 2017 owner of Tesla, Elon Musk, announced his plans to launch a company that would specialize on computerizing the human brain. He is not the only one. This is also the very same year that basic robotics and AI, without much debate, started becoming ubiquitous in our homes. Shortly before I begun writing this reflection, I asked Alexa, an Amazon built device in my home that responds to my voice commands, to play me “Wagner” and she failed to understand me. I found myself getting into a small argument with the device and accusing her for being culturally selective due to her inability understanding the way I speak English. Shortly after I finish this reflection, I will start my Roomba, my home vacuum cleaner/robot, and as always probably will find dust it failed to pick up and get frustrated. Conversations and interactions with and about AI is becoming quotidian. Nestled in them is excitement and aggravation.
Discussion of AI is ubiquitous in sci-fi genre. Recently a fictional discussion of AI came in the form of the film Ex-Machina (see this piece from the Guardian that couples a discussion of the film with recent advances in AI tech) . The film was about a chauvinist’s creation which was a pretty but intelligent robot. The creator acted a lot like contemporary tech CEO’s and the ending was also a bit out of the norm – the independent robot was able to escape to mimic the humans who created her.
Films that belong to sci-fi genre are often reflections’ of anxieties about the future. One way this anxiety reflects itself is in narratives that display the relationship between a good and a bad robot. My reflection is inspired by my recent viewing of Alien: Covenant, Alien franchise reimagined (in 4dx – which is an experience I will reflect about later). In the new film (spoilers are present) we meet a new version of the robot introduced in the prequel Prometheus. In the prequel the audience already met a robot called David (played by Michael Fassbender) who was a robot with aspirations of its own for creating life. It is his indulgence to reach this goal that leads to the creation of the famous alien race we meet in the franchise. In the second film, David, who we assume is lost in the distant worlds at the end of the film, Prometheus, appear mostly in flashback scenes. We see his interactions with his creator. In the second film more screen time is given to the “good robot”, a newer version of him (also played by Michael Fassbender). He is an updated model as the movie suggests. He is a better companion to humans with fewer aspirations of his own and lessened interest in the arts or dreams. He is the good robot.
This is not the first time a robot brother dichotomy is the plot of a major science fiction franchise. I am sure many scifi geeks like myself immediately were reminded of Star Trek TNG Season 7 where fans were introduced to the evil twin of friendly robot Data. Throughout the entire Star Trek TNG run, Data constantly seeks a way to feel emotion. Otherwise Data is more capable than humans in every other way (intelligence, body strength, etc). In his quest to understand and feel human emotion, every season features Data involved in some sort of quest to attain it – let it be his fascination with arts or human conversation and reactions. In the franchise, Data never fully achieves his goal – when playing music or acting a scene he always lacks emotional depth. Data is often frustrated by this shortcoming. His twin brother, who the Enterprise crew come across in their search for a Borg army, is a version of Data and is of the same creator (Song) with one major difference: he has emotions. As with the new Alien franchise, inclusion of feelings in this model leads to rebellious tendencies. These tendencies are what makes this character evil, the bad robot. For robots, having emotions is the first step in becoming the enemy.
I am not going to get too much into all the plot parallels here but I just want to comment on this relationship between the good and bad robots, which I believe is a reflection of our anxieties, beyond just robotics, but about our own individuality.
Both Lore (TNG) and David (Alien) aspire for autonomy. Their understanding of their creator inspires a deep resentment, not appreciation, for their master. Both want to overcome their father to become something more than what they were programmed to be.
Both, due to this aspiration, are driven by a desire to lead a new collective of their own making. In the case of Lore he is able to manipulate and lead the Borg. In the case of David, he becomes the creator of aliens that would go onto infect humans for 7 movies ( in our past and who knows how many in the future). As opposed to being a follower, both these characters overcome the system to create something of their own.
Whilst Data is an aspiring artist without emotions, Walter, the good robot in the new Alien franchise, lacks interest in all arts. He knows it is deep within him but the improvement in this new model is he knows to not to make this interest a part of his daily routine. Unlike their good counterparts both Lore and David are driven by creativity.
Most importantly neither David nor Lore want to conform. The framing of both stories leave the viewer to emphasize for the robots, in this case the good ones, lacking in independence, and appear very much as slaves of human desires . Cloaked in sub-narratives of friendship, it is this synthetic beings’ service and allegiance that becomes a measure of their success as species.
Therefore Evil?
The two stories end differently. In the case of Star Trek (TNG) it is Lore who looses to the army of the federation (and other aliens) and to Data who sides with his crew, abandoning his brother. Data willingly gives up the emotional chip that his brother installs in him (Lore installs the chip for Data to experience what he was experiencing which for a brief period also makes Data stand up against his human masters). Data’s fear of becoming emotionally unstable like Lore serves as the conclusion to his access to human emotions (although he will not give up the pursuit in the remainder of show or the franchise movies).
In the new Alien Covenant, David wins. The fight scene between the two robots ends with (spoiler) bad one of the two winnin. Cunning humans and taking his “good” brother’s place, we are made to believe that David will unleash the alien in more new worlds. In this way, I assume, we are made to believe that David is the real evil, not his creation, the Alien.
Both bad robots turn violent for liberation. In that way aren’t they a display of “violence [which] frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect”(1963: 94)*.
When films create dichotomies and binary oppositions it ought to have subliminal messages. I can’t help but sense that a part of the message (more overt than subliminal) is too much creativity and free thinking is bad for you. The narrative in both cases inclines the viewer to side with Walter and Data and whilst shaming David and Lore for their independence and aspirations. Creations have to act within bounds of the society – conformity should eventually win.
Further thoughts
Not included in this reflection is a consideration of the TV-series Westworld, a remake of an AI themed Western, which adds a whole new layer to this discussion. Here you can read about the idea of consciousness introduced in this series.
*Fanon, F. 1963, The Wretched of the Earth, Farrington, C. (trans.), Grove Press, New York, USA
Tagged Alien, Evil Twin, Michael Fassbender, Representation, scifi, Star Trek TNG
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Written by Michael Chaney
New Hampshire Political Library
Attitudes toward New Hampshire's form of government were shaped by the state's relationship with England and by a series of royal governors. The debate erupted in the mid-1770s and continued during the war. The fundamental ideological disagreement focused on local control versus state authority. Moreover, the competition for power among three distinct regions of New Hampshire (the seacoast and Piscataqua Valley, Merrimack Valley, and the Connecticut River Valley) animated the public debate further.
Before passage of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, New Hampshire was the only province in New England without a formal charter of incorporation. New Hampshire was without legal government when the last royal governor, John Wentworth, fled in the summer of 1775 and the personal safety and future of Loyalists was in question. New Hampshire declared its independence six months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4.
The Federalists, an elite party concerned about commercial interests and monetary policy for the new nation, regained power in New Hampshire in 1813 under John Taylor Gilman, who did not cooperate with President Madison's administration and did not support the war. Power for the Federalists was short-lived, as a declining economy lead to the resurgence of the Republican Party after the war.
The nature of state government that evolved in New Hampshire during the nationalization of America had its roots in the desire to impose checks on state control, creating a political structure that was and continues to be decentralized. The governor heads a weak executive branch held in check to this day by a five-member Executive Council elected from five regions of the state. Moreover, the large House of Representatives, known as the General Court (400 members), ensures strong local representation and is the third largest legislative body in the world after Parliament and the United States Congress. A 24-member state Senate rounds out a bicameral legislative body.
New Hampshire remains one of two states with two-year terms for governor, for members of the Executive Council, and for legislative office. The struggle in the early national period focused on local control, on limiting state and federal power, and on the proper distribution of authority. Although New Hampshire became the keystone of the federal government by voting as the ninth and ratifying state to adopt the United States Constitution in 1789, it has always cast a wary eye on federal power over states and on state power over local government.
Local elections of delegates and representatives to constitutional conventions included the tactic of "binding instructions" to ensure that local representation would not be sacrificed to the state or federal government. This proved unpopular because a constitutional convention requires public discussion and reasoned decisions based on varying points of view raised at the convention. Hence the delegates need flexibility, not binding instructions. However, New Hampshire's political culture continues to be steeped in the desire to preserve local, community interests. The method of voting began with voice votes at town meetings, but by 1804 New Hampshire had directed in state statute that town clerks be chosen by ballot. Ballots were hand written, although by the 1830s, printed ballots came into use.
Early in the new republic, the right to vote reflected the tension between the Federalists, those property owners with a "stake in society," and the Republicans (Democratic-Republicans), who wanted to expand democratic participation as broadly as possible—so broadly, in fact, that some feared "mob rule" at the other end of the spectrum. By 1800 New Hampshire was one of just three states (the others were Kentucky and Vermont) that had universal white manhood suffrage, having done away with the requirement of property ownership. All of New England except Connecticut allowed African Americans to vote without significant restriction. New Hampshire endorsed the principle that the more people taking part in the democratic process, the better. This engaged political culture continues to this day, with high voter participation in New Hampshire's well-known first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
Daniell, Jere R. 1981. Colonial New Hampshire—A History. Millwood, NY: KTO Press.
Gardner, William M., Mevers, Frank C., Upton, Richard F. 1989. New Hampshire: The State That Made Us A Nation. Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall Publisher.
Turner, Lynn Warren. 1983. The Ninth State: New Hampshire’s Formative Years. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
American Antiquarian Society Digital Collections and Archives at Tufts University Terms and Conditions
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In series of articles for our 2017/18 programme, Drummond Calder, detailed our 1st ever League season in 1891/92. Due to the temporary demise of the club programme last year the series was not completed, with just the rest of April and May 1892 to cover. However, it is hoped that Drummond will finish the story of our 1st League season in the not too distant future and this will be updated here.
In season 1890/91 League football arrived in Scotland with the Scottish League playing their inaugural season. The following year East Stirlingshire, together with a number of other provincial and city clubs, got in on the League football act. From then until the end of the 19th century, when in season 1900/01 they were finally accepted into the Scottish League, the Shire would play non-league football. This is the story of East Stirlingshire 1st non-league season.
From the club’s formation on 1st October 1880 until the end of season 1890/91 the majority of games East Stirlingshire had played were friendlies. The rest were competitive games in the Scottish Cup, Stirlingshire Cup and other local Cups. Season 1891/92 saw the Shire start their 1st ever league campaign and from then on the focus of the season would change.
At the start of the 1891/92 had retained a number of players from the previous season but as was usual a number of additions were made to strengthen the squad and replace the likes of club legends Andy Ritchie and Davie Alexander who had moved down south to play. The main players that had stayed on were Andra Inches (virtually always wrongly listed as Inch in the press), Bill Keddie and “Duffy” Johnston.
The club started the season with a friendly against Gairdoch on 5th August at Carronshore in front of a crowd of over 600. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, Tammy Dunn, R. Burns, Andra Inches, John Pray, Hastings, Thomson, Thomas Howden, Harry Reid, Masterton, Duffy Johnston. There were 5 new players in the team from the previous season. Goodwin and Burns had arrived from Camelon FC, John Pray from Falkirk and Thomson and Masterton from Alva. The game was described as a “hard one” with the Shire running on winners 5-3. Only one ES scorer was recorded but it was very important piece of history. At the start of the 2nd half Harry Reid took and scored the Shire’s 1st ever penalty (it was also the 1st ever penalty in Falkirk District and one of the earliest ever in Scotland).
A 2nd friendly was played away against Laurieston on the evening Wednesday 12th in front of a large attendance who paid the most the home club had ever taken at their gate. The ES team was; R. Goodwin, Parker, R. Burns, Andra Inches, Ross, Wemys, J. Reid, Thomas Howden, Harry Reid, Masterton, Duffy Johnston. The Shire played 3 of their reserves namely Parker, Ross and Wemys and for the last named player this would prove to be the only game he would play for the 1st XI. ES opened the scoring through Masterton in 12 minutes but the home team drew level before the break. In the 2nd half despite the Shire having control of the game they were unable to add to their tally and the game ended 1-1. This was the first time Laurieston had not lost against East Stirlingshire in a game, the previous 7 games between the teams since the first meeting on 3rd April, 1886 had all resulted in heavy defeats for Laurieston.
There was further bad news for the club on the playing front when Tammy Dunn left that evening to sign as a Professional for Wolverhampton Wanderers for “£50 down and £3 10 pw“.
Thomas (Tom, Tammy) Dunn played for East Stirlingshire from 1889/90 to 1891/92. Like his older brother William (Wull, “The Laddie”) Dunn the footballing skill he showed at his tIme with the club brought him to the attention of the Professional clubs south of the border. At the age of 22 Tammy followed his brother south and signed for Wolverhampton Wanderers, a team he would remain with until 1896/97. In 1895/96 he won a Runners Up English FA Cup medal with Wolves. He then played with Burnley for 2 seasons before playing with Chatham in 1898/99 and Thames Ironworks (the team that would become West Ham United) in seasons 1899/90 and 1899/1900. He was the brother-in-law of one of East Stirlingshire’s founders, Sandy Cockburn.
Saturday 15th August saw East Stirlingshire play their 1st ever league match. The league they were playing in was the Scottish Football Alliance League and that 1st game took place at Merchiston Park in Bainsford against Partick Thistle. Despite the gate price being twice what was usually charged (6d and 6d extra for the grand stand) there was a large crowd present to witness the match. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, R. Burns, Mick Harley, Andra Inches, Bill Keddie, Peter Steel, Hastings, Thomas Howden, Harry Reid. Duffy Johnston, Masterton. The line up of the Shire teams saw a number of changes from the recent friendly matches with a number of key players being introduced in the team. Two players from Alva, Graham and Thomson, failed to play for ES. Mick Harley, Bill Keddie, Hastings and Thomas Howden had all played for the club in previous season. Peter Steel had moved from Laurieston and having played 1 guest appearance for the club in March, 1931. He would become a rock in the Shire defense for the next decade. Partick Thistle started the game on the front foot and despite ES trying to get into the game it was the away team that got the 1st goal. The Shire then had a good spell but failed to score and Thistle got a 2nd goal in 30 minutes. Down 2 goals at the interval ES had the wind advantage in the 2nd half which allowed the home team to control the game. However, despite hitting the woodwork on a number of occasions it was not until the 80th minute that the home side got a goal back from the head of Harry Reid. After this ES kept up the pressure but the game ended in a 1-2 defeat. During the 2nd half the home team had had 2 calls for balls crossing the Thistle goal line turned down.
On the same day 2nd East Stirlingshire (called East Stirlingshire Reserves) and Partick Thistle Swifts met in a friendly at Inchview Park, Whiteinch and played out a thrilling 5-5 draw.
On Wednesday 19th East Stirlingshire travelled to Bonnybridge to play local club Grasshoppers in an evening friendly. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, R. Burns, Mick Harley, Andra Inches, Ross, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, Clarkson, Duffy Johnstone, Hastings. In a one sided game the Shire won 6-0 after leading 3-0 at half time. The ES scorers weren’t recorded.
On Saturday 22th August East Stirlingshire played a League match against St. Bernard’s at Logie Green in Edinburgh in front of a fair crowd. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, R. Burns, Mick Harley, Andra Inches, Bill Keddie, Peter Steel, Hastings, Thomas Howden, Harry Reid. Duffy Johnston, Masterton. The game kicked off 10 minutes late and ES won the toss and chose to have the sun and wind advantage in the 1st half. Despite a good start by the Shire it was the home team who went into the lead. Both teams then had chances before Thomas Howden equalized for ES. There was no further scoring in the 1st half. The second period was mainly controlled St. Bernard’s and in the end they ran out winners 4 goals to 1, though this scoreline was harsh on ES. This left East Stirlingshire as the only team in the league still to record a point.
The same day East Stirlingshire Reserves met a scratch Gairdoch team in a friendly at Merchiston Park winning easily 7-2.
On the Monday evening of that week a Special General Meeting of East Stirlingshire was held at the clubhouse at Merchiston Park. It was agreed to change the club’s headquarters from Miss Carmichael’s at Bainsford Bridge to the Thistle Tavern. Miss Carmichael’s had been the club headquarters since at least the mid 1880s. At the same meeting ES decided to build dressing rooms at a cost “not to exceed £200”. The dressing room building would be made of “corrugated iron lined with wood” and would be 2 levels with a hall on the top floor.
The following night a presentation was made to John Anderson, who played for East Stirlingshire in the 1880s in Miss Carmichael’s, Bainsford Bridge. He was emigrating to Cape Town, South Africa and his friends gifted him with a travel bag, a tobacco pouch and a pipe (the last two gifts were made by Sandy Cockburn one of the ES founders). He was also gifted a silver watch from his work colleagues at Melville’s sawmill. East Stirlingshire also did him the honour of electing him a life member of the football club, the 1st recorded person to have received this honour.
In the club’s 1922 booklet John (Jock, Pistol) Anderson was mentioned as one of those who had had a part in the foundation in East Stirlingshire although from other sources it is likely that it was his brother William with Jock joining the club shortly afterwards. What is definitely known is that he played, mainly in the back divisions, for the 1st team from 1881/82 right through to 1887/88. He played for East Stirlingshire in the club’s 1st ever Stirlingshire Cup Final in 1883/84 and also he was the 1st Shire player to gain representative honours when he played for Stirlingshire v Lanarkshire in that same season.
During that week the club missed out on signing the Slamannan half-back, W. Nisbet, who signed for Sheffield United instead. Duffy Johnstone, the ES forward received another offer to sign from an English club but as yet he remained an ES player. East Stirlingshire were also reported as planning to run 5 teams; 2 senior, 2 junior and 1 juvenile.
On 29th August Kilmarnock were the visitors to Bainsford for a League game. Again a large crowd turned out to watch. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, Mick Harley, R. Burns, Andra Inches, Bill Keddie, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Clarkson, Thomas Howden, Harry Simpson, Duffy Johnstone. Harry Simpson replaced Masterton in the forward line and he was reported as a “vast improvement” and it appears that Masterton left the club at this point as never played for ES again. Harry Simpson was an ex-Shire player who was originally with the club from 1887/88 before being lured south to play for Stoke in 1889/90. Also Hastings was replaced by Clarkson up front. In a game which the home team were not expected to win ES gave as good as they got. With the sun in their eyes and the wind against them the Shire opened the scoring in 10 minutes through Clarkson though before half-time Kilmarnock were 2 goals to 1 up. ES equalised immediately at the start of the 2nd half through Harry Simpson and the same player put the Shire ahead 3 minutes later with a header. However, it wasn’t long before Kilmarnock went back into the lead with 2 quick goals after which there was no further scoring and the home team at the close had been edged out 3-4.
The ES reserves travelled to play Albert Thistle on the same day in a friendly match and lost 2-3.
The 1st Saturday in September saw the Shire take a break from League football to play Jamestown at home in the Scottish Cup Preliminary 1st Round. This was the 1st season that a Preliminary Round had been introduced in the country’s premier cup competition and it had proved necessary due to the increasing number of clubs now entering. A good turnout of fans were there to watch the match. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, Mick Harley, R. Burns, Andra Inches, Bill Keddie, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, Clarkson, Hastings, Duffy Johnston. The Shire took control of the game from the start and went into an early lead in 3 minutes through Harry Reid and then followed this up with 2 quick goals from Clarkson and the other from a scrimmage. Duffy Johnston added a 4th ES goal before Jamestown were able to pull 1 goal back. However, ES regained control of the game and before half-time Peter Steel scored another goal for ES. In the 2nd period the home team continued where they had left off with Bill Keddie scoring a 6th goal in 55 minutes. Jamestown scored their 2nd goal of the game before Duffy Johnston and Clarkson completed the scoring for ES. The full time score was a comfortable 8-2 win for the Shire which took them into the next round of the cup.
On the same Saturday the East Stirlingshire Reserves were in friendly action away to Rumford Rovers and won easily 6-0 (ES also had a goal disallowed). The ES 3rd team, called Merchiston XI, also had 5-2 away win at 2nd Denny.
East Stirlingshire travelled to Springburn in Glasgow on Saturday 12th September for a Scottish Football Alliance League match against Northern. A considerable crowd turned up at Hydepark to watch the game. The ES team was: R Goodwin, Mick Harley, R. Burns, Peter Steel, Andra Inches, Hastings, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, J. Clarkson, Duffy Johnston, Harry Simpson. The Shire started the game well and went into an earlier lead from a scrimmage. However the home team took control and scored 3 goals before ES were able to add a 2nd goal (scorer unknown). Northern scored again before the break to bring the score to 2-4. In to the 2nd half and Northern added to their tally in 50 minutes but ES found their feet with 2 quick goals of their own, J. Clarkson scored the 3rd ES goal and the other was from a scrimmage. The Shire pressed on to get the equaliser but in the end it was Northern who were the team that scored again before the end. Once again ES had put up a strong fight but lost out, this time 4-6.
On the same day East Stirlingshire Reserves were in Scottish Cup 2nd XI Cup 1st Round action at Merchiston Park against 2nd Denny and easily moved into the next round with an emphatic 8-0 win.
The next Saturday Shire were home to Ayr in a League match in front of a good crowd. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, Mick Harley, R. Burns, Peter Steele, Andra Inches, Hastings, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, J. Clarkson, Duffy Johnston, Harry Simpson. ES lost the toss and had to play against the sun and wind in the 1st half. The home team were determined to get something from the game after failing to register a point so far in the league campaign though their opponents. Ayr, had won their previous league game 5-1 against Port Glasgow Athletic. ES were at Ayr from the start of the game and went 1 goal up in 5 minutes through a scrimmage. The home team then missed a number of good chances before Duffy Johnston scored a 2nd to put ES 2-0 up at the interval. Ayr came into the game in the 2nd half and pulled a goal back early on but soon afterwards Thomas Howden scored a 3rd for ES. After this the home team dominated and Duffy Johnston added a 4th goal. Ayr got a goal back from a penalty but this didn’t stop the ES pressure and Harry Reid scored a further Shire goal. At full time ES had finally won a League game, 5-2. This was the 1st League points that the club had ever won.
On the same Saturday East Stirlingshire Reserves had a large 9-0 friendly away against Tulliallan. Merchiston Juniors (aka Merchiston XI) met Lonriggend Wanderers after the ES 1st XI game had finished at Merchiston Park but went down 2-4 in a friendly match.
During the week ex-ES star Davie Alexander was in town and tried to get Thomas Howden to move to England and sign with a team offering £20 down and £2 5s per week. The ES forward declined the offer.
Thomas Howden was a Bainsford Laddie born in the village on 14/11/1870. For nearly the whole of his known football career he played for his local team, East Stirlingshire, despite a number of good financial offers to lure in South to play professionally. He first played for the Shire in 1889/90 and he became a regular on the right side of the forward line for the next 4 seasons. During this period he gained 3 Stirlingshire caps playing for the county team. He also won the Stirlingshire Cup, Falkirk and District Charity Cup and Falkirk Cottages Hospitals Shield (twice) with the club. Thomas was also selected as a reserve for the Scottish Football Alliance League v Scottish League match in May 1892. In 1893/94 he moved to local club Gairdoch and then in the following season he played for Clackmannan where he won a Fife Cap. During 1893/94 to 1895/96 he did occasional return to play with his 1st love, East Stirlingshire in friendly matches.
On the last Saturday of the month King’s Park were the visitors to Merchiston Park to play Shire in the Scottish Cup Preliminary 2nd Round. There was a large attendance including 400 fans from Stirling. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, Mick Harley, R. Burns, Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, Clarkson, Duffy Johnston, Harry Simpson. ES won the toss and elected to play with the virtual gale blowing down the pitch in their favour. Soon after kick-off heavy rain started to fall. Duffy Johnston missed an early penalty for the Shire, the 1st ever recorded penalty miss by an East Stirlingshire player. Due to the wind and rain ES hemmed King’s Park into virtually their goalmouth and Harry Simpson, Harry Reid and Duffy Johnston put the home club 3 nil up. However, as a result of particularly heavy rain the game was abandoned (by the request of the ES & KP captains) with only 90 seconds of the 1st half remaining.
On the same day ES Reserves won a friendly away day against Dunfermline Athletic Reserves 6-2.
During that week Duffy Johnston received another offer to sign for an English club.
The abandoned cup game against King’s Park was played again on 3rd October at Bainsford, the crowd was estimated to be nearly 2300 with a considerable number of away fans travelling through from Stirling by special train. The fans at the previous week’s game had been giving slips to get them into this game but only for the 2nd half. It had been the intention that the slips would cover the entry for the full game and because of this error the ES official involved had tended his resignation. To solve the problem the entrance fee for the game had been reduced to 3d, the gate receipts realised on the day were £24. The ES team that lined up for the game was the same as previous week. ES won the toss and elected to attack the ropework goal (the East goal) in the 1st half. The Shire took charge of the game from the whistle and were 1 goal ahead in 6 minutes from a scrimmage. ES then scored goal after goal; Duffy Johnston in 15 minutes, Harry Reid in 30 minutes, followed by a 10 minute Thomas Howden hattrick between the 30th and 40th minutes. King’s Park did have a great chance just before the break but a shot hit the bar instead of going in. ES held an overwhelming 6-0 lead going into the 2nd half. KP improved considerably as the new half started and after scoring an early goal they pressed East Stirlingshire. However, the home team weren’t put off their game and in 65 minutes Clarkson added a 7th goal for ES. KP did keep trying and were rewarded with a 2nd goal 15 minutes from the close. There was no further scoring after this and at full time ES progressed into the next round of the Scottish Cup by the large scoreline of 7-2.
Merchiston Juniors travelled to Linlithgow Bridge on that Saturday and won a friendly against the local team, Vale of Avon, 6-3.
It was reported that Allan Rae had once again taken up his place as ES secretary, a position he made his own since 1888.
On 10th October King’s Park were again Shire’s opponents for the 3rd Saturday running, this time in the Scottish Football Alliance League at Forthbank, Stirling. The crowd was the largest there had been for a League game that season at King’s Park (the stand was full). The ES team was: R. Goodwin, Mick Harley, R. Burns, Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, Clarkson, Duffy Johnston, Harry Simpson. ES lost the toss and played into the sun in the 1st period. ES had an early goal in 5 minutes disallowed but continued to press and were rewarded 10 minutes later with the 1st goal of the game from Harry Reid. After this both teams scored to leave ES 2-1 up at the break. In the 2nd half Harry Simpson added a 3rd ES goal from a header in 60 minutes. From then on the game was fairly even though at the close KP rushed through a 2nd goal. The full time result was 3-2 to the Shire.
That same Saturday ES Reserves were at home against 2nd Clyde in the 2nd Round of the Scottish 2nd XI Cup and recorded a great 3-2 win, the Reserves also had had 2nd goals disallowed. Merchiston Juniors also won a friendly against Stirling Athletic 7-3 that day, venue unknown.
It was reported during the week that Thomas Harley (Mick Harley’s brother), who had been playing for ES reserves in 1891/92 and had played for the ES 1st XI in the two previous seasons, was planning to leave for Trinidad.
The following Saturday East Stirlingshire played their Scottish Cup Preliminary 3rd Round tie against Mossend Swifts at Merchiston Park in front of a large attendance of 2000 (gate receipts were £20 which was a called a “good sum for a 3d gate”). The ES team was the same as the previous week. The Swifts were 1st to score but East Stirlingshire fought back with a Harry Reid penalty in 15 minutes and shortly after Thomas Howden scoring a 2nd. However, straight after the Swifts scored to tie the game 2-2. ES then took the game to the Lanarkshire team with 2 shots hitting the crossbar before Duffy Johnston put them back into the lead. This remained the scoreline until the break. At the start of the 2nd half it was all Mossend Swifts but gradually the home time got back into the game and scored through Duffy Johnston. The Swifts then replied with two goal of their own to bring the score to 4-4 with 25 minutes to play. With 80 minutes gone Thomas Howden scored what to proved to be the winner for ES. After this the Shire dominated the game but there was no further scoring.
On same day ES Reserves met Dunblane Reserves in a friendly (venue unknown) losing by the incredible score of 4-10 after leading 4-2 at the break. Merchiston Juniors friendly opponents that day at Merchiston Park were Glebe Rangers and an easy 7-1 win was secured.
During the week East Stirlingshire announced that they planned another northern tour over the New Year holidays following the success of the previously year’s tour. They planned to play Orion at Aberdeen on 1st January and Caledonian at Inverness the following day. The final match of the tour would be played 2 days later on the Monday against Inverness Thistle.
One week later St. Bernard’s were the visitors to Bainsford for a League match. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, R. Burns, Mick Harley, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Hastings, Duffy Johnstone, Harry Simpson, Clarkson, Thomas Howden, Harry Reid. The Shire faced the bright sun in the 1st half but it seemed to have no effect as they started the game strongly. In 10 minutes Harry Simpson put ES into the lead but the Edinburgh team equalised 1 minute later. Further into the half the home team went back into the lead from Clarkson but again St. Bernard’s immediately replied with a goal of their own. At half time the teams were level at 2-2. Into the 2nd half and St. Bernard’s took the lead for the 1st time in the game. This triggered a Shire onslaught and for a full quarter of a hour shots rained in on the St. Bernard’s goal but finally in the 75th minute Clarkson scored the equalising goal for ES. After this East Stirlingshire continued to press but there was no further scoring and the game ended in a draw, 3-3. The result meant that ES remained 3rd from the bottom of the league.
ES Reserves travelled to play Tillicoultry at their ground, Ochilview Park, on the same Saturday and drew the friendly 1-1.
At the SFA meeting on the evening of Tuesday 27th in Glasgow East Stirlingshire received a bye in the Scottish Cup 4th Preliminary Round. It was rumoured during the week that friendly matches may resume shortly between East Stirlingshire and Falkirk. The teams hadn’t met in friendly competition since March 1889 due a fall out between the clubs.
On the last Saturday of October ES travelled to Bonnybridge to play Grasshoppers in the Stirlingshire Cup 1st Round at Milnquarter. The crowd was only 300 and the gate did not amount to £3. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, Mick Harley, R, Burns, Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steele, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, Clarkson, Duffy Johnstone, Harry Simpson. East Stirlingshire dominated the game going ahead in 20 minutes through Harry Reid. Before the break ES added 3 further goals, 2 from scrimmages and the other by Clarkson. The Hoppers stated the game a brighter in the 2nd half but it wasn’t long before Harry Simpson added a 5th ES goal. The Shire added 4 more goals without reply before full time, 2 from Clarkson followed by 1 each from Duffy Johntone and Harry Simpson. The final score was a huge 9-0 win for ES.
Also on the 31st October ES Reserves played off their Scottish 2nd XI Cup 3d Round tie away to Dumbarton Rangers (the 2nd XI of Dumbarton) losing heavily 3-10. Merchiston Juniors met Stewartonians (Bo’ness) in friendly at Bainsford winning 10-0.
Michael (Mick, Mickey) Harley was born in Larbert on 8/5/1866. He starting playing football with Carron and then Comely Park before joining Falkirk in 1885/86. He stayed at Falkirk for 4 seasons where he won 2 Stirlingshire Cup runners up medals and also represented Stirlingshire twice and Falkirk District XI once. Whilst he was at Falkirk he guested for Carron Rangers, Carron Foundry Offices, Zingari and even 1 game for East Stirlingshire 2nd XI in September 1887. At the start of 1889/90 season he joined his brother Thomas at East Stirlingshire became a regular in the back division. He played with the Shire until 1892/93 during which time he won 2 Falkirk Cottage Hospitals Shield winners medals and a Falkirk & District Charity Cup runners up medal.
On Saturday 7th November Shire played a friendly against Falkirk at Merchiston Park. It had been a few years since the clubs had met in a friendly match due to the “fallout”. It was reported that Falkirk had been the instigators of the games having been stopped and because of this it was agreed that the game would take place at Bainsford with the gate being shared and ES keeping the stand drawings. Even thought the price of admission had been doubled the crowd was between 2500 to 3000 and the gate receipts were almost £40. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, Mick Harley, Parker, Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steele, Harry Reid (Captain), Thomas Howden, Clarkson, Duffy Johnston, Harry Simpson. The game got off to a sensational start with Falkirk taking the lead in the 1st minute only for Harry Simpson to equalise 1 minute later. Falkirk then added 2 further goals in the next 6 minutes. Despite both teams having a number of chances during the rest of the half there was no further scoring. In an even 2nd period both teams again missed good opportunities but neither team managed to add to their tally and the game ended in a 1-3 defeat for ES. The duration of the game was only 75 minutes; a 40 minutes 1st half and a 35 minutes 2nd half.
The following Saturday it was back to League action when the Shire travelled to Beechwood Park, Glasgow to play Thistle in front of a poor turnout at the start but which swelled into a large crowd by the end of the game. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, R. Burns, Mick Harley, Hastings, Ross (of ES 2nd XI), Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, J. Reid (of ES 2nd XI), Harry Simpson, Duffy Johnston. In a competitive encounter Thistle took the lead before J. Reid equalised for the Shire. After this ES pressed their opponents hard but as a result of a breakaway Thistle again took the lead and the score remained 1-2 at half time. ES started the 2nd half well and drew level through Harry Simpson. This woke up Thistle who then scored 2 goals of their own. Back came ES and after some pressure they scored a 3rd goal through a scrimmage. The Shire continued to take the game to Thistle and were rewarded with an equaliser 5 minutes from the end when Duffy Johnston scored. The game ended in a 4-4 draw. It was later reported that the referee had been subject to some rough treatment by the home fans.
East Stirlingshire were in Stirlingshire Cup 2nd Round action on 21st November at home against King’s Park in front of a large attendance which included a good number of away fans who had travelled through from Stirling by a special train. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, Mick Harley, R. Burns, Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, J. Reid, Harry Simpson, Duffy Johnston. After both teams had early chances it was the ES captain, Harry Reid, who opened the scoring for the home club in 5th minute. 5 minutes later Thomas Howden added a 2nd goal for the Shire and he then went on to score again. KP got back into the game and got a goal back but ES replied immediately with a headed goal from Harry Reid. The Shire went in at half time comfortably 4-1 up. Although KP started the 2nd half brightly scoring a 2nd goal thereafter it was the home team who once again took control, scoring further goals through Harry Simpson, J. Reid and Harry Reid. The final result of 7-2 saw Shire progress to the next round of the Cup.
East Stirlingshire held their half-year general meeting on 23rd at their new headquarters in the Hall of the Thistle Tavern, Bainsford.
On 28th November Kilmarnock were the visitors to Merchiston Park in a Scottish Cup 1st Round tie. A large crowd 3000 turned up to watch the match. The ES team was: R. Goodwin, Mick Harley, R.Burns, Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Harry Reid (captain), Thomas Howden, J. Reid, Duffy Johnston, Harry Simpson. Although East Stirlingshire did have their chances in the 1st half it was Killie who dominated scoring 4 goals (2 of which were ES o.g.s) without reply. The 2nd period was much of the same with Kilmarnock scoring a 5th goal before ES got one back, bizarrely from yet another o.g. from Paterson the Kilmarnock half-back. Killie added another goal before the end. At full time ES had lost 1-6 and were out of the Cup.
On the 1st Saturday in December King’s Park were once again the visitors to Bainsford to play the Shire in the return league game. It was the 5th time the clubs had met since the end of September. The away team did not run a special train due to lack of interest and as a result few fans travelled from Stirling. The ES team was: Johnnie Mercer, Hastings, Mick Harley, Ross, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Harry Simpson, Clarkson, Duffy Johnston, J. Reid. The Shire team showed 3 changes from the previous week. R. Goodwin had been blamed for 3 of the goals ES had lost against Kilmarnock and was replaced by Johnnie Mercer, the 1890/91 ES goalkeeper. R. Burns also lost his place in the ES team and Thomas Howden did not play due to a burnt foot. For both Goodwin and Burns the Kilmarnock game had proved to be their last game for ES and two weeks later they were playing for the Bonnybridge club, Grasshoppers. ES had won the 4 games against KP in 1891/92 but this game to proved to be a far better one for the Stirling team. On a soft pitch, due to the heavy rain, the game started evenly for the 1st 20 minutes then KP scored 2 quick goals. ES replied almost immediately with 2 goals of their own, both from Duffy Johnston. ES then took charge of the play but the there was no further scoring in the 1st half. 20 minutes into the 2nd half and the Sons of the Rock went ahead through a penalty. From then on the Stirling team controlled the play and went further ahead with a 4th goal. ES weren’t able to mount a comeback and the game ended 2-4. This was King’s Park’s 1st win against the Shire since January 1884.
On the same Saturday East Stirlingshire Reserves game against 2nd Camelon was cancelled as ES couldn’t raise a team. However, Merchiston Juniors did meet Larbert Windsor at Merchiston Park in the Stirlingshire Junior Cup, drawing 2-2.
SCOTTISH FOOTBALL ALLIANCE LEAGUE AS AT 12/12/1891 (after games)
P W D L F A Pts
Kilmarnock 9 7 1 1 37 13 15
Airdrieonians 11 5 2 4 31 30 12
Morton 9 5 1 3 24 27 11
Thistle 10 4 3 3 31 33 11
Northern 11 5 1 5 39 32 11
St. Bernard’s 10 4 2 4 29 26 10
Linthouse 8 4 1 3 27 19 9
Partick Thistle 10 4 1 5 16 27 9
King’s Park 9 4 0 5 28 33 8
Ayr 11 3 2 5 26 31 8
East Stirlingshire 9 2 2 5 26 31 6
Port Glasgow Athletic 9 1 4 4 19 28 6
The Shire had not got off to a great start in their 1st ever league campaign and the defeat against King’s Park meant that they were now only avoiding the bottom rung of the table due to a better goal average. The team had been decimated by key players moving down south to play professionally and it had proved hard for the club to replace them with players of a similar quality.
On 12th December travelled to play Grangemouth at Caledonia Park in the Stirlingshire Cup 3rd Round (the Quarter-Final) in front of a fair attendance. The ES team was: Johnnie Mercer, Mick Harley, ?, ?, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, ?, ?, ? , ?, ?. Thomas Howden didn’t play for the Shire due to an injury. Although both teams had chances in the 1st half it was the Portonians who went in at the break 1 goal up after opening the scoring in 43 minutes. Despite a lot of ES pressure in the 2nd half it was the home team who added a further goal and won the game 0-2. This was a very unexpected defeat for East Stirlingshire.
On the same day East Stirlingshire Reserves played 3rd Lanark Reserves in a friendly at Merchiston Park winning 4-2. Merchiston Juniors met Larbert Windsor in the Stirlingshire Junior Cup replay at Larbert but lost 3-5.
During the week the final details of East Stirlingshire New Year northern tour was confirmed, the matches being 1st January – Orion (from Aberdeen), 2nd January – Caledonian (from Inverness) and 4th January – Ross County.
The next Saturday Shire were back in Scottish Football Alliance League when they played Linthouse at home. There was not a very large attendance but the fans that did turn up witnessed an incredible game. The ES team was: Johnnie Mercer, Baird, Mick Harley, Hastings, Andra Inches. Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, J. Reid, Duffy Johnston, Harry Simpson. From early pressure ES were awarded a penalty but Harry Reid’s kick was saved. This didn’t put the home team off and Thomas Howden did put the Shire 1 goal up 10 minutes after the start of the game. It was then the Linties turn to attack and they equalised shortly afterwards. Back came ES with 2 goals of their own 5 minutes later, the 1st was from Duffy Johnston and the 2nd straight from the kick-off with the same player hitting the target. The Shire continued to press after this but it was the Govan team who were next to score in the 35 minutes. The score remained 3-2 at the break. Shortly into the 2nd period and one of the Linties forwards had to retire from the game due to an injury. Whilst the away team was shorthanded Duffy Johnston completed his hattrick to put the home team 4-2 up. The Linties came back again with a goal of their own 5 minutes later and their injury forward then returned to the game. After this ES were denied a certain penalty when J. Reid was charged from behind when only 2 yards from the Linties goal, the referee only giving a free-kick. Then it was the Govan team’s turn to attack and from this they scored to tie the game at 4-4. Not long after the away team went on to score a 5th goal. Undaunted ES again drew level through J. Reid 10 minutes from full time. At this point the Shire went down to 10 men due to an injury to Thomas Howden. 5 minutes later the Linties scored their 6th goal when Johnnie Mercer punched the ball into his own net. However, right from the restart ES ran up the pitch and J. Reid equalised. The game ended shortly afterwards, a 6-6 draw.
The same Saturday the ES reserves met Rumford Rovers in a friendly away at Wallacelea, Polmont and won 5-2. Only 5 of the regular ES reserves played with the rest of the team being made up of ES juniors.
During the week it was announced that after considerable pressure Bob Sharp had agreed to return to play in goals for ES. He had been the club’s goalkeeper during the club’s golden era of the late 1880s and had had retired at the end of season 1889/90. The current goalkeeper, Johnnie Mercer had only been helping out the club and was looking to retire from football himself.
Robert (Bob) Sharp. Was born in Falkirk on 19th June, 1860. He joined East Stirlingshire in the club’s early days and definitely was playing for the club in 1881/82. For the next 3 seasons he remained at the club playing at outside-right and left and also at half-back. At the end of 1883/84 he played at outside left in the Shire team who were runners up to Falkirk in the 1st Stirlingshire Club Final. The shirt he used in that Final is housed in the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden and is the oldest surviving club shire in Scotland. In Season 1884/85 he moved to the Tamfourhill club, Tayavalla, where he became a goalkeeper of some renown. Whist at Tayavalla he won a Stirlingshire cap in goals against Lanarkshire.
Bob returned to East Stirlingshire in 1885/86 to become the club’s goalkeeper, a position he retained until he retired at the end of 1889/90 (although he did come out of retirement to assist the club in 1891/92). During his 2nd spell with the Shire Bob won 5 further Stirlingshire Caps, 4 Stirlingshire Cup gold winners’ medals, 4 Falkirk & District Charity Cup winners’ medals and a runners up medal and also a winners medal in the Falkirk Cottage Hospital Shield. Also of note is that Bob’s grandson, Russell Sharp, still attends the Shire games to this day.
On the final Saturday of the year East Stirlingshire met local team Gairdoch at home in a Friendly (at the time these games were called “Ordinary Fixtures”). The crowd was between 400 and 500. The ES team was; Bob Sharp, Mick Harley, Baird, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Ross, Harry Reid, Clarkson, J. Reid, Harry Simpson, Duffy Johnston After a bright opening for the Shorites it was the Shire who took charge and went into the lead in the 15th minute from a Duffy Johnston shot. Although ES pressed further the score remained 1-0 to ES at the break. For the full 2nd half ES controlled the game winning corner after corner. The Shire did add 3 goals to their tally in the 2nd period through Duffy Johnston, a Harry Reid penalty and, 1 minute after, Harry Simpson. The game ended 4-0 in the Shire’s favour. The returning Bob Sharp in goals helped ES to keep a clean sheet in a game for the 1st time since 19th August and only for the 2nd time that season.
That Saturday ES Reserves played 2nd Gairdoch in a friendly at Carronshore wining 6-2.
East Stirlingshire left for their northern tour at 10pm on Thursday 31st December from Grahamston Station on the over-night train to Aberdeen. There were 20 in the travelling party including the full 1st XI and 3 reserve players. Hugh McKinnon of King’s Park joined the group at Stirling. New Year was celebrated on the train not long after leaving Stirling and the train didn’t arrive in Aberdeen until 5am (2 hours late). As a result the “brake” which had been organised to take them to their hotel wasn’t there and they had to use the same cab a number of times to get everyone to the hotel. Some players got in a sleep before heading to the 1st friendly game in the tour that afternoon, which kicked off at 12pm against Orion at Central Park, Kittybrewster. A fair sized crowd turned up to watch the game. The ES team was: Bob Sharp, Hugh McKinnon, Mick Harley, Andra Inches, Ross, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, J. Reid, Harry Simpson, Duffy Johnston. Although the pitch was a quagmire of mud in places ES completely dominated the 1st half and were 5-0 ahead at half time. Orion came back into the game in the 2nd half and took the game to the Shire. In the end the full time result was 6-3, unfortunately none of the ES scorers were recorded.
The next day the Shire travelled to Inverness to play Caledonian in a friendly in front of a big turnout at Caledonian Park, Telford Street. The ES team was; Bob Sharp, Hugh McKinnon, ?, Hastings, ?, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, J. Reid, Harry Simpson, Duffy Johnston. There was a very high wind which meant it was difficult to keep the ball on the field. In an even 1st half ES took the lead through Thomas Howden before Caledonian equalised before the break. In the 2nd period it was the home team who were in charge and they went 2-1 up. However, against the run of play Harry Simpson equalised after which there was no further scoring, the game ending in a 2-2 draw. Following the game Caledonian entertained East Stirlingshire to a dinner in the Glenalbyn Hotel, Inverness.
The final game on the north tour was at Ross County on 4th January. This was reported as the furthest north a South team had ever played. There was a good turnout for the friendly. The ES team was: Bob Sharp, ?, ?, Hastings, Andra Inches, Hugh McKinnon, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, J. Reid, J. Clarkson, Duffy Johnstone. There was a thick layer of snow on the pitch. The County team included 3 players from Inverness Caledonian and 2 from the Cameron Highlanders. The home took the lead in the game but it wasn’t long before Thomas Howden equalised for ES. Then home team went back in front, however, by the 9th minute ES had scored 2 more goals of their own to go into the lead, 3-2. The Shire then took control of the game and scored 2 further goals before half time. The game was a bit more even in the 2nd half but it was ES who were the team that added to their tally, scoring 3 more goals. The full time result was 8-2 to ES, Duffy Johnstone scored 5 goals of the remaining goals with the other 2 goalscorers being unrecorded.
The Shire were back in League action on Saturday 9th January when Port Glasgow Athletic were the visitors in front of a crowd of 600. It was a battle of two bottom teams in the League. The ES team was: Bob Sharp, Baird, Mick Harley, Hastings, Andra Inches, Ross, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, J. Reid, Duffy Johnston, Harry Simpson. Peter Steel was absent from the team due to a sore foot. The ground was hard due to a slight frost and there was a light covering of snow on the pitch. ES took the lead in the game in 2 minutes from a shot from Hastings. The Undertakers then took the game to the home team for the next 10 minutes but after that ES dominated the game for the rest of the half. However, 5 minutes from half time the away team equalised from a counter attack. Straight afterwards the Shire had the ball in the net themselves, through J. Reid, but the goal was disallowed for offside. 10 minutes into the 2nd half and the Undertakers went into the lead. ES stepped up the pressure and were rewarded with an equaliser when Harry Simpson chested the ball through. The Shire continued to take the game to their opponents and in the 80th minute they scored what proved to be the winning goal, when Harry Reid’s shot was put in the net by a Port player (though an alternative report gave the goal to Harry Reid). The 3-2 win was an important one for the ES as it took them up to 8th in the 12 team league.
East Stirlingshire were due to play Partick Thistle away in the League on 16th January but heavy frost caused the game to be postponed.
On 23rd January the Shire travelled to Govan for their return League match against Linthouse. A “satisfactory” size of crowd turned up to watch the game at Langlands Park. The ES team was: Bob Sharp, Mick Harley, Baird, Hastings, Ross, Peter Steel, J. Reid, Lawson, Harry Reid, Harry Simpson, Duffy Johnston. The Shire started the game brightly but the Linties were not long in taking control of play and scored 3 goals to take a commanding lead. ES fought back before the break but were unsuccessful in scoring from the many shots they had. ES didn’t give up in the 2nd half and continued to severely test the Linties defence but they were unable to register a goal. In fact it was the home team who were next to score before J. Reid got a goal back for ES. However, the Shire were unable to increase their tally and instead it the Linties who scored another before the close of play. The full time result was 1-5.
On the same day ES Reserves met Longriggend Wanderers (who were still in the Scottish Junior Cup) at Merchiston Park and lost 4-5. The ES team included half the Merchiston Juniors team.
East Stirlingshire had been due to play Laurieston on the last Saturday of January in the Falkirk Cottage Hospitals Shield Semi-Final but the tie was postponed due to Falkirk playing their tie in that competition at Brockville Park on that day. So instead of a free weekend the Shire played Camelon in a friendly match at Merchiston Park in front of a fair turnout. The ES team was: Bob Sharp, Baird, Mick Harley, Hastings, Ross, Peter Steel, Thomas Howden, T. Reid, Harry Reid, Duffy Johnstone, Harry Simpson. In the 1st half the Shire played with the strong wind in their favour and from the start it was all ES. After 12 minutes Harry Simpson put ES ahead and for the rest of the half the home team totally dominated. Further goals were scored by Harry Simpson, Reid and Duffy Johnston which gave the Shire a comfortable 4-0 lead at half time. Camelon did pull 1 goal back 10 minutes into the 2nd half and then a 2nd shortly afterwards. After this the game was fairly even although it was ES who scored 2 further goals (the name of the scorers were unrecorded). The full time result was a 6-2 win for ES.
That same Saturday ES Reserves met 2nd Camelon away in a friendly and won 5-2.
Henry (Harry) Reid was a native of Stenhousemuir and started his football career at Stenhousemuir Victoria in 1883/84. The following year he joined Stenhousemuir, note that this was a different club to the current Stenhousemuir. As far as can be ascertained he remained with the original Stenhousemuir until their demise in 1884/85 and then joined the newly formed Stenhousemuir (2) in 1886/87 or 1887/88. Like a lot of players at that time he also played with other clubs and whilst he was with Stenhousemuir (2) until 1889/90 he also played with Falkirk in 1887/88 & 1890/91 and with Camelon. In 1890/91 he joined East Stirlingshire, as a forward, having previously guested for them 2 seasons earlier. He was with East Stirlingshire for two seasons and was the club captain in 1891/92. He then returned to his 1st love Stenhousemuir (2) in 1892/93 where he played out his final 2 seasons. Whilst he was at Stenhousemuir (2) he also turned out for King’s Park and Rangers. Harry won local recognition when he was capped 4 times for Stirlingshire during his 2 spells at Stenhousemuir (2). He also won the Stirlingshire Cup, Falkirk & District Cup and Falkirk Cottage Hospitals Shield, all in 1890/91, when at East Stirlingshire.
On the 6th February Airdrieonians were the visitors to Merchiston Park for a League game. A fairly large crowd turned up to watch the match, The ES team was: Bob Sharp, Baird, Mick Harley, Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, W. Clarkson, Duffy Johnstone, Harry Simpson. At the start of the game the play was end to end with both teams having good chances. It wasn’t long before ES went 1 goal up from the head of W. Clarkson. The same player added a 2nd for the home team before the interval. In the 2nd half Airdieonians came back into the game with a goal of their own in 60 minutes but ES then took control again, Harry Reid and W. Clarkson added further goals for ES. At full time ES had won, 4-1. The win took East Stirlingshire to equal 7th place in the 12 team league.
On the same Saturday 2nd East Stirlingshire played the reverse fixture away to Airdrieonians but lost the friendly encounter, 2-3. Two of the 2nd Airdieonians team were 1st XI players.
One week later ES travelled to play the bottom team Port Glasgow Athletic in a league match. A good attendance turned up to watch the encounter. The ES team was: Hunter (of Gairdoch FC), Baird, Mick Harley, Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Reid, Thomas Howden, Clarkson, Duffy Johnstone, Rae (of Gairdoch FC). Bob Sharp and Harry Simpson were unable to play for East Stirlingshire and Gairdoch players Hunter and Rae filled the gaps as Gairdoch’s game v Denny, the same day, had been cancelled. ES were 1 goal down at half time and things didn’t improve in the 2nd half when the home team continued to control the match. In the end ES lost 1-4 though they claimed that 1 of the goals they lost had not crossed the line. The ES scorer was not named. It was also mentioned that the narrowness of the pitch, only 50 yards, meant the ES forwards had not had the room to work in.
That Saturday ES 2nd XI met Queen’s Park (Hampden XI) at Bainsford in a friendly but lost 2-3. Merchiston Juniors were also in action although they went down heavily away to Carron Thistle in a friendly 2-7.
On Thursday 18th East Stirlingshire lost another of their 1st XI to the lure of money from England when Duffy Johnston joined Wolverhampton Wanderers (joining ex-ES player Tammy Dunn). He was the 5th ES from the previous season’s team to have moved down south.
James (“Duffy”, Jack, Jimmy) Johnston(e) was born in Edinburgh in 1869. He initial played with St. Bernard’s before moving to East Stirlingshire in 1890/91 where he became the club’s regular outside and inside left. In his 1st season with the Shire Duffy helped the club win the Stirlingshire Cup, Falkirk District Charity Cup and the Falkirk Cottage Hospitals Shield. He also represented Stirlingshire v Forfarshire in 1890/91.During the start of 1891/92 he was continually linked with a move to England and this finally happened in February, 1892 when he signed for Wolverhampton Wanderers. Duffy remained with the Wolves until he returned to play for East Stirlingshire at the start of 1893/94. In his 2nd spelt with the club he also won a Midlands League title and the Stirlingshire Cup in 1893/94. In that same season he also won a runners up medal in the Falkirk Cottage Hospitals Shield. Duffy played with East Stirlingshire until 1895/96.
On the 20th February the East Stirlingshire were due to played Northern at Merchiston Park in a league game but the game was postponed due to the weather.
The final game in February took place on 27th when ES travelled to play Ayr in a league game. The ES team was: Hunter (of Gairdoch FC), Watson (of Gairdoch FC), Bell (of Slammanan Rovers), Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Mick Harley, Thomas Howden, Clarkson, Rae (of Gairdoch FC), Wotherspoon (of Gairdoch FC) Ayr started the game brightly and went into an early lead but East Stirlingshire soon were back in the game and put the home team under severe pressure for a time. After this the game evened out, however, just before the interval Ayr doubled their lead. In the 2nd period again neither team was on top but in the last 15 minutes of the game it all changed. From then until the end of the match Ayr dominated play adding 5 goals to their tally, resulting in a heavy defeat for ES, 0-7. The margin of the defeat was in no small part due to East Stirlingshire only had five of their 1st XI playing, the rest of the team being made up of 4 Gairdoch players and 1 from Slamannan Rovers. This was the club’s heaviest competitive defeat since 4th October, 1884 when they had lost 2-10 to Renton in the Scottish Cup. It was also the 2nd largest loss in a competitive game until then in their history.
On the same day ES 2nd XI played 2nd Grangemouth at Merchiston Park in a friendly instead of the planned Stirlingshire 2nd XI Cup 1st Round tie against 2nd Alva (Alva had withdrawn from the competition). ES were in rampant form on the day winning 10-0.
On 5th March ES travelled to play Partick Thistle in the League (this was the postponed game of 15th January) in front of a fair attendance. The ES team was: Hunter, Baird, Burden (or Bo’ness FC), Hastings, Andra Inches, Allison, Harry Simpson, Scott, Rae, Beeston, Finlay. The East Stirlingshire team was again an under strength one, the time only 4 of the regular 1st XI played. It was therefore no surprise that the home team controlled the game and scored 3 goals without reply by half time. East Stirlingshire did improve in the 2nd half but poor shooting let them down. Partick added a 4th goal during that half and completed the scoring just before full time. The final result was a 0-5 defeat for ES.
The Stirlingshire v Fifeshire Inter-County match took place at Merchiston Park on the same day. East Stirlingshire’s Peter Steel and Thomas Howden played for the winning Stirlingshire team. Thomas Howden scored 2 goals in the 8-3 win. Also that day 2nd East Stirlingshire were at Kincardine for a friendly match against Tulliallan and won 3-1.
On 12th March East Stirlingshire played the return friendly against Falkirk at Brockville Park in front of a large attendance of 2000. The Falkirk Herald labelled match the Bainsford “laddies” v Falkirk “bairns” as at that time those from Bainsford were called “Laddies”. The ES team was: Bob Sharp, Baird, Duncan, Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Thomas Howden, Clarkson, Allison, Harry Simpson, J. Reid. The ES team was bolstered from players from 2nd ES. Although the 1st half was goalless both teams had a number of good chances. Within 5 minutes of the restart Falkirk took the lead but back came ES a few minutes later with a Thomas Howden breakaway goal. Falkirk then went back into the lead but ES pressed them hard for an equaliser. However, in the last 10 minutes the home team added 2 further goals resulting in the game ended in a 1-4 defeat for East Stirlingshire.
On the same Saturday Merchiston Juniors (called East Stirlingshire Juniors in the Falkirk Herald) played 3rd Falkirk in a friendly at Merchiston Park winning 5-0.
The next Saturday Thistle were the visitors at Bainsford for a League game. There was a large attendance despite East Stirlingshire being in last position in the league. The ES team was: Bob Sharp, Baird, Burden or Burnett (In the FH teamlines he was listed as Burnett but in the notes he was given as Burden), Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, W. Clarkson, Harry Simpson, J. Reid. The game got off to a fast start when ES scored in 3 minutes, the Thistle goalkeeper being charged over the line after stopping a shot. 2 minutes later the Glasgow team equalised from an overhead kick. After this Thistle had a goal disallowed and then they took charge of the game for the nearly the rest of the half. The score, however, remained 1-1 at half-time. Straight from kick off at the start of the 2nd period J. Reid put East Stirlingshire into the lead. For the next 20 minutes the home team dominated the game and at the end of this period they went further ahead from an o.g. by Herd. Harry Simpson then added a 4th ES goal from a header. In the 80th minute Thistle did pull a goal back but further goals from Reid and a 2nd Harry Simpson header gave ES a win, 6-2. This result moved East Stirlingshire 2 places up in the league table.
The reserves teams of East Stirlingshire and Thistle met the same day in a friendly match at Beechwood Park, Glasgow with 2nd East Stirlingshire going down, 1-3.
On the last Saturday in March ES travelled to Kilmarnock for a League game at Rugby Park. The weather on the day was described as “a storm of sleet and rain“. The ES team was the same as the previous Saturday. In a 1st half totally dominated by the home team Kilmarnock raced to a 5 goals to nil lead at the interval. The Falkirk Herald explained; “The E.S. players were quite unable to follow the ball, as the wind, accompanied with the heavy snowfall, blew fiercely in their faces, at half-time one or two E.S. players stated they would play no longer, and the rest endorsed the sentiment, with the result that Kilmarnock took the field and claimed the match”. The game was then abandoned and the half-time result stood.
2nd East Stirlingshire travelled to Carronshore that Saturday to play 2nd Gairdoch in the 3rd Round of the 2nd XI Stirlingshire Cup and played out a 3-3 draw in a raging snowstorm (they had received a bye in the previous round).
During the week the Scottish FA committee voted that football in Scotland would not turn professional but remain amateur, though the vote of 71 to 54 was closer than expected.
On the evening of Friday 1st April East Stirlingshire held their annual assembly i.e. dance, in the “Odd Fellows’ Hall”. The hall had been decorated for the occasion. There were 50 couples present, and there were representatives from all the football clubs of the district and also from the East Stirlingshire Harriers and the East Stirlingshire Bicycle Club.
The next day East Stirlingshire were planning to play Slammanan Rovers in a friendly but they put the game off as several of the 1st XI wanted a holiday and also because 2nd East Stirlingshire played their 2nd XI Stirlingshire Cup 3rd Round Replay at Merchiston Park that day against 2nd Gairdoch. In front of a large crowd (the gate receipts were over £4) 2nd ES won easily 7-3 to progress to the Semi-Final.
On 9th April ES travelled to play Airdrieonians at Mavisbank Park in a League match. The ES team was: R. Ross (ex Falkirk FC), Burnett (of Bo’ness FC), Baird, Ross (of ES 2nd XI), Joe McQue (of Campsie FC), John Pray (or Prey) (of Falkirk FC), Pattison (of Campsie FC), Thomas Howden, Harry Reid, Smith (of Campsie FC, J. Reid. East Stirlingshire made whole scale changes to their line-up with a number of good quality players from other clubs turning out for them. ES played with the wind advantage in the 1st half and took control of the game from the start. They were soon 2 goals up through Smith and a charge on the Airdrieonians goalkeeper which took him through the goals whilst he was holding the ball. Despite further East Stirlingshire pressure the score remained at 2-0 at the break. The home team took the game to ES in the 2nd half but it was ES who went further ahead through either Smith or Thomas Howden. Undaunted Airdrieonians staged a great comeback scoring 3 goals of their own. The Full time result was 3-3.
The next Saturday the Shire played a home League game against Greenock Morton in front of a Large Attendance. The ES team was: Bob Sharp, Baird, Mick Harley, Hastings, Andra Inches, Peter Steel, Harry Reid, Thomas Howden, W. Clarkson, J. Reid, Harry Simpson. Greenock Morton arrived with only 9 men and the kick-off was delayed by 30 minutes. After this delay the referee ordered them to start with 9 men. It was 10 minutes into the game before they were up to the full 11 men when the missing 2 men turned up. ES started the game brightly and took the lead in 5 minutes from the head of Clarkson. 5 minutes later the away team drew level and then controlled play until the 40th minute when the home team when back on top with Clarkson adding a 2nd ES goal just before the break. At the start of the 2nd half Clarkson completed his hattrick and J. Reid added a 4th goal for ES in the 69th minute. 10 minutes before the end Harry Simpson scored a 5th for ES and just before full-time Morton scored a 2nd from a Mick Harley o.g. The 5-2 win was a critical one for the home team in their bid to avoid bottom place in the league.
On the same day 2nd East Stirlingshire travelled to play 2nd Grangemouth in a friendly and won 4-0.
Andrew (Andra) Inches or Inch was born in Falkirk on 13th May, 1864. There is some doubt to his actual surname as although on his birth certificate and various censuses he was named Inches, for virtually the whole of his football career he was called Inch. Andra made his debut for East Stirlingshire on 13th October, 1883 and for the next decade, until his retirement during 1892/93, he was the mainstay in the half-back position. He played more than 250 times for the club. During his long spell with the club he became the most decorated player in the club’s history winning 5 Stirlingshire Cup winners medals, 5 Falkirk and District Charity Cup winners’ medals and 2 Falkirk Cottage Hospitals Shield winners’ medals. He also won a runners up medal in the Shire cup and 2 in the Charity cup. His footballing prowess was recognised with 7 Stirlingshire caps including playing in the 1st ever Stirlingshire game. He also played for Falkirk District XI.
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"Life-Changing" Model U.N. Conference Run Entirely by Earlham Students
Michelle Tong Elected to Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience’s executive committee
Dakotah Territory: Land of Varied Interests
Earlhamites at Oxford
Earlham Women on the Ascent
Large Alumni Bequest will Fund Jewish Studies
Assistant Professor of Psychology Michelle Tong, center, is pictured with Earlham student-researchers during the 2019 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Chicago.
Earlham College Assistant Professor of Psychology Michelle Tong has been elected as a councilor for the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience’s (FUN) executive committee. Her two-year term began on October 23.
FUN is an international organization for educators whose members are interested in enhancing undergraduate neuroscience teaching and research. Among many year-round events, the organization hosts an undergraduate poster session at the Society for Neuroscience conference each year and an annual workshop for undergraduate neuroscience educators. It also produces the Journal for Undergraduate Neuroscience, a peer-reviewed publication featuring undergraduate neuroscience education scholarship.
“Michelle brings significant leadership and innovation to our student-faculty collaborative research program and will be an asset to the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience’s executive committee,” says Becky Thomas, Earlham’s academic dean and vice president of academic affairs. “This position will not only open up new opportunities for Michelle to share the great work she is already doing with our students and hear from others doing significant research with undergraduate students, but will give her a platform to continue to advocate for the cutting-edge student-faculty scholarship that is possible at small liberal arts colleges like Earlham.”
Tong arrived at Earlham in 2016 after earning her Ph.D. in behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She teaches courses called “Brain and Behavior: Introduction to Neuroscience,” “Advanced Topics in Biopsychology,” “Robotic Animals,” “Science Communication,” and “Introduction to Psychological Perspectives.”
She leads a thriving undergraduate-driven research group that focuses on non-cellular mechanisms of long-term memory, although topics differ based on student interest. More than 20 Earlham students pursuing degrees in psychology, neuroscience and biochemistry have already benefitted from her research program, gaining critical lab experience while also publishing findings in journals and presenting at undergraduate research conferences. Tong also provided additional mentorship to students from across the Midwest as part of a three-year National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergrads in neuroscience. That REU was awarded to professors from Earlham and other liberal arts colleges in 2015.
Recent graduates that worked with Tong are currently pursuing Ph.Ds. and the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from some of the nation’s top graduate schools. Other recent graduates are working as research assistants or lab technicians.
“My professional training and experience so far have taught me that students learn best when they are treated as investigators of their own minds,” Tong says. “This means that in my teaching I try to be as transparent as possible about our learning goals so that students can explore their own way to those goals. In research, I have loved letting students take the lead to pursue their own questions.”
Earlham College, a national liberal arts college located in Richmond, Indiana, is a "College That Changes Lives." We expect our students to be fully present: to think rigorously, value directness and genuineness, and actively seek insights from differing perspectives. The values we practice at Earlham are rooted in centuries of Quaker tradition, but they also constitute the ideal toolkit for contemporary success. Princeton Review ranks Earlham in the Top 15 nationally for Best Classroom Experience, and U.S. News & World Report recognizes the College as one of the nation’s “Most Innovative Schools,” and ranks EC 7th for the percentage of international students on campus, 25th for “Best Undergraduate Teaching” and 34th for “Best Value.”
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Home » Psychology » Wernicke’s Area and Language Comprehension
Wernicke’s Area and Language Comprehension
Language comprehension is the human ability to process and understand written and spoken language. This ability has been significant over the course of our evolution. The ability to communicate in an effective way allows us to collaborate and create complex societies. In these societies, we are able to confront a hostile world. That’s why we find biologically rooted structures in the brain that, like Wernicke’s Area.
One key aspect of the neural disposition of language is lateralization. That means that we find the vast majority of brain structures related to language in the left hemisphere. That being said, there are some studies that show that processes like jokes, pragmatism, and sarcasm come from the right hemisphere. But Wernicke’s Area, which is responsible for language comprehension, is located in the left hemisphere. Specifically, it is found in zones 21 and 22, according to Brodmann’s Areas.
In this article, we will talk about two aspects that are fundamental to understanding Wernicke’s Area and language. The first will be its anatomical and functional aspects. The second will be about Wernicke’s aphasia, which happens when there is an injury to the area.
Anatomy and functionality of Wernicke’s Area
Brodmann’s zones 21 and 22 make up the neuralgic center of Wernicke’s Area. In addition, other structures are important for language comprehension. When we talk about the extended Wernicke’s Area, we also include zones 20, 37, 38, 39, and 40. These participate in the association of words with other types of information.
Wernicke’s area is intimately linked to the primary auditory cortex. This makes sense, considering its role in the comprehension of spoken language. On an anatomical level, it is important to point out the connections that this system has with Broca’s area. This area is responsible primarily for language comprehension. These two areas (Wernicke and Broca) are connected by a series of axonal bundles. They, in turn, form the arcuate fasciculus.
The functions of the Wernicke Area are the following:
Language comprehension, spoken as well as written.
Management of language semantics, transforming words to their meaning, and vice-versa.
Planning in speech production. Especially in semantic and pragmatic aspects of speech.
These functions are the pillars that support language comprehension. They are what allow human beings to communicate. As a result, injury to Wernicke’s Area can have negative consequences for language use. Next, we will talk about the specific consequences of damage to Wernicke’s Area.
Wernicke’s aphasia
Injury to Wernicke’s Area causes a language disorder called Wernicke’s Aphasia. Unstructured and meaningless speech characterize this disorder. Another trait of this disorder is terrible speech comprehension. However, though the message lacks meaning, the individual speaks fluidly and effortlessly. This is because speech production remains intact.
Unlike Broca’s aphasia, the patient uses a large number of functional words (the, of, before, an…) The patient uses complex verb tenses and subordinate clauses. But, they don’t use very many words with content, and the words don’t go together to make meaning. This is primarily due to an effect called semantic paralexia. This is when an individual says a different word with a similar meaning instead of the word they are looking for. That happens because Wernicke’s Area isn’t specific in selecting words through meaning.
One key aspect of Wernicke’s aphasia is that speech fluidity remains completely intact. Individuals with this disorder have no problem carrying on a conversation. However, it lacks meaning. This is because the brain structure responsible for speech production is Broca’s area. This helps us understand that Wernicke’s area specializes in language semantics and comprehension. Although this area connects to other areas, those other areas are capable of functioning independently.
Lastly, a curious thing happens when there is an injury to these language areas at a young age. Because of the great plasticity of the brain, if the left side is injured, language might develop in the right hemisphere instead. Thanks to this, brain injuries before language consolidation aren’t as significant. Someone with an early brain injury of this type could still achieve normal or practically normal development.
Ardila, A., Bernal, B., & Rosselli, M. (2016). Área cerebral del lenguaje: una reconsideración funcional. Rev Neurol, 62(03), 97-106.
Castaño, J. (2003). Bases neurobiológicas del lenguaje y sus alteraciones. Rev Neurol, 36(8), 781-5.
González, R., & Hornauer-Hughes, A. (2014). Cerebro y lenguaje. Revista Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, 25, 143-153.
5 Habits of Effective People
Effective people do the things they set their minds to. Sooner or later, they make their dreams and aspirations happen. Would you classify yourself as this type of person? Effective people take advantage of time. Undoubtedly, you’ve come to feel blocked off about…
Insecure-Ambivalent Attachment: Neither with You Nor without You
Attachment begins in childhood, an extremely important stage with huge impacts on adult life. So much so that many of the problems adults have in their relationships, whether romantic relationships or friendship, begin in this stage. Do you see yourself…
The Development of Empathy in Childhood
Before explaining the development of empathy in childhood, let’s talk about the term per se. The origin of the concept “empathy” derives from what the Scottish Enlightenment called “sympathy”. David Hume, in his treatise on human nature, and Adam Smith…
Anuptaphobia: Pathological Fear of Not Finding a Partner
After dining with some female friends awhile ago, I realized something sad but undeniable: our get-togethers had stopped being fun. Some of these friends are single, some are married, and others have children, but it turns out we’re incapable of…
When Parents Use Blame to Raise Their Children
There are still many parents who justify using blame as a parenting style. They think that rewards and punishment are the fundamental basis for a proper education. This is true, especially in the early ages. However, it’s imperative to understand…
The Pain of Those with No Name
Let’s talk about the pain of those who have no name, only a label. Who have the scarlet letter of a mental health diagnosis pinned to their chest, condemned to a misunderstood existence. Who have been labeled as dangerous, weird,…
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Twenty years since balloonists Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones took off on their record-breaking round-the-world flight
On 1 March 1999, the hot air balloon pilots Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of Great Britain took off on an historic, non-stop, 20-day flight during which they circumvented the globe in just 15 days. By the time they landed on 21 March, they had set a total of seven new world records, including Distance, Duration and Altitude across all balloon types and sizes (Absolute category).
Four of these records – for distance and duration in two ballooning classes – still stand today. On completing the flight, Jones told the jubilant, Geneva-based mission control team: “The first thing I'll do is phone my wife, and then, like the good Englishman I am, I'll have a cup of tea.''
Piccard, 41 at the time, added that he felt an “invisible hand” had guided their “fantastic voyage”.
About the records
The seven FAI world records set by the two balloonists were:
In the A-Absolute category
Distance: 40,814km (current)
Duration: 477h 47min (current)
Shortest time around the world: 370h 24min (superseded by Steve Fossett in 2002 and Fedor Konyukhov in 2016)
In the AM-15 category (Mixed balloons: 22 000 m³ and above)
Shortest time around the world: 370h 24min (superseded)
Altitude: 11,737m (superseded by David Hempleman-Adams in 2004)
About the round-the-world flight
Piccard and Jones’ historic journey began when they took off from the Swiss ski village of Château d’Oex, and ended some three weeks later in Egypt – taking in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, Central America, and the Atlantic Ocean on the way.
Their balloon, the Breitling Orbiter 3, was a huge silver orb that stood 55m high when fully inflated. Known as a Rozière – or Rozier – balloon, it combined the features of a hot air balloon with those of a gas balloon, incorporating a helium cell within a hot air envelope.
With a Rozier balloon, the hot air prevents the lifting gas cooling down at night and causing the balloon to lose altitude. It’s a principle invented in 1785, albeit using hydrogen rather than helium, which is a much safer option.
The red gondola in which Piccard and Jones made their 1999 voyage was equipped with navigation tools and survival gear, as well as a single bunk and a pressure-operated toilet.
It is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, USA.
Photos (Flickr album)
Photo credit: FAI
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Kearney and Young Family History
The (hi)story of us
← A trip to Bridgend
Peninsula War Prisoner of War records →
Local newspapers – The Cambrian
The Cambrian was the first English-language newspaper to be published in Wales, running from 1804 – 1930. A couple of years ago I heard that it had been digitised and indexed which was great news for family historians with Welsh ancestors.
The following extracts relate to Admiral Thomas Mansel (1783-1869):
The Cambrian (Catalogue Index T30)
With pleasure we state that … Thomas Mansel, Esq. son of the late Sir W. Mansel, Bart. of Iscoed, have been promoted to the rank of Master and Commander.
The Cambrian (Catalogue Index K62)
Capt. Thos. MANSEL., R.N. – On Thursday, the 27th ult., the officers and crew of the Folkestone District, presented to our brave countryman, Capt. T. Mansel (son of the late Sir William Mansel, of Iscoed, Carmarthenshire), upon his retiring from the command of that district, with a salver, coffee-pot, sugar and milk ewer, of the most costly description, as a token of their high respect and sincere regard for his urbane, gentlemanly, and kind attention to his brother officers during the arduous service of the last three years in that district. On the coffee-pot was engraved the following inscription:- “To Captain Mansel,R.N., on promotion. Presented by the Officers of the Folkestone District, in testimony of their respect and esteem. 1834.” Inscription on the salver:- “To Captain Mansel, R.N., on retiring from the command of the Folkestone District. Presented by the respective Crews as a testimony of their grateful respect for his solicitude in promoting their interest and welfare. 1834.” – Capt. Mansel returned thanks in a feeling address, – The Devon Telegraph, from which the above notice is extracted, says – “We understand it is intended to give the gallant Captain a public dinner in the Town-hall at Folkstone, in which many of the neighbouring gentleman have expressed a wish to join.”
The Cambrian (Catalogue Index C20)
Death of Admiral Mansel. – the death of Admiral Thomas Mansel took place on the 1st inst., at Fareham, in the 86th year of his age. The deceased admiral, who was the last surviving son of the late Sir William Mansel, of Iscoed, Bart., entered the navy in 1798, and as midshipman served in the Elephant, under Lord Nelson, at the battle of Copenhagen, in April, 1801. He afterwards proceeded to the West Indies, and took part in the operations against the French, at St Domingo, in 1803. As lieutenant of the Racoon he was wounded at the recapture of a merchant vessel off Cuba. He commanded the armed ship Trowbridge, and was present at the taking of the Isle of France in 1810. His last appointment was in April, 1831, to the coastguard, in which service he continued until he was promoted to captain in February 1834. His commissions bore date as follows: Lieutenant, 16th September, 1804; commander, 15th June, 1814; captain, 12th February,1834; retired rear-admiral, 21st October, 1856; vice-admiral,27th April, 1863; and admiral, 18th October, 1867.
On the 1st inst., At Fareham, Admiral Thomas Mansel, the last surviving son of the late Sir William Mansel, Iscoed, Bart., in the 86th year of his age.
This entry was posted in Mansel family, Royal Navy, Wales and tagged Mansel, newspaper, Royal Navy. Bookmark the permalink.
Welcome to my family history blog about my Benger, Hacker, Kearney, Mansel, Winchombe and Young relatives. To view my family tree click on the family tree tab at the top. You can contact me jenny[at]kearney.co.uk
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John Howell on A trip to Cardiff
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The Society was founded in 1940 as ‘The Village Produce Association’ and was affiliated to the Association of Village Produce Associations. The aims of the Association were to promote the growing of fruit and vegetables and home production of associated foods such as jam, marmalade, pickles, bread, cakes, etc. to assist in the war effort. This would off-set the lack of imported foods owing to the enormous loss of merchant shipping and the reduction of the labour force in the food industry.
Lectures were arranged to educate the members in improved methods of cultivation and food preservation.
The idea of competition among gardeners and housewives (very often the same person!) to encourage more production led to the first Annual Produce Show in 1943. The Association was affiliated to the Royal Horticultural Society and that Society’s Show Rules have been applied ever since.
The Show was first held in Farmer Norman’s Field (behind the bungalows near the traffic lights in Felpham Way) and continued there for some years after the war until transferring to King George V Playing Field. The Show then developed into a Flower and Produce Show and Fete with a Fun Fair, Sideshows, Stalls and Competitions such as a Fancy Dress Parade and a Dog Show. Children’s Classes for embroidery, needlework, metalwork, woodwork, painting and drawing were also introduced as well as Classes for embroidery, needlework, crochet, knitting, general handicraft, art and flower arranging for adults.
The Show continued in the Playing Field until 1978 when the Society became the Felpham and Middleton Horticultural Society with the Annual Show being held in various venues in Felpham. In 1992 a second Show, the Rose and Sweet Pea Show was introduced as well as two full-day coach outings to well-known gardens and a Ploughman’s Lunch catered for by the Committee. A biennial Members’ Gardens Open afternoon was introduced in 1992. In 2006 half-day outings to various nurseries and NGS gardens were added. The Society continued to expand and a third Show, the Spring Show, was introduced in 2007.
Introduced in 2001, the New Year Lunch held at a local restaurant, ceased in 2017 and was replaced with a Harvest Lunch, catered for by the Committee. The Annual holiday has been abandoned this year after 25 years due to lack of support.
Our Society has celebrated its 50th Anniversary, Diamond Jubilee and 70th Anniversary and has every intention of celebrating its centenary.
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October 2019 Meeting
September 2019 Meeting
Flower & Produce Show 2019
July 2019 Meeting
Outing to Hanging Hosta Garden & West Green House Garden
Outing to Mottisfont Abbey and Longstock Water Garden
Flower and Produce Show 2018
Nick Bailey – 365 Days of Colour
Nick Bailey, a regular presenter on Gardener’s World, came to Felpham on Tuesday evening to talk to the Felpham & Middleton Horticultural Society about “365 Days of Colour in your Garden”. The meeting was very well attended with 100 members and 49 visitors of which 13 became members.
Nick’s career of over 25 years in horticulture spans landscape and garden design, garden management, teaching, writing and broadcasting. He has created and managed gardens on four continents including redesigning the gardens and diversifying the plant collection at London’s Chelsea Physic Garden for the past seven years. In 2016 he designed his first Main Avenue Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, receiving extensive plaudits from the press and judges along with a Silver Gilt Medal. His film on plants associated with Shakespeare for Gardeners’ World won best TV programme at the Garden Media Guild Awards in 2016.
Nick began his broadcasting career presenting “Gardens Wild and Wonderful” in South Africa (1995-6) and spent four years as a panellist on BBC Radio Norfolk’s “Garden Party”. Since then he has appeared on BBC 2’s “Great British Garden Revival”, “Big Dreams Small Spaces”, “ITV News”, “The One Show”, BBC Radio 4’s “Food Programme” and presented RHS Flower Shows coverage for the BBC.
His horticultural media career spans some 15 years including work as an editor for “Garden Answers” and “Garden News”, freelance writing for the “RHS The Garden”, “The Mail”, “The Times” and “The Telegraph”. Nick currently has regular columns in “Garden News”, and BBC “Gardeners’ World Magazine” for which he was awarded “Property Press Awards’ Garden Journalist of the Year 2017”.
Nick’s first book “Chelsea Physic Garden – A Companion Guide” was published in 2014, followed by “365 Days of Colour in your Garden” in 2015 which has been an Amazon best seller ever since. His latest title, “Revive Our Garden” has received much praise for its practical and inspirational help to bring a garden back to life.
Nick was a very entertaining speaker – using the colour wheel to illustrate how harmonious colour combinations can be achieved by putting the right plants together. He explained that we can, in fact, have colour all year round in our garden by extending the flowering season and gave lots of suggestions for those months of the year – November through to February – when we struggle.
Nick finished his talk by giving us an interesting insight into the filming of “Gardeners’ World”, (including some funny anecdotes!) and also creating a garden at Chelsea.
As Don Faircloth, Society Show Secretary, said, when giving the vote of thanks, he was reminded of the Eric and Ernie sketch with Andre Previn when Eric explained that he was playing “all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”. Nick encouraged us to rethink our borders to gain maximum colour and longevity and enjoy the winter planning our borders for next year.
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Son of Russian working class immigrants, Ralph Lauren has transformed himself into the sophisticated billionaire. His classic and preppy designs all draw upon an image of old world wealth and luxury, and he pioneered the concept of clothes as part of a lifestyle environment. Lauren worked in retail before developing a line of neckties. The brand he established, Polo, is now one part of an empire that includes fragrances, home furnishings and luxury clothing. Today, his five billion dollar business includes several clothing lines as well as perfumes, house ware, furniture and paint.
There's a puff-sleeve personality for everyone, according to the runways. Maybe you'll like yours neat and rounded out at the shoulder for autumn (see Givenchy), or maybe you'll want something decadent and entirely inappropriate for anything that involves dipping sauces (see Emilia Wickstead's gigantic-sleeved floral dresses). Whatever route you choose to go down there is a huge amount on offer from edgy to prim.
Tom Ford, counted among the most famous designers today, whose portfolio includes serving as a creative director for both Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci, wanted to be actor when he was growing up. He was born in Texas and even took training to be an actor. But fate had other “designs” for him. Tom ford popularity as a designer reached peaks when in the year 2000, he was declared the winner of the Best International Designer Award.
Talented and charismatic, he soon drew the attention of VIP’s in the fashion world; they appreciated his chic knitwear and his creativity. Always influenced by art, Gianni Versace drew inspiration from ancient Roman and Greek paintings and sculpture, as well as modern abstracts and Pop Art – producing bold, current designs using color, prints, and careful fitting that accentuated the lines of the body,
If there's one thing that guaranteed Instagram likes all year thus far, it's hair accessories. Whether giant padded headbands or cutesy diamanté clips, the enthusiasm for this outfit add-on shows no sign of slowing down for autumn/winter and the accompanying party season. We were particularly enamoured with the most outré options, like Simone Rocha's crystal tiaras or Alessandra Rich's marabou halos.
If sequins aren't your thing, add a bit of zhush to your look with playful textures. I.e. extreme fluff. To go full-feather, you'll need to forgo any concerns for a sleek silhouette and embrace the bulk. Pair an OTT coat atop a chic slip for an impactful moment you can take off once inside, or go full-throttle with a feathered dress for drama all night long.
Fashion is the niche that is undergoing significant changes with time. 20th century has witnessed some great enhancements in both women and men apparels. These significant changes have happened due to the work of some icons in the fashion industry. There are so many popular names among these fashion designers who are still known due to their incredible contributions to the fashion industry. They have really made elegant and creative clothing that could reveal the beauty of a women in the most amazing manner. The apparels of men also were striking and which could bring out the manly look in any man. Here are the most popular fashion designers. They have set standards which can be followed by the designers of the new era. These great individuals are always immortal in the fashion industry. These names are much familiar for all the individuals who are related with the fashion industry.
"A/W is always a moment for incredible outerwear, and this season it was no exception. For the most part, it was the bigger the better; oversized shapes, duvet dressing, blanket capes and more," says Elizabeth von der Goltz, Net-a-Porter global buying director. "Oversized cannot be mentioned without talking to the trench coat and the bigger the better with billowing sleeves at JW Anderson, cape draping at Burberry and classic maxi coats at Khaite. Big coats marked the opening of the Max Mara runway in blue, yellow and teal. Hot pink was the favourite at Jacquemus and Valentino, whose oversized silhouettes gave this typically feminine colour a masculine twist. And last but not least is the puffa jacket, which received an elegant update with a new reference to duvet dressing. Padding, quilting, floral embroidery and organza layering came from the likes of Margiela, Dries Van Noten and Toteme."
Hubert de Givenchy was born to an aristocratic family in Beauvais, France, in the 20’s. After attending art school, he worked for several important fashion designers in Paris. He opened his own design house in 1952 and was immediately praised for his chic, feminine designs. He is known for his elegant haute couture designs and professional relationships with clients like Audrey Hepburn.
Yves Saint Laurent became popular in fashion circles due to his creativity in redesigning the clothes considered to be masculine into beautiful, feminine wardrobe for women. Perhaps, one of the most famous fashion designers in France, Yves was the first one to introduce power dressing for women in the form of “power suits” in the year 1966. He is also credited with designing the men’s smoking jacket. The most important fashion legacy which he has left behind is the “ready-to-wear” fashion clothing.
Fashion today is a global industry, and most major countries have a fashion industry. Seven countries have established an international reputation in fashion: France, Italy, United Kingdom, United States, Japan, Germany and Belgium. The "big four" centers of the fashion industry are Paris, Milan, New York City and London. The biggest manufacturers of clothing are China, Bangladesh and India, and other notable clothing manufacturing countries are Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Philippines, South Korea, Spain, and Brazil.
“We love the body of a woman. Coco Chanel was wrong when she said that men were unable to design for women. Women know too much about women and they transpose their needs onto women’s clothes” The idea of women power and women shapes is as good to Dolce and Gabbana as it is for us. In 1985, their first collection was shown in Milan and built their themes on screen sirens, Sicilian widows and a rosary of Catholic kitsch. Dolce and Gabbana are arguably the most powerful and influential designers of our time.
A most notable Indian-fashion-designer. He’s identified for his work in fashion-industry since 1987, and is another Bollywood-dearest. He got his degree from New York institute of fashion technology, and when came back, realized that there is a huge appeal of designer-wear in India, so he opted for being a dress-stylist and revolutionized the field of fashion in 1987, by opening his very first boutique in India with a name “Ensemble”. His own label is named as ”Ahilian” and in 1990, established his design studio “Tahiliani Design Studio” in New Delhi. This brand is well-known for artistic and perfect styles. His clothes are sold not only in India but also in London, New York, Tokyo, Dubai and Hong Kong.
Inquiring for my daughter. Where is the best Fashion Merchandise Marketing school in Sacramento and San Francisco area? Whenever I goggle these schools, some say Institute of Art in Sacramento, and some say FIDM, and others. I’m so confused I have no idea, which is the best college for my money. I have decided to go to American River College to get my Associates, and then I have no idea where to continue my fashion degree.
The people who prefer this are the ones who require everything at best quality. Nothing satisfies them if it is not worth the trouble. They often look for styles that make a statement on the quality, polished manner and culture. Most of them are the ones who are from higher status and are also in a way related to how a businesswoman would dress up. Sophisticated can be characterized as businesswoman minus the formal look. Culture and luxury mean the most to the people who choose this style of fashion.
Intelligent and pragmatic, Chanel used her powers of seduction to gain a foothold in the competitive fashion world; in succession, she became the mistress of two powerful and wealthy men. Both of her lovers were quite happy to use their money and influence to give her a start in business. From a beginning as a milliner, she rose to prominence in 1920, when her signature fragrance, the incredibly iconic Chanel No. 5, was launched.
In addition to bovver boots, a treasure trove of key pieces to plunder awaits you: Some you may own already (dig out that camel sweater), but a few entirely new-looking items will probably be worth the hype (that JW Anderson trench coat is going to sell out so fast). We chart those below, as well as all of the teeny-tiny details that make a difference, like a choker necklace—they're back—as well as the most of-the-moment colours, prints, fabrics, silhouettes, formulas and overarching themes that make up autumn/winter 2019's top trends. From dark floral dresses (Paco Rabanne wins) to the kind of tights every fashion girl will wear when the centigrade drops (with crystals on, please), here's what's what for autumn.
Donna Karan came from a background that was related to fashion in certain ways. This fashion designer worked as a head of a design team for a few number of years and launched some designs that included the very well-known ‘Seven Easy Pieces’. She is the sole creator of the DKNY label (Donna Karen New York). Since then, this label has seen many new additions in the fashion segment.
Calvin Klein studied fashion in New York and apprenticed for a suit manufacturer. In 1968, he opened his own company that was initially recognized for suits and coats, but his sportswear line became popular and top of the line. He received three Coty Awards for womenswear. His business now includes clothing, cosmetics, fragrances and home collections.
After working for Dior, Schiaparelli and Paquin, Pierre Cardin opened his fashion house in 1947. Initially designing costumes for stage productions, he launched his first women’s couture collection in 1953 and women’s ready-to-wear in 1959. Cardin’s company grew into an empire starting in the 1960s when he began licensing his name to a wide array of products outside of clothing.
Like Halston, Calvin Klein epitomized disco glamour in the freewheeling late Seventies. His tight designer jeans, which clung to the sleek bodies of the greatest beauties of the day, including the young Brooke Shields, cemented his fame and made him millions of dollars. However, Calvin Klein’s reign continued well into the 80’s and 90’s – his spare, stripped-down designs offered a minimalist perspective that carried a very modern message. The use of sexuality in his ads was often a keystone of his success; his campaigns were designed to send overt messages and perhaps to shock. Today, his empire is still strong, despite some turbulence in the late nineties: his suits, dresses, and couture still offer a unique viewpoint.
“Intuition is a strong feminine quality. I have applied that instinct to my career“. This is one our favorite quotes by Carolina Herrera and we think she is a true inspiration to women in fashion, and more, around the world. Carolina started to be known by regularly appearing on the International Best Dressed List in the 80’s. Her trend marks are classy pieces like pencil skirts paired with crisp white cotton shirts. In 2008 she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
The puffer jackets is rarely off-the-menu right now, but just as it looked set to become a slightly stagnant market the off-duty look is entering new realms as next season it becomes a viable dressed-up option. Whether it's cropped and metallic, wrapped and tonal or mid-lenth and cinched, freezing temperatures will pose no problem on nights out next winter and we already can't wait.
A designer with a notorious past, Christian Dior was also known for being in cahoots with the enemy during WWII, when he dressed Nazi wives and French collaborators in his designs. Despite this questionable choice, he still rose to prominence during the late-forties when the war was over…primarily due to his unparalleled mastery of line and shape. He gave women a desirable “flower silhouette” which always featured a nipped-in waist, a full, voluminous skirt, and a feminine, corseted bodice. Often, the hips of his suits and dresses were padded to balance the bust line and accentuate the wasp-waisted effect.
"There is a micro-trend evolving by way of unexpected fabrics. Real or faux leather seemed to be the material of the moment," confirms Aiken. "Found by way of trenches, blouses, skirts and dresses. Among my favorites include Nanuskha’s vegan leather in the brand's cult-favorite puffa or streamlined leather dress, as well as the bold variations of color from Khaite and Proenza Schouler." Last year, the trend extended down to lower price points and the high street, so we're expecting the leather look to spread far and wide.
Tom Ford studied design at the before he worked for Perry Ellis andCathy Hardwick. Tom was hired in 1990 to oversee Gucci’s women’s wear collections, and had a breakthrough four years later when he was appointed creative director. The Gucci makeover masterminded by Ford was the biggest fashion success story of the late 90s. His sultry rock-star velvet hip-slung trousers, leather stilettos, and Halston-esque dresses were blockbusters. After Gucci’s buyout of Yves Saint Laurent in 1999, Ford also became creative director of YSL Rive Gauche. In 2005, Ford launched the Tom Ford brand.
Currently the fashion industry relies more on mass market sales. The mass market caters for a wide range of customers, producing ready-to-wear garments using trends set by the famous names in fashion. They often wait around a season to make sure a style is going to catch on before producing their own versions of the original look. To save money and time, they use cheaper fabrics and simpler production techniques which can easily be done by machine. The end product can therefore be sold much more cheaply.[7][8][9]
As an extension of the above furry trend, it was plain to see across the runways in each and every fashion capital that feathers were the detail of the moment. Either used for bonkers accessories or dotted onto the finest of silk-chiffon blouses to make them quiver ever so, this trend spans from clothes to accessories and back again. You'll see the high street adopting it for party season and in the shoe department.
On the off chance that you are hoping to add a remark closet that you can reach in for, whenever of the year, the trucker coat is an unquestionable requirement have this year. The denim coats are incredible when there is a beginning of a slight nip noticeable all around, and are similarly as extraordinary when worn under a layer, making a mold proclamation. Choose any: simply group it with thin pants or khakis, wear it unfastened on a free tee, or like a shirt. The decision is yours. This coat is super-adaptable, and an outright basic to finish the closet.
The good news for fashion trends 2019 autumn jackets is that there are no limitations for the styles of jackets. They can easily be bomber jackets, ski style sporty ones, even windbreakers. The freedom of choice is at your disposal. As long as you feel comfortable in your womens jacket 2019 and are able to create a style of your own, you will be looking amazing.
If there is one thing that is constant, it is “change”. And change is exactly the one thing that is constant when it comes to fashion. Since the beginning of human civilization, there has been a constant effort being put to make one look better. The different styles in fashion have always gone through innumerable changes. With the increase in the amount of innovations, the change in trend and fashion styles have also been rapid. So keeping that in mind, here is the list of a few fashion styles that we accepted with all our hearts:
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Army severely restricts military blogs
By Patience Wait
Operations and Signal Security (.pdf)
The Army has issued revised regulations that set stringent new limits on soldiers’ ability to participate in blogs on the Internet. The regulations are so strict that they even set limits on the ability of families and contractors to contribute their writings — even though the Army regulations are off-limits to them.
Wired News first reported the policy change May 2. The revised Regulation 530-1, “Operations Security (OPSEC),” was issued April 19.
In the second chapter of the regulation, which states the responsibilities of personnel at all levels, the Army has decreed its personnel “will…consult with their immediate supervisor and their OPSEC officer for an OPSEC review prior to publishing or posting information in a public forum. …This includes, but is not limited to letters, resumes, articles for publication, electronic mail (e-mail), Web site postings, Web log (blog) postings, discussion in Internet information forums, discussion in Internet message boards or other forms of dissemination or documentation.”
The regulation applies to “military and civilian personnel of the Active Army, the Army National Guard of the United States/Army National Guard, the United States Army Reserve and related activities of those organizations. Contractors must comply with contractually imposed Operations Security requirements. This regulation applies during all phases of operations, including training, readiness and mobilization.”
Family members also are included in the definition of “Total Army,” which defines the community over which the Army Department has jurisdiction. “Actively encourage others (including family members and family readiness groups…) to protect critical and sensitive information,” the regulation states.
But the regulation has been labeled “For Official Use Only,” which means family members — and many contractors — are not supposed to have access to the new standards.
The regulation does not limit itself to the broader military community, however, but extends its policing further afield.
Designated commanders of the “Army Web Risk Assessment Cells” are tasked with “conduct[ing] routine checks of Web sites on the World Wide Web for disclosure of critical and/or sensitive information that is deemed a potential OPSEC compromise. Web sites include, but are not limited to, Family Readiness Group …pages, unofficial Army Web sites, soldiers’ Web logs…and personal published or unpublished works related to the Army.”
These commanders are expected to ensure that suspected data found on the Internet is reviewed and analyzed, and to “recommend actions to remove inappropriate security and personal information from publicly accessible Web sites on the World Wide Web.”
The information to which the regulation applies is not limited to classified data, but covers anything that could be considered critical information — any specific data about capabilities, activities, limitations and vulnerabilities, which an adversary could analyze to take hostile action.
“Critical information that is unclassified especially requires OPSEC measures because it is not protected by the requirements provided to classified information,” the regulation states.
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Musica Kaleidoskopea
a kaleidoscopic view of music
Listening Diary
New Music XXI
Pet Sounds
Composer Profile: Taylor Deupree
August 13, 2014 ~ f. d. leone
Website | Soundcloud
Technology and imperfection. The raw and the processed. Curator and curated. Solo explorer and gregarious collaborator. The life and work of Taylor Deupree are less a study in contradictions than a portrait of the multidisciplinary artist in a still-young century.
Deupree is an accomplished sound artist whose recordings, rich with abstract atmospherics, have appeared on numerous record labels, and well as in site-specific installations at such institutions as the ICC (Tokyo, Japan) and the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (Yamaguchi, Japan). He started out, in the 1990s, making new noises that edged outward toward the fringes of techno, and in time he found his own path to follow. His music today emphasizes a hybrid of natural sounds and technological mediation. It’s marked by a deep attention to stillness, to an almost desperate near-silence. His passion for the studio as a recording instrument is paramount in his work, but there is no hint of digital idolatry. If anything, his music shows a marked attention to the aesthetics of error and the imperfect beauty of nature, to the short circuits not only in technological systems but in human perception.
And though there is an aura of insularity to Depuree’s work, he is a prolific collaborator, having collaborated with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Sylvian, Stephan Mathieu, Stephen Vitiello, Christopher Willits, Kenneth Kirschner, Frank Bretschneider, Richard Chartier, Savvas Ysatis, Tetsu Inoue and others.
Deupree dedicates as much time to other people’s music as he does to his own. In 1997 he founded the record label 12k, which since then has released over 100 recordings by some of the most accomplished musicians and modern sound artists of our time. Many share with Deupree an interest in stark minimalism, but the label has also found room for, located a common ground with, the acoustic avant-garde, the instrumental derivations of post-rock, and the synthetic extremes of techno.
And collectively, the cover jackets to the 12k album releases have served as an ongoing exhibit of Deupree’s photography, its lo-fi aesthetic, with an emphasis on damage and wear and antiquated tech, closely paralleling his music. (His photos have also graced numerous books, design anthologies, and other recordings and projects.)
Deupree continues to evolve his sound with an ambition and drive that is masked by his music’s inherent quietude. He approaches each project with an expectation of new directions, new processes, and new junctures.
What is your earliest musical memory that, in looking back, has proved to be significant regarding your career as a composer?
My first *sound* memory is being very little and lying in my bed and listening to my mom vacuuming downstairs. I could hear the vacuum through the floor and through my bed and I loved that sound. It would put me to sleep. Looking back on this now it’s no different than when I like to sleep to the sound of crickets, or rain, or music. Ambient noise has always been fascinating to me and obviously is something I’m conscious of when I write music.
Years later, as a young teenager, my best friend at the time introduced me to Brian Eno’s “Thursday Afternoon” album. This was in 1986, not long after the album came out. We were making music together at the time and I’d spend the night at his house. He’d put on “Thursday Afternoon” as we went to sleep and put the CD player on repeat so the album would play all night long and still be playing when we woke up. It was a very strange feeling, sort of warped your sense of time. This was also my introduction to ambient music, and to Eno, and continues to be my biggest influence.
I still listen to “Thursday Afternoon” this way.
Are there composers who have been influential or relevant regarding your own work? Has this changed over time?
I’m influenced by everything around me, both positively and negatively. As a sound artist and photographer my ears and eyes are always active. Eno’s ambient music from the ‘80s really guided my music, though I didn’t realize it until years after first hearing him. I also realized, after reading books on Eno and learning of his philosophies that I think about a lot of the same things in the same way. I think this is what makes a good influence, someone that you not only learn from but that you discover a similar mindset with. The best influences are not just about taking someone’s ideas, but realizing you share similar ones.
I’m influenced a lot by the tools and technology I work with and especially by visual artists like Donald Judd or James Turrell and photographers like Michael Kenna and Hiroshi Sugimoto. I find the visual work that these artists create echoes so many of my musical ideas. I like to take inspiration for music from non-musical ideas. Remove that inspiration a few steps and it helps spur creativity as you reassemble the ideas into a different medium.
My influences were probably quite in flux as I was growing as an artist but have been pretty consistent for the past few years as I’ve become more comfortable with who I am and the work that I do. I’ve found my place, I think, and my own voice.
Would you mind speaking a little concerning your working process, i.e., do you have a regular schedule for writing; do you use a computer for composing (either for creating pre-composition materials or notation), if so, do you find that it inhibits your process? What other technology, if any, do you use?
I don’t have a regular schedule for writing although I’m constantly making sounds and just playing around in the studio. I need to be in a very specific mindset to actually write an album, though, and I tend to write in the winter. There is something about the winter landscape and how the music wraps and warms me that makes me more creative at this time of the year. Once I do get into that mode, however, I will write constantly and work towards finishing. I also have to have an album’s title before I begin writing the album. It helps me focus and gives the album a direction right from the beginning. My albums tend to have loose concepts, so this is an important part of the process. I don’t really actively think of a title either, it usually comes to be serendipitously… and once that happens, I know it’s the right title and the time to start working.
I use a computer as a multitrack recorder and arranger. I use the software Digital Performer, for many, many, years now. I know it very well and am comfortable using it and it doesn’t get in the way. The computer as recorder definitely doesn’t inhibit my process but I’m careful to keep its role to a minimum. I’m not a big user of software to make sounds but the computer as a mixing tool is very powerful.
To make my sounds and music I use a lot of hardware synthesizers, both old and new, a modular synthesizer system, as well as a variety of acoustic instruments like guitar, xylophone, various percussion and found objects. I use tape recorders as sound processors and often mix my final mixes to tape, either reel-to-reel or cassette.
I like my music to be a blend of high tech and low tech where synthesizers and modern technology, which I equate with being “clean” and precise, get roughed up and worn around the edges by tape, room recording techniques and other older or more organic processes as well as being paired with field recordings and acoustic instruments. I think this combination of instruments creates a richer, deeper palette, a more detailed, engaging sound world.
Please describe one of your recent compositions and provide a link to an audio clip.
This year I’ve been making and sharing what I’m calling a Studio Diary. It’s a way for me to exercise my creativity in the studio on a day to day basis and share the experiments with my listeners. The sounds are not supposed to be finished compositions by any means, merely experiments with difference processes and ideas. I’m concentrating mostly on sounds with my modular synthesizer, which is pretty new and constantly a work in progress. It’s such a limitless instrument that I find working with it a little bit every day has been a great learning experience. It’s a lot like learning a language where you have certain “a-ha!” moments and grasp a concept that sticks with you. I’ve been really pleased with what I’ve done so far during the year. It hasn’t been every day… as I anticipated… sometimes life gets in the way, but I do it as much as I can. What will happen with all of these sounds and sketches at the end of the year I have no idea… perhaps I’ll create an album using them all…. or just leave them be and work them in occasionally to new pieces. I’m not too concerned about that yet. Right now it’s all about exploration. You can hear the progress so far and follow along at:
Posted in Profiles 12katmosphericsinstallationssound-art
Published by f. d. leone
Songwriter. View all posts by f. d. leone
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Strategic Butt Coverings – Feminist Frequency
Strategic Butt Coverings
#Tropes vs Women in Video Games — January 19, 2016
Executive Director and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Enthusiast
This episode examines the ways in which designers often employ camera angles and clothing choices as tools to deliberately sexualize and objectify female protagonists of third-person games. To illustrate that this is no accident, we contrast the ways in which women’s butts are frequently emphasized with the great lengths often taken to avoid calling attention to the butts of male characters. We then present some examples of female-led third-person games that humanize rather than objectify their protagonists.
This is the first episode in season two of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. For more on the format changes accompanying season two, please see our announcement here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games/posts/1469466
Press Image for Media Use: https://www.flickr.com/photos/femfreq/23844341504
The Tropes vs Women in Video Games project aims to examine the plot devices and patterns most often associated with female characters in gaming from a systemic, big picture perspective. This series will include critical analysis of many beloved games and characters, but remember that it is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of it’s more problematic or pernicious aspects. This video series is created by Anita Sarkeesian and the project was funded by 6968 awesome backers on Kickstarter.com
Links, Resources & Transcript
37 GAMES REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE
Alan Wake (2010)
Alice: Madness Returns (2011)
Assassin’s Creed (2007)
Batman: Arkham City (2011)
Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)
Bayonetta (2009)
Beyond Good & Evil (2003)
Binary Domain (2012)
Blades of Time (2012)
Bully (2006)
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (2014)
Devil May Cry 4 (2008)
Gears of War 3 (2011)
Golden Axe: Beast Rider (2008)
Heavenly Sword (2007)
Just Cause 2 (2010)
Kane & Lynch 2 (2010)
Life Is Strange (2015)
Lollipop Chainsaw (2012)
Max Payne 3 (2012)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008)
Ninja Gaiden II (2008)
Prince of Persia (2008)
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003)
Red Dead Redemption (2010)
The Saboteur (2009)
Sleeping Dogs (2012)
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (2008)
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (2010)
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (2003)
Tomb Raider: Underworld (2008)
Watch Dogs (2014)
X-Blades (2007)
CLIP: Batman: Arkham Knight
“Well handsome, what are we waiting for?”
If you want to get to know a character, learn about their interests, goals, or desires, their butt is probably not going to give you that information. It won’t tell you much about who they are, or what they’re thinking or feeling at any given time. But video game designers often choose to put tremendous focus on the butts of certain characters, while going to almost absurd lengths to avoid calling attention to the butts of others. These carefully crafted choices developers make about camera angles and clothing significantly impact how players think about and relate to these characters.
Third-person games with female protagonists typically display those characters in a way that gives players a full-body view. A classic example of this is the original Tomb Raider games, which are presented from a third-person perspective wherein protagonist Lara Croft’s entire body is visible. In these early Tomb Raider games, Lara’s butt is typically right in the center of the screen, a camera orientation which, along with the sexualized clothing the designers chose to outfit her in, places a tremendous amount of emphasis on that part of her body.
In dozens of third-person games with playable female characters, the character’s butt is brought to the forefront and that’s where the player’s focus is directed. In Batman: Arkham City for instance, the player’s gaze is drawn to Catwoman’s behind, which is emphasized by her costume and exaggerated hip sway.
CLIP: Golden Axe: Beast Rider
“The ceremony! The sisterhood will never forgive me if I am late.”
Golden Axe: Beast Rider makes extremely sure that we notice the protagonist’s butt just before we take control and start playing. And here in Tomb Raider: Underworld, to say that Lara’s butt is being emphasized would be putting it mildly.
CLIP: Tomb Raider: Underworld
“Incredible. The carvings are clearly similar to early Germanic design, but this is far older than the fifth century.”
And this happens all too often.
CLIP: Remember Me
“You can’t miss it.”
Let’s contrast the way that women’s butts are emphasized with the sometimes absurd lengths taken to cover up or hide men’s butts. If some of this footage looks jerky, that’s because in some games, trying to get a glimpse of male characters’ butts can feel a bit like wrestling with the camera.
Common ways men’s butts are hidden are by preventing the player from seeing below the character’s waistline, or employing a more over-the-shoulder camera angle, which has the added benefit of keeping the character’s butt safely out of the frame. The most amusing solution is to simply include a cape, tunic, long coat or very conveniently positioned piece of tattered fabric which actively prevents the player from getting a clear or sustained look at the protagonist’s butt. For the purposes of this video I tried to get a glimpse of Batman’s rear end, but it’s as if his cape is a high-tech piece of Wayne Industries equipment designed to cover up his butt at all costs. I like to jokingly refer to this aspect of a male character’s costume as the strategic butt covering.
Of course, not all games with male protagonists keep the character’s butt obscured or out of frame like these games do. The real issue is one of emphasis and definition; a significant portion of third-person games with female protagonists call attention to those characters’ butts in a way that’s meant to be sexually appealing to the presumed straight male player. In this regard, the way that women’s bodies are depicted is significantly different from the way that men’s bodies are depicted. There are a few examples of male protagonists who are wearing clothing that calls attention to their butts but for the most part, men’s butts, even when visible in the frame, are deemphasized. Plenty of male heroes wear baggy pants or jeans, Uncharted’s Nathan Drake among them, but nothing about his visual design or the jeans he’s wearing encourages you to focus on his butt as some sort of defining aspect of his character.
By contrast, the emphasis placed on the butts of female characters communicates to players that this is what’s important, this is what you should be paying attention to. It communicates that the character is a sexual object designed for players to look at and enjoy. And by explicitly encouraging you to ogle and objectify the character, the game is implicitly discouraging you from identifying directly with her. Strategic butt coverings and camera angles that obscure or de-emphasize male characters’ rear ends are not an accident; they are a conscious decision made with great care, and the flipside of this is that designers often do the opposite when the protagonist is female.
This difference in how male and female characters are framed often extends into the advertisements and box covers. Women’s butts are front and center, and it’s even become a depressing joke that their bodies are twisted and contorted in uncomfortable or unnatural ways so that their breasts and butt can be visible in the same shot. In contrast, when men are depicted from behind, there is great effort taken to cover up their rear end, often with other images or shadows.
Of course, female characters can also be framed in ways that aren’t objectifying. A good example of this is the episodic adventure game Life Is Strange, in which the protagonist’s butt isn’t emphasized or centralized; the camera angles work in conjunction with the story to encourage us to identify with her as a human being. Sadly, the box art for the third-person action-adventure game Beyond Good & Evil emphasizes and sexualizes Jade’s butt. The game itself, however, demonstrates that the Nathan Drake approach of outfitting a character in clothing that doesn’t emphasize their butt and not having the camera center it or focus on it can work just as well to humanize female characters as it does for male characters.
So to be clear, the solution here is not to simply show more butts of male characters. Equal opportunity butt display is definitely not the answer. Rather, the solution is to deemphasize the rear ends of female characters, so that players are encouraged not to ogle and objectify these women, but to identify and empathize with them as people. This is not an impossible task given that game designers do this all the time with their male characters. It’s time they started consistently doing it with their female characters, too.
A Message from Anita on the End of Tropes
#Featured, #Video Games
Well, here we are folks. I knew this day was coming but it always seemed so far away. After five long years, Tropes vs. Women in Video Games […]
Help Fund Tropes vs Women in Video Games
NOTE: The Kickstarter campaign has ended. Thank you everyone for all your support! See the final results here. Earlier this year, I was invited to speak about developing […]
Tropes vs. Women: #3 The Smurfette Principle
This is the third of a six part series created for Bitch Magazine. Tropes vs. Women explores the reoccurring stories, themes and representations of women in Hollywood films […]
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Solid-state drive
(Redirected from 1 MB partition alignment)
"SSD" redirects here. For other uses, see SSD (disambiguation).
"Electronic disk" redirects here. For other uses, see Electronic disk (disambiguation).
A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It is also sometimes called a solid-state device or a solid-state disk,[1] although SSDs lack the physical spinning disks and movable read-write heads used in hard drives ("HDD") or floppy disks.[2]
A 2.5-inch Serial ATA solid-state drive
Usage of flash memory
Introduction date:
1991; 29 years ago (1991)
20 MB (2.5-in form factor)
Original concept
Storage Technology Corporation
Conceived:
In 2019 capacities available up to 60 - 100TB
A PCI-attached IO Accelerator SSD
An mSATA SSD with an external enclosure
512GB Samsung 960 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD
Compared with the electromechanical drives, SSDs are typically more resistant to physical shock, run silently, and have quicker access time and lower latency.[3] SSDs store data in semiconductor cells. As of 2019, cells can contain between 1 and 4 bits of data. SSD storage devices vary in their properties according to the number of bits stored in each cell, with single bit cells ("SLC") being generally the most reliable, durable, fast, and expensive type, compared with 2 and 3 bit cells ("MLC" and "TLC"), and finally quad bit cells ("QLC") being used for consumer devices that do not require such extreme properties and are the cheapest of the four. In addition, 3D XPoint memory (sold by Intel under the Optane brand), stores data by changing the electrical resistance of cells instead of storing electrical charges in cells, and SSDs made from RAM can be used for high speed, when data persistence after power loss is not required, or may use battery power to retain data when its usual power source is unavailable.[4] Hybrid drives or solid-state hybrid drives (SSHDs), such as Apple's Fusion Drive, combine features of SSDs and HDDs in the same unit using both flash memory and a HDD in order to improve the performance of frequently-accessed data.[5][6][7]
While the price of SSDs has continued to decline over time, SSDs are (as of 2019[update]) still more expensive per unit of storage than HDDs and are expected to remain so into the next decade.
SSDs based on NAND Flash will slowly leak charge over time if left for long periods without power. This causes worn-out drives (that have exceeded their endurance rating) to start losing data typically after one year (if stored at 30 °C) to two years (at 25 °C) in storage; for new drives it takes longer.[8] Therefore, SSDs are not suitable for archival storage. 3D XPoint is a possible exception to this rule, however it is a relatively new technology with unknown data-retention characteristics.
SSDs can use traditional hard disk drive (HDD) interfaces and form factors, or newer interfaces and form factors that exploit specific advantages of the flash memory in SSDs. Traditional interfaces (e.g., SATA and SAS) and standard HDD form factors allow such SSDs to be used as drop-in replacements for HDDs in computers and other devices. Newer form factors such as mSATA, M.2, U.2, XFMEXPRESS[9] and EDSFF (formerly known as Ruler SSD[10])[11] and higher speed interfaces such as NVMe over PCI Express can increase performance over HDD performance.[4]
1 Development and history
1.1 Early SSDs using RAM and similar technology
1.2 Flash-based SSDs
1.2.1 Enterprise flash drives
1.3 Drives using other persistent memory technologies
2 Architecture and function
2.1 Controller
2.1.1 Wear leveling
2.2 Memory
2.2.1 Flash-memory-based
2.2.2 DRAM-based
2.2.3 3D XPoint-based
2.3 Cache or buffer
2.4 Battery or supercapacitor
2.5 Host interface
3 Configurations
3.1 Standard HDD form factors
3.2 Standard card form factors
3.3 Disk-on-a-module form factors
3.4 Box form factors
3.5 Bare-board form factors
3.6 Ball grid array form factors
4 Comparison with other technologies
4.1 Hard disk drives
4.2 Memory cards
5 SSD failure
5.1 SSD reliability and failure modes
5.2 Data recovery and secure deletion
5.3 Endurance
6.1 Hard drives caching
7 File system support for SSDs
7.1.1 Linux performance considerations
7.2 macOS
7.3 Microsoft Windows
7.3.1 Windows 7
7.3.2 Windows 8.1
7.3.3 Windows Vista
7.4 ZFS
7.5 FreeBSD
7.6 Swap partitions
8 Standardization organizations
9 Commercialization
9.1 Availability
9.2 Quality and performance
Development and historyEdit
Early SSDs using RAM and similar technologyEdit
An early—if not the first—semiconductor storage device compatible with a hard drive interface (e.g. an SSD as defined) was the 1978 StorageTek STC 4305. The STC 4305, a plug-compatible replacement for the IBM 2305 fixed head disk drive, initially used charge-coupled devices (CCDs) for storage and consequently was reported to be seven times faster than the IBM product at about half the price ($400,000 for 45 MB capacity).[12] It later switched to DRAM. Before the StorageTek SSD there were many DRAM and core (e.g. DATARAM BULK Core, 1976)[13] products sold as alternatives to HDDs but these products typically had memory interfaces and were not SSDs as defined.
In the late 1980s, Zitel offered a family DRAM based SSD products, under the trade name "RAMDisk," for use on systems by UNIVAC and Perkin-Elmer, among others.
Flash-based SSDsEdit
Improvement of SSD characteristics over time
Started with (1991)
Developed to (2018)
20 megabytes 100 terabytes (Nimbus Data DC100) 5-million-to-one[14]
Price US$50 per megabyte US$0.372 per gigabyte (Samsung PM1643) 134,408-to-one[15]
The basis for flash-based SSDs, flash memory, was invented by Fujio Masuoka at Toshiba in 1980,[16] and commercialized by Toshiba in 1987.[17][18] SanDisk Corporation (then SunDisk) founders Eli Harari and Sanjay Mehrotra, along with Robert D. Norman, saw the potential of flash memory as an alternative to a hard drive, and filed a patent for a flash-based SSD in 1989.[19] The first commercial flash-based SSD was shipped by SunDisk in 1991.[16] It was a 20 MB SSD in a PCMCIA configuration, and sold OEM for around $1,000 and was used by IBM in a ThinkPad laptop.[20] In 1998, SanDisk introduced SSDs in 2½ and 3½ form factors with PATA interfaces.[21]
In 1995, STEC, Inc. entered the flash memory business for consumer electronic devices.[22]
In 1995, M-Systems introduced flash-based solid-state drives[23] as HDD replacements for the military and aerospace industries, as well as for other mission-critical applications. These applications require the SSD's ability to withstand extreme shock, vibration and temperature ranges.[24]
In 1999, BiTMICRO made a number of introductions and announcements about flash-based SSDs, including an 18 GB 3.5-inch SSD.[25] In 2007, Fusion-io announced a PCIe-based Solid state drive with 100,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) of performance in a single card, with capacities up to 320 gigabytes.[26]
At Cebit 2009, OCZ Technology demonstrated a 1 terabyte (TB) flash SSD using a PCI Express ×8 interface. It achieved a maximum write speed of 654 megabytes per second (MB/s) and maximum read speed of 712 MB/s.[27] In December 2009, Micron Technology announced an SSD using a 6 gigabits per second (Gbit/s) SATA interface.[28]
In 2016, Seagate demonstrated 10GB/S sequential read and write speeds from a 16-lane PCIe 3.0 SSD and also demonstrated a 60TB SSD in a 3.5-inch form factor. Samsung also launched to market a 15.36TB SSD with a price tag of US$10,000 using a SAS interface, using a 2.5-inch form factor but with the thickness of 3.5-inch drives. This was the first time a commercially available SSD had more capacity than the largest currently available HDD.[29][30][31][32][33]
In 2018, both Samsung and Toshiba introduced to market 30.72TB SSDs using the same 2.5-inch form factor but with 3.5-inch drive thickness using a SAS interface. Nimbus Data announced and reportedly shipped 100TB drives using a SATA interface, a capacity HDDs are not expected to reach until 2025. Samsung introduced an M.2 NVMe SSD with read speeds of 3500MB/s and write speeds of 3300MB/s.[34][35][36][37][38][39][40]
In 2019, Gigabyte Technology demonstrated an 8 TB 16-lane PCIe 4.0 SSD with 15,000MB/s sequential read and 15,200MB/s sequential write speeds at Computex 2019. It included a fan, as new, high speed SSDs run at high temperatures.[41] Also in 2019, NVMe M.2 SSDs using the PCIe 4.0 interface were launched. These SSDs have read speeds of up to 5000MB/s and write speeds of up to 4400MB/s. Due to their high speed operation, these SSDs use large heatsinks, and if they do not receive sufficient cooling arflow will typically thermally throttle down after roughly 15 minutes of continuous operation at full speed.[42] Samsung also introduced SSDs capable of 8GB/s sequential read and write speeds and 1.5 million IOPS, capable of moving data from damaged chips to undamaged chips, to allow the SSD to continue working normally, albeit at a lower capacity. [43][44][45]
Enterprise flash drivesEdit
Top and bottom views of a 2.5-inch 100 GB SATA 3.0 (6 Gbit/s) model of the Intel DC S3700 series
Enterprise flash drives (EFDs) are designed for applications requiring high I/O performance (IOPS), reliability, energy efficiency and, more recently, consistent performance. In most cases, an EFD is an SSD with a higher set of specifications, compared with SSDs that would typically be used in notebook computers. The term was first used by EMC in January 2008, to help them identify SSD manufacturers who would provide products meeting these higher standards.[46] There are no standards bodies who control the definition of EFDs, so any SSD manufacturer may claim to produce EFDs when in fact the product may not actually meet any particular requirements.[47]
An example is the Intel DC S3700 series of drives, introduced in the fourth quarter of 2012, which focuses on achieving consistent performance, an area that had previously not received much attention but which Intel claimed was important for the enterprise market. In particular, Intel claims that, at a steady state, the S3700 drives would not vary their IOPS by more than 10–15%, and that 99.9% of all 4 KB random I/Os are serviced in less than 500 µs.[48]
Another example is the Toshiba PX02SS enterprise SSD series, announced in 2016, which is optimized for use in server and storage platforms requiring high endurance from write-intensive applications such as write caching, I/O acceleration and online transaction processing (OLTP). The PX02SS series uses 12 Gbit/s SAS interface, featuring MLC NAND flash memory and achieving random write speeds of up to 42,000 IOPS, random read speeds of up to 130,000 IOPS, and endurance rating of 30 drive writes per day (DWPD).[49]
SSDs based on 3D XPoint have higher random (higher IOPS) but lower sequential read-write speeds than their NAND-flash counterparts. They can have up to 2.5 million IOPS.[50][51]
Drives using other persistent memory technologiesEdit
In 2017, the first products with 3D Xpoint memory were released under Intel's Optane brand. 3D Xpoint is entirely different from NAND flash and stores data using different principles.
Architecture and functionEdit
The key components of an SSD are the controller and the memory to store the data. The primary memory component in an SSD was traditionally DRAM volatile memory, but since 2009 it is more commonly NAND flash non-volatile memory.[52][4]
ControllerEdit
Every SSD includes a controller that incorporates the electronics that bridge the NAND memory components to the host computer. The controller is an embedded processor that executes firmware-level code and is one of the most important factors of SSD performance.[53] Some of the functions performed by the controller include:[54][55]
Bad block mapping
Read and write caching
Crypto-shredding
Error detection and correction via error-correcting code (ECC)
Read scrubbing and read disturb management
Wear leveling
The performance of an SSD can scale with the number of parallel NAND flash chips used in the device. A single NAND chip is relatively slow, due to the narrow (8/16 bit) asynchronous I/O interface, and additional high latency of basic I/O operations (typical for SLC NAND, ~25 μs to fetch a 4 KB page from the array to the I/O buffer on a read, ~250 μs to commit a 4 KB page from the IO buffer to the array on a write, ~2 ms to erase a 256 KB block). When multiple NAND devices operate in parallel inside an SSD, the bandwidth scales, and the high latencies can be hidden, as long as enough outstanding operations are pending and the load is evenly distributed between devices.[56]
Micron and Intel initially made faster SSDs by implementing data striping (similar to RAID 0) and interleaving in their architecture. This enabled the creation of ultra-fast SSDs with 250 MB/s effective read/write speeds with the SATA 3 Gbit/s interface in 2009.[57] Two years later, SandForce continued to leverage this parallel flash connectivity, releasing consumer-grade SATA 6 Gbit/s SSD controllers which supported 500 MB/s read/write speeds.[58] SandForce controllers compress the data before sending it to the flash memory. This process may result in less writing and higher logical throughput, depending on the compressibility of the data.[59]
Wear levelingEdit
Main articles: Wear leveling and Write amplification
If a particular block is programmed and erased repeatedly without writing to any other blocks, that block will wear out before all the other blocks — thereby prematurely ending the life of the SSD. For this reason, SSD controllers use a technique called wear leveling to distribute writes as evenly as possible across all the flash blocks in the SSD.
In a perfect scenario, this would enable every block to be written to its maximum life so they all fail at the same time. Unfortunately, the process to evenly distribute writes requires data previously written and not changing (cold data) to be moved, so that data which are changing more frequently (hot data) can be written into those blocks. Each time data are relocated without being changed by the host system, this increases the write amplification and thus reduces the life of the flash memory. The key is to find an optimum algorithm which maximizes them both.[60][61]
MemoryEdit
Flash-memory-basedEdit
Comparison of architectures[62]
Comparison characteristics
MLC : SLC
NAND : NOR
Persistence ratio 1 : 10 1 : 10
Sequential write ratio 1 : 3 1 : 4
Sequential read ratio 1 : 1 1 : 5
Price ratio 1 : 1.3 1 : 0.7
Most SSD manufacturers use non-volatile NAND flash memory in the construction of their SSDs because of the lower cost compared with DRAM and the ability to retain the data without a constant power supply, ensuring data persistence through sudden power outages.[63][64] Flash memory SSDs were initially slower than DRAM solutions, and some early designs were even slower than HDDs after continued use. This problem was resolved by controllers that came out in 2009 and later.[65]
Flash-based SSDs store data in metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit chips which contain non-volatile floating-gate memory cells.[66] Flash memory-based solutions are typically packaged in standard disk drive form factors (1.8-, 2.5-, and 3.5-inch), but also in smaller more compact form factors, such as the M.2 form factor, made possible by the small size of flash memory.
Lower-priced drives usually use triple-level cell (TLC) or multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory, which is slower and less reliable than single-level cell (SLC) flash memory.[67][68] This can be mitigated or even reversed by the internal design structure of the SSD, such as interleaving, changes to writing algorithms,[68] and higher over-provisioning (more excess capacity) with which the wear-leveling algorithms can work.[69][70][71]
DRAM-basedEdit
See also: I-RAM and Hyperdrive (storage)
SSDs based on volatile memory such as DRAM are characterized by very fast data access, generally less than 10 microseconds, and are used primarily to accelerate applications that would otherwise be held back by the latency of flash SSDs or traditional HDDs.
DRAM-based SSDs usually incorporate either an internal battery or an external AC/DC adapter and backup storage systems to ensure data persistence while no power is being supplied to the drive from external sources. If power is lost, the battery provides power while all information is copied from random access memory (RAM) to back-up storage. When the power is restored, the information is copied back to the RAM from the back-up storage, and the SSD resumes normal operation (similar to the hibernate function used in modern operating systems).[72][73]
SSDs of this type are usually fitted with DRAM modules of the same type used in regular PCs and servers, which can be swapped out and replaced by larger modules.[74] Such as i-RAM, HyperOs HyperDrive, DDRdrive X1, etc. Some manufacturers of DRAM SSDs solder the DRAM chips directly to the drive, and do not intend the chips to be swapped out—such as ZeusRAM, Aeon Drive, etc.[75]
A remote, indirect memory-access disk (RIndMA Disk) uses a secondary computer with a fast network or (direct) Infiniband connection to act like a RAM-based SSD, but the new, faster, flash-memory based, SSDs already available in 2009 are making this option not as cost effective.[76]
While the price of DRAM continues to fall, the price of Flash memory falls even faster. The "Flash becomes cheaper than DRAM" crossover point occurred approximately 2004.[77][78]
3D XPoint-basedEdit
In 2015, Intel and Micron announced 3D XPoint as a new non-volatile memory technology.[79] Intel released the first 3D XPoint-based drive (branded as Intel® Optane™ SSD) in March 2017 starting with data center product - Intel® Optane™ SSD DC P4800X Series, and following with the client version - Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series in October 2017. Both products operate faster and with higher endurance than NAND-based SSDs, while the areal density is comparable at 128 gigabits per chip.[80][81][82][83] For the price per bit, 3D XPoint is more expensive than NAND, but cheaper than DRAM.[84]
OtherEdit
This section's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (December 2018)
Some SSDs, called NVDIMM or Hyper DIMM devices, use both DRAM and flash memory. When the power goes down, the SSD copies all the data from its DRAM to flash; when the power comes back up, the SSD copies all the data from its flash to its DRAM.[85] In a somewhat similar way, some SSDs use form factors and buses actually designed for DIMM modules, while using only flash memory and making it appear as if it were DRAM. Such SSDs are usually known as ULLtraDIMM devices.[86]
Drives known as hybrid drives or solid-state hybrid drives (SSHDs) use a hybrid of spinning disks and flash memory.[87][88] Some SSDs use magnetoresistive random-access memory (MRAM) for storing data.[89][90]
Cache or bufferEdit
A flash-based SSD typically uses a small amount of DRAM as a volatile cache, similar to the buffers in hard disk drives. A directory of block placement and wear leveling data is also kept in the cache while the drive is operating.[56] One SSD controller manufacturer, SandForce, does not use an external DRAM cache on their designs but still achieves high performance. Such an elimination of the external DRAM reduces the power consumption and enables further size reduction of SSDs.[91]
Battery or supercapacitorEdit
Another component in higher-performing SSDs is a capacitor or some form of battery, which are necessary to maintain data integrity so the data in the cache can be flushed to the drive when power is lost; some may even hold power long enough to maintain data in the cache until power is resumed.[91][92] In the case of MLC flash memory, a problem called lower page corruption can occur when MLC flash memory loses power while programming an upper page. The result is that data written previously and presumed safe can be corrupted if the memory is not supported by a supercapacitor in the event of a sudden power loss. This problem does not exist with SLC flash memory.[55]
Most consumer-class SSDs do not have built-in batteries or capacitors;[93] among the exceptions are the Crucial M500 and MX100 series,[94] the Intel 320 series,[95] and the more expensive Intel 710 and 730 series.[96] Enterprise-class SSDs, such as the Intel DC S3700 series,[97] usually have built-in batteries or capacitors.
Host interfaceEdit
An SSD with 1.2 TB of MLC NAND, using PCI Express as the host interface[98]
The host interface is physically a connector with the signalling managed by the SSD's controller. It is most often one of the interfaces found in HDDs. They include:
Serial attached SCSI (SAS-3, 12.0 Gbit/s) – generally found on servers[99]
Serial ATA and mSATA variant (SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gbit/s)[100]
PCI Express (PCIe 3.0 ×4, 31.5 Gbit/s)[101]
M.2 (6.0 Gbit/s for SATA 3.0 logical device interface, 31.5 Gbit/s for PCIe 3.0 ×4)
U.2 (PCIe 3.0 ×4)
Fibre Channel (128 Gbit/s) – almost exclusively found on servers
USB (10 Gbit/s)[102]
Parallel ATA (UDMA, 1064 Mbit/s) – mostly replaced by SATA[103][104]
(Parallel) SCSI ( 40 Mbit/s- 2560 Mbit/s) – generally found on servers, mostly replaced by SAS; last SCSI-based SSD was introduced in 2004[105]
SSDs support various logical device interfaces, such as the original ATAPI, Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI), NVM Express (NVMe), and other proprietary interfaces. Logical device interfaces define the command sets used by operating systems to communicate with SSDs and host bus adapters (HBAs).
ConfigurationsEdit
The size and shape of any device is largely driven by the size and shape of the components used to make that device. Traditional HDDs and optical drives are designed around the rotating platter(s) or optical disc along with the spindle motor inside. If an SSD is made up of various interconnected integrated circuits (ICs) and an interface connector, then its shape is no longer limited to the shape of rotating media drives. Some solid state storage solutions come in a larger chassis that may even be a rack-mount form factor with numerous SSDs inside. They would all connect to a common bus inside the chassis and connect outside the box with a single connector.[4]
For general computer use, the 2.5-inch form factor (typically found in laptops) is the most popular. For desktop computers with 3.5-inch hard disk drive slots, a simple adapter plate can be used to make such a drive fit. Other types of form factors are more common in enterprise applications. An SSD can also be completely integrated in the other circuitry of the device, as in the Apple MacBook Air (starting with the fall 2010 model).[106] As of 2014[update], mSATA and M.2 form factors also gained popularity, primarily in laptops.
Standard HDD form factorsEdit
An SSD with HDD form factor, opened to show solid state electronics
The benefit of using a current HDD form factor would be to take advantage of the extensive infrastructure already in place to mount and connect the drives to the host system.[4][107] These traditional form factors are known by the size of the rotating media, e.g., 5.25-inch, 3.5-inch, 2.5-inch, 1.8-inch, not by the dimensions of the drive casing.[108]
Standard card form factorsEdit
Main articles: mSATA and M.2
For applications where space is at premium, like for ultrabooks or tablet computers, a few compact form factors were standardized for flash-based SSDs.
There is the mSATA form factor, which uses the PCI Express Mini Card physical layout. It remains electrically compatible with the PCI Express Mini Card interface specification, while requiring an additional connection to the SATA host controller through the same connector.
M.2 form factor, formerly known as the Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF), is a natural transition from the mSATA and physical layout it used, to a more usable and more advanced form factor. While mSATA took advantage of an existing form factor and connector, M.2 has been designed to maximize usage of the card space, while minimizing the footprint. The M.2 standard allows both SATA and PCI Express SSDs to be fitted onto M.2 modules.[109]
Disk-on-a-module form factorsEdit
A 2 GB disk-on-a-module with PATA interface
A disk-on-a-module (DOM) is a flash drive with either 40/44-pin Parallel ATA (PATA) or SATA interface, intended to be plugged directly into the motherboard and used as a computer hard disk drive (HDD). DOM devices emulate a traditional hard disk drive, resulting in no need for special drivers or other specific operating system support. DOMs are usually used in embedded systems, which are often deployed in harsh environments where mechanical HDDs would simply fail, or in thin clients because of small size, low power consumption and silent operation.
As of 2016[update], storage capacities range from 4 MB to 128 GB with different variations in physical layouts, including vertical or horizontal orientation.
Box form factorsEdit
Many of the DRAM-based solutions use a box that is often designed to fit in a rack-mount system. The number of DRAM components required to get sufficient capacity to store the data along with the backup power supplies requires a larger space than traditional HDD form factors.[110]
Bare-board form factorsEdit
Viking Technology SATA Cube and AMP SATA Bridge multi-layer SSDs
Viking Technology SATADIMM based SSD
MO-297 SATA disk-on-a-module (DOM) SSD form factor
A custom-connector SATA SSD
Form factors which were more common to memory modules are now being used by SSDs to take advantage of their flexibility in laying out the components. Some of these include PCIe, mini PCIe, mini-DIMM, MO-297, and many more.[111] The SATADIMM from Viking Technology uses an empty DDR3 DIMM slot on the motherboard to provide power to the SSD with a separate SATA connector to provide the data connection back to the computer. The result is an easy-to-install SSD with a capacity equal to drives that typically take a full 2.5-inch drive bay.[112] At least one manufacturer, Innodisk, has produced a drive that sits directly on the SATA connector (SATADOM) on the motherboard without any need for a power cable.[113] Some SSDs are based on the PCIe form factor and connect both the data interface and power through the PCIe connector to the host. These drives can use either direct PCIe flash controllers[114] or a PCIe-to-SATA bridge device which then connects to SATA flash controllers.[115]
Ball grid array form factorsEdit
In the early 2000s, a few companies introduced SSDs in Ball Grid Array (BGA) form factors, such as M-Systems' (now SanDisk) DiskOnChip[116] and Silicon Storage Technology's NANDrive[117][118] (now produced by Greenliant Systems), and Memoright's M1000[119] for use in embedded systems. The main benefits of BGA SSDs are their low power consumption, small chip package size to fit into compact subsystems, and that they can be soldered directly onto a system motherboard to reduce adverse effects from vibration and shock.[120]
Such embedded drives often adhere to the eMMC and eUFS standards.
Comparison with other technologiesEdit
Hard disk drivesEdit
SSD benchmark, showing about 230 MB/s reading speed (blue), 210 MB/s writing speed (red) and about 0.1 ms seek time (green), all independent from the accessed disk location.
See also: Hard disk drive performance characteristics
Making a comparison between SSDs and ordinary (spinning) HDDs is difficult. Traditional HDD benchmarks tend to focus on the performance characteristics that are poor with HDDs, such as rotational latency and seek time. As SSDs do not need to spin or seek to locate data, they may prove vastly superior to HDDs in such tests. However, SSDs have challenges with mixed reads and writes, and their performance may degrade over time. SSD testing must start from the (in use) full drive, as the new and empty (fresh, out-of-the-box) drive may have much better write performance than it would show after only weeks of use.[121]
Most of the advantages of solid-state drives over traditional hard drives are due to their ability to access data completely electronically instead of electromechanically, resulting in superior transfer speeds and mechanical ruggedness.[122] On the other hand, hard disk drives offer significantly higher capacity for their price.[3][123]
Some field failure rates indicate that SSDs are significantly more reliable than HDDs[124][125] but others do not.[126] However, SSDs are uniquely sensitive to sudden power interruption, resulting in aborted writes or even cases of the complete loss of the drive.[127] The reliability of both HDDs and SSDs varies greatly among models.[128]
As with HDDs, there is a tradeoff between cost and performance of different SSDs. Single-level cell (SLC) SSDs, while significantly more expensive than multi-level (MLC) SSDs, offer a significant speed advantage.[64] At the same time, DRAM-based solid-state storage is currently considered the fastest and most costly, with average response times of 10 microseconds instead of the average 100 microseconds of other SSDs. Enterprise flash devices (EFDs) are designed to handle the demands of tier-1 application with performance and response times similar to less-expensive SSDs.[129]
In traditional HDDs, a re-written file will generally occupy the same location on the disk surface as the original file, whereas in SSDs the new copy will often be written to different NAND cells for the purpose of wear leveling. The wear-leveling algorithms are complex and difficult to test exhaustively; as a result, one major cause of data loss in SSDs is firmware bugs.[130][131]
The following table shows a detailed overview of the advantages and disadvantages of both technologies. Comparisons reflect typical characteristics, and may not hold for a specific device.
Comparison of NAND-based SSD and HDD
Attribute or characteristic
Price per capacity SSDs generally are more expensive than HDDs and expected to remain so into the next decade.[132]
SSD price as of first quarter 2018 around 30 cents (US) per gigabyte based on 4 TB models.[133]
Prices have generally declined annually and as of 2018 are expected to continue to do so.
HDD price as of first quarter 2018 around 2 to 3 cents (US) per gigabyte based on 1 TB models.[133]
Storage capacity In 2018, SSDs were available in sizes up to 100 TB,[134] but less costly, 120 to 512 GB models were more common. In 2018, HDDs of up to 16 TB[135] were available.
Reliability on storage retention If left without power, worn out SSDs typically start to lose data after about one to two years in storage, depending on temperature. New drives are supposed to retain data for about ten years.[8] MLC and TLC based devices tend to lose data earlier than SLC-based devices. SSDs are not suited for archival use. If kept in a dry environment at low temperature, HDDs can retain their data for a very long period of time even without power. However, the mechanical parts tend to become clotted over time and the drive fails to spin up after a few years in storage.
Reliability and lifetime SSDs have no moving parts to fail mechanically so in theory should be more reliable than HDDs. However, in practice this is unclear,[136][126] see also SSD reliability and failure modes
Each block of a flash-based SSD can only be erased (and therefore written) a limited number of times before it fails. The controllers manage this limitation so that drives can last for many years under normal use.[137][138][139][140][141] SSDs based on DRAM do not have a limited number of writes. However the failure of a controller can make a SSD unusable. Reliability varies significantly across different SSD manufacturers and models with return rates reaching 40% for specific drives.[125] Many SSDs critically fail on power outages; a December 2013 survey of many SSDs found that only some of them are able to survive multiple power outages.[142][needs update?]. However, SSDs have undergone many revisions that have made them more reliable and long lasting. New SSDs in the market today have power loss protection circuits and wear leveling techniques implemented to ensure longevity. [143] [144]
HDDs have moving parts, and are subject to potential mechanical failures from the resulting wear and tear so in theory should be less reliable than SSDs. However, in practice this is unclear,[136][126] see also SSD reliability and failure modes
The storage medium itself (magnetic platter) does not essentially degrade from read and write operations.
According to a study performed by Carnegie Mellon University for both consumer and enterprise-grade HDDs, their average failure rate is 6 years, and life expectancy is 9–11 years.[145] However the risk of a sudden, catastrophic data loss can be lower for HDDs.[146]
When stored offline (unpowered in shelf) in long term, the magnetic medium of HDD retains data significantly longer than flash memory used in SSDs.
Start-up time Almost instantaneous; no mechanical components to prepare. May need a few milliseconds to come out of an automatic power-saving mode. Drive spin-up may take several seconds. A system with many drives may need to stagger spin-up to limit peak power drawn, which is briefly high when an HDD is first started.[147]
Sequential access performance In consumer products the maximum transfer rate typically ranges from about 200 MB/s to 3500 MB/s,[148][149][150] depending on the drive. Enterprise SSDs can have multi-gigabyte per second throughput. Once the head is positioned, when reading or writing a continuous track, a modern HDD can transfer data at about 200 MB/s. Data transfer rate depends also upon rotational speed, which can range from 3,600 to 15,000 rpm[151] and also upon the track (reading from the outer tracks is faster). Data transfer speed can be up to 480 MB/s(experimental).[152]
Random access performance[153] Random access time typically under 0.1 ms.[154][155] As data can be retrieved directly from various locations of the flash memory, access time is usually not a big performance bottleneck. Read performance does not change based on where data is stored. In applications, where hard disk drive seeks are the limiting factor, this results in faster boot and application launch times (see Amdahl's law).[156][147]
SSD technology can deliver rather consistent read/write speed, but when lots of individual smaller blocks are accessed, performance is reduced. SSDs suffer from a write performance degradation phenomenon called write amplification, where the NAND cells show a measurable drop in performance, and will continue degrading throughout the life of the SSD.[157] A technique called wear leveling is implemented to mitigate this effect, but due to the nature of the NAND chips, the drive will inevitably degrade at a noticeable rate.[verification needed]
Read latency time is much higher than SSDs.[158] Random access time ranges from 2.9 (high end server drive) to 12 ms (laptop HDD) due to the need to move the heads and wait for the data to rotate under the magnetic head.[159] Read time is different for every different seek, since the location of the data and the location of the head are likely different. If data from different areas of the platter must be accessed, as with fragmented files, response times will be increased by the need to seek each fragment.[160]
Impacts of file system fragmentation There is limited benefit to reading data sequentially (beyond typical FS block sizes, say 4 KB), making fragmentation negligible for SSDs. Defragmentation would cause wear by making additional writes of the NAND flash cells, which have a limited cycle life.[161][162] However, even on SSDs there is a practical limit on how much fragmentation certain file systems can sustain; once that limit is reached, subsequent file allocations fail.[163] Consequently, defragmentation may still be necessary, although to a lesser degree.[163] Some file systems, like NTFS, become fragmented over time if frequently written; periodic defragmentation is required to maintain optimum performance.[164] This is usually not an issue in modern file systems.[citation needed][clarification needed]
Noise (acoustic)[165] SSDs have no moving parts and therefore are silent, although, on some SSDs, high pitch noise from the high voltage generator (for erasing blocks) may occur. HDDs have moving parts (heads, actuator, and spindle motor) and make characteristic sounds of whirring and clicking; noise levels vary depending on the RPM, but can be significant (while often much lower than the sound from the cooling fans). Laptop hard drives are relatively quiet.
Temperature control[166] A study conducted by Facebook found a consistent failure rate at temperatures between 30 and 40 °C. Failure rate rises when operating at temperatures higher than 40 °C, further increase of temperature may trigger thermal throttling around 70 °C, resulting in reduced runtime performance. Reliability of early SSDs without thermal throttling are more affected by temperature than newer ones with thermal throttling.[167] In practice, SSDs usually do not require any special cooling and can tolerate higher temperatures than HDDs. High-end enterprise models installed as add-on cards or 2.5-inch bay devices may ship with heat sinks to dissipate generated heat, requiring certain volumes of airflow to operate.[168] Ambient temperatures above 35 °C (95 °F) can shorten the life of a hard disk, and reliability will be compromised at drive temperatures above 55 °C (131 °F). Fan cooling may be required if temperatures would otherwise exceed these values.[169] In practice, modern HDDs may be used with no special arrangements for cooling.
Lowest operating temperature[170] SSDs can operate at −55 °C (−67 °F). Most modern HDDs can operate at 0 °C (32 °F).
Highest altitude when operating[171] SSDs have no issues on this.[172] HDDs can operate safely at an altitude of at most 3,000 meters (10,000 ft). HDDs will fail to operate at altitudes above 12,000 meters (40,000 ft).[173] With the introduction of helium-filled[174][175](sealed) HDDs, this is expected to be less of an issue.
Moving from a cold environment to a warmer environment SSDs have no issues on this.[citation needed] A certain amount of acclimation time is needed when moving HDDs from a cold environment to a warmer environment before operating it; otherwise, internal condensation will occur and operating it immediately will result in damage to its internal components.[176]
Breather hole SSDs do not require a breather hole. Most modern HDDs require a breather hole in order to function properly.[173] Helium-filled devices are sealed and do not have a hole.
Susceptibility to environmental factors[156][177][178] No moving parts, very resistant to shock, vibration, movement, and contamination. Heads flying above rapidly rotating platters are susceptible to shock, vibration, movement, and contamination which could damage the medium.
Installation and mounting Not sensitive to orientation, vibration, or shock. Usually no exposed circuitry. Circuitry may be exposed in a card form device and it must not be short-circuited by conductive materials. Circuitry may be exposed, and it must not be short-circuited by conductive materials (such as the metal chassis of a computer). Should be mounted to protect against vibration and shock. Some HDDs should not be installed in a tilted position.[179]
Susceptibility to magnetic fields Low impact on flash memory, but an electromagnetic pulse will damage any electrical system, especially integrated circuits. In general, magnets or magnetic surges may result in data corruption or mechanical damage to the drive internals. Drive's metal case provides a low level of shielding to the magnetic platters.[180][181][182]
Weight and size[177] SSDs, essentially semiconductor memory devices mounted on a circuit board, are small and lightweight. They often follow the same form factors as HDDs (2.5-inch or 1.8-inch), but the enclosures are made mostly of plastic. HDDs are generally heavier than SSDs, as the enclosures are made mostly of metal, and they contain heavy objects such as motors and large magnets. 3.5-inch drives typically weigh around 700 grams (about 1.5 pounds).
Secure writing limitations NAND flash memory cannot be overwritten, but has to be rewritten to previously erased blocks. If a software encryption program encrypts data already on the SSD, the overwritten data is still unsecured, unencrypted, and accessible (drive-based hardware encryption does not have this problem). Also data cannot be securely erased by overwriting the original file without special "Secure Erase" procedures built into the drive.[183] HDDs can overwrite data directly on the drive in any particular sector. However, the drive's firmware may exchange damaged blocks with spare areas, so bits and pieces may still be present. Some manufacturers' HDDs fill the entire drive with zeroes, including relocated sectors, on ATA Secure Erase Enhanced Erase command.[184]
Read/write performance symmetry Less expensive SSDs typically have write speeds significantly lower than their read speeds. Higher performing SSDs have similar read and write speeds. HDDs generally have slightly longer (worse) seek times for writing than for reading.[185]
Free block availability and TRIM SSD write performance is significantly impacted by the availability of free, programmable blocks. Previously written data blocks no longer in use can be reclaimed by TRIM; however, even with TRIM, fewer free blocks cause slower performance.[56][186][187] HDDs are not affected by free blocks and do not benefit from TRIM.
Power consumption High performance flash-based SSDs generally require half to a third of the power of HDDs. High-performance DRAM SSDs generally require as much power as HDDs, and must be connected to power even when the rest of the system is shut down.[188][189] Emerging technologies like DevSlp can minimize power requirements of idle drives. The lowest-power HDDs (1.8-inch size) can use as little as 0.35 watts when idle.[190] 2.5-inch drives typically use 2 to 5 watts. The highest-performance 3.5-inch drives can use up to about 20 watts.
Maximum areal storage density (Terabits per square inch) 2.8[191] 1.2[191]
Memory cardsEdit
Main article: Memory card
CompactFlash card used as an SSD
While both memory cards and most SSDs use flash memory, they serve very different markets and purposes. Each has a number of different attributes which are optimized and adjusted to best meet the needs of particular users. Some of these characteristics include power consumption, performance, size, and reliability.[192]
SSDs were originally designed for use in a computer system. The first units were intended to replace or augment hard disk drives, so the operating system recognized them as a hard drive. Originally, solid state drives were even shaped and mounted in the computer like hard drives. Later SSDs became smaller and more compact, eventually developing their own unique form factors such as the M.2 form factor. The SSD was designed to be installed permanently inside a computer.[192]
In contrast, memory cards (such as Secure Digital (SD), CompactFlash (CF), and many others) were originally designed for digital cameras and later found their way into cell phones, gaming devices, GPS units, etc. Most memory cards are physically smaller than SSDs, and designed to be inserted and removed repeatedly.[192] There are adapters which enable some memory cards to interface to a computer, allowing use as an SSD, but they are not intended to be the primary storage device in the computer.[citation needed] The typical CompactFlash card interface is three to four times slower than an SSD.[citation needed] As memory cards are not designed to tolerate the amount of reading and writing which occurs during typical computer use, their data may get damaged unless special procedures are taken to reduce the wear on the card to a minimum.
SSD failureEdit
SSDs have very different failure modes than traditional magnetic hard drives. Because of their design, some kinds of failure are inapplicable (motors or magnetic heads cannot fail, because they are not needed in an SSD). Instead, other kinds of failure are possible (for example, incomplete or failed writes due to sudden power failure can be more of a problem than with HDDs, and if a chip fails then all the data on it is lost, a scenario not applicable to magnetic drives). However, on the whole statistics show that SSDs are generally highly reliable, and often continue working far beyond the expected lifetime as stated by their manufacturer.[193]
SSD reliability and failure modesEdit
An early test by Techreport.com which ran for 18 months during 2013 - 2015 had previously tested a number of SSDs to destruction to identify how and at what point they failed; the test found that "All of the drives surpassed their official endurance specifications by writing hundreds of terabytes without issue", described as being far beyond any usual size for a "typical consumer".[194] The first SSD to fail was a TLC based drive - a type of design expected to be less durable than either SLC or MLC - and the SSD concerned managed to write over 800,000 GB (800 TB or 0.8 petabytes) before failing; three SSDs in the test managed to write almost three times that amount (almost 2.5 PB) before they also failed.[194] So the capability of even consumer SSDs to be remarkably reliable was already established.
A 2016 study[193] of "millions of drive days" in production use by SSDs over a six-year period, reported that "4-10%" of their SSDs were replaced in a 4 year period and concluded based upon annual failure rates of HDDs published in 2007 that SSDs fail at a "significantly lower" rate than HDDs; however a 2016 study of 71,940 HDDs (26 million drive days) reported annual failure rates comparable to the reported SSD rates, that is, the HDDs on the average had a calculated four year failure rate of 7.5% and with a lowest rate of 1.6%.[195] The 2016 SDD study concluded SSD localized data loss due to unreadable blocks to be more of a problem than with HDDs. It also contained a number of "unexpected conclusions"
In the real world, MLC based designs - believed less reliable than SLC designs - are often as reliable as SLC. (The findings state that "SLC [is] not generally more reliable than MLC")
Device age, measured by days in use, is the main factor in SSD reliability, and not amount of data read or written, which are measured by TBW or DWPD. Because this finding persists after controlling for early failure and other factors, it is likely that factors such as "silicon aging" is a cause of this trend. The correlation is significant (around 0.2 - 0.4).
Raw bit error rates (RBER) grows much slower than usually believed and is not exponential as often assumed, nor is it a good predictor of other errors or SSD failure.
The uncorrectable bit error rate (UBER) is widely used but is not a good predictor of failure either. However SSD UBER rates are higher than those for HDDs, so although they do not predict failure, they can lead to data loss due to unreadable blocks being more common on SSDs than HDDs. The conclusion states that although more reliable overall, the rate of uncorrectable errors able to impact a user is larger.
"Bad blocks in new SSDs are common, and drives with a large number of bad blocks are much more likely to lose hundreds of other blocks, most likely due to die or chip failure. 30-80 percent of SSDs develop at least one bad block and 2-7 percent develop at least one bad chip in the first four years of deployment."
There is no sharp increase in errors after the expected lifetime is reached.
Most SSDs develop no more than a few bad blocks, perhaps 2 - 4. SSDs that develop many bad blocks often go on to develop far more (perhaps hundreds), and may be prone to failure. However most drives (99%+) are shipped with bad blocks from manufacture. The finding overall was that bad blocks are common and 30-80% of drives will develop at least one in use, but even a few bad blocks (2 - 4) is a predictor of up to hundreds of bad blocks at a later time. The bad block count at manufacture correlates with later development of further bad blocks. The report conclusion added that SSDs tended to either have "less than a handful" of bad blocks or "a large number", and suggested that this might be a basis for predicting eventual failure.
Around 2-7% of SSDs will develop bad chips in their first 4 years of use. Over 2/3 of these chips will have breached their manufacturers' tolerances and specifications, which typically guarantee that no more than 2% of blocks on a chip will fail within its expected write lifetime.
96% of those SSDs that need repair (warranty servicing), need repair only once in their life. Days between repair vary from "a couple of thousand days" to "nearly 15,000 days" depending on the model.
Data recovery and secure deletionEdit
Solid state drives have set new challenges for data recovery companies, as the way of storing data is non-linear and much more complex than that of hard disk drives. The strategy the drive operates by internally can largely vary between manufacturers, and the TRIM command zeroes the whole range of a deleted file. Wear leveling also means that the physical address of the data and the address exposed to the operating system are different.
As for secure deletion of data, ATA Secure Erase command could be used. A program such as hdparm can be used for this purpose.
EnduranceEdit
The JEDEC Solid State Technology Association (JEDEC) has published standards for reliability metrics:[196]
Unrecoverable Bit Error Ratio (UBER)
Terabytes Written (TBW) - The number of terabytes that can be written to a drive within its warranty.
Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD) - The number of times the total capacity of the drive may be written to per day within its warranty.
ApplicationsEdit
Due to their generally prohibitive cost versus HDD's at the time, until 2009, SSDs were mainly used in those aspects of mission critical applications where the speed of the storage system needed to be as high as possible. Since flash memory has become a common component of SSDs, the falling prices and increased densities have made it more cost-effective for many other applications. For instance, in the distributed computing environment, SSDs can be used as the building block for a distributed cache layer that temporarily absorbs the large volume of user requests to the slower HDD based backend storage system. This layer provides much higher bandwidth and lower latency than the storage system, and can be managed in a number of forms, such as distributed key-value database and distributed file system. On the supercomputers, this layer is typically referred to as burst buffer. With this fast layer, users often experience shorter system response time. Organizations that can benefit from faster access of system data include equity trading companies, telecommunication corporations, and streaming media and video editing firms. The list of applications which could benefit from faster storage is vast.[4]
Flash-based solid-state drives can be used to create network appliances from general-purpose personal computer hardware. A write protected flash drive containing the operating system and application software can substitute for larger, less reliable disk drives or CD-ROMs. Appliances built this way can provide an inexpensive alternative to expensive router and firewall hardware.[citation needed]
SSDs based on an SD card with a live SD operating system are easily write-locked. Combined with a cloud computing environment or other writable medium, to maintain persistence, an OS booted from a write-locked SD card is robust, rugged, reliable, and impervious to permanent corruption. If the running OS degrades, simply turning the machine off and then on returns it back to its initial uncorrupted state and thus is particularly solid. The SD card installed OS does not require removal of corrupted components since it was write-locked though any written media may need to be restored.
Hard drives cachingEdit
In 2011, Intel introduced a caching mechanism for their Z68 chipset (and mobile derivatives) called Smart Response Technology, which allows a SATA SSD to be used as a cache (configurable as write-through or write-back) for a conventional, magnetic hard disk drive.[197] A similar technology is available on HighPoint's RocketHybrid PCIe card.[198]
Solid-state hybrid drives (SSHDs) are based on the same principle, but integrate some amount of flash memory on board of a conventional drive instead of using a separate SSD. The flash layer in these drives can be accessed independently from the magnetic storage by the host using ATA-8 commands, allowing the operating system to manage it. For example, Microsoft's ReadyDrive technology explicitly stores portions of the hibernation file in the cache of these drives when the system hibernates, making the subsequent resume faster.[199]
Dual-drive hybrid systems are combining the usage of separate SSD and HDD devices installed in the same computer, with overall performance optimization managed by the computer user, or by the computer's operating system software. Examples of this type of system are bcache and dm-cache on Linux,[200] and Apple's Fusion Drive.
File system support for SSDsEdit
Main article: File systems optimized for flash memory, solid state media
Typically the same file systems used on hard disk drives can also be used on solid state drives. It is usually expected for the file system to support the TRIM command which helps the SSD to recycle discarded data (support for TRIM arrived some years after SSDs themselves but is now nearly universal). This means that file system does not need to manage wear leveling or other flash memory characteristics, as they are handled internally by the SSD. Some flash file systems using log-based designs (F2FS, JFFS2) help to reduce write amplification on SSDs, especially in situations where only very small amounts of data are changed, such as when updating file-system metadata.
While not a file system feature, operating systems should also aim to align partitions correctly, which avoids excessive read-modify-write cycles. A typical practice for personal computers is to have each partition aligned to start at a 1 MB (= 1,048,576 bytes) mark, which covers all common SSD page and block size scenarios, as it is divisible by all commonly used sizes - 1 MB, 512 KB, 128 KB, 4 KB, and 512 bytes. Modern operating system installation software and disk tools handle this automatically.
LinuxEdit
The ext4, Btrfs, XFS, JFS, and F2FS file systems include support for the discard (TRIM or UNMAP) function.
Kernel support for the TRIM operation was introduced in version 2.6.33 of the Linux kernel mainline, released on 24 February 2010.[201] To make use of it, a file system must be mounted using the discard parameter. Linux swap partitions are by default performing discard operations when the underlying drive supports TRIM, with the possibility to turn them off, or to select between one-time or continuous discard operations.[202][203][204] Support for queued TRIM, which is a SATA 3.1 feature that results in TRIM commands not disrupting the command queues, was introduced in Linux kernel 3.12, released on November 2, 2013.[205]
An alternative to the kernel-level TRIM operation is to use a user-space utility called fstrim that goes through all of the unused blocks in a filesystem and dispatches TRIM commands for those areas. fstrim utility is usually run by cron as a scheduled task. As of November 2013[update], it is used by the Ubuntu Linux distribution, in which it is enabled only for Intel and Samsung solid-state drives for reliability reasons; vendor check can be disabled by editing file /etc/cron.weekly/fstrim using instructions contained within the file itself.[206]
Since 2010, standard Linux drive utilities have taken care of appropriate partition alignment by default.[207]
Linux performance considerationsEdit
An SSD that uses NVM Express as the logical device interface, in form of a PCI Express 3.0 ×4 expansion card
During installation, Linux distributions usually do not configure the installed system to use TRIM and thus the /etc/fstab file requires manual modifications.[208] This is because of the notion that the current Linux TRIM command implementation might not be optimal.[209] It has been proven to cause a performance degradation instead of a performance increase under certain circumstances.[210][211] As of January 2014[update], Linux sends an individual TRIM command to each sector, instead of a vectorized list defining a TRIM range as recommended by the TRIM specification.[212] This deficiency has existed for years and there are no known plans to eliminate it.
For performance reasons, it is recommended to switch the I/O scheduler from the default CFQ (Completely Fair Queuing) to NOOP or Deadline. CFQ was designed for traditional magnetic media and seek optimizations, thus many of those I/O scheduling efforts are wasted when used with SSDs. As part of their designs, SSDs offer much bigger levels of parallelism for I/O operations, so it is preferable to leave scheduling decisions to their internal logic – especially for high-end SSDs.[213][214]
A scalable block layer for high-performance SSD storage, known as blk-multiqueue or blk-mq and developed primarily by Fusion-io engineers, was merged into the Linux kernel mainline in kernel version 3.13, released on 19 January 2014. This leverages the performance offered by SSDs and NVM Express, by allowing much higher I/O submission rates. With this new design of the Linux kernel block layer, internal queues are split into two levels (per-CPU and hardware-submission queues), thus removing bottlenecks and allowing much higher levels of I/O parallelization. As of version 4.0 of the Linux kernel, released on 12 April 2015, VirtIO block driver, the SCSI layer (which is used by Serial ATA drivers), device mapper framework, loop device driver, unsorted block images (UBI) driver (which implements erase block management layer for flash memory devices) and RBD driver (which exports Ceph RADOS objects as block devices) have been modified to actually use this new interface; other drivers will be ported in the following releases.[215][216][217][218][219]
macOSEdit
Versions since Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) support TRIM but only when used with an Apple-purchased SSD.[220] TRIM is not automatically enabled for third-party drives, although it can be enabled by using third-party utilities such as Trim Enabler. The status of TRIM can be checked in the System Information application or in the system_profiler command-line tool.
Versions since OS X 10.10.4 (Yosemite) include sudo trimforce enable as a Terminal command that enables TRIM on non-Apple SSDs.[221] There is also a technique to enable TRIM in versions earlier than Mac OS X 10.6.8, although it remains uncertain whether TRIM is actually utilized properly in those cases.[222]
Microsoft WindowsEdit
Versions of Microsoft Windows before 7 do not take any special measures to support solid state drives. Starting from Windows 7, the standard NTFS file system provides TRIM support (other file systems on Windows do not support TRIM[223]).
By default, Windows 7 and newer versions execute TRIM commands automatically if the device is detected to be a solid-state drive. To change this behavior, in the Registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem the value DisableDeleteNotification can be set to 1 to prevent the mass storage driver from issuing the TRIM command. This can be useful in situations where data recovery is preferred over wear leveling (in most cases, TRIM irreversibly resets all freed space).[224]
Windows implements TRIM command for more than just file delete operations. The TRIM operation is fully integrated with partition- and volume-level commands like format and delete, with file system commands relating to truncate and compression, and with the System Restore (also known as Volume Snapshot) feature.[225]
Windows 7Edit
Windows 7 and later versions have native support for SSDs.[225][226] The operating system detects the presence of an SSD and optimizes operation accordingly. For SSD devices Windows disables SuperFetch and ReadyBoost, boot-time and application prefetching operations.[citation needed] Despite the initial statement by Steven Sinofsky before the release of Windows 7,[225] however, defragmentation is not disabled, even though its behavior on SSDs differs.[163] One reason is the low performance of Volume Shadow Copy Service on fragmented SSDs.[163] The second reason is to avoid reaching the practical maximum number of file fragments that a volume can handle. If this maximum is reached, subsequent attempts to write to the drive will fail with an error message.[163]
Windows 7 also includes support for the TRIM command to reduce garbage collection for data which the operating system has already determined is no longer valid. Without support for TRIM, the SSD would be unaware of this data being invalid and would unnecessarily continue to rewrite it during garbage collection causing further wear on the SSD. It is beneficial to make some changes that prevent SSDs from being treated more like HDDs, for example cancelling defragmentation, not filling them to more than about 75% of capacity, not storing frequently written-to files such as log and temporary files on them if a hard drive is available, and enabling the TRIM process.[227][228]
Windows 8.1Edit
Windows 8.1 and later Windows systems like Windows 10 also support automatic TRIM for PCI Express SSDs based on NVMe. For Windows 7, the KB2990941 update is required for this functionality and needs to be integrated into Windows Setup using DISM if Windows 7 has to be installed on the NVMe SSD. Windows 8/8.1 also support the SCSI unmap command for USB-attached SSDs or SATA-to-USB enclosures. SCSI Unmap is a full analog of the SATA TRIM command. It is also supported over USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP).
The graphical Windows Disk Defagmenter in Windows 8.1 also recognizes SSDs distinctly from hard disk drives in a separate Media Type column. While Windows 7 supported automatic TRIM for internal SATA SSDs, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 support manual TRIM (via an "Optimize" function in Disk Defragmenter) as well as automatic TRIM for SATA, NVMe and USB-attached SSDs.
Windows VistaEdit
Windows Vista generally expects hard disk drives rather than SSDs.[229][230] Windows Vista includes ReadyBoost to exploit characteristics of USB-connected flash devices, but for SSDs it only improves the default partition alignment to prevent read-modify-write operations that reduce the speed of SSDs. Most SSDs are typically split into 4 kB sectors, while most systems are based on 512 byte sectors with their default partition setups unaligned to the 4 KB boundaries.[231] The proper alignment does not help the SSD's endurance over the life of the drive; however, some Vista operations, if not disabled, can shorten the life of the SSD.
Drive defragmentation should be disabled because the location of the file components on an SSD doesn't significantly impact its performance, but moving the files to make them contiguous using the Windows Defrag routine will cause unnecessary write wear on the limited number of P/E cycles on the SSD. The Superfetch feature will not materially improve the performance of the system and causes additional overhead in the system and SSD, although it does not cause wear.[232] Windows Vista does not send the TRIM command to solid state drives, but some third part utilities such as SSD Doctor will periodically scan the drive and TRIM the appropriate entries.[233]
ZFSEdit
Solaris as of version 10 Update 6 (released in October 2008), and recent[when?] versions of OpenSolaris, Solaris Express Community Edition, Illumos, Linux with ZFS on Linux, and FreeBSD all can use SSDs as a performance booster for ZFS. A low-latency SSD can be used for the ZFS Intent Log (ZIL), where it is named the SLOG. This is used every time a synchronous write to the drive occurs. An SSD (not necessarily with a low-latency) may also be used for the level 2 Adaptive Replacement Cache (L2ARC), which is used to cache data for reading. When used either alone or in combination, large increases in performance are generally seen.[234]
FreeBSDEdit
ZFS for FreeBSD introduced support for TRIM on September 23, 2012.[235] The code builds a map of regions of data that were freed; on every write the code consults the map and eventually removes ranges that were freed before, but are now overwritten. There is a low-priority thread that TRIMs ranges when the time comes.
Also the Unix File System (UFS) supports the TRIM command.[236]
Swap partitionsEdit
According to Microsoft's former Windows division president Steven Sinofsky, "there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD".[237] According to collected telemetry data, Microsoft had found the pagefile.sys to be an ideal match for SSD storage.[237]
Linux swap partitions are by default performing TRIM operations when the underlying block device supports TRIM, with the possibility to turn them off, or to select between one-time or continuous TRIM operations.[202][203][204]
If an operating system does not support using TRIM on discrete swap partitions, it might be possible to use swap files inside an ordinary file system instead. For example, OS X does not support swap partitions; it only swaps to files within a file system, so it can use TRIM when, for example, swap files are deleted.[citation needed]
DragonFly BSD allows SSD-configured swap to also be used as file system cache.[238] This can be used to boost performance on both desktop and server workloads. The bcache, dm-cache, and Flashcache projects provide a similar concept for the Linux kernel.[239]
Standardization organizationsEdit
The following are noted standardization organizations and bodies that work to create standards for solid-state drives (and other computer storage devices). The table below also includes organizations which promote the use of solid-state drives. This is not necessarily an exhaustive list.
Organization or committee
Subcommittee of:
INCITS N/A Coordinates technical standards activity between ANSI in the US and joint ISO/IEC committees worldwide
T10 INCITS SCSI
T11 INCITS FC
T13 INCITS ATA
JEDEC N/A Develops open standards and publications for the microelectronics industry
JC-64.8 JEDEC Focuses on solid-state drive standards and publications
NVMHCI N/A Provides standard software and hardware programming interfaces for nonvolatile memory subsystems
SATA-IO N/A Provides the industry with guidance and support for implementing the SATA specification
SFF Committee N/A Works on storage industry standards needing attention when not addressed by other standards committees
SNIA N/A Develops and promotes standards, technologies, and educational services in the management of information
SSSI SNIA Fosters the growth and success of solid state storage
CommercializationEdit
AvailabilityEdit
Solid-state drive technology has been marketed to the military and niche industrial markets since the mid-1990s.[240]
Along with the emerging enterprise market, SSDs have been appearing in ultra-mobile PCs and a few lightweight laptop systems, adding significantly to the price of the laptop, depending on the capacity, form factor and transfer speeds. For low-end applications, a USB flash drive may be obtainable for anywhere from $10 to $100 or so, depending on capacity and speed; alternatively, a CompactFlash card may be paired with a CF-to-IDE or CF-to-SATA converter at a similar cost. Either of these requires that write-cycle endurance issues be managed, either by refraining from storing frequently written files on the drive or by using a flash file system. Standard CompactFlash cards usually have write speeds of 7 to 15 MB/s while the more expensive upmarket cards claim speeds of up to 60 MB/s.
The first flash-memory SSD based PC to become available was the Sony Vaio UX90, announced for pre-order on 27 June 2006 and began shipping in Japan on 3 July 2006 with a 16Gb flash memory hard drive.[241] In late September 2006 Sony upgraded the SSD in the Vaio UX90 to 32Gb.[242]
One of the first mainstream releases of SSD was the XO Laptop, built as part of the One Laptop Per Child project. Mass production of these computers, built for children in developing countries, began in December 2007. These machines use 1,024 MiB SLC NAND flash as primary storage which is considered more suitable for the harsher than normal conditions in which they are expected to be used. Dell began shipping ultra-portable laptops with SanDisk SSDs on April 26, 2007.[243] Asus released the Eee PC subnotebook on October 16, 2007, with 2, 4 or 8 gigabytes of flash memory.[244] On January 31, 2008, Apple released the MacBook Air, a thin laptop with an optional 64 GB SSD. The Apple Store cost was $999 more for this option, as compared with that of an 80 GB 4200 RPM hard disk drive.[245] Another option, the Lenovo ThinkPad X300 with a 64 gigabyte SSD, was announced by Lenovo in February 2008.[246] On August 26, 2008, Lenovo released ThinkPad X301 with 128 GB SSD option which adds approximately $200 US.[247]
In 2008, low-end netbooks appeared with SSDs. In 2009, SSDs began to appear in laptops.[243][245]
On January 14, 2008, EMC Corporation (EMC) became the first enterprise storage vendor to ship flash-based SSDs into its product portfolio when it announced it had selected STEC, Inc.'s Zeus-IOPS SSDs for its Symmetrix DMX systems.[248] In 2008, Sun released the Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems (codenamed Amber Road), which use both solid state drives and conventional hard drives to take advantage of the speed offered by SSDs and the economy and capacity offered by conventional HDDs.[249]
Dell began to offer optional 256 GB solid state drives on select notebook models in January 2009.[250][251] In May 2009, Toshiba launched a laptop with a 512 GB SSD.[252][253]
Since October 2010, Apple's MacBook Air line has used a solid state drive as standard.[254] In December 2010, OCZ RevoDrive X2 PCIe SSD was available in 100 GB to 960 GB capacities delivering speeds over 740 MB/s sequential speeds and random small file writes up to 120,000 IOPS.[255] In November 2010, Fusion-io released its highest performing SSD drive named ioDrive Octal utilising PCI-Express x16 Gen 2.0 interface with storage space of 5.12 TB, read speed of 6.0 GB/s, write speed of 4.4 GB/s and a low latency of 30 microseconds. It has 1.19 M Read 512 byte IOPS and 1.18 M Write 512 byte IOPS.[256]
In 2011, computers based on Intel's Ultrabook specifications became available. These specifications dictate that Ultrabooks use an SSD. These are consumer-level devices (unlike many previous flash offerings aimed at enterprise users), and represent the first widely available consumer computers using SSDs aside from the MacBook Air.[257] At CES 2012, OCZ Technology demonstrated the R4 CloudServ PCIe SSDs capable of reaching transfer speeds of 6.5 GB/s and 1.4 million IOPS.[258] Also announced was the Z-Drive R5 which is available in capacities up to 12 TB, capable of reaching transfer speeds of 7.2 GB/s and 2.52 million IOPS using the PCI Express x16 Gen 3.0.[259]
In December 2013, Samsung introduced and launched the industry's first 1 TB mSATA SSD.[260] In August 2015, Samsung announced a 16 TB SSD, at the time the world's highest-capacity single storage device of any type.[261]
While a number of companies offer SSD devices as of 2018 only five of the companies that offer them actually manufacture the Nand Flash devices[262] that are the storage element in SSDs.
Quality and performanceEdit
Main article: Disk drive performance characteristics
In general, performance of any particular device can vary significantly in different operating conditions. For example, the number of parallel threads accessing the storage device, the I/O block size, and the amount of free space remaining can all dramatically change the performance (i.e. transfer rates) of the device.[263]
SSD technology has been developing rapidly. Most of the performance measurements used on disk drives with rotating media are also used on SSDs. Performance of flash-based SSDs is difficult to benchmark because of the wide range of possible conditions. In a test performed in 2010 by Xssist, using IOmeter, 4 kB random 70% read/30% write, queue depth 4, the IOPS delivered by the Intel X25-E 64 GB G1 started around 10,000 IOPs, and dropped sharply after 8 minutes to 4,000 IOPS, and continued to decrease gradually for the next 42 minutes. IOPS vary between 3,000 and 4,000 from around 50 minutes onwards for the rest of the 8+ hour test run.[264]
Write amplification is the major reason for the change in performance of an SSD over time. Designers of enterprise-grade drives try to avoid this performance variation by increasing over-provisioning, and by employing wear-leveling algorithms that move data only when the drives are not heavily utilized.[265]
SalesEdit
This section needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (April 2018)
SSD shipments were 11 million units in 2009,[266] 17.3 million units in 2011[267] for a total of US$5 billion,[268] 39 million units in 2012, and were expected to rise to 83 million units in 2013[269] to 201.4 million units in 2016[267] and to 227 million units in 2017.[270]
Revenues for the SSD market (including low-cost PC solutions) worldwide totalled $585 million in 2008, rising over 100% from $259 million in 2007.[271]
Board solid-state drive
List of solid-state drive manufacturers
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^ a b c Sinofsky, Steven (5 May 2009). "Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives". Engineering Windows 7. Microsoft. Archived from the original on 20 May 2012.
^ Flynn, David (10 November 2008). "Windows 7 gets SSD-friendly". APC. Future Publishing. Archived from the original on 1 February 2009.
^ Yam, Marcus (May 5, 2009). "Windows 7 and Optimization for Solid State Drives". Tom's Hardware. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
^ "6 Things You Shouldn't Do With Solid-State Drives". Howtogeek.com. Archived from the original on 13 March 2016. Retrieved 12 March 2016.
^ Smith, Tony. "If your SSD sucks, blame Vista, says SSD vendor". Archived from the original on 2008-10-14. Retrieved 2008-10-11.
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^ Sexton, Koka (29 June 2010). "SSD Storage Demands Proper Partition Alignment". www.wwpi.com. Archived from the original on 23 July 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
^ Butler, Harry (27 Aug 2009). "SSD performance tweaks for Vista". bit-tech.net. Archived from the original on 27 July 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
^ "Solid State Doctor - Solid State Drive Utility for SSD's". Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2016-02-23. Link to information
^ "ZFS L2ARC and SSD drives by Brendan Gregg". brendan_entry_test. Sun Microsystem blog. 2008-07-12. Archived from the original on 2009-08-30. Retrieved 2009-11-12.
^ "[base] Revision 240868". Svnweb.freebsd.org. Archived from the original on 2013-01-20. Retrieved 2014-01-20.
^ Nemeth, Evi (2011). UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook, 4/e. ISBN 8131761770. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
^ a b "Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives". Engineering Windows 7. Microsoft.
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^ Peters, Lavon. "Solid State Storage For SQL Server". sqlmag.com. Archived from the original on 28 March 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
^ "文庫本サイズのVAIO「type U」 フラッシュメモリー搭載モデル発売". ソニー製品情報・ソニーストア - ソニー (in Japanese). Retrieved 2019-01-11.
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^ Simms, Craig. "MacBook Air vs. the ultrabook alternatives". www.cnet.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
^ "OCZ R4 PCIe SSD Packs 16 SandForce SF-2200 Series Subunits". techPowerUp. Archived from the original on 2012-05-18. Retrieved 2012-05-06.
^ Carl, Jack. "OCZ Launches New Z-Drive R4 and R5 PCIe SSD – CES 2012". Lenzfire. Archived from the original on 2012-05-10. Retrieved 2012-05-06.
^ "Samsung Introduces Industry's First 1 Terabyte mSATA SSD". global.samsungtomorrow.com, Samsung. 2013-12-09. Archived from the original on 2014-12-19.
^ "Samsung announces 16TB SSD". ZDnet. ZDnet. Archived from the original on 13 August 2015. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
^ "NAND Flash manufacturers' market share 2018". Statista.
^ Master, Neal; Andrews, Mathew; Hick, Jason; Canon, Shane; Wright, Nicholas (2010). "Performance analysis of commodity and enterprise class flash devices". IEEE Petascale Data Storage Workshop.
^ "Intel X25-E 64GB G1, 4KB Random IOPS, iometer benchmark". March 27, 2010. Archived from the original on May 3, 2010. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
^ "SSDs vs. hard drives". Network World. 2010-04-19. Archived from the original on 2010-04-23.
^ SSD Sales up 14% in 2009 Archived 2013-06-15 at the Wayback Machine, January 20th, 2010, Brian Beeler, storagereview.com
^ a b Solid State Drives to Score Big This Year with Huge Shipment Growth Archived 2013-04-16 at the Wayback Machine, April 2, 2012, Fang Zhang, iSupply
^ SSDs sales rise, prices drop below $1 per GB in 2012 Archived 2013-12-16 at the Wayback Machine, January 10, 2012, Pedro Hernandez, ecoinsite.com
^ 39 Million SSDs Shipped WW in 2012, Up 129% From 2011 - IHS iSuppli Archived 2013-05-28 at the Wayback Machine, January 24th, 2013, storagenewsletter.com
^ SSDs weather the PC storm Archived 2013-12-16 at the Wayback Machine, May 8, 2013, Nermin Hajdarbegovic, TG Daily, accesat la 9 mai 2013
^ Samsung leads in 2008 SSD market with over 30% share, says Gartner Archived 2013-06-03 at the Wayback Machine, 10 June 2009, Josephine Lien, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES
"Solid-state revolution: in-depth on how SSDs really work". Lee Hutchinson. Ars Technica. June 4, 2012.
Mai Zheng, Joseph Tucek, Feng Qin, Mark Lillibridge, "Understanding the Robustness of SSDs under Power Fault", FAST'13
Cheng Li, Philip Shilane, Fred Douglis, Hyong Shim, Stephen Smaldone, Grant Wallace, "Nitro: A Capacity-Optimized SSD Cache for Primary Storage", USENIX ATC'14
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Solid-state drives.
Background and general
StorageReview.com SSD Guide
A guide to understanding Solid State Drives
SSDs versus laptop HDDs and upgrade experiences
Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ
Charting the 30 Year Rise of the Solid State Disk Market
Investigation: Is Your SSD More Reliable Than A Hard Drive? - long term SSD reliability review
SSD return rates review by manufacturer (2012), hardware.fr - French (English) a 2012 update of a 2010 report based on data from a leading French tech retailer
Enterprise SSD Form Factor Version 1.0a, SSD Form Factor Work Group, December 12, 2012
Ted Tso - Aligning filesystems to an SSD's erase block size
JEDEC Continues SSD Standardization Efforts
Linux & NVM: File and Storage System Challenges (PDF)
Linux and SSD Optimization
Understanding the Robustness of SSDs under Power Fault (USENIX 2013, by Mai Zheng, Joseph Tucek, Feng Qin and Mark Lillibridge)
SSD vs. m.2, FrugalGaming, by James Heinfield
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Solid-state_drive&oldid=935486140#Partition_alignment"
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Royal Frankish Annals
(Redirected from Annales regni Francorum)
See also: Reichsannalen
The Royal Frankish Annals (Latin: Annales regni Francorum; also Annales Laurissenses maiores and German: Reichsannalen) are Latin annals composed in Carolingian Francia, recording year-by-year the state of the monarchy from 741 (the death of Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel) to 829 (the beginning of the crisis of Louis the Pious). Their authorship is unknown, though Wilhelm von Giesebrecht suggested that Arno of Salzburg was the author of an early section of the Annales Laurissenses majores surviving in the copy at Lorsch Abbey. The Annals are believed to have been composed in successive sections by different authors, and then compiled.[1]
Annales regni Francorum
Annales Laurissenses maijores
Annales qui dicuntur Einhardi
Reichsannalen
Ascribed to
Einhard, Hilduin
Late 8th century through early 9th century
Account of the history of the Carolingian monarchy
The depth of knowledge regarding court affairs suggests that the annals were written by persons close to the king, and their initial reluctance to comment on Frankish defeats betrays an official design for use as Carolingian propaganda.[2] Though the information contained within is heavily influenced by authorial intent in favor of the Franks, the annals remain a crucial source on the political and military history of the reign of Charlemagne.
Copies of the annals can be categorized into five classes, based on additions and revisions to the text.[3] The chronicles were continued and incorporated in the West Frankish Annales Bertiniani and in the East Frankish Annales Fuldenses and Annales Xantenses.
1 Content
2.1 Class A
2.2 Class B
2.3 Class C
2.4 Class D
2.5 Class E
3 Authorship
3.1 The First Section (741-795)
3.2 The Second Section (796-807)
3.3 The Third Section (808-819)
3.4 The Fourth Section (809-829)
3.5 The Revised Text
6 Text Sources
6.1 Latin
6.2 English
ContentEdit
The coronation in 752 of Pépin the Short by Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz.
The annals give a brief individual description of events for each year (a few omitted), with a focus on the actions of the Carolingian monarchy, beginning with the account of Pepin the Short's ascension through the dethronement of the Merovingian king Childeric III. The annalists pay particular attention to the military campaigns of the Carolingian kings, justifying their actions in terms of a grand narrative of Carolingian peacekeeping and conquest in the name of expanding the Christian faith. The overthrow of the Merovingians is also portrayed in such a way as to legitimize the transfer of royal power between dynasties, emphasizing Carolingian adherence to Frankish traditions and the approval of Pope Zacharias in the matter.[4]
Of the three kings—Pepin, Charlemagne, and Louis—Charlemagne's military chronicles are the most detailed, covering his victories against the Saxons, Bretons, and other peoples. The account of Charlemagne's campaign against the Saxons is also notable as one of the few extant references to the Irminsul, an important if enigmatic part of the Germanic paganism practiced by the Saxons at the time. Its destruction is a major point in the annals, written to continue a jingoistic theme of Frankish triumphs against the “un-Frankish” and unchristian barbarian. The unrevised text neglects to mention defeats suffered by Charlemagne, such as the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 (later dramatized in the Song of Roland) and the Battle of Süntel in 782.[5]
The Battle of Süntel is portrayed in the annals as a victory, as opposed to a crushing Frankish defeat at the hands of the Saxons. The 792 conspiracy of Pepin the Hunchback against Charlemagne is also omitted, along with any reference to potential misconduct on Charlemagne's part. The revised text, however, incorporates these events while maintaining a positive tone towards the emperor, presented as a peerless leader in battle.
Louis the Pious giving penance at Attigny in 822.
Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious, is rarely shown engaging in battle by the annalists, but rather directs others to do so, or negotiates for peace. The contrast between Louis and his father and grandfather is clear. While the past kings were unshakeable figures, depicted as the better of their foes even in defeat by the revised edition, the annalists’ Louis is a smaller man who invests the power of the military in others, not unlike the annals’ earlier depiction of the Merovingian kings.[6] Miracles aid Charlemagne and his men, and the grace of God leads him to victory; mostly ill portents surround Louis, such as an omen in the stars supposedly foretelling his army's defeat at the hands of Count Aizo, and the sudden collapse of a wooden arcade atop him in 817.
Such references to striking natural phenomena, strange happenings, and miracles become increasingly common in the annal entries for the 9th century. In addition to astronomical oddities, such as eclipses, the supernatural begins to enter the account, set against almost ritualistic yearly notices of the regular passages of Christmas and Easter. Nearly two-dozen villages are reported to have been destroyed by heavenly fire in 823, while at the same time an unnamed girl is said to have begun a three-year fast.
Scholz regards this preoccupation as a reflection of a belief in a divine will and control of history.[7] Many of the worse omens also parallel growing dissatisfaction with Louis the Pious, which immediately after the end of the annals spilled into civil war between him and his sons. Divine intervention through the relics of saints play an important role as well, with mention of Hilduin's translation of the relics of St. Sebastian to the Abbey of St. Medard, and Einhard's transport of the relics of SS. Marcellinus and Peter into Francia.[8]
A more detailed account of Einhard's procurement of the relics exists in his Translation and Miracles of Marcellinus and Peter. Additionally, the annals provide the only attestation to the existence of Charlemagne's personal elephant Abul-Abbas, aside from a mention by Einhard drawn from the annals. The gift of the elephant to Charlemagne, amongst other treasures, by Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid is evidence of the attempts to form an Abbasid-Carolingian alliance at the time, which the annals document loosely.[9]
ClassificationEdit
The annals survive in multiple versions, widely distributed across the Frankish empire, though none of these are original copies.[10] Each version is marked with distinguishing features, and based on these features, Friedrich Kurze formulated five classes for the categorization of these texts.[11] This system still remains in use. The five classes of texts are lettered A through D, with an additional E class for the revised text. They are as follow:
Class AEdit
Class A texts end at the year 788, and are reflected in one of the earliest modern printings of the annals, that of Heinrich Canisius's Francicorum Annalium fragmentum. Canisius also includes the years up to 793 in his printing, however, and Rosamond McKitterick speculates that the manuscript originally ran to that date.[12] These manuscripts are now lost.
Class BEdit
Class B texts go to, at the latest, 813. Kurze notes that one of these was used by Regino of Prüm in his Chronicon.[13]
Class CEdit
Class C texts are complete through 829. These contain various additions not found in the previous two classes, and Kurze divides them based on what other texts are found in their codices, such as the Liber historiae Francorum.
Class DEdit
Class D texts are derived from a complete copy, though McKitterick points out that the derivatives are often not complete themselves.[14] These also contain insertions not found in the other classes, including mention of Pepin the Hunchback. The revised texts are based on a Class D manuscript.
Class EEdit
Class E comprises the revised editions of the annals, and are by far the most numerous. These are often found paired with Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni, and it is partially from this that they are sometimes believed to have been written by him as well, and thus called the Annales qui dicuntur Einhardi (English: Annals which are said to be of Einhard).[15] The revised editions correct the Latin of the originals and elaborate on many of the earlier entries, which were written by a terse hand in their unedited states. The major edits go up to 801, with minor stylistic changes through 812.
AuthorshipEdit
"The destruction of Irminsul by Charlemagne" (1882) by Heinrich Leutemann.
Though the number of sections into which the annals should be divided is debated, they undoubtedly were written in at least four stages, corresponding roughly to the entries for 741-795, 796-807, 808-819, and 820-829.[16][17] Additionally, an unknown editor produced the revised text at some point during the third stage. The identities of any of the authors save that of the fourth section are unknown, but production by a group of clerics associated with the Carolingian court is likely.[18]
The First Section (741-795)Edit
Between the years 741 and 768, the annals overlap with the continuations of the Chronicle of Fredegar. On account of this, scholars such as Scholz have suggested that the annals are based on the continuation of Fredegar up to 768, and then on minor annals up to some point between 787 and 793.[19] McKitterick, however, contends that the continuation of Fredegar and the minor annals are more likely based upon the Annales regni Francorum, which is the most ordered and precise of them.[20] Neither argument considers these entries to be contemporaneous with the events described. The manner of reporting for these years is typically terse, though they include the convention of mentioning Easter and Christmas, which continues throughout the annals.
The author of this section is unknown. Scholz posits the work of multiple authors in the royal chapel.[21] The year 795 is not definitive as the date of authorial change, but it is the latest of those suggested.
The Second Section (796-807)Edit
Unlike the first section, these entries were written contemporaneously and with greater depth. Considering this and the fact that the subject matter remains fixed on the actions of Charlemagne, composition by members of the royal chapel again seems likely, as few other groups would have had access to the same information. However, the identities of these authors remains unknown.
The Third Section (808-819)Edit
This section, as well as the fourth, are also both contemporaneous accounts. Scholz notes an increased eloquence in the language employed from here on.[22] At this time, the editor of the revised edition also began his work on the earlier entries, bringing the Latin up to a similar level as the new entries and adding lengthy passages where detail was lacking, again in the style of the later years. For this reason, the editor is believed to have belonged to or been affiliated with this third group of authors.
The Fourth Section (809-829)Edit
This section ends abruptly after the events of 829, and for this reason has been associated with Hilduin of St. Denis.[23] The case for his authorship is founded on Hilduin's involvement in the first civil war between Louis and his sons in 830.[24] In that year, he left the emperor's service to join the sons’ uprising and was subsequently banished, which would account for the termination of the annals. His increasing distaste for Louis would also correspond with the veiled negativity towards the emperor which surfaces in the later entries of the annal, in the form of faint praise and the recording of omens and disasters. Additionally, the entry for 826 mentions Hilduin's translation of relics, and is followed in 827 by Einhard's translation. The inclusion of these somewhat obscure events, both of which Hilduin was involved with, would be explained by his authorship of the section.
The Revised TextEdit
An illustration of Einhard, to whom the revised text is often ascribed.
The revised text is believed to have been edited after Charlemagne's death in 814 but prior to Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni, which references the revisions, written in 833 at the latest.[25] It covers the years 741 through 812, variously adding detail and modifying style.[26] Leopold von Ranke put forth Einhard as the editor, an association which has carried with the revised annals in references to the Annales qui dicuntur Einhardi.[27] However, while no other names have been suggested for the editor, the case for Einhard cannot be argued definitively either.[28]
LegacyEdit
Three major annals take up the work of the Annales regni Francorum after 829: the Annales Bertiniani, the Annales Fuldenses, and the Annales Xantenses. The Annales Bertiniani concern the West Frankish Kingdom from 830 to 882, serving as a direct unofficial continuation. The Annales Fuldenses use the Annales regni Francorum as a basis up to the year 829, and then continue on their own until 901, documenting the East Frankish Kingdom. The Annales Xantenses run from 832 to 873 and are largely independent from the other two continuations.
Text SourcesEdit
LatinEdit
Heinrich Canisius’s Francicorum Annalium fragmentum in Antiquae Lectiones, Book III (Class A)
The Annales regni Francorum at The Latin Library (Class C)
The Annales regni Francorum in Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi from Monumenta Germaniae Historica, with preface and classifications by Friedrich Kurze (Composite)
EnglishEdit
Scholz, B. (1972). Carolingian chronicles: Royal Frankish annals and Nithard's Histories, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, ISBN 978-0-472-06186-0 (Composite with annotations)
King, P.D. (1987). Charlemagne: Translated Sources, Lambrigg, Kendal, Cumbria: P.D. King, ISBN 0-9511503-0-8
CitationsEdit
^ Scholz “Introduction” Carolingian Chronicles p. 5
^ Kurze “Praefatio” Annales Regni Francorum p. viii
^ McKitterick “The Illusion of Royal Power” English Historical Review p. 17
^ Scholz “Introduction” Carolingian Chronicles pp. 16-17
^ McKitterick “The Illusion of Royal Power” English Historical Review p. 8
^ McKitterick Charlemagne p. 34
^ Kurze “Praefatio” Annales Regni Francorum p. ix
^ McKitterick History and Memory p. 100
^ Monod “Hilduin” Melanges p. 65
^ McKitterick History and Memory p. 30
Boyd, Kelly, ed. Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writers (Rutledge, 1999) 1:35-36
McKitterick, R. (2008). Charlemagne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521716451
McKitterick, R. (2004). History and Memory in the Carolingian World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521534369
McKitterick, R. (2000). “The Illusion of Royal Power in the Carolingian Annals”, The English Historical Review 115(460), pp. 1–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scholz, B. (1972). Carolingian chronicles: Royal Frankish annals and Nithard's Histories. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, ISBN 978-0472061860
Živković, Tibor (2011). "The Origin of the Royal Frankish Annalist's Information about the Serbs in Dalmatia". Homage to Academician Sima Ćirković. Belgrade: The Institute for History. pp. 381–398.
Complete text in latin.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Royal_Frankish_Annals&oldid=901935975"
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Park Street, Hertfordshire
Park Street is a small Hertfordshire village[n 1] in the parish of St Stephen on Watling Street by the river Ver in the City and District of St Albans that is separated from the small city by a buffer to the north.
One of the two remaining public houses,
both of which have restaurants
Platform at Park Street railway station
Location within Hertfordshire
6,781 (2001 census – whole ward)
OS grid reference
Shire county
AL2 2
51°43′19″N 0°20′20″W / 51.722°N 0.339°W / 51.722; -0.339Coordinates: 51°43′19″N 0°20′20″W / 51.722°N 0.339°W / 51.722; -0.339
Park Street has a petrol station, several tyre and automotive service businesses and two food-serving public houses; it is of late and initially disparate medieval origin.[1] The village is also home to the penultimate station on the Abbey Line from Watford Junction, which opened in 1858.
Park Street is also a larger local government ward (the largest settlement of which is How Wood and which includes part of Bricket Wood). The area falls within the Metropolitan Green Belt. Residents are mainly employed in nearby cities; however, the sixth-largest pub group in the United Kingdom, the Orchid Group, which specialises in dining, uses the converted mill house in the village,[2] and east of the street in Frogmore is a substantial business centre and light industrial estate.
2 Origin of the name
4 Landmarks
5 Railway station
7 Public houses
8 Parks and sport
LocationEdit
Park Street is approximately 2½ miles by road from St Albans via Watling Street (the old Roman road from London to Chester and Holyhead) and then a post-Roman offshoot, St Stephen's Hill, into the medieval city centre.
Just south of the A405/A414 North Orbital Road, Hertfordshire which has a direct spur to the M25 (J21A) and Watford, the A405, road links and rail links are within the village boundaries.
The A405, A414, A5183 (formerly A5, Watling Street) and the former M10 motorway (now numbered as part of the A414 as of 1 May 2009), join at Park Street Roundabout. This was featured for many years in the road signs section of the Highway Code.
To the east and south-east of the village lies the disused Handley Page aerodrome.[citation needed]
Origin of the nameEdit
It is thought unlikely the name 'Park' comes from the usual meaning of an enclosure of land for the purpose of hunting but rather simply designates an enclosure of some kind derived from the Saxon word for enclosure which is ‘pearroc’.
The village lies on the Roman Road of Watling Street which forms the main street and continued as a trunk route for travellers going to and from the north from London during Saxon and Norman times.[3]
The immediate village has fourteen heritage-listed buildings (one of which is half-timbered) on Watling Street – the majority of the rest being brick built early Victorian buildings – though Toll Cottage on Bury Dell just to the east is 17th century.[4] Most significantly to this area would have been the passing trade for villagers to sell their ale and produce along Watling Street and easy access to the markets in the nearby pre-Roman settlement, see History of St Albans.
Queen Elizabeth I's spy master Sir Francis Walsingham lived at nearby Old Parkbury, south of the village which was the manor house.[5]
There used to be a Sub Post-Office and more shops, however both How Wood and St Albans provide a larger range of shops.
LandmarksEdit
The main landmark in the village is a Mill, which was converted into offices in 1984. During the conversion a World War II bomb was found in the "Old Smithy's" garden.[citation needed]
There is a Village Hall, accessed from the A5183. Opened in 1936 it is the polling station.
Park Street Baptist Church is on Penn Road.
Railway stationEdit
Park Street railway station is the first station after St Albans Abbey on the St Albans Branch Line. The train service on this line is known locally as the 'Abbey Flyer'. The railway was built in 1858 as a branch line from the London & Birmingham Railway, and Park Street station has been on its current site since 1890. Before being moved to its current position, on Watling Street, it was situated just near Hyde Lane off Park Street Lane, near the current How Wood station.
There was another railway line, built in 1866, which linked the above London and North Western Railway branch line to St Albans, to the newly constructed Midland Railway's main line from Bedford to St Pancras, at Napsbury. It was a goods line in brief use, closed by 1910, called the Park Street Branch and was operated by the Midland Railway. The railway bridge near Sycamore Drive was demolished around 1948 after being damaged by a giant propellor being delivered to the Handley Page aircraft works. It is still possible to see some of the bridge brickwork here which is just by 'The Overdraught' pub. Another, over the River Ver at the back of Sycamore Drive still survives. Beyond the bridge over the River Ver this line crossed what became the Handley Page aircraft factory runway. This runway was in use until the mid-1960s for the maintenance and testing of the V bomber fleet.
A 1960s metal bridge carries the Abbey Line trains, sometimes affectionately dubbed the Abbey Flyer, over the main road, replacing a previous brick one.
SchoolsEdit
Park Street has two primary schools, Park Street Church of England Primary School[6] and How Wood Primary School.[7]
The nearest secondary school is Marlborough School,[8] near the 'King Harry' public house in St Albans.
Public housesEdit
There are just two pubs in the village: The Falcon and The Overdraught. There were previously seven other pubs in Park Street/Frogmore/Colney Street: 'The Red Lion' closed in 2009, and 'The Swan' closed in 2008. In Frogmore, 'The Red Cow' closed 2001/02, and 'The Lamb' closed in the early 1970s. In Colney Street there used to be three pubs: 'The Black Horse', which was demolished in 2003; 'The George and Dragon', which closed in the early 1990s; and 'The Jolly Farmer', which closed in the 1930s.
'The Overdraught' used to be called 'The White Horse'.
Until the early 1970s, 'The Lamb' was situated opposite the entrance to Handley Page aircraft factory. Once the factory closed the last landlord couldn't make a living and, so legend has it, he and his wife closed the pub, locked themselves in and drank the pub dry before being ordered out by the brewery.
The Falcon is reputed to be on the site of a "Pilgrim's Rest", which was a series of places to house the pilgrims to St Alban's shrine in the 1600s.
Parks and sportEdit
Park Street has three parks:
Recreation Ground by sports fields on Park Street Lane: Park Street Football Club and the cricket (sport) ground and pavilion.
Mayflower Road Park
Frogmore Lakes Park, to the south of the village just past the gravel pits, popular for fishing.
There also used to be a big park along Burydell/ Bury Dell Lane, replaced by the vegetable allotments, this was in use at least until 1900.[citation needed]
^ The population relates to all of the local government ward; see ward map for population at statistics.neighbourhood.gov.uk
^ Park Street's nearby Anglican church of the Holy Trinity, originally simply named 'a chapel of ease to St Stephen' was built in 1841-2 is in the heart of Frogmore but was according to the listing entry research by English Heritage built to serve the more than 2000 scattered parishioners of the 4 miles (6.4 km) by 5 miles (8.0 km) parish of St Stephen, St Albans, where only 3 poor outlying cottages were within one mile of St Stephens, now a close suburb of St Albans in the 1840s, see Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1347115)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 25 August 2012. Holy Trinity Church, on the Frogmore border
^ Pub explorer website
^ Ver Valley Society (2017). "Memories of the Ver" (PDF). Society web pages.
^ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1103170)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ Sheilds, Pamela (2009). Hertfordshire Secrets and Spies. Stroud: Amberley. p. 22. ISBN 9781848687882.
^ "Park Street – Church of England Primary School". Parkstreetprimary.org.uk. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
^ "How Wood Primary School | Welcome". Howwood.herts.sch.uk. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 15 March 2013. Retrieved 29 December 2012. CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
Media related to Park Street, Hertfordshire at Wikimedia Commons
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Piarists
(Redirected from Piarist)
The Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools (Latin: Ordo Clericorum Regularium pauperum Matris Dei Scholarum Piarum, Sch. P. or S. P.) or, in short, Piarists (/ˈpaɪərɪsts/), is the oldest Catholic educational order, also known as the Scolopi, Escolapios or Poor Clerics of the Mother of God (in both cases clerics can also become clerks, from the same etymology). Founded in 1617 by Saint Joseph Calasanctius, the main occupation of the Piarist fathers is teaching children and youth, the primary goal being to provide free education for poor children. The Piarist practice was taken as a model by numerous later Catholic societies devoted to teaching, while the state-supported public school system in certain parts of Europe also followed their example. The Piarists have had a considerable success in the education of physically or mentally disabled persons. Some famous individuals of the last few centuries, including Pope Pius IX, Goya, Schubert, Gregor Mendel, and Victor Hugo, were taught at Piarist schools.
Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools
Sch. P. , S. P.
Pietas et Litterae (Latin)
Piety and Learning (English)
March 25, 1617; 402 years ago (1617-03-25)
Catholic religious order
Piazza dei Massimi, 4, 00186 Rome, Italy
41°53′50.5″N 12°28′24.33″E / 41.897361°N 12.4734250°E / 41.897361; 12.4734250Coordinates: 41°53′50.5″N 12°28′24.33″E / 41.897361°N 12.4734250°E / 41.897361; 12.4734250
Superior General
Fr. Pedro Aguado Cuesta, Sch.P. [1]
Main organ
General curia
www.scolopi.org
1.1 Joseph Calasanz
1.2 The Piarist Order Expands
1.3 Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools
4 Notable Piarists
5 Famous students of Piarist schools in Hungary
7 Sources and references
Joseph CalasanzEdit
Joseph Calasanctius (also known as Joseph Calasanz or José de Calasanz, and whose religious name was Josephus a Mater Dei), was born in 1557. He founded the first Catholic teaching order and had it initially recognized as a religious congregation by the Holy See on 6 March 1617.[2]
Calasanz, a native of Peralta de la Sal in the Spanish province of Huesca in Aragon, was born on 11 September 1557. He was the youngest of eight children, and he studied at Lleida and Alcalá, and after his ordination to the priesthood on December 17, 1583, by the Bishop of Urgel, he moved to Rome (1592) where he organized, in 1607, a brotherhood. In November 1597, he opened the first free public school in Europe at Santa Dorotea. While it was considered a school of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, it was unique from the 22 other schools of the Confraternity, which just taught Catechism classes. The school opened by St. Joseph Calasanz also taught secular subjects. The Pious Schools expanded and were financially supported by Popes Clement VIII and Paul V. St. Joseph suffered a crippling accident, but it did not stop him.[3]
On 6 March 1617, the Piarist Fathers became an independent congregation called the "Pauline Congregation of the Poor of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools" when Pope Paul V issued his brief "Ad ea per quae." On 25 March 1617, Calasanz and fourteen other priests became the first members of the new community when they received the religious habit.[4] Calasanz was placed in charge of the new congregation, and he changed his name to Joseph of the Mother of God, thus inaugurating the practice of dropping the family name on entering the religious life.[5] The new congregation was the first religious institute dedicated to teaching. To the three usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the new congregation added a fourth vow, that of dedication to the Christian education of youth, especially the poor.
Soon the Pious Schools began to expand outside of Rome. In June 1616, St. Joseph Calasanz opened a foundation of the Pious Schools at Tusculo in the summer resort of Frascati. The school, which is still in operation, opened in August 1616, and St. Joseph brought to it a painting of the Mother of God, Our Lady of Grace. He then opened schools in Narni (1618), which is located 42 miles from Rome and is where he completed writing his Constitutions, Moricone (1619), Magliano (1620), and Norcia, Carcare, and Fonano (all 1621).
The congregation was made a religious order 18 November 1621 by a brief of Pope Gregory XV, under the name of Congregatio Clericorum Regularium Pauperum Matris Dei Scholarum Piarum. The term "Pauline" was dropped by this pope, although it had been part of the original name due to Pope Paul V. The constitutions were approved 31 January 1622 by Gregory XV, and had all the privileges of the mendicant orders conferred upon it, Calasanz being recognized as general superior, his four assistants being Blessed Pietro Casani, Viviano Vivani, Francesco Castelli and Paolo Ottonelli. On May 7 of the same year the novitiate of St. Onofrio was opened.
The Order began growing rapidly. It soon expanded into Liguria, and between 1621-1632, established schools at Carcare, Savona, two at Genoa, and a short-lived one at Carmagnola. The first Piarist province was established in 1623 in Liguria. The Roman Province would be formally established in 1626. Meanwhile, in Rome, Cardinal Tonti gave a property to St. Joseph, which opened in 1630 with 8 students as Collegio Nazareno. It soon became the flagship school of the Pious Schools in Rome. There was a failed attempt in 1625 to establish schools in Naples, but after another attempt, the Province of Naples would be established in 1627. Between 1630-1641), several schools were opened in Tuscany. They were closed briefly following an outbreak of the plague, but they were soon reopened, and Tuscany would become a province in 1630. One of the most famous of these schools was the school at Abacus, which emphasized mathematics and science. It also offered an Algebra course for adults, and it opened a School for Nobles. In 2007, the four Italian provinces merged into a single Italian Province.[6]
Next, the Pious schools expanded into Central Europe. Cardinal Dietrichstein invited the Pious Schools to come to Moravia, which is now part of the Czech Republic. On April 2, 1631, the Laurentine School was opened in Nikolsburg (Mikulov) with eight teachers and nine students. Within a week the number of students increased to sixteen, and within a month there were over 100 students. In 1634, a novitiate was opened in Lipník nad Bečvou, and in 1640 a school was opened in Litomysl in Bohemia. The first Piarist province established outside of Italy was the Province of Bohemia and Moravia, which was established in 1634. Jerzy Ossoliński was instrumental in bringing the Pious Schools into Poland and Hungary, which soon became the countries with the two largest number of Piarist Foundations in Central Europe, with 28 foundations in Poland and 29 in Hungary. In 1642, King Ladislaus IV invited the Pious Schools to establish a foundation in Warsaw, followed by a school in Podolinec. The Piarist Province of Germany and Poland was established in 1642. Prince Stanisław Lubomirski introduced the Order into Poland, and he is considered the creator of the Province of Hungary, which came about from the school in Podolinec, located on the boundary line with Poland. The first Piarist school was opened in Hungary in 1642.
The Pious Schools next expanded to the two large islands off the coast of Italy where they opened houses in Palermo and Messina in Sicily and then opened two houses at Cagliari in Sardinia. There was one attempt to open a house in the homeland of the founder during his lifetime. In 1637, the order tried to open a house in Guissona in Spain, but the first actual house to open in Spain opened forty years later, in 1677, in Barbastro. The first Spanish province was the Province of Aragon, which was established in 1742. The Province of Catalonia was established in 1751, as was the Province of Austria. Three more provinces would be added in Spain, one in each of the next three centuries: Castile (1753), Valencia (1833), and Vasconia (1933). Added to them was the General Delegation of Spain in 1929.[7]
The pedagogical ideal of Saint Joseph Calasanctius of educating every child, his schools for the poor, his support of the heliocentric sciences of Galileo Galilei, the scandals and persecutions of some of his detractors, and his life of sanctity in the service of children and youth, carried with them the opposition of many among the governing classes in society and in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In 1642, as a result of an internal crisis in the congregation and outside intrigues and pressures, Calasanz was briefly held and interrogated by the Inquisition. According to Karen Liebreich, problems were exacerbated by Father Stefano Cherubini, originally headmaster of the Piarist school in Naples who sexually abused the pupils in his care. Father Stefano made no secret about at least some of his transgressions, and Calasanz came to know of them. Unfortunately for Calasanz as administrator of the order, Father Stefano was the son and the brother of powerful papal lawyers; no one wanted to offend the Cherubini family. Father Stefano pointed out that if allegations of his abuse of his boys became public, actions would be taken to destroy the Piarists. Calasanz, therefore, promoted Father Stefano, to get him away from the scene of the crime, citing only his luxurious diet and failure to attend prayers. However, he knew what Cherubini had really been up to, and he wrote that the sole aim of the plan "... is to cover up this great shame in order that it does not come to the notice of our superiors."[8]
Superiors in Rome may have suspected, but it seems that they bowed to the same family ties that had bound Calasanz. Cherubini became visitor-general for the Piarists, able to conduct himself just as he wanted in any school he visited. The Piarists became entangled in church politics, and partially because they were associated with Galileo, were opposed by the Jesuits, who were more orthodox in astronomy. (Galileo's views also involved atomism, and were thought to be heretical regarding transubstantiation.) The support for Cherubini was broad enough that in 1643, he was made the head of the order and the elderly Calasanz was pushed aside. Upon this appointment, Calasanz publicly documented Cherubini's long pattern of child molestation, a pattern that he had known about for years. Even this did not block Cherubini's appointment, but other members of the order were indignant about it, although they may have objected to Cherubini's more overt shortcomings.[8] With such dissension, the Vatican took the easy course of suppressing the order. In 1646, the order was deprived of its privileges by Pope Innocent X, but the order was restored ten years later by Pope Alexander VIII.
Calasanz, who died on 25 August 1648, was beatified in 1748, and canonized in 1767. He was declared "Universal Patron of all the Christian popular schools in the world" by Pope Pius XII, in 1948, because he had the glory of opening "the first free tuition, popular, public school in Europe" (Von Pastor) and had proclaimed the right to education of all children, fought for it, and was persecuted because of this.
The Piarist Order ExpandsEdit
The Piarists first established a community outside the continent of Europe in 1767 when the Piarist Father Basilio Sancho was appointed as the 17th Archbishop of Manila in 1765, having been recommended for the position by King Charles III. Sancho and four other Piarists arrived in Manila in March 1767. The four other Piarists helped Archbishop Sancho plan the First Provincial Synod of Manila. Archbishop Sancho established a Diocesan Seminary in which the first native diocesan priests were trained. The Piarists worked in the seminary as well as at St. Joseph's School, which had previously been run by the Jesuits. Following Archbishop Sancho's death in 1787, the Piarists returned to Spain. They wouldn't return to the Philippines until 1995, and they now have communities on the islands of Luzon, Cebu, and Mindanao.[9]
Two attempts were made to establish a Piarist presence in the Caribbean in the 19th century. Following the Spanish War of Independence, which ended in 1812, many Piarists left Spain and went to Cuba, where they worked in various ministries. Bishop Anthony M. Claret asked the Piarists to establish a college for the formation of Cuban teachers in Guanabacoa, and the first canonical foundation established in the Americas was in Cuba in 1857. In 1941, the first Piarist Cuban novitiate was opened in Guanabacoa, all previous Cuban novices having gone to Spain for their novitiate. In 1897, the Piarists established the first teacher's college in Puerto Rico in Santurce, but the fathers returned to Spain following the Spanish–American War. The Piarists would return to Puerto Rico in June 1956 to work at Our Lady of Montserrat parish in Salinas and at The Catholic University of Puerto Rico in 1960. The parish was quite large with 20,000 parishioners, and after the Piarists left the parish in 1961, eight Piarists began teaching Cuban refugee children. The Provincial Delegation of New York and Puerto Rico was erected on August 30, 1960, and the House of Ponce was canonically established on November 26, 1960. The Piarists opened a community in San Juan in 1966.
Meanwhile, the Piarists from Spain began establishing communities throughout Central and South America, establishing vice-provinces in Colombia (1956), Brasil (1958), Central America (1960), Chile (1960), and Venezuela (1960). The first Piarist Province in the Americas was established in 1964 in Argentina, which was followed by the establishment of the Piarist Province of the United States (1975) and Mexico (1990). The Piarists established a presence in Bolivia in 1992, which became a Vicariate in 2007. In 2017, the Piarists opened a House in Peru.
The Piarists established their first school in the United States in New Orleans in the early 20th century, but it did not last long. They would try again in New Orleans in 1963, but after one year they departed. It would not be until the beginning of World War II that they would succeed in establishing a foundation in the United States. In the summer of 1940, a Spanish Piarist, Fr. Enrique Pobla went to Los Angeles to examine the possibilities for a foundation. In October 1944, Archbishop John Cantwell of Los Angeles offered the Piarists the care of St. Martha Parish in Vernon, and Fr. Pobla celebrated his first Mass at the parish on the Saturday before the Solemnity of Christ the King. In May 1947, the Piarists were offered the care of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Pasadena, and in 1951, the Archbishop entrusted to them Mary Help of Christians Parish in east Los Angeles. The rectory was too small, so in 1953, they purchased a house near the parish for $15,500. It was the first property owned by the Piarists in California. In 1955, Fr. Angel Torra became the first Piarist assigned to teach at a diocesan high school. In 1960, Cardinal McIntyre entrusted them with St. Bernard High School in Playa del Rey.[10]
Following the second world war, Piarists from eastern Europe were sent to the United States, with the first four arriving in Los Angeles in 1949, but the archbishop said that he did not have work for them to do since they could not speak English well. Meanwhile, Bishop John O'Hara of Buffalo was contacted by two different Piarists and said that he would welcome the Piarists into his diocese. Father Joseph Batori arrived in New York City on June 16, 1949, and after a couple of days left for Lackawanna, where there were many Hungarian refugees living in the area. He was assigned to St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, where he celebrated daily Mass and assisted on weekends, and he taught Latin at Bishop Timon, a diocesan high school. More Hungarian Piarists soon arrived, and after the summer of 1950, Bishop O'Hara offered the Piarists the use of a farmhouse in Lackawanna. By the end of the year, there were eleven Piarists (nine from Hungary and two from Poland) living in the farmhouse as a community, and they called themselves "The Founding Fathers." Father Batori found a house that he liked in Derby, that had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and in 1951, it became the first canonical Piarist house. On May 8, 1954, Father Louis Kovari became the first Piarist ordained in the United States. That same year, the Piarists established a House of Studies in Washington, D.C., and the following year, the Piarists bought the former Lea Estate in Devon, PA and opened Devon Preparatory School in it the following year. The following year, the Piarists opened a School for Gifted Children in Buffalo. In 1961, Bishop Coleman Carroll of Miami offered the Piarists Cardinal Gibbons High School, which had just been built in Fort Lauderdale. The Province of the U.S.A. was established in 1975, and in 2011 it merged with the Vice Province of New York and Puerto Rico to become the Province of the United States and Puerto Rico. In 1990, Back in New York City, in 1953, the Piarists were given permission to reside in the rectory of St. Nicholas Church, and in 1957, Cardinal Spellman gave his permission to create a canonical house. The Piarists bought the building, and they owned it until 1978 when they were entrusted with Annunciation Parish in upper Manhattan. The Piarists were entrusted with St. Helena Parish and St. Helena School in the Bronx in 2014.[10]
Africa is the most recent continent on which the Piarists established communities and schools. The Piarists first went to Africa in 1963, establishing an Apostolic Mission in the Senegal, which became a vice-province in 1997 and then the West African Province in 2013 along with Guinea-Gabon. They began working in Equatorial Guinea in 1970, and in 1990, some priests from Poland began working in the Cameroon, which became a vicariate in 2000, a vice-province in 2007, and the Central African Province in 2013. The two newest African countries in which the Piarists opened communities are the Congo in 2014 and Mozambique in 2017.
Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious SchoolsEdit
The order was restored in 1656 by Pope Alexander VIII who revived the congregation but without its earlier privileges, such as solemn vows granted by Gregory XV and added to the simple vows an oath of perseverance in the congregation. In addition to the usual three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.[4]
The privileges of the order were successively restored in 1660, 1669 and 1698. In 1669, Pope Clement IX restored the Piarists to the condition of regulars.[5]
The Piarists are exempt from episcopal jurisdiction and subject only to their general superior, who is elected every six years by the general chapter. A general procurator with four assistants resides at Rome. In virtue of a brief of Alexander VIII (1690) they ceased to be discalced. The members are divided into professed, novices and lay brethren. The professed usually add the letters "Sch.P." or "S.P.", which means "Pious Schools," after their name, to connote the name of the order, Scholarum Piarum.
Their habit is very similar to that of the Jesuits, a cassock closed in front and a cincture with hanging bands on the left side, although they usually follow the local customs regarding clerical apparel. Their two mottos are Ad majus pietatis incrementum and Pietas et Litterae.
Today, there are over 1,400 Piarist religious found chiefly in Italy, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Latin America, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. There is also a growing number of Piarist lay associates. The Order is currently present on five continents (Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America) and in 36 countries.
In 2017, the Order will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the establishment of the religious community on March 25, 1617, by St. Joseph Calasanz, as well as the 250th anniversary of the canonization of St. Joseph Calasanz, which took place on July 17, 1767. Pope Francis imparted a special Apostolic Blessing on 27 November 2016, the opening day of the Jubilee Year. He also declared that a special Plenary Indulgence would be granted in all churches, chapels, shrines, and parishes where the Piarist Fathers are present to all of the faithful on the occasion of a jubilee celebration, provided they have fulfilled the other necessary requirements to gain the indulgence.
EducationEdit
Before the course of study was regulated by the state, a Piarist establishment contained nine classes: reading, writing, elementary mathematics, schola parva or rudimentorum, schola principiorum, grammatica, syntaxis, humanitas or poesis and rhetorica.
One of the most famous Piarists, priest Stanisław Konarski, was the reformer of the Polish education system in the 18th century. To honor his faithful duty, the Polish King Stanisław August Poniatowski created the Sapere Auso medal.
The order's influence led to the subsequent establishment of many other congregations dedicated to education. There are eleven religious teaching orders now in existence that are based on Calasanz's ideas. The founder and order have also had influence on many great educators, such as Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle in the eighteenth century, and Saint John Bosco, his great admirer, in the nineteenth century. The influence of the pious schools served as the model for state public school systems in some European countries. The order has educated many important figures in modern history, including a number of saints like Saint John Neumann and Saint Josemaría Escrivá, figures like Pope Pius IX, Victor Hugo, Haydn, Schubert, Johann Mendel, and a dozen Nobel Prize winners like George Hevesy and George Olah.
MottoEdit
The motto of the Piarist Fathers is "Pietas et Litterae" (Piety and Learning), and at the bottom of most Piarist documents are the initials "AMPI," which when translated mean "For the Glory of God and the Service of our Neighbor.” The special Piarist motto for the 400th anniversary jubilee year in 2017 is "to educate, announce, and to transform.".[2]
Notable PiaristsEdit
Ottavio Assarotti, Italian philanthropist and founder of the first Italian school for the deaf
Philip of St. James, who edited the chief sentences of the Maxima Sanctorum Patrum Bibliotheca (Lyons, 1719);
Arn. Zeglicki, whose Bibliotheca gnomico histor.-symbolic.-politica was published at Warsaw in 1742;
Alexis a S. Andrea Alexi (d. 1761), moral theologian;
Antonius a Santo Justo, author of Schola pia Aristotelico-Thomistica (Saragossa, 1745);
Stanisław Konarski (d. 1773), famous Polish pedagogue, reformer of education;
Gottfrid a S. Elisabetha Uhlich (d. 1794), professor of heraldry and numismatics;
Augustine Odobrina, who was actively associated with Gottfried Leibniz;
Adrian Rauch, historian;
Josef Fengler (d. 1802), bishop of Raab (now Győr);
Remigius Döttler, professor of physics at the University of Vienna;
Franz Lang, rector of the same university;
the General Giovanni Inghirami (d. 1851), astronomer;
Johann Nepomuk Ehrlich (d. 1864), professor of theology at the University of Prague;
A. Leonetti, author of a biography of Alexander VI (Bologna, 1880);
Ernesto Balducci, author, philosopher and peace activist;
Filippo Cecchi;
Karl Feyerfeil, mathematician;
and Franz Kraus, philologian.
Famous students of Piarist schools in HungaryEdit
Ferenc Deák (1803-1876) Hungarian statesman and Minister of Justice
Péter Esterházy (1950-2016) Hungarian writer
Loránd Eötvös (1848-1919) Hungarian physicist
Franz Lehár (1870-1948) Austro-Hungarian composer
Sándor Petőfi (1823-1849) Hungarian poet and liberal revolutionary
Károly Zipernowsky (1853-1942) Hungarian electrical engineer
In his Life of St. Joseph Calasanctius, Tosetti gives a list of 54 who between 1615 and 1756 died edifying deaths, among them Blessed Peter Casani (d. 1647), the first novice master of the order; the fourth superior general, Venerable Glicerius Landriani (d. 1618); Cosimo Chiara (d. 1688); Petrus Andreas Taccioni (d. 1672); the lay brother Philip Bosio (d. 1662); Antonio Muscia (d. 1665); and Eusebius Amoretti (d. 1685). Saint Pompilius Maria Pirroti (d. 1766) was famous for being a saintly spiritual director. Blessed Faustino Miguez (d. 1925) was a famous educator, scientist, and founder of the Calasanzian Sisters in Spain. Blessed Dionisius Pamplona was a holy master of novices, pastor and rector in Buenos Aires and Peralta de la Sal, and was the first Piarist killed in the fulfillment of his priesthood during the Spanish Civil War (d. 1936). Other Piarists known for their sanctity and pedagogical abilities with children in the last century have been Pedro Díez Gil (d. 1983) and Joaquín Erviti (d. 1999).
^ http://www.scolopi.org/ita/desdelacuria/gobierno.html
^ a b Piarist Fathers USA Province
^ Mershman, Francis. "St. Joseph Calasanctius." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 26 Jun. 2013
^ a b "About the Piarist Fathers", The Piarist Fathers' Appalachian Mission
^ a b "History of the Order", The Piarist Fathers Archived 2013-10-19 at the Wayback Machine
^ [Saint Joseph Calasanctius.Madrid: Paseo De La Direccion 5, 17 Jul. 1974]
^ [Ordo Scholarum Piarum Catalogus Generalis. Apud Curiam Generalem, Piazza de' Massimi 4, 1 Sept. 2014],
^ a b Karen Liebreich, Fallen Order:Intrigue, Heresy and Scandal, London, 2005
^ a b Jose P. Burgues,"The Piarist Fathers in the U.S.A. 60 Years of Service", Miami, 2007
Sources and referencesEdit
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Piarists" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 574.
P. Helyot, Histoire des ordres religieuses (1715), iv. 281
J. A. Seyffert, Ordensregeln der Piaristen (Halle, 1783)
J. Schaller, Gedanken über die Ordensfassung der Piaristen (Prague, 1805)
A. Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen (1897) ii. 271
articles by O. Zockler in Herzog-Hauck's Real-encyklopadie für protestantische Theologie (1904), vol. xv.
C. Kniel in Wetzer and Welte's Kirchen-lexikon (1895), vol. ix.
For Calasanz, see
Timon-David, Vie de St Joseph Calasance (Marseilles, 1884)
General Curia of the Piarists: Official website
Piarists in the U.S.A.
Piarists in Spain
Piarists in Poland
Piarists in Austria
Piarists in Hungary
Piarists in Italy
Piarists in Slovakia
Piarist parish in France
Piarists in Japan and Philippines
Piarist Vocations
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drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself
(Redirected from Egoist)
Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me. ~ Ambrose Bierce
Egoism is the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself, and generally features an inflated opinion of one's personal qualities and intellectual, physical, or social importance. Extreme egotism involves little or no concern for others, including those loved or considered as "close," in any other terms except those set by the egotist.
We are, the great spiritual writers insist, most fully ourselves when we give ourselves away, and it is egotism that holds us back from that transcendent experience that has been called God, Nirvana, Brahman, or the Tao.
Karen Armstrong, in The Spiral Staircase : My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)
Egoist: a person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
Ambrose Bierce, in The Cynic's Word Book (1906). Retitled The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
I now know all the people worth knowing in America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own.
Margaret Fuller, as quoted in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1884, reprinted 1972), vol. 1, part 4, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, p. 234. Perry Miller, in "I Find No Intellect Comparable to My Own," American Heritage (February 1957), p. 22, says she made the remark at Emerson's table and adds, "she was speaking the truth".
The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance.
Eric Hoffer, "Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including: 'Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely'", The New York Times Magazine (April 25, 1971), p. 52
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.
W. Somerset Maugham, in The Summing Up (1938)
It is never permissible to say, I say.
Madame Necker; reported in Louis Klopsch, ed., Many Thoughts of Many Minds: A Treasury of Quotations From the Literature of Every Land and Every Age (1896), p. 80
Look up egotism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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Patrice Nganang
Alain Patrice Nganang
Writer, Poet and Teacher
Cameroonian, American
Alain Patrice Nganang (born 1970) is a Cameroonian writer, poet and teacher.
He was born in Yaoundé, Cameroon and was educated in Cameroon and Germany.[1] He was awarded a Ph.D. in comparative literature at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University.[2] During 2006–2007 he was the Randolph Distinguished Visiting Associate Professor of German Studies at Vassar College.[3] He was an instructor at the Shippensburg University until 2007,[4] and is now a Professor of Comparative Literature at Stony Brook University.[5] His 1999 novel Temps de chien was awarded the Prix Littéraire Marguerite Yourcenar in 2001 and the Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire in 2002.[6]
1 Disappearance and Arrest
2 Release and Deportation
3.1 Essays
Disappearance and Arrest[edit]
On December 7, 2017 Nganang was reported missing at the Douala airport where he was to catch a flight on Kenya Airways to Harare, Zimbabwe, the day after publishing an article on the site Jeune Afrique, criticising Mr Biya's government for its handling of protests by English-speaking Cameroonians. Mr Nganang was detained for three weeks as he was about to fly out of his country of birth[7][8]
Release and Deportation[edit]
On December 27, 2017 a judge in Cameroon ordered his release. He was deported back to the US, where he also holds a dual citizenship[9]
La Promesse des fleurs, 1997 (ISBN 2-7384-4706-6)
Temps de chien, 1999 (ISBN 2-84261-419-4); trans. in English, Dog Days, 2006 (ISBN 0-8139-2535-5)
La Joie de vivre, 2003 (ISBN 2-84261-439-9)
Dernières nouvelles du colonialisme, 2006 (ISBN 2-911412-40-0)
L’Invention du beau regard, 2005 (ISBN 2-07-077271-3)
Mont Plaisant, 2011 (ISBN 978-2-84876-177-0); trans. in English, Mount Pleasant, 2016 (ISBN 9780374213855)
La Saison des prunes, 2013; trans. in English, When the Plums Are Ripe, 2019 (ISBN 9780374288990)
Empreintes de Crabe, 2018
Essays[edit]
Le principe dissident, 2005 (ISBN 9956-435-00-7)
Manifeste d'une nouvelle littérature africaine, 2007 (ISBN 2-915129-27-4)
L'Afrique répond à Sarkozy - Contre le discours de Dakar, ouvrage collectif, 2008 (ISBN 978-2-84876-110-7)
^ King, Adèle (2004). From Africa: New Francophone Stories. U of Nebraska Press. p. 142. ISBN 0-8032-7810-1.
^ "Interzone EU: Crossroads of Migration". University of Pittsburgh. February 22, 2008. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
^ "Faculty (Lehrende)". Vassar College. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
^ "Patrice Nganang — Curriculum Vitae". Stony Brook. Archived from the original on 2011-12-19. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
^ "Patrice Nganang". Stony Brook University. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
^ "Contributors: author Patrice Nganang". Words Without Borders. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
^ "Daily News Cameroon". Retrieved December 7, 2017.
^ "Cameroon arrests author who criticised president". Mail Online. Retrieved 2017-12-07.
^ "BBC News". Retrieved December 27, 2017.
Vakunta, Peter Wuteh (October 30, 2009). "An Interview with Patrice Nganang". Miraclaire Publishing. Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
BNF: cb13008277n (data)
NKC: jo2014820926
NTA: 23848114X
WorldCat Identities (via VIAF): 7522054
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Patrice_Nganang&oldid=918106411"
Cameroonian poets
People from Yaoundé
Goethe University Frankfurt alumni
Vassar College faculty
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania faculty
Cameroonian novelists
Cameroonian male writers
Male novelists
Cameroonian essayists
Stony Brook University faculty
20th-century poets
20th-century novelists
21st-century poets
21st-century novelists
20th-century essayists
21st-century essayists
20th-century male writers
21st-century male writers
Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers
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Display | ‘The Inspection of the Curious’: The Country-House Guidebook
Posted in exhibitions by Editor on September 17, 2016
Garden Front of Blenheim Palace, from Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus or the British Architect, the Plans, Elevations, and Sections of the Regular Buildings, both Publick and Private, in Great Britain . . . , 3 vols. (London: 1715–25), volume 1. For the display at The Mellon Centre, Campbell’s work is represented by a 1967 edition of the book; the image included above comes from Wikimedia Commons.
Now on view at the Paul Mellon Centre:
‘The Inspection of the Curious’: The Country-House Guidebook, c. 1750–1990
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 5 September 2016 – 6 January 2017
Curated by Jessica Feather and Collections Staff
The fourth Drawing Room Display, curated by Jessica Feather (Brian Allen Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre) and Collections staff, takes material from the Centre’s considerable holdings of Country House guidebooks to focus on three early adopters of the guidebook: Knole (Kent), Blenheim Palace (Oxfordshire), and Burghley (Lincolnshire/Northamptonshire).
The British country-house guidebook is a very specific genre of travel guide, with particular characteristics which have, arguably, remained relatively unchanged from beginnings in the mid-eighteenth century until the present day. Generally small in size, lightweight and inexpensive, they were intended to be portable in order to be carried round the house whilst visiting. The history of the country-house guidebook relates closely to the practice of visiting country houses.
It is a genre which only developed seriously in the later eighteenth century, some years after houses such as Chatsworth, Blenheim, and Burghley opened their doors. A subsequent rise in mass tourism by the mid-nineteenth century, and the appropriation of country houses as part of the national heritage, led to the production of an increased number of guidebooks before the decline in interest in visiting country houses from the 1880s onwards due to economic pressures and anti-aristocratic feeling. This saw a decline in visitor numbers and significant reduction in the number of new guidebooks produced and new editions of older ones. A revival in visiting country houses after the Second World War has been paralleled by the frequent publication of guidebooks in new editions at least up until the 1990s.
Examining the guidebooks of three great houses—Knole, Blenheim, and Burghley—not only allows us to consider the history of this genre, but also brings the historical narratives of these houses into the foreground.
The Paul Mellon Centre has been collecting country-house material and publications over a number of years both by purchase and donations, including material from the collections of Sir Howard Colvin and John Cornforth. For more information on the Library and Collections please click here.
The ‘Inspection of the Curious’ display coincides with the Art in the British Country House: Collecting and Display research project and the Art in the British Country House: Collecting and Display conference which takes place October 7.
Jessica Feather’s 21-page accompanying booklet is available digitally here»
Note (added 20 September 2016) — The original version of this posting mistakenly listed the opening date as 8 February 2017.
New Book | Technology in the Country House
Posted in books by Editor on September 17, 2016
Distributed by The University of Chicago Press:
Marilyn Palmer and Ian West, Technology in the Country House (London: Historic England Publishing, 2016), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-1848022805, $120.
The country house has long been an important part of British cultural heritage, beloved not just for its beautiful architecture, furniture, and paintings, but also a means to reconnect with the past and the ways in which families and their households once lived. With Technology in the Country House, Marilyn Palmer and Ian West explore how new technologies began to change country houses and the lives of the families within them beginning in the nineteenth century. A wave of improvements promised better water supplies, flushing toilets, central heating, and communication by bells and then telephones. Country houses, however, were often too far from urban centers to take advantage of centralized resources and so were obliged to set up their own systems if they wanted any of these services to improve the comfort of daily living. Some landowners chose to do this, while others did not, and this book examines the motivations for their decisions.
Marilyn Palmer is emeritus professor of archaeology and president of the Association for Industrial Archaeology. She is the author or editor of many books, including, most recently, Industrial Archaeology: A Handbook. Ian West is an archaeologist and engineer.
Frick Announces Gift of Du Paquier Porcelain
Posted in museums by Editor on September 17, 2016
Du Paquier Porcelain Manufactory, Elephant Wine Dispenser, ca. 1740 (New York: The Frick Collection, gift of the Melinda and Paul Sullivan Collection, 2016; photo by Michael Bodycomb).
Press release from The Frick, via Art Daily (16 September 2016). . .
The Frick Collection announced a gift from Paul Sullivan and Trustee Melinda Martin Sullivan of porcelain produced by the Du Paquier manufactory in Vienna. The Sullivans generously permitted the Frick to choose fourteen superb examples from their collection, considered to be the finest private collection in the world from this important early Western manufactory. The objects, dating from about 1720 to 1740, perfectly complement the museum’s porcelain holdings, which have grown since Henry Clay Frick’s day to represent in depth some of the best productions of this prized material. Mr. Frick focused his porcelain collecting on Sèvres, which accompanied beautifully the eighteenth-century French paintings and furniture he acquired. In 1966, his collection of Chinese porcelain was augmented by some two hundred pieces through the bequest of his son, Childs. The museum’s holdings were again extended by recent and promised gifts of Meissen porcelain from Henry Arnhold. Now, the Sullivan’s gift of Du Paquier porcelain adds to the Frick’s already strong assemblage, which illustrates the Western fascination with Eastern models and represents the brilliant and distinctive tradition of porcelain production in Europe. Starting September 28, these stunning works will be on view in the Frick’s Reception Hall, remaining there through March of 2017.
Europe had long sought to duplicate the composition and physical qualities of the ceramics it imported from China; the feat was achieved only in the first decade of the eighteenth century at the Royal Meissen Manufactory outside Dresden, Germany, before being replicated by the Du Paquier manufactory in Vienna, then by the Sèvres manufactory in France, and elsewhere. In 1718, Claudius Innocentius du Paquier, an agent in the Imperial Council of War at the Vienna court, was granted a twenty-five year charter by Emperor Charles VI to operate a porcelain factory in Vienna. Although the secret of making porcelain by combining local clays containing kaolin with ground alabaster was jealously guarded by the Meissen manufactory, Du Paquier used his diplomatic connections to lure several key figures from Germany to Austria. These included Christoph Conrad Hunger, a porcelain painter; Just Friedrich Tiemann, an expert in kiln construction; and Samuel Stöltzel, the Meissen kiln master, who brought with him the formula for porcelain paste. Named for its founder, the Du Paquier manufactory produced a range of tablewares, decorative vases, and smallscale sculpture that found great popularity with the Hapsburg court and the Austrian nobility.
An early work of about 1725 testifies to the Viennese factory’s pride in its achievement. A tulip vase, part of a set of vessels called a garniture, features a fanciful view of Vienna and its spiritual center, St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Circling the frame of this scene is a Latin inscription that translates: “The bowls that Vienna formerly shipped here under a thousand perils of the sea, she now produces for herself.” The legend clearly signals the Du Paquier manufactory’s debt to Asian ware, which the Emperor Charles VI’s Ostend East-India Company had imported to the city since 1722.
A number of Asian motifs cover a Du Paquier tureen and stand of 1730–35, a form common in both European ceramic and silver dinner services of this period. Chinese-inspired handles in the form of leaping fish enliven the vessel. Its cobalt blue underglaze decorated with gold patterns and cherry blossoms reflect color combinations influenced by Imari ware, which was imported to Europe from Japan during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Within the fan-shaped cartouches, scenes of Chinese figures and temples have been adopted from German engravings published about 1720 in Amsterdam. The variety of sources and inventive adaptations characterize Du Paquier’s spirited production.
As the renown of the Du Paquier manufactory spread, commissions came from capitals throughout Europe; the emperor and members of his court also sent these prized objects as diplomatic gifts to their counterparts in foreign lands. A magnificent tureen—one of more than forty from an extensive service created in 1735 for Czarina Anna Ivanovna—illustrates porcelain’s role in cementing political and dynastic ties. In 1726, Austria and Russia had signed a treaty of mutual defense against military threats from the Ottoman Empire and subsequently were allies during the War of Polish Succession (1733–35). It is likely that to strengthen this alliance, Charles VI sent Anna Ivanovna the Du Paquier service, most of which is still in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The Russian imperial arms are emblazoned in the center of the tureen’s lid, beneath the finial, a gilded statuette of a cross-legged, turbaned man. These two features perfectly illustrate Du Paquier’s brilliant integration of flat, painted decoration with three-dimensional applied forms. Circling the body of the tureen is a modeled garland held in the mouths of grotesque masks, its brightly painted flowers popping from the surface. In contrast, geometrical bands of a type called Laub- und Bandelwerk accent the bottom of the tureen and the lid. This decorative motif consisting of infinite variations based on patterns of trelliswork, angled strapwork, and stylized foliage became a virtual signature of the Viennese porcelain. Painted in a distinctive palette of iron-red with purple, blue, and green, the designs highlight the factory’s use of exuberant colors.
While sculptural forms like fish handles and seated-man finials are a hallmark of Du Paquier’s production, some works take these features to the highest level. One of the most charming is a tankard of 1735–40, the handle of which is in the shape of a cooper. Identified by the leather apron he wears under his coat, the craftsman specialized in making barrels like that which forms the shape he holds. Designed to contain beer, Du Paquier tankards often had lids, but the cooper’s hands grasp the rim, preventing a top from being added. The lively expression of the man, the bold pattern of flowers set off by bands of Laub-und Bandelwerk, and the tankard’s exceptionally large size make it a superb example of these drinking vessels.
Among the rarest of Du Paquier’s sculptural vessels is the elephant wine dispenser featured on the front of this release, one of three known to survive. A colorfully glazed version, in the Hermitage, is part of an elaborate centerpiece made about 1740 for Anna Ivanovna. That elephant stands above a rotating silver platter on which eight dancing figures hold cups ready to receive wine from the elephant’s trunk. The elephant is ridden by a figure of Bacchus, who can be lifted to fill the cavity with wine. The pure white surface of the Frick elephant allows the animal’s sculptural details to be clearly seen. Although it is possible that it was prepared as a spare in the event of breakage during firing, close observation reveals that the figure was once cold-painted (meaning paint was applied to the surface of the object, but it was not fired afterward). Elephants were favorites of the Czarina, who received one as a gift from Persian emissaries in 1736 and who featured a full-size model in a festival she staged on the frozen Neva River in 1740.
The elephant wine service was among the last of the great works produced by the Du Paquier manufactory. By 1744, its founder was overcome with debt and was forced to sell the factory to Empress Maria Theresa. Over its three-decade history, Du Paquier produced a body of work that was inventive and often whimsical, a truly distinctive voice in the evolution of European porcelain.
Comments Frick Director Ian Wardropper, “It gives me great pleasure to see these works come to the Frick. In 1993, while I was the Eloise W. Martin Curator of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, Melinda and her sister, Joyce Hill, offered to fund an acquisition in honor of their mother, Eloise. Several suggestions were made, one of which was a group of three exquisite pieces of Du Paquier porcelain that the department was very interested in acquiring. Melinda was smitten with these objects, and—after purchasing the group for the Art Institute—she and her husband, Paul, began to acquire their own Du Paquier works. As their collection grew, so too did their interest in the history of the manufactory and its production, which led them to underwrite the research for and publication of Fired by Passion, a definitive three-volume monograph released in 2009. To celebrate its publication, as the head of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, I initiated an exhibition drawn from the Sullivan’s and the Met’s collection (Imperial Privilege: Vienna Porcelain of Du Paquier, 1718–44). We are now honored to have this exceptional selection of porcelains enter The Frick Collection owing to the Sullivans’ extraordinary generosity.”
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Mike Sharp
Tennis Director
Mike Sharp has been an Elite Tennis Pro since 1990. He is USPTA certified, a USRSA Master Racquet Technician, and the Elite Clubs pro shop buyer. Mike is President of the GMITA and also President of the WTA. He previously has served as the Head Pro for the J.C.C. summer camp, Director of Elm Grove’s summer tennis, and an assistant coach at Brookfield Central. He was named the Elite Sports Club-West Brookfield Tennis Director in 2002.
Jon Calvillo
Jon has been a North Shore Elite tennis professional for over ten years. During the summer, he is the Tennis Director of Tripoli Country Club. Jon is a graduate of Marquette University where he played four years of collegiate tennis, and where he is now the Assistant Men’s Tennis Coach. He has been ranked #1 in Wisconsin in both singles and doubles.
Randy Haws
Randy is a USPTR certified Tennis Professional through the Van Der Meer Tennis University in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Randy has been the Director of Tennis of Elite Mequon for over ten years and was previously the Co-Director of Tennis at Elite North Shore for five years. Since 2002, he spends the summer months as the Director of Tennis/ Head Pro at North Shore Country Club in Mequon. Randy was the Director of Junior Tennis at LeClub in Glendale and was the Varsity singles coach for the state champions Nicolet High School. Randy has trained several state-ranked, Midwest and Nationally ranked players. Randy has a very accomplished playing record, including Singles Champion of the 2000 Midwest Hard Court Championships. He has also been ranked #1 in singles in the Midwest, and #14 in the United States in the 25 and under division. He competed in the National Hard Court Championships in San Diego California in the singles division. Randy has also won the Wisconsin State Open Doubles Tournament and has competed in the International Championships in Hilton Head, South Carolina in both singles and doubles. Currently, Randy is on the Board of Directors for the 14 Indoor clubs that make the Greater Milwaukee Indoor Tennis Association.
Mike Dierberger
A Milwaukee native, Mike started learning the game of tennis at Elite Clubs when he was only 10 years old. As a junior player, Mike was ranked #1 in Wisconsin since the age of 10, #2 in the Midwest, and #15 in the National rankings. Mike graduated from Nicolet High School in 2006, with a career record of 120-4, playing #1 singles all four years and achieved three consecutive individual singles state championships along with three consecutive team championships. In 2006, he also received the Frank Parker Award for athletic and academic excellence. Mike was recruited to play tennis for UW- Madison as a freshman. During his four years on the team, Madison competed in the NCAA tournament four straight years. In 2010, as a captain of the team, the Badgers reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament for the first time in the program’s history. He then graduated in May 2011, earning an Economics degree. Mike has been employed by the Elite Clubs since the Fall of 2012 and has experience in working with all levels of tennis players.
Jeff Aranda
Tennis Co-Director
Jeff is a USPTA Elite Professional with over 30 years tennis teaching experience. He has taught tennis at the Vail Racquet Club in Vail, Colorado and in Munich, Germany after he came off the ATP Tour. Jeff has been on the tennis staff at Elite Clubs since 2005 and worked with hundreds of the state’s top high school and other high-performance junior players. Jeff has coached many juniors that went on to get a college scholarship in all three NCAA divisions. Jeff was ranked in the state, Midwest, and country as a junior player. He teamed with brother Jordan in college to reach a National ranking of #17 for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in doubles. Jeff and Jordan took the school to National Championships in 1988 and 1989, getting the school a National ranking of #19. Jeff and his brother, Jordan, were inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame in 2014 at UWM. Jeff has been a top 10 Nationally ranked player post-college and reached a high of #2 in the country in doubles with partner Jordan Aranda.
Jordan Aranda
Jordan is a USPTA Elite Professional with over 30 years tennis teaching experience. He was a member of the professional tennis staff that gained the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort in Sarasota, Florida, the #1 rated resort in the country in the mid-1990’s. Then co-directed Hidden Palms Racquet Club in Tampa, Florida. He has been on the Elite Clubs tennis staff since 2005 and worked with hundreds of the state’s top high school and other high-performance junior players. At times coaching them to collegiate scholarship and post-college employment in the tennis industry. He has the privilege of working closely with well known international professionals such as ex-Davis Cup Captain Tom Gullikson, Nick Bollettieri, Oscar Wegnar, and Rick Vetter. As a player Jordan won the WIAA State High School doubles crown in 1985 and 1986 while attending Shorewood High School. He teamed with brother Jeff in college to reach a National ranking of #17 for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was the player with the most wins in school history, and where the brothers were inducted to the Athletic Hall of Fame in 2014. He has been a top 10 Nationally ranked player post-college and reached a high of #2 in the country in doubles with partner Jeff Aranda.
Saulo Gonzales
Tennis Professional
Saulo was born in Venezuela and raised in Peru and Brazil. He was introduced tennis at 8 years old on a recreational level. After his family immigrated to Brazil he quickly found his love and passion for the sport and competed throughout his junior career locally reaching a top 10 ranking in Sao Paulo and top 80 in the Nation. By the time he was 16, he began competing in the ITF circuit where he had the opportunity to train with professional players. After high school, Saulo was offered a full tennis scholarship to Dowling College in New York where he continued playing at a high competitive level. Soon after, he was offered a coaching position at NY Sportime Clubs in the Hamptons. His success gave him the opportunity to become Summer Camp Director at Sportime Harbor Island, Westchester. Saulo moved up the ladder to become an Assistant Manager & Tennis coordinator and responsible for the successful development of Sportime Harbor Island. His last role at Sportime was High-Performance Academy Director where he was working hand in hand with the John McEnroe Tennis Academy. Saulo Gonzales is here to apply all efforts and experience towards player development of all ages in the Wisconsin area towards USTA competition.
Tom Komassa
Tom has taught at Brookfield Elite since 1987. Before becoming a USPTA pro, Tom played intercollegiate tennis at UW- Milwaukee, and UW-Whitewater. He held a top ten ranking in the men’s singles division in Wisconsin.
Joe Cekosh
Joe joined the Elite staff in 1997. He taught tennis part-time at both North Shore and Brookfield while attending UW-Milwaukee. He also was an Assistant Pro at Tripoli County Club under the direction of North Shore head pro Jon Calvillo from 1998 – 2000. Joe then joined the North Shore staff as a full-time pro from 2001 – 2003. In 2005, he began full time at Brookfield. Joe also serves as the primary racquet technician for the Elite Clubs.
Annette Malloy
Tennis Pofessional
EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS: BS- Journalism – The University of Kansas 1983, Played Intramural Tennis, Baby Jayhawk mascot, USPTA Certified Tennis Professional – 1988, USTA Net Generation Provider for 10 and Under Tennis
SPECIALIZATIONS & INTERESTS: Lifelong tennis player and USTA member. Former teaching pro at Kapalua Tennis Center, Maui, Hawaii, AC Nielsen Tennis Center, Winnetka, IL., Westmoor Country Club, Brookfield, WI., Lake Country Racquet and Fitness Club, Hartland, WI
PHILOSOPHY: “I believe in life sports for fitness and overall well-being. I enjoy swimming, walking, golf, gardening and playing tennis.” Annette started her career in 1988 and she joined the Elite team in 2018.
Michael Westley
Will East
Will is a Level 1 and 2 LTA Certified Tennis Professional. He began coaching at the age of 14 at a private club in Sheffield, England where he instructed a variety of players from juniors to level 4.5 adults. As a player, William was nationally ranked in England as a top 20 player for 4 years. William has played in ITF competitions across the globe and played division one collegiate tennis before joining the Cardinal Stritch Men’s Tennis team. In the summer of 2016, William coached at The River Club of Mequon where he ran competitions and events. He coached for Elite Brookfield prior to joining the Elite Sports Clubs-Mequon staff. During the summer months Will also teaches for North Shore Country Club in Mequon. He has earned his bachelor’s degree in Sports Management from Cardinal Stritch in 2017.
Logan Symes
Logan played tennis at Germantown High School where he played singles and was the No. 1 Varsity player in his Senior year. He has competed in numerous USTA matches in southern Wisconsin. Logan attended Tyler Junior College in Tyler, TX where he earned his Professional Tennis Management Certificate and became certified by the USPTA in 2016. He played on the TJC Club tennis team and also coached for 2 seasons at Bishop Gorman Regional Catholic High School in Tyler, TX. After graduation, Logan returned to Mequon and continues to teach tennis at Elite Sports Club in Mequon and North Shore Country Club. He directs the Elite Challenge Ladder and is also the Racquet Technician for Mequon Elite and North Shore Country Club. He enjoys playing tennis competitively and recreationally. In his free time, Logan enjoys spending time with family and friends.
Natalie Andrae
Natalie played Varsity tennis at Grafton High School for four years. After High School, she was awarded a tennis scholarship to play 4 years of Division 1 tennis for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. While in college, she was the director and taught tennis for the Grafton Recreation Department for 2 years which served both children and adults in lessons and leagues. In addition, she was the director for a week-long day tennis camp at the JCC. She helps coach the Cedarburg Middle School Tennis for the past 5 years. Natalie has been teaching for Elite since 2013.
Kaila Haws
Kaila finished in the top of the WIAA State Tennis Tournament for Division 2 Singles for Grafton High School. After High School she was awarded a tennis scholarship to play Division 1 tennis for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. While at Milwaukee she played #1 singles, and #1 doubles. Kaila has competed and won National Tournaments in mixed doubles with her husband Randy. She has taught at North Shore Country Club in Mequon, as well as Elite Sports Club in Glendale. Kaila currently is the Head Varsity girl’s coach for the Cedarburg High School tennis team. Kaila has been teaching tennis since 2000 and teaches groups and private lessons to all ages and abilities.
Scott Ansay
Scott Ansay has been a USPTA Tennis Professional since 1998 and in 2001 was honored as the Wisconsin Professional of the Year. He played college tennis at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. From 1999-2010 Scott has Directed the tennis for the Mequon-Thiensville Recreation Tennis Program. During the summer months, Scott Directs Mequon Elites summer tennis program. Currently, Scott is serving on the USPTA Midwest Board as the President and has been a member of the WTA in the past. In 2017 Scott was awarded the Rollie Mueller award for excellence in overseeing the middle school tennis program. Scott is sponsored by Babolat and serves on their advisory staff.
Brian Egelhoff
Brian is a USPTA Pro/Wheelchair certified. He has been teaching tennis for the past 26 years. Brian has been the recipient of Wisconsin’s Rollie Mueller Award, and the USPTA Midwest Fay Tooley award. In 2009, he was presented with the distinguished USPTA National Star Award. During the summer months, Brian teaches for the Mequon Recreation Department. Brian has served since 2012 on the Adaptive Tennis Committee with the Midwest region of the USTA. Brian has been the Co-Director of Wisconsin’s Advantage Kids/Adults and Special Needs/ Wheelchair tennis program for 26 years.
Florian Fresse
Flo is a Frenchman who trained at a tennis academy in southern France as a junior player. He is a graduate of Cardinal Stritch University (top 10 NAIA team) where he played both singles and doubles for two years before becoming the Men’s and Women’s Graduate Assistant Coach this past season. He has been the personal coach to several Wisconsin USTA ranked players and is currently the Boy’s and Girl’s head tennis coach at Dominican High School. Flo has worked as a tennis professional at the Town Club in Fox Point.
Rick Vetter
Rick is a USPTA Master Professional and USPTA Midwest Hall of Fame inductee. He is an international clinician who has coached two professional Team Tennis programs. Rick is a USTA Recreational Coach Workshop National trainer, has completed the USTA High Performance Coaching Program, and serves on the Wilson Premiere Advisory staff.
Brian Sikorski
Brian has been teaching tennis in the Milwaukee area for the last 15 years. He is a U.S.P.T.A certified tennis professional. He currently plays at the 5.0 level and was ranked number 1 in State of Wisconsin in Men‘s 35 singles in 2002. Brian graduated from U.W. Whitewater in physical Education and played on their varsity tennis team. He joined the North Shore pro team in 2007.
Robert Budiono
Robert came to North Shore from Western Racquet Club where he was their Junior Development Coordinator. Prior to that, Robert was the Tennis Director at The Brookclub, now Elite-West Brookfield. He played collegiate tennis at Marquette University where he was the team‘s #1 Singles Player and played #1 Doubles with North Shore Elite‘s Tennis Director Jon Calvillo. As a junior competitor, Robert was the #1 ranked player in Indonesia. Robert has playing experience at the international level and pro satellite competitions. Robert is currently working with some of the area‘s nationally ranked juniors.
Phil Kelbe
Phil joined the North Shore Elite pro team in 1998. A former WIAA State High School Doubles Champion, Phil played for years of collegiate tennis at the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh. Phil is the current boys & girls tennis coach at Whitefish Bay High School were the boys won the State‘s Division Il title in 2002 and the girls won Division I State titles in 2005 & 2007. Phil also directs the Whitefish Bay Rec. Department‘s summer adult & children‘s tennis programs.
Jay Massart
Jay is a certified USPTA Master Professional since 1998, Jay has been a teaching professional with the Elite clubs for over 25 years, with an emphasis on teaching high-performance juniors. Jay is also the Director of Tennis for the Wisconsin Club Country Club and the head coach for the Wisconsin Tennis Association’s (WTA) Competition Training Center (CTC) junior program. Jay is a past President of the WTA and he was inducted into the Midwest USPTA Hall of Fame in 2003.
Mark Goldin
Mark is the Head Men‘s and Women‘s tennis coach at Cardinal Stritch University. Mark grew up in the Milwaukee area and has been a part of Elite Sports Clubs his entire life. Mark played NCAA division 1 college tennis at UW–Green Bay at the #1 singles and #1 doubles position. Mark is also a former Wisconsin team state champion and individual state runner up at Nicolet High School. Mark has also previously coached at UW-Milwaukee and UW Green Bay and has been teaching tennis in Wisconsin for 13 years. Mark is excited to be teaching at North Shore Elite, where he grew up training for his tennis career.
Chip Liefert
Before joining Elite, Chip was the Director of Jr. Tennis at LeClub Sports Club. He is on the Board of Directors for the Wisconsin Tennis Association, and Chairman of the Junior Development Committee for the WTA. Chip coached seven consecutive junior team tennis State titles 2002 – 2008. His 2005 & 2007 teams went on to the National Championships with the ‘07 team placing second. His 2008 team went to Nationals finishing 20–0 for the year. Chip has bachelor of science and a bachelor of arts degree from UWM. He was the star performer of the year in 2007 for Club Corp.
Marty Badt
Marty joined North Shore Elite after being the Head Tennis Professional for 12 years at The Grand Geneva Resort & Spa in Lake Geneva, WI. He attended and played for Ferris State University in Michigan where he graduated from their PTM (Professional Tennis Management) Program. That is where he received his USPTA certification. Marty was both the Boy‘s and Girl‘s Varsity Head Tennis Coach for Badger High School in Lake Geneva for 11 years. His professional accomplishments include coaching many districts, Midwest, and Nationally ranked players from Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. He is also the Head Clinician for the Special Olympics for the state of Wisconsin. Marty works with tennis players of all abilities from the age of 4 to people in their 80‘s.
Dustin Blackburn
Dustin is a USPTA P2 certified teaching pro who has been teaching full time since 2012. He began teaching tennis his senior year in high school where he worked at the Waukesha Tennis Association for 5 years. Upon graduating from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh with a degree in Physical Education, Dustin worked as a teaching pro at Lake Country Racquet and Athletic Club in Hartland, WI and then moved to be a Director of Tennis at Four Lakes Athletic Club in Elkhorn, WI. At the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, he was an Assistant coach for the women’s tennis team for three seasons under head coach Steve Francour.
Jeff Carswell
Jeff joined the Elite teaching staff in 2013. He enjoys sharing his passion for the game of tennis with others. As a junior, he was state, Midwest, and nationally ranked. Jeff played on the tennis team while he attended UW-Madison. He has a daughter who played competitive junior tennis and was a state high school doubles champion. When Jeff is not playing tennis, he enjoys biking, cross country, and downhill skiing.
Heather Harding-Zukewich
Heather joined the Elite teaching staff in 2015 after working as a middle school teacher for 7 years. Heather played #1 singles all four years at Brookfield Central HS. There she competed 8 times in the WIAA State tournament and won team state in 2002. In 2003, Heather was named BCHS Female Athlete of the Year. Heather’s received a full scholarship at Division 1 UW-Green Bay where she played 3 years in the ITA regional tournament. Heather has coached 3 years for the Pewaukee Park & Rec and 8 years at Catholic Memorial HS.
Scot Muehlmeier
Paddle Tennis Professional
Scot joined the Elite team in the fall of 2016. He is excited to introduce the sport to players of all ages and abilities through group drills, private lessons, and tournament play. Growing up in Brookfield, Scot played tennis for Brookfield Central and then went on to play at Carroll University. He played #1 singles his last two years at Carroll University and also made the all conference tennis team. No stranger to tournaments and league play, he has been on two state winning 5.0 teams. Scot is married to Jill who he met at Westmoor County Club when they were in seventh grade. They brought up three kids, teaching them not only tennis, but skiing and golf as well. They now have four grandchildren who are also tennis players. Scot has a background in the hospitality business and recently retired after being in the industry for over 30 years. He has a passion and love for paddle tennis, is a USPTA tennis professional, andis certified by the American Platform Tennis Association. He started playing platform tennis over 20 years ago and has helped to grow the game ever since.
Erika Wentz-Russell
Erika returns to Elite with over 20 years of experience in the tennis industry having worked for Lake Geneva Tennis, the USTA Midwest Section and Elite Sports Club-Brookfield (1992-2008). A three-time USPTA Midwest Nancy Mickler award winner (2008, 2014, 2017), she has worked with state, section, and nationally ranked junior players as well as been selected as a USTA Midwest Zonal coach five times, been appointed to the USTA Midwest Junior Competition Committee, Collegiate Committee, and the USTA Wisconsin Sanctioning and Scheduling committee. She was also honored by the Milwaukee community for exemplary leadership and commitment towards the development of youth in 2018.
Wentz-Russell starred at the University of Texas El-Paso where she was named All-Western Athletic Conference in both 1996 and 1998. Wentz-Russell was ranked as high as fifth in the ITA Southwest Region in doubles and 30th in the NCAA Division I doubles rankings. She graduated from Brookfield Central HS with a 129-12 record as well as a WIAA state singles runner-up and a WIAA state doubles championship finish.
Wentz-Russell, who graduated from UTEP with a degree in Kinesiology in 1999, is USTA Sports Science certified, a certified USPTA pro, and is on the Wilson Advisory Staff. She also served as the Head Women’s Tennis Coach at the UW-Milwaukee from 2003-2004.
Kerby Vargas
EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS: Greenfield High School, 1 year completed at Bethany Lutheran College
SPECIALIZATIONS & INTERESTS: Kerby specializes in working with high school and college students, but works with players of all ages and skill levels. During his free time, he likes to compete in high-level tennis tournaments, attend sporting events, socialize with friends and family, train at the gym, and learn new skills.
PHILOSOPHY: “Tennis is not just a sport about getting the ball over the net. It’s knowing why you play this individual sport, what it takes to be a better athlete/tennis player, knowing opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, analyzing why you win and lose matches, testing your limitations on and off the courts, and consuming the right nutrition to maximize athletic performance. Mental toughness is a huge factor that determines how well you perform. My personal quote I always say to my students ‘If you want to be the best, you have to take out the best’. ”
Kerby started his career in 2013 and he joined the Elite team in 2018.
© 2020 Elite Sports Clubs
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The Hague Tribunal Heritage after 20 Years
Elizabeth Pond 16. July 2013 20. January 2019 World Policy Journal
As the special war-crimes court for ex-Yugoslavia celebrates its 20th anniversary in Sarajevo today and prepares to close its doors by 2016, it seems to have performed better at politics than at jurisprudence.
That’s not a bad record, perhaps, for a court that started as an orphan, had no enforcement arm to arrest those indicted, and had to start building prosecution cases with its own forensic exhumations of mass graves under the hostile eyes of Serb soldiers. But it is certainly a different outcome than that envisioned by the tribunal’s founders a generation ago.
The United Nations established the court in 1993, as the end of the Cold War once again made Europe safe for national wars. Yugoslavia responded instantly by fracturing into a replay of the early 20th-century Balkan wars that ended the Ottoman Empire and sparked World War I. The ideal of humanitarian intervention that would climax in the UN. “Responsibility to Protect” norm of 2005 was beginning to gather momentum. Yet the United States, the world’s one remaining superpower, was determined not to get its ground troops sucked into the non-strategic Balkans and agreed to help set up the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) rather more as a substitute for military action than as a summons to conscience.
From the beginning, the founding nations starved The Hague’s ad hoc ICTY of funds. Its opening annual budget was a risible $276,000. For more than a year it did not have enough money to hire its chief prosecutor. The judges initially had to rent their robes from a theatrical supplier. U.S. and allied peacekeepers in Bosnia refused to share intelligence with the tribunal or apprehend indictees like Ratko Mladic, and for years the Serb commander at the 1995 massacre of close to 8000 unarmed boys and men in Srebrenica mocked the tribunal by roaming freely in Belgrade. It was not until Madeleine Albright became secretary of state in 1997 that Washington took the ICTY seriously.
In the next decade and a half, the ICTY—along with its companion temporary UN court for Rwanda—translated the bare principles of the 1948 Genocide Convention into specific jurisprudence for the first time. The two tribunals wrote the world’s first convictions of genocide and the first legal definitions of the convention’s outlawing of genocide of a people “in part” as well as “in whole,” including the ban on “measures intended to prevent births within the group.” The tribunal indicted 161 persons and granted them extensive legal counsel for their defense. The rare trial of a head of state for atrocities committed under his rule—Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic—remained inconclusive, as Milosevic died in his cell fifty court hours short of a verdict in 2006. But the tribunal did convict 69 defendants for genocide or lesser war crimes, including the new category of systematic rape as torture. In the process it defined the evidence required to prove command responsibility for war crimes.
Last November, however, the ICTY suddenly risked voiding its own jurisprudence of two decades and the world’s first post-Hitler attempt to hold senior leaders accountable for genocide carried out by subordinates. In a controversial acquittal the appeals chamber, unusually, threw out the extensive evidence cited by the trial bench in convicting the senior Croat General Ante Gotovina and a fellow defendant.
One of the appellate judges wrote a sharp dissent to the split decision at the time. Another tribunal judge, Frederik Harhoff of Denmark, subsequently wrote a letter, which was leaked to the media, charging that the ICTY’s American president Theodor Meron had pressured the appeals chamber to acquit both Gotovina and, in May 2013, Milosevic’s two senior intelligence officials. Meron has remained silent on this internal judicial issue.
The upshot could be that on this precedent no future leader who condones atrocities committed by his armed forces can be convicted unless he has signed a written order to them to commit crimes. That would be an impossibly high bar for proof—and just the opposite of the accountability that was the aim of those who launched the Hague tribunal.
On the political side, the Hague tribunal has arguably done better than on the purely legal side. The ICTY performed a huge and unintended initial service, especially in Serbia, by removing senior leaders like Milosevic and militia leader Vojislav Seselj from domestic politics in their home countries during the early post-war transition years. It further became the measuring rod—especially in the cases of Croatia and Serbia—of Balkan countries’ advance toward rule of law as the European Union made cooperation with the ICTY its main precondition for coveted candidacy for membership in the rich and secure European Union.
Most dramatically, the incentive of eventual EU membership finally brought Serbia, after 16 years in which its secret services hid Ratko Mladic, to arrest Mladic and extradite him to The Hague in 2011. The verdicts in his trial and in the 24 other ongoing trials are expected by 2016.
The tribunal also, like the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders half a century ago, established a baseline of legal truth about the tangled Balkan wars of the 1990s and collected a trove of documents and analysis for the reference of future historians. It familiarized Balkan judges and lawyers with the European concept of rule of law, and provided them with organized, searchable archives to continue in their domestic courts with prosecutions of war crimes and crimes against humanity begun at The Hague. It also forced Serbs, argues Bruno Vekaric, Serbia’s deputy war crimes prosecutor, to stop denying that war crimes ever took place.
Finally, the ICTY, in conjunction with international peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Kosovo, provided time for passions to cool without any escalation of revenge killings. Above all, the tribunal gave Serbian ultranationalists the time and distance to turn pragmatic and moderate by the time they finally came to power a year ago. Serbia in particular needed this breathing space. Unlike the Croats, whose bellicose leader Franjo Tudjman did them the favor of dying before he could be indicted and thus giving them a tabula rasa, Serbs had to live with the burden of a bellicose Milosevic until he died in 2006. It took a younger generation of leaders and popular despair over constant political mobilization and economic hardship to bring them to this year’s unexpected “normalization” with independent Kosovo.
If that normalization now spreads to the Serb “entity” in Bosnia and eventually helps all of the Balkans to modernize and join the European Union, the Hague tribunal will be able to claim much of the credit, as much through its political impact as through its certification of the legal truth of the 1990s wars.
Elizabeth Pond is a Berlin-based journalist and the author of Endgame in the Balkans.
World Policy Journal
© Elizabeth Pond
Bosnia, Serbia
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(-) Remove Experiments filter Experiments
“Sex Limited Inheritance in Drosophila” (1910), by Thomas Hunt Morgan
In 1910, Thomas Hunt Morgan performed an experiment at Columbia University, in New York City, New York, that helped identify the role chromosomes play in heredity. That year, Morgan was breeding Drosophila, or fruit flies. After observing thousands of fruit fly offspring with red eyes, he obtained one that had white eyes. Morgan began breeding the white-eyed mutant fly and found that in one generation of flies, the trait was only present in males.
"The linear arrangement of six sex-linked factors in drosophila, as shown by their mode of association” (1913), by Alfred Henry Sturtevant
In 1913, Alfred Henry Sturtevant published the results of experiments in which he showed how genes are arranged along a chromosome. Sturtevant performed those experiments as an undergraduate at Columbia University, in New York, New York, under the guidance of Nobel laureate Thomas Hunt Morgan. Sturtevant studied heredity using Drosophila, the common fruit fly. In his experiments, Sturtevant determined the relative positions of six genetic factors on a fly’s chromosome by creating a process called gene mapping.
Calvin Bridges’ Experiments on Nondisjunction as Evidence for the Chromosome Theory of Heredity (1913-1916)
From 1913 to 1916, Calvin Bridges performed experiments that indicated genes are found on chromosomes. His experiments were a part of his doctoral thesis advised by Thomas Hunt Morgan in New York, New York. In his experiments, Bridges studied Drosophila, the common fruit fly, and by doing so showed that a process called nondisjunction caused chromosomes, under some circumstances, to fail to separate when forming sperm and egg cells. Nondisjunction, as described by Bridges, caused sperm or egg cells to contain abnormal amounts of chromosomes.
Embryonic Sex Differentiation and Sex Hormones (1947), by Carl R. Moore
In 1947, Carl Richard Moore, a researcher at the University of Chicago, in Chicago, Illinois, wrote Embryonic Sex Differentiation and Sex Hormones, which was published in the same year as a first-edition monograph. In the book, Moore argues that regulation of sex differentiation in mammals is not controlled by sex hormones secreted by embryonic sex organs (gonads), but is controlled by non-hormonal genetic factors.
"Developmental Capacity of Nuclei Transplanted from Keratinized Skin Cells of Adult Frogs" (1975), by John Gurdon, Ronald Laskey, and O. Raymond Reeves
In 1975 John Gurdon, Ronald Laskey, and O. Raymond Reeves published "Developmental Capacity of Nuclei Transplanted from Keratinized Skin Cells of Adult Frogs," in the Journal of Embryology and Experimental Morphology. Their article was the capstone of a series of experiments performed by Gurdon during his time at Oxford and Cambridge, using the frog species Xenopus laevis. Gurdon's first experiment in 1958 showed that the nuclei of Xenopus cells maintained their ability to direct normal development when transplanted.
"The Development of the Pronephros during the Embryonic and Early Larval Life of the Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus)" (1932), by Rachel L. Carson
Rachel L. Carson studied biology at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland and graduated in 1933 with an MA upon the completion of her thesis, The Development of the Pronephros during the Embryonic and Early Larval Life of the Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus). The research that Carson conducted for this thesis project grounded many of the claims and observations she presented in her 1962 book, Silent Spring.
Subject: People, Experiments, Publications
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Have you ever wondered which are the most dangerous diseases mosquitoes spread in this country? Mosquitoes may be tiny, but there are 30,000 species of them in the world, some of which carry very dangerous and deadly diseases. Diseases spread by mosquitoes result in more than a million deaths every year globally.
Diseases carried by mosquitoes are known as vector-borne diseases. Some are commonly known—malaria and yellow fever, for example — while others you may have never heard of, such as Chikungunya and Barmah Forest Fever.
Of the thousands of mosquito species, 176 are found throughout the U.S. Many of the dangerous diseases mosquitoes spread have been reported in the U.S. Here are four to be aware of:
Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus (EEEV): EEEV is a mosquito-borne virus that affects the nervous system in people and animals. An average of seven human cases of EEEV are reported annually in the U.S. But while these numbers are small, the disease is deadly. One third of those infected typically die. In 2019, people contracted the disease in several U.S. states, including Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Georgia.
West Nile Virus: West Nile Virus is the leading disease spread by mosquitoes in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and there are currently no vaccines or medications for treating it. There have been cases in all 48 of the continental U.S. states since 1999. Most people who become infected will have no symptoms at all, while about one in five people who get the disease will have symptoms such as rash, fever, aches, vomiting and diarrhea. One in every 150 cases will become seriously, sometimes fatally, ill.
Zika Virus: The Zika virus is spread primarily by the bite of the Aedes mosquito. And while it usually results in milder symptoms similar to those caused by West Nile, it is particularly dangerous because it can be passed from a pregnant woman to her unborn child and cause birth defects. Most Zika cases reported in the U.S. since 2017 have been in people who traveled outside of the country, although some locally spread cases occurred in southern states like Texas and Florida. In 2016, there was a Zika outbreak with more than 5,000 cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), of which 224 were presumed to have been transmitted from mosquito bites occurring in the U.S.
Dengue: This disease is more common in U.S. territories like Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. However, occasional outbreaks do occur in the continental U.S. in states like Florida and Texas, but due to climate change, there is the potential for dengue outbreaks in other states as well. Symptoms of the disease can range from mild to severe, with the worst cases being life-threatening.
FlyFoe can help you protect your turf from the nuisance and dangers of both mosquitoes and ticks. To book a spray, contact us at FlyFoe.com.
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Published 01 Jun 2008 in Articles
Librettists in tune with the times
by Kimmo Korhonen
Themes in Finnish opera gradually became more diverse and international after the first opera boom in the early 20th century, when topics were primarily national. Opera became the scene of national aspirations in the 19th century. In many countries, not least its homeland, Italy, it was a means of expressing national ideals and of stressing unity. It was as much an item in political debate as drama and literature, and sometimes even more so.
Themes in Finnish opera gradually became more diverse and international after the first opera boom in the early 20th century, when topics were primarily national.
Opera became the scene of national aspirations in the 19th century. In many countries, not least its homeland, Italy, it was a means of expressing national ideals and of stressing unity. It was as much an item in political debate as drama and literature, and sometimes even more so.
Finland jumped onto the bandwagon later than many European countries, the main reason being that operatic culture was in general slow to evolve here. Only the occasional opera saw the light of day in 19th century Finland, and of these the best known (Kung Karls jakt, The Hunt of King Charles, 1852) was by a German composer, Fredrik Pacius, who had settled in Finland only as an adult. Its topic – Finnish loyalty to the Swedish King – can be interpreted from a nationalist perspective, but the opera was to remain an isolated phenomenon. In his second opera, Die Loreley (1887), Pacius turned his gaze on German mythology.
The first real boom in Finnish opera did not dawn until the start of the 20th century. Only then did operas begin to be written in any number, and the emphasis was on national themes. Almost all these operas were set in a Finnish environment, sometimes in a particular period in Finnish history, and their topics were often drawn from Finnish literature. None of them could yet be said to have an international or supranational subject and libretto. “International” in this context refers on the one hand to an opera with a libretto based on international literature or some other international source, and on the other to an opera by a Finnish librettist set outside Finland and with a topic unconnected with the country.
Great national line
Heralding the first wave of Finnish operas was Aino (1909) by Erkki Melartin. As in Armas Launis’s Kullervo (1917), the subject is taken from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. Other major first-wave operas were Selim Palmgren’s Daniel Hjort (1910) and Launis’s Seitsemän Veljestä (The Seven Brothers, 1913), both based on Finnish literary classics, and Oskar Merikanto’s Elinan surma (The Death of Elina, 1910), after a Finnish play. Daniel Hjort was the only one of these originally composed to a libretto in Swedish, Finland’s second official language, though Palmgren later produced a Finnish version.
The subjects of Aarre Merikanto’s Modernistic Juha (1922) and Leevi Madetoja’s more traditional Pohjalaiset (The Ostrobothnians, 1923), both masterpieces of 1920s Finnish opera, are again deeply rooted in Finland. The third great work of that decade, Launis’s Aslak Hetta (1922-30), is already beginning to look further afield, being set in Norwegian Lapland. Launis does, however, view his theme – dealing with the indigenous Sami of the Arctic region – from a Finnish perspective.
National origins continued to be a primary feature of the librettos and subjects of Finnish operas in the next few decades, too, with only few exceptions. Most of all the great national line in Finnish opera has, perhaps, been emphasised by the reliance on Finnish topics of the operas that set in motion the great “opera boom” of the 1970s. In a way these works – Joonas Kokkonen’s Viimeiset kiusaukset (The Last Temptations, 1975), and Aulis Sallinen’s Ratsumies (The Horseman, 1974) and Punainen viiva (The Red Line, 1978) – recreated a national school of opera.
The national nature of Kokkonen’s and Sallinen’s operas began to arouse debate when The Last Temptations and The Red Line won international acclaim on tour with the Finnish National Opera. The younger generation of composers criticised the operas’ nationalist origins and their easily accessible neo- or atonal idiom. Was their focus on the past what Finland really wanted to show the world, they asked. These and others like them became branded karvalakki (fur hat) operas.
Meanwhile, the terms “national” and “international” were the topics of deep-going debate, and were found to be artificial. An opera on a “national” topic can, of course, still be “international” in impact.
The Finnish operas on national themes have analysed both historical events and individuals, and all may be universal art. The triangle drama, for example, so common in opera, may mean the same the world over. Or it may acquire national overtones, as in both Merikanto’s and Madetoja’s Juha, both drawing on a libretto by the Finnish opera diva Aino Ackté (1876-1944), for the nationality of the characters in this triangle drama is of vital importance: Juha is Finnish, his wife Marja wavers between her Karelian origins and her Finnish way of life, and Shemeikka the seducer is Karelian.
The composers of the Finnish operas of the early 20th century had a clear motive in choosing a national topic: to mould and emphasise a specifically Finnish identity in a country that had been subject first to Swedish and later to Russian rule, and after the nation gained political independence in 1917 to strengthen and establish that identity. They may even have felt an unwritten obligation to favour nationalist themes.
Broader horizons
The transition to librettos based on an international subject or text was far from rapid. Early in the second decade of the 20th century Palmgren tried to compose a couple of operas to librettos in German – clearly in the hope of reaching an international audience – but they never reached fruition. One early example was Emil Kauppi’s Päiväkummun pidot (The Feast at Solhaug, 1922), which though based on the play by Ibsen has remained no more than a curiosity. Väinö Raitio, one of the leading Finnish Modernists of his day, experimented with international subjects in Jeftan tytär (Jephtha’s Daughter, 1929), Lyydian Kuningas (The King of Lydia, 1937) and Kaksi kuningatarta (The Two Queens, 1940), but again they have not found a place in the permanent repertoire. Armas Launis’s interesting Jehudith (1940) is set in an Arab nomad environment but has never yet been performed.
Also experimenting with international topics was Tauno Pylkkänen. Some of his operas are set in Estonia and based on texts by the Finnish writer Aino Kallas; hence they are only semi-removed from their national context. By contrast, his one-act operas Varjo (The Shadow, 1954) and Vangit (The Prisoners, 1964) are pan-European in subject. Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Kaivos (The Mine, 1963), dating from the same era, is likewise pan-European.
Finnish operas did not begin to advance significantly on a wider front until the 1980s. Examples here are some of those by Sallinen (Kuningas lähtee Ranskaan, The King Goes Forth To France, 1983; Palatsi (The Palace, 1993; Kuningas Lear, King Lear, 1999), Paavo Heininen (Silkkirumpu, The Damask Drum, 1983), Olli Kortekangas (Grand Hotel, 1985), Rautavaara (Vincent, 1987), Kalevi Aho (Hyönteiselämää, Insect Life, 1987), Erik Bergman (Det sjungande trädet, The Singing Tree1988), Herman Rechberger (Laurentius, 1991), Ilkka Kuusisto (Fröken Julie, Miss Julie 1993) and many others.
For practical reasons the texts even of these operas are usually translated into Finnish – hence their international dimension may seem less obvious. In other words they have, in a way, been adapted to Finnish conditions and composed specifically for Finnish stages. One of the few exceptions is Rechberger’s Laurentius, which has a libretto in Latin.
Rechberger’s Laurentius is about the second-century martyr St Lawrence and is thus a religious work. There have also been a few other Finnish operas on religious and hence “international” topics, most notably perhaps Kari Tikka’s Luther (2000), covering the life and thoughts of the great Reformer Martin Luther.
In a class all of her own is Kaija Saariaho, who now lives in Paris and has composed both her operas (L’amour de loin, 2000 and Adriana Mater, 2005) to librettos in French by Lebanese-French Amin Maalouf. Through her work she is, however, a cosmopolitan just as much as a Finnish figure. Sallinen is another of the few Finnish composers who have looked abroad for a librettist or writer, and then only in The Palace, the libretto of which is by two Germans, Irene Dische and Hans Magnus Enzensberger.
The disinclination of the early Finnish opera composers to look about for international topics may, of course, be interpreted as an indication of the richness of the Finnish subsoil. It is, however, more probably a sign of a certain introversion, of an inward-looking mental climate. It may also spring from a desire to pander to public taste, either real or imaginary. Perhaps this is why composers still actively favour librettos exploring the nation’s history and the Finnish mindscape, and it is only natural that they should do so in developing Finnish opera and their own mode of expression. The growing use of international topics nevertheless signifies a more genuine wish to become part of the international opera community, a certain artistic and spiritual maturity.
And maybe it is a more profound reflection of the change in the Finnish mindset beginning in the 1980s, a psychological unfolding to the world.
#opera
Tales on stage
by Antti HäyrynenPublished 15 Sep 2011
The New Finnish Opera Boom
by Liisamaija HautsaloPublished 01 Mar 2000
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TV Industry
Who puts together a television network schedule?
Browse the article Who puts together a television network schedule?
Fox launched "The Simpson's" against the highly-rated "Cosby Show," a move that proved successful. See pictures of more children's television shows.
© Michael Buckner/Getty Images for Fox
In 1989, the fledgling Fox network aired the first cartoon sitcom in primetime. "The Simpsons" was an instant hit. But for Fox, Sunday night success wasn't enough. The network executives decided to set their sights on the king of primetime comedy, "The Cosby Show," the highest rated sitcom on television for the past six years. In 1990, Fox moved "The Simpsons" from Sunday night to the 8 p.m. Thursday time slot, in direct competition with Cosby.
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"The Simpsons" didn't come close to beating "The Cosby Show" that first year (although it did win a few prized age groups) but the bold scheduling move was part of an overall marketing strategy. For Fox, the message was, "We're here. We're young. And we're coming after the big boys." Nearly 20 years later, "The Simpsons" is widely recognized as one of the most popular shows in TV history, and some of the credit for its early success belongs to that much-publicized scheduling coup.
The person in charge of putting together a TV network's schedule is the director of network programming. The job goes by many names, including president of TV entertainment, senior vice president for TV programming or vice president of program scheduling. Director of network programming is one of the highest positions in television production and requires a broad range of business, creative, technical and interpersonal skills.
In today's media climate, the director of network programming also needs to be highly adaptable. Never before have there been so many entertainment options for the consumer. To stay relevant with the audience, network programmers are branching out from television into digital content delivery such as the Internet, mobile devices and video on demand.
So what exactly are the job responsibilities of the director of network programming and how do you break into this high-power, high-pressure career? Read on to hear all about it.
Job Description: Director of Network Programming
The director of network programming develops new TV shows, a move that sometimes pays off like the highly rated "The Cosby Show."
© Alan Singer/CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
To understand the job of a director of network programming, you must first understand that network television is a business like any other. The goal is to make money, not entertain the masses. A television's show success or failure is determined largely by Nielsen ratings. Nielsen ratings tell potential advertisers how many people watch a specific show broken down by age and sex.
Based on these ratings numbers, advertisers can decide which TV program best fits their target audience. This is why there are so many beer and truck commercials during Monday Night Football and so many weight loss and wrinkle cream ads during Lifetime's movie of the week. If the shows on one network consistently get lower ratings than shows on another network, advertisers might decide to take their business elsewhere.
The job of the director of network programming is to gauge constantly shifting and fragmented audience tastes to build a morning, daytime and primetime TV schedule that draws the most viewers possible. That means higher ratings, better advertising sales and more profit for the company.
The director of network programming's job is split into two basic parts: development and scheduling. Development is the process of identifying good show ideas, buying them and investing the money and resources to turn the idea into a highly marketable, successful TV program. Network development specialists assist the director of network programming.
Scheduling is figuring out how to balance all those new ideas with existing shows in a way that entices rather than alienates the audience. If you move a hit show around too much, viewers might lose it. But if a primetime lineup gets too stale, viewers might go elsewhere looking for fresher ideas.
Scheduling is part of a TV network's overall business strategy: to make the most amount of money possible. The network might find that the existing shows aren't pulling in enough young, male viewers (a particular favorite for advertisers). The director of network programming might decide to throw a new bikini-clad reality show into a popular primetime line-up to convince more young male viewers to stick around.
This was the philosophy behind the old tent pole strategy used for years by the big four American TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox). With the tent pole strategy, a network introduced new shows in between two confirmed hits, hoping that the hit shows would act as tent poles, pulling up the ratings of the shows before or after them. The biggest ratings success of that strategy was NBC's "Friends," which debuted at 8:30 p.m. Thursday night in between the hits "Mad About You" and "Seinfeld."
The job description of the director of network programming is changing rapidly. TV networks realize that not only are they competing with each other, but with other media delivery platforms, including streaming video available over the Internet and through mobile devices like cell phones and iPods.
In this evolving media universe, the director of network programming must figure out how to best deliver content to the most amount of people while generating the most amount of advertising revenue. This means that TV scheduling is only part of the equation. If a show debuts on Thursday night, it needs to be available for streaming on the network's Web site Friday night, available for download on iTunes Saturday night and available as video on demand by Sunday.
So what kind of person is best qualified to be a director of network programming? Is it better to be a savvy businessperson or a creative visionary? Keep reading to find out more.
Required Skills: Director of Network Programming
The director of network programming plans TV show premieres like this one for "The Starter Wife." Here at the premiere from left, Jeff Wachtel, executive vice president of original programming; Bonnie Hammer, president; and director Jon Avnet.
© Michael Buckner/Getty Images
Being a successful director of network programming requires a rare combination of skills as well as the ability to know what makes good TV.
The director of network programming has to analyze the latest data on audience viewing patterns to pinpoint emerging trends before they're played out. They also need to analyze past ratings successes and failures to figure out the best time of year to launch a new show or debut an original movie. They need to screen TV pilots in front of test audiences and know which comments to accept and which to reject.
On the creative side of things, the director of network programming needs to follow popular trends without being afraid to take a risk. It would be easy to look around and try to copy existing hit shows on other networks ("Dancing With the Stars" and "So You Think You can Dance") or create spin-offs from your own hits ("CSI," "CSI: Miami" and "CSI: NY"), but sometimes the biggest hits come completely out of left field.
A recent trend for American television networks is to spot hit shows in other countries, mainly England, and repackage them for American audiences. Examples include "American Idol," based on the British hit "Pop Idol," and the American version of the British series "The Office." This approach balances risk-taking with the insurance that the show is already a proven success elsewhere.
The director of network programming needs to see the "big picture" at every development stage and scheduling process. For example, if the comedy development executive comes to her with an idea for a new show, she needs to envision how that show might fit into the schedule two years down the line. That hypothetical schedule might include several other projects that are already in development and that may or may not ever make it on air.
Since network television is a business, everything the director of network programming does must fit within a budget. He doesn't have endless funds to develop dozens of new shows every season. The marketing department, for example, only has a fixed amount of money that it can spend promoting new and existing shows. If you hide a show on Monday nights, it's going to need more promotion than a show that drops in right after the network's biggest hit.
Every decision comes back to money. The director of network programming always has to be asking herself, "How much will this investment generate in future advertising revenue?" If not, she won't last long.
The director of network programming is also the network's public face during press tours and upfronts, when new and existing shows are presented to advertisers. For this reason, directors of network programming need to be public relations pros with a knack for handling press conference questions and delivering catchy sound bytes.
So how does someone become a director of network programming? Can you just watch a lot of TV and look good in a power suit? Can you major in TV business in college? Read on to find out more.
Becoming a Director of Network Programming
Directors of network programming often introduce TV schedules for the season. From left HBO co-president Richard Plepler and President of Programming Michael Lombardo speak at a press conference.
© Jason Merritt/FilmMagic/Getty Images
The directors of network programming for the big four American TV networks have 20 to 30 years of experience in the business. This is considered the highest rung for jobs in television production. People who are qualified for this kind of job have worked up through the ranks at independent production companies, TV studios and TV networks, gaining valuable experience and insight on the development and scheduling process.
One of the best routes for becoming a director of network programming is to pursue a career in development. This can happen in several different venues. For example, there are smaller, independent television production companies that develop ideas into pilots that are either sold to a TV studio or directly to a TV network. This might be the easiest place to get a production assistant or other entry-level job to get you acquainted with the rules of the game. If you win the confidence of your superiors, maybe they'll ask for your opinion on a script or invite you to some meetings.
On the development career track, you'll hone your skills at identifying a good idea and corralling it through the development process. You'll learn how to balance the creative vision of the show's creator with the current market conditions to create a product that's both entertaining and successful. You'll learn what upper-level network executives want to hear from a pitch and see in a pilot. Most of all, you'll cultivate a solid reputation and a proven track record for developing shows that go on to become hits.
Before becoming the director of network programming, you might spend a few years at a TV network in a specific area of development. At the major networks, there are development jobs specifically for comedy, drama and original programming as well as jobs for daytime, primetime, sports and digital media. The more experience you get in different genres, day parts and media platforms, the more prepared you'll be to oversee them all as the director.
A lot of directors of network programming have experience in the research and affiliate marketing departments of major studios and TV networks. Beyond your ability to spot and develop a fresh idea, you need to prove that you understand ratings and how to maximize advertising revenue through strategic partnerships, network affiliates and across multiple media platforms.
While it's not necessary to earn a specific degree in television business or broadcasting, there are college programs out there that could get you a leg up on internships. Many directors of network programming study communications, while others end up in the field after earning degrees in law, business and marketing. But the only way to really learn how the business works is to land that entry-level job and start getting experience.
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"Cosby Ready to Go On Despite Inroads By Fox's 'Simpsons.'" Carter, Bill. The New York Times. Feb. 21, 1991. (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE4DA103EF932A15751C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all)
"Director, Programming." Discovery Communications. (http://jobview.monster.com/GetJob.aspx?JobID=73756624&AVSDM=2008-07-10%2015:24:00&WT.mc_n=RSS2005_JSR)
"Jobline: Television Program Director" Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (http://www.cpb.org/jobline/index.php?mode=print_listing&listing_id=5212)
"Management Team: Stephen McPherson." Disney-ABC Television Group. (http://www.disneyabctv.com/bios/bio_mcpherson.shtml)
"NBC Taking a Big Step Back from Television: Old Media Undergoes a Digital Makeover." Ahrens, Frank. The Washington Post. Oct. 20, 2006. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101900205.html)
"Nina Tassler: President, CBS Entertainment." CBS. (http://www.cbspressexpress.com/div.php/cbs_entertainment/executive?id=72)
"Pilot Programs." D'Alessandro, K.C. The Museum of Broadcast Communications. (http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/pilotprogram/pilotprogram.htm)
"Producing For PBS." PBS. (http://www.pbs.org/producers/names.html)
"TV Viewers Migrate to Web for Primetime Programming." MediaBuyerPlanner.com. July 30, 2008. (http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/2008/07/30/tv-viewers-migrating-to-web-for-primetime-programming/)
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Degrees of freedom (mechanics)
In mechanics, degrees of freedom (DOF) are the set of independent displacements and/or rotations that specify completely the displaced or deformed position and orientation of the body or system. This is a fundamental concept relating to systems of moving bodies in mechanical engineering, aeronautical engineering, robotics, structural engineering, etc.
A rigid body that moves in three dimensional space has three translational displacement components as DOFs, while a rigid body would have at most six DOFs including three rotations. Translation is the ability to move without rotating, while rotation is angular motion about some axis.
If you were to think of an automobile as a rigid body traveling on a plane (a flat, two-dimensional space), it has three independent degrees of freedom: translation along or across the plane, and rotation to point in any direction or heading. Skidding or drifting is a good example of an automobile's 3 independent DOFs. By contrast, a train moves along a track so that the heading of the train is determined by its position on the track. Thus, the train is restricted to only one degree of freedom: position along the track.
The Exact constraint mechanical design method manages the degrees of freedom to neither underconstrain nor overconstrain a device. [1]
1 Motions and dimensions
1.1 Systems of bodies
2 Electrical engineering
Motions and dimensions
In general, a rigid body in d dimensions has d(d + 1)/2 degrees of freedom (d translations and d(d −1)/2 rotations). One line of reasoning for the number of rotations goes that rotational freedom is the same as fixing a coordinate frame. Now, the first axis of the new frame is unrestricted, except that it has to have the same scale as the original—so it has (d-1) DOFs. The second axis has to be orthogonal to the first, so it has (d-2) DOFs. Proceeding in this way, we get d(d-1)/2 rotational DOFs in d dimensions. In 1-, 2- and 3- dimensions then, we have one, three, and six degrees of freedom.
A non-rigid or deformable body may be thought of as a collection of many minute particles (infinite number of DOFs); this is often approximated by a finite DOF system. When motion involving large displacements is the main objective of study (e.g. for analyzing the motion of satellites), a deformable body may be approximated as a rigid body (or even a particle) in order to simplify the analysis.
In three dimensions, the six DOFs of a rigid body are sometimes described using these nautical names:
Moving up and down (heaving);
Moving left and right (swaying);
Moving forward and backward (surging);
Tilting forward and backward (pitching);
Turning left and right (yawing);
Tilting side to side (rolling).
See also: Euler angles.
Systems of bodies
An articulated robot with 7 DOF in a kinematic chain (including surge at the end of the arm).
A system with several bodies would have a combined DOF that is the sum of the DOFs of the bodies, less the internal constraints they may have on relative motion. A mechanism or linkage containing a number of connected rigid bodies may have more than the degrees of freedom for a single rigid body. Here the term degrees of freedom is used to describe the number of parameters needed to specify the spatial pose of a linkage.
A specific type of linkage is the open kinematic chain, where a set of rigid links are connected at joints; a joint may provide one DOF (hinge/sliding), or two (cylindrical). Such chains occur commonly in robotics, biomechanics, and for satellites and other space structures. A human arm is considered to have seven DOFs. A shoulder gives pitch, yaw, and roll, an elbow allows for pitch and roll, and a wrist allows for pitch and yaw. Only 3 of those movements would be necessary to move the hand to any point in space, but people would lack the ability to grasp things from different angles or directions. A robot (or object) that has mechanisms to control all 6 physical DOF is said to be holonomic. An object with fewer controllable DOFs than total DOFs is said to be non-holonomic, and an object with more controllable DOFs than total DOFs (such as the human arm) is said to be redundant.
In mobile robotics, a car-like robot can reach any position and orientation in 2-D space, so it needs 3 DOFs to describe its pose, but at any point, you can move it only by a forward motion and a steering angle. So it has two control DOFs and three representational DOFs; i.e. it is non-holonomic. A fixed-wing aircraft, with 3–4 control DOFs (forward motion, roll, pitch, and to a limited extent, yaw) in a 3-D space, is also non-holonomic, as it cannot move directly up/down or left/right.
A summary of formulas and methods for computing the degrees-of-freedom in mechanical systems has been given by Pennestri, Cavacece, and Vita.[2]
In electrical engineering degrees of freedom is often used to describe the number of directions in which a phased array antenna can form either beams or nulls. It is equal to one less than the number of elements contained in the array, as one element is used as a reference against which either constructive or destructive interference may be applied using each of the remaining antenna elements. Applications exist for the concept in both radar practice and communication link practice, with beam steering being more prevalent for radar applications and null steering being more prevalent for interference suppression in communication links.
^ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mechanical-engineering/2-76-multi-scale-system-design-fall-2004/readings/reading_l3.pdf
^ Pennestri E, Cavacece M, Vita L, On the computation of degrees-of-freedom: A didactic perspective, ASME Paper DETC2005-84109
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Degrees of freedom — can mean: Degrees of freedom (mechanics), independent displacements and/or rotations that specify the orientation of the body or system Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry), a term used in explaining dependence on parameters, or the… … Wikipedia
Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry) — A degree of freedom is an independent physical parameter, often called a dimension, in the formal description of the state of a physical system. The set of all dimensions of a system is known as a phase space. Contents 1 Definition 2 Example:… … Wikipedia
Six degrees of freedom — (6DoF) refers to motion in three dimensional space, namely the ability to move forward/backward, up/down, left/right (translation in three perpendicular axes) combined with rotation about three perpendicular axes (yaw, pitch, roll). As the… … Wikipedia
Mechanics — This article is about an area of scientific study. For other uses, see Mechanic (disambiguation). Mechanics (Greek Μηχανική) is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and… … Wikipedia
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Classical mechanics — This article is about the physics sub field. For the book written by Herbert Goldstein and others, see Classical Mechanics (book). Classical mechanics … Wikipedia
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solids, mechanics of — ▪ physics Introduction science concerned with the stressing (stress), deformation (deformation and flow), and failure of solid materials and structures. What, then, is a solid? Any material, fluid or solid, can support normal forces.… … Universalium
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Blood on Whose Hands?
Lawyer, writer
Bradley Manning, Washington, and the Blood of Civilians
Who in their right mind wants to talk about, think about, or read a short essay about… civilian war casualties? What a bummer, this topic, especially since our Afghan, Iraq, and other ongoing wars were advertised as uplifting acts of philanthropy: wars to spread security, freedom, democracy, human rights, gender equality, the rule of law, etc.
A couple hundred thousand dead civilians have a way of making such noble ideals seem like dollar-store tinsel. And so, throughout our decade-long foreign policy debacle in the Greater Middle East, we in the U.S. have generally agreed that no one shall commit the gaucherie of dwelling on (and “dwelling on” = fleetingly mentioned) civilian casualties. Washington elites may squabble over some things, but as for foreigners killed by our numerous wars, our Beltway crew adheres to a sullen code of omertà.
Club rules do, however, permit one loophole: Washington officials may bemoan the nightmare of civilian casualties — but only if they can be pinned on a 24-year-old Army private first class named Bradley Manning.
Pfc. Manning, you will remember, is the young soldier who is soon to be court-martialed for passing some 750,000 military and diplomatic documents, a large chunk of them classified, to the website WikiLeaks. Among those leaks, there was indeed some serious stuff about how Americans dealt with civilians in invaded countries. For instance, the documents revealed that the U.S. military, then the occupying force in Iraq, did little or nothing to prevent Iraqi authorities from torturing prisoners in a variety of gruesome ways, sometimes to death.
Then there was that gun-sight video — unclassified but buried in classified material — of an American Apache helicopter opening fire on a crowd on a Baghdad street, gunning down a dozen men, including two Reuters employees, and injuring more, including children. There were also those field reports about how jumpy American soldiers repeatedly shot down civilians at roadside checkpoints; about night raids gone wrong both in Iraq and Afghanistan; and a count of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, a tally whose existence the U.S. military had previously denied possessing.
Together, these leaks and many others offered a composite portrait of military and political debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan whose grinding theme has been civilian casualties, a fact not much noted here in the U.S. A tiny number of low-ranking American soldiers have been held to account for rare instances of premeditated murder of civilians, but most of the troops who kill civilians in the midst of the chaos of war are not tried, much less convicted. We don’t talk about these cases a lot either. On the other hand, officials of all types make free with lusty condemnations of Bradley Manning, whose leaks are luridly credited with potential (though not actual) deaths.
Putting Lives in Danger
“[WikiLeaks] might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family,” said Admiral Mike Mullen, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the release of the Afghan War Logs in July 2010. This was, of course, the same Admiral Mullen who had endorsed a major escalation of the war in Afghanistan, which would lead to a tremendous “surge” in casualties among civilians and soldiers alike. Here are counts — undoubtedly undercounts, in fact — of real Afghan corpses that, at least in part, resulted from the policy he supported: 2,412 in 2009, 2,777 in 2010, 1,462 in the first half 2011, according to the U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan. As far as anyone knows, here are the corpses that resulted from the release of those WikiLeaks documents: 0. (And don’t forget, the stalemate war with the Taliban has not budged in the period since that surge.) Who, then, has blood on his hands, Pfc. Manning — or Admiral Mullen?
Of course the admiral is hardly alone. In fact, whole tabernacle choirs have joined in the condemnation of Manning and WikiLeaks for “causing” carnage, thanks to their disclosures.
Robert Gates, who served as secretary of defense under George W. Bush and then Barack Obama, also spoke sternly of Manning’s leaks, accusing him of “moral culpability.” He added, “And that’s where I think the verdict is ‘guilty’ on WikiLeaks. They have put this out without any regard whatsoever for the consequences.”
This was, of course, the same Robert Gates who pushed for escalation in Afghanistan in 2009 and, in March 2011, flew to the Kingdom of Bahrain to offer his own personal “reassurance of support” to a ruling monarchy already busy shooting and torturing nonviolent civilian protesters. So again, when it comes to blood and indifference to consequences, Bradley Manning — or Robert Gates?
Nor have such attitudes been confined to the military. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Manning’s (alleged) leak of 250,000 diplomatic cables of being “an attack on the international community” that “puts people’s lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.”
As a senator, of course, she supported the invasion of Iraq in flagrant contravention of the U.N. Charter. She was subsequently a leading hawkwhen it came to escalating and expanding the Afghan War, and is now responsible for disbursing an annual $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt’s ruling junta whose forces have repeatedly opened fire on nonviolent civilian protesters. So who’s been attacking the international community and putting lives in danger, Bradley Manning — or Hillary Clinton?
Harold Koh, former Yale Law School dean, liberal lion, and currently the State Department’s top legal adviser, has announced that the same leaked diplomatic cables “could place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals — from journalists to human rights activists and bloggers to soldiers to individuals providing information to further peace and security.”
This is the same Harold Koh who, in March 2010, provided a tortured legal rationale for the Obama administration’s drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, despite the inevitable and well-documented civilian casualties they cause. So who is risking the lives of countless innocent individuals, Bradley Manning — or Harold Koh?
Much of the media have clambered aboard the bandwagon, blaming WikiLeaks and Manning for damage done by wars they once energetically cheered on.
In early 2011, to pick just one example from the ranks of journalism, New Yorker writer George Packerprofessed his horror that WikiLeaks had released a memo marked “secret/noforn” listing spots throughout the world of vital strategic or economic interest to the United States. Asked by radio host Brian Lehrer whether this disclosure had crossed a new line by making a gratuitous gift to terrorists, Packer replied with an appalled yes.
Now, among the “secrets” contained in this document are the facts that the Strait of Gibraltar is a vital shipping lane and that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is rich in minerals. Have we Americans become so infantilized that factoids of basic geography must be considered state secrets? (Maybe best not to answer that question.) The “threat” of this document’s release has since been roundly debunkedby various military intellectuals.
Nevertheless, Packer’s response was instructive. Here was a typical liberal hawk, who had can-canned to the post-9/11 drumbeat of war as a therapeutic wake-up call from “the bland comforts of peace,” now affronted by WikiLeaks’ supposed recklessness. Civilian casualties do not seem to have been on Packer’s mind when he supported the invasion of Iraq, nor has he written much about them since.
In an enthusiastic 2006 New Yorker essay on counterinsurgency warfare, for example, the very words “civilian casualties” never come up, despite their centrality to COIN theory, practice, and history. It is a fact that, as Operation Enduring Freedom shifted to counterinsurgency tactics in 2009, civilian casualties in Afghanistan skyrocketed. So, for that matter, have American military casualties. (More than half of U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan occurred in the past three years.)
Liberal hawks like Packer may consider WikiLeaks out of bounds, but really, who in these last years has been the most reckless, Bradley Manning — or George Packer and some of his pro-war colleagues at theNew Yorker like Jeffrey Goldberg (who has since left for the Atlantic Monthly, where he’s been busilyclearing a path for war with Iran) and editor David Remnick?
Centrist and liberal nonprofit think tanks have been no less selectively blind when it comes to civilian carnage. Liza Goitein, a lawyer at the liberal-minded Brennan Center at NYU Law School, has also taken out after Bradley Manning. In the midst of an otherwise deft diagnosis of Washington’s compulsive urge to over-classify everything — the federal government classifies an amazing 77 million documents a year — she pauses just long enough to accuse Manning of “criminal recklessness” for putting civilians named in the Afghan War logs in peril — “a disclosure,” as she puts it, “that surely endangers their safety.”
It’s worth noting that, until the moment Goitein made this charge, not a single report or press release issued by the Brennan Center has ever so much as uttered a mention of civilian casualties caused by the U.S. military. The absence of civilian casualties is almost palpable in the work of the Brennan Center’s program in “Liberty and National Security.” For example, this program’s 2011 report “Rethinking Radicalization,” which explored effective, lawful ways to prevent American Muslims from turning terrorist, makes not a single reference to the tens of thousands of well-documented civilian casualties caused by American military force in the Muslim world, which according to many scholars is the prime mover of terrorist blowback. The report on how to combat the threat of Muslim terrorists, written by Pakistan-born Faiza Patel, does not, in fact, even contain the words “Iraq,” “Afghanistan,” “drone strike,” “Pakistan” or “civilian casualties.”
This is almost incredible, because terrorists themselves have freely confessed that what motivated their acts of wanton violence has been the damage done by foreign military occupation back home or simply in the Muslim world. Asked by a federal judge why he tried to blow up Times Square with a car bomb in May 2010, Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad answered that he was motivated by the civilian carnage the U.S. had caused in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. How could any report about “rethinking radicalization” fail to mention this? Although the Brennan Center does much valuable work, Goitein’s selective finger-pointing on civilian casualties is emblematic of a blindness to war’s consequences widespread among American institutions.
American Military Whistleblowers
Knowledge may indeed have its risks, but how many civilian deaths can actually be traced to the WikiLeaks revelations? How many military deaths? To the best of anyone’s knowledge, not a single one. After much huffing and puffing, the Pentagon has quietly denied — and then denied again — that there is any evidence at all of the Taliban targeting the Afghan civilians named in the leaked war logs.
In the end, the “grave risks” involved in the publication of the War Logs and of those State Department documents have been wildly exaggerated. Embarrassment, yes. A look inside two grim wars and the workings of imperial diplomacy, yes. Blood, no.
On the other hand, the grave risks that were hidden in those leaked documents, as well as in all the other government distortions, cover-ups, and lies of the past decade, have been graphically illustrated in aortal red. The civilian carnage caused by our rush to war in Iraq and by our deeply entrenched stalemate of a war in Afghanistan (and the Pakistani tribal borderlands) is not speculative or theoretical but all-too real.
And yet no one anywhere has been held to much account: not in the political class, not in the military, not in the think tanks, not among the scholars, nor the media. Only one individual, it seems, will pay, even if he actually spilled none of the blood. Our foreign policy elites seem to think Bradley Manning is well-cast for the role of fall guy and scapegoat. This is an injustice.
Someday, it will be clearer to Americans that Pfc. Manning has joined the ranks of great American military whistleblowers like Dan Ellsberg (who was first in his class at Marine officer training school); Vietnam War infantryman Ron Ridenhour, who blew the whistle on the My Lai massacre; and the sailors and marines who, in 1777, reported the torture of British captives by their politically connected commanding officer. These servicemen, too, were vilified in their times. Today, we honor them, as someday Pfc. Manning will be honored.
Chase Madar is the author of The Passion of Bradley Manning, to be published by OR Books in February. He is an attorney in New York, a TomDispatch regular, and a frequent contributor to theLondon Review of Books, Le Monde Diplomatique, American Conservative Magazine, andCounterPunch. (To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Madar discusses the coming trial of Bradley Manning, click here, or download it to your iPod here.) He tweets @ChMadar.
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Activist Dan Choi: U.S. is on Trial, not Bradley Manning (the2012scenario.com)
Marjorie Cohn: Bradley Manning, Hero, or Traitor? (huffingtonpost.com)
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One response to “Blood on Whose Hands?”
Chase Madar, Legal Atrocities | ikners.com
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KENYA: Religious leaders castigate president and prime minister
Religious leaders in Kenya have castigated their president, Mwai Kibaki, and prime minister, Raila Odinga, saying that citizens are dispirited, embarrassed and bitter with their leadership.
"We are concerned enough even to rise up and march in the streets against our political leaders," Anglican Church of Kenya Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi told a national prayer rally on February 19 what is seen as one of the strongest messages from the faith community to Kenya's political leaders.
"But before we march and demonstrate against corruption," said Nzimbi, "we have said we would come before God and pray together."
The government announced the national prayer rally after a supermarket fire in Nairobi and a fuel tanker blaze in Sachang'wan, near the western Kenyan town of Eldoret, resulted in the deaths of 160 people. Kenya is also experiencing a lethal drought affecting nearly 10 million people, which was also upheld in prayer.
Abdulgafur Al-Busaidy, the chairperson of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, said at the prayer meeting that political leaders had become the greatest threat to peace and development in the east African country. "You have led the people towards conflict. As a result, Kenya is tinkering at the brink of self-destruction," warned Al-Busaidy.
Religious leaders said the coalition government inaugurated in 2008 has failed to end corruption. Kibaki stayed on as president and Odinga became prime minister in the government set up after widespread violence followed a disputed election at the end of 2007. The faith leaders also say the government has not united and reconciled the nation, nor has it curbed insecurity.
"For 45 years, the people have yearned for a better tomorrow. They have dreamt of leaders who will inspire them to overcome poverty, disease, ignorance and bad governance," the Rev. Peter Karanja, the general secretary of Kenya's National Council of Churches, said at the rally. "Every regime that had been sworn in has been greeted with enthusiasm and expectation. But the hope has often turned into disillusionment."
The Rev. Boniface Odoyo, head of the 10 million-member Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, told political leaders, "We urge you to take charge and restore the dignity and unity, equity and justice for all." He said Kenyans are "discouraged, ashamed, disillusioned and angry."
Kibaki, who was present at the prayer rally, however, dismissed the claims, telling the faith leaders not to apportion blame, but to help build Kenya.
Anglican Church of Kenya
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Leo Hee Tong
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~ Related Pictures ~
Leo Hee Tong (b. 1 August 1940, Singapore–) is a second-generation Singapore artist. He has participated in many solo and group exhibitions, and has received many awards including four Dr Tan Tsze Chor Art Awards by the Singapore Art Society as well as nine Distinction Awards at the UOB Painting of the Year Exhibition. Working with either acrylic, oil or mixed media on canvas, Leo’s paintings often entail rich symbolism and meaning; among his more well-known motifs are pigeons and walls.1
Leo attended the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) from 1957 to 1960. Although the pursuit of art was not strongly encouraged then, Leo had the support of his father who saw him through his studies. While studying at NAFA, Leo was mentored by the late pioneer artist, Cheong Soo Pieng. Cheong was an important influence during Leo’s formative years and on his early works. This is evident in his paintings Hiroshima and Winter, both made in 1975.2
In 1973, Leo was awarded a scholarship by the People’s Association to study fine art at the prestigious Ashiya Art College in Japan from 1973 to 1974. In Japan, he became acquainted with the works of Van Gogh and Picasso, and was drawn to Cubism, a style that is evident in his works today.3 In 1967, while working at the People’s Association, Leo organised art lessons and art clubs as part of community service. Since then, he has volunteered as an art teacher at various community centres.4
Stylistic conventions
With a career spanning over 50 years, Leo developed his signature semi-abstract style. His works are rich in texture, frequently employing neutral colours and expressive strokes.5
Leo’s pigeon series has been described as “his first successful breakthrough to establish his own identity as a creative artist”. Featured prominently in his work from the late 1970s to the early 80s, the pigeon, to Leo, is symbolic of peace and freedom.6
Another symbolic convention of Leo’s is the depiction of walls and doors. Weathered, crumbling walls are thought to represent human limitations, while doors offer the possibilities of movement and “transportability”.7 Works that exemplify these include Door of Memory (1992), Door of Life (1992), Window (1991) and Memory Lane (1990). Other popular motifs in his oeuvre are doves, beaches and fishing boats.8
Leo has participated in a number of solo and group exhibitions. His first solo exhibition was held in Japan in 1973 during his studies at Ashiya Art College. He has since exhibited widely in Singapore and abroad, including Taiwan, Monaco, France, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the United Kingdom. He has won numerous awards, including nine Distinction Awards in the UOB Painting of the Year Exhibitions and four Dr Tan Tsze Chor Art Awards.9
Selected solo exhibitions10
1973: Kobe Suma City Council Building Ward Office Gallery, Suma, Japan
1992: Expressions of Time, National Museum Art Gallery, Singapore
2007: Revisited Expressions of Time, Metakaos Art Gallery, Singapore
2012: Flight of Fantasy, Dahlia Gallery, Singapore
2014: Five Decades of Leo Hee Tong, Art Fellas, Singapore
Selected group exhibitions11
1968: Five Man Art Exhibition, National Library, Singapore
1969: Salon Malaysia Art Competition Exhibition, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
1969: Three Man Autumn Art Exhibition, Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Singapore
1970–81: National Day Art Exhibition, various locations, Ministry of Culture, Singapore
1972: Two Man Art Exhibition, Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Singapore
1976: Inaugural exhibition, National Museum Art Gallery, Singapore
1977: The First Asian Art Exhibition, Hong Kong
1979: Modern Art Exhibition, Taichung Culture Center, Taiwan
1981: International Grand Prix of Contemporary Art, Congress Centre Auditorium, Monte Carlo, Monaco
1981: Exhibition of Asian Art, Regency Intercontinental Hotel, Manama, Bahrain
1982: Inaugural Exhibition of The Japan International Artists Society, Japan
1984: Singapore Art 1974–1983, National Museum Art Gallery, Singapore
1988: Artistes Contemporains de Singapour, Grand Palais, Paris, France
1988: The First Exhibition of Federation of Asian Art Association, Taiwan
1989: New York Art Expo, Javits Conventional Centre, New York, United States
1990: 1st Bru-Sin Art Exhibition, Brunei
1990: 12 Contemporary Singapore Artists, University of East Asian, Macau
1991: Change: 20 Singapore Artists Art Exhibition, National Museum Art Gallery, Singapore
1992: Artseen, National Art Gallery & Museum, Wellington, New Zealand
1993: 8th International Art Exhibition, Fukuoka City Museum of Art, Japan
1994: Modern Art Society 30th Anniversary Art Exhibition, Riverwalk Gallery Exhibition Hall, Singapore
1998: 4 Perspectives Exhibition, The National Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand
2000: Asian Art 2000: A Vision of Change, University of Brighton, United Kingdom
2002: Japan Modern Art Society Art Exchange Exhibition, Osaka, Japan
2005: Important Second Generation Artists Series, DLR Gallery, Singapore
2017: Transcend: 50 years of Singapore Modern Art, Visual Arts Centre, Singapore
Nadia Ramli
1. Leo, H. T. (2007). Expression of time: Revisited. Singapore: Metakaos Art Gallery, n.p. (Call no.: RART 759.95957 LEO); Liu, I. (2017). Transcend: 50 years of Singapore modern art. Singapore: Iola Liu, p. 36. (Call no.: RSING 709.5957074 TRA)
2. Sabapathy, T. K. (1992, May 28). An artist’s progress. The Straits Times, p. 8. Retrieved from NewspaperSG; Leo, H. T. and National Museum Art Gallery (Singapore). (1992). Expressions of time. Singapore: National Museum Art Gallery, n.p. (Call no.: RSING 759.95957 LEO)
3. Liu, I. (2017). Transcend: 50 years of Singapore modern art. Singapore: Iola Liu, pp. 7, 36. (Call no.: RSING 709.5957074 TRA); Leo, H. T. & National Museum Art Gallery (Singapore). (1992). Expressions of time. Singapore: National Museum Art Gallery, n.p. (Call no.: RSING 759.95957 LEO)
4. Teo, H. W. (1983, September 8). A winning streak for art teacher. The Straits Times, p. 1. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
5. Liu, I. (2017). Transcend: 50 years of Singapore modern art. Singapore: Iola Liu, pp. 7, 36. (Call no.: RSING 709.5957074 TRA)
6. Chia, W. H. (1992). Of doors, windows and walls. Leo Hee Tong’s new paintings. In Expressions of time. Singapore: National Museum Art Gallery, n.p. (Call no.: RSING 759.95957 LEO)
7. Sabapathy, T. K. (1992, May 28). An artist’s progress. The Straits Times, p. 8. Retrieved from NewspaperSG; Chia, W. H. (1992). Of doors, windows and walls. Leo Hee Tong’s new paintings. In Expressions of time. Singapore: National Museum Art Gallery, n.p. (Call no.: RSING 759.95957 LEO)
8. Teo, H. W. (2007). Giving old subjects a new life. In Expression of time: Revisited. Singapore: Metakaos Art Gallery, n.p. (Call no.: RART 759.95957 LEO)
9. Leo, H. T. (2007). Expression of time: Revisited. Singapore: Metakaos Art Gallery, n.p. (Call no.: RART 759.95957 LEO); Shabbir Hussein Mustafa, Yap, J., & Yeo, W.W. (2016). Singapore’s visual artists. Singapore: National Arts Council, p. 256. (Call no.: RSING 709.225957 SHA)
10. Shabbir Hussein Mustafa, Yap, J., & Yeo, W.W. (2016). Singapore’s visual artists. Singapore: National Arts Council, p. 256. (Call no.: RSING 709.225957 SHA)
11. Leo, H. T. (2007). Expression of time: Revisited. Singapore: Metakaos Art Gallery, n.p. (Call no.: RART 759.95957 LEO); Shabbir Hussein Mustafa, Yap, J., & Yeo, W.W. (2016). Singapore’s visual artists. Singapore: National Arts Council, p. 256. (Call no.: RSING 709.225957 SHA); Liu, I. (2017). Transcend: 50 years of Singapore modern art. Singapore: Iola Liu, n.p. (Call no.: RSING 709.5957074 TRA)
Leo, H. T. and Hua, C. Y. (1971). Exhibition by Leo Hee-Tong, Hua Chai-Yong. Singapore: Singapore Art Society.
Call no.: RCLOS Chinese 759.95957 ART
Lo, T. Y. (1983, July 1). Contradictions. Desolation is moving on a canvas. Singapore Monitor, p. 19. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
Loi, R. (2014, October 31). A thing for pigeons over 50 years. The Straits Times, p. 28. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
Tan, E. (1989, November, 24). Artists who keep art alive at CCs. The New Paper, p. 8. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
The information in this article is valid as at 17 April 2019 and correct as far as we are able to ascertain from our sources. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history of the subject. Please contact the Library for further reading materials on the topic.
Painters (Art)
Arts>>Visual Arts>>Painting
Personalities>>Biographies>>Artists
Liang, Qidong, 1940-
Painters--Singapore--Biography
I have feedback on this infopedia article: Leo Hee Tong
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We Don’t Forget
Support Joseph Dibee, Environmentalist Accused of Sabotage
After 12 years of fruitless searching, federal agents have captured Joseph Dibee, accused participant in the Earth Liberation Front. Dibee is charged with arson and conspiracy. The following statement from our collective, It’s Going Down, and a network of anti-fascist groups explores why his case matters today.
In the 1990s, environmentalists and animal rights activists engaged in campaigns to put a stop to climate change, animal exploitation, and the destruction of biodiversity. They shut down board meetings, interrupted construction projects, organized demonstrations and sit-ins, held public outreach events at punk shows and vegan potlucks, liberated animals from captivity, and occasionally utilized vandalism, sabotage, and arson against corporations involved in particularly egregious behavior. Across the world, informally organized groups claimed anonymous actions in the names of the Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts.
International networks grew out of these movements. Struggles emerged against superhighways, gold mines, luxury ski resorts, old-growth logging, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and animal testing facilities on several continents. For years, corporate profiteers had cause to fear that they would face consequences when they perpetrated ecological harm. At that time, it was still possible to imagine that humanity could avert the catastrophe that is unfolding today in the form of ever-rising temperatures, hurricanes, droughts, forest fires, and mass extinctions.
At the turn of the century, federal authorities counterattacked, launching a campaign of repression to crush the Earth Liberation Front and subdue environmental movements of all kinds. Their goal was to protect business interests at any expense—even if that meant making the world uninhabitable. At the same time, increasing attention on climate change from the likes of Al Gore served to professionalize environmental activism, imposing the logic of the non-profit industry and bribing activists to moderate their tactics and targets in return for salaries. This two-pronged assault set back environmental movements a full generation or more.
The cataclysm that is unfolding today can be laid at the doorstep of the law enforcement agencies that have paved the way for it by making it so difficult for ordinary people to defend themselves against ecological devastation. If we don’t stop them, they will frogmarch us directly into the apocalypse, profiting all the way—and when the last well is poisoned and the last forest burns up, they will be the last to die.
The remains of the Cavel West horse meat packing plant after it burned down in 1997, allegedly with the assistance of Joseph Dibee. The plant never reopened.
The Green Scare
At the end of 2005, the FBI escalated its assault on earth and animal liberation movements with a new wave of indictments. This offensive, dubbed Operation Backfire, was intended to obtain convictions for many of the unsolved Earth Liberation Front arsons of the preceding ten years.
Of those arrested in Operation Backfire, 12 of the accused became federal informants, collaborating with the authorities against their former comrades and the struggle against catastrophic climate change. The collaborators arrested include Stanislas Meyerhoff, Kevin Tubbs, Chelsea Dawn Gerlach, Suzanne Savoie, Kendall Tankersley, Jennifer Kolar, Lacey Phillabaum, Darren Thurston, and, much later, Briana Waters. Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul, Nathan Block, Joyanna Zacher, Justin Solondz, and Rebecca Rubin all refused to collaborate. William “Avalon” Rodgers passed away in an apparent suicide following his arrest.
This case took place alongside a variety of similar operations, including the proseuctions of Marius Mason, who is still serving a 22-year sentence for environmental sabotage of a GMO facility, Eric McDavid, who served 9 years of a two-decade sentence before a judge threw out his conviction because the prosecution had withheld thousands of pages of exonerating evidence, and other earth and animal liberation prisoners, including Rod Coronado, Jeff “Free” Luers, and Chrisopher McIntosh. The campaign “Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty” faced multiple waves of repression, including the infamous SHAC 7 case, in which all six of the accused served up to six years in prison for maintaining a website. Other people refused to testify before grand juries, a commonly used tool for repressing autonomous movements, and served time for resisting FBI fishing expeditions against environmental activists.
For many years, federal authorities ranked anarchist environmental activism over white supremacist mass shootings and abortion clinic bombings as the number one domestic threat—even though it involved no injuries to human beings whatsoever. Yet despite all the resources they invested in this witch hunt, it took the FBI decades to capture some of their targets. Operation Backfire target Joseph Dibee remained free until August 9, 2018. As of this writing, one of the accused remains at liberty. Our thoughts are with them, wherever they are.
Operation Backfire Defendant Joseph Dibee Arrested in Joint Cuban-US Operation
At 4:53 pm, on August 9, 2018, Joseph Dibee, 50, was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center by federal agents. Detained by authorities at an airport in Cuba, he was brought to Oregon via a secretive international policing operation. The next day, Billy J. Williams, US Attorney for Oregon, announced his arrest. Williams received Donald Trump’s support in 2017 and advocates for even more aggressive repression of undocumented immigrants.
Joseph Dibee is accused of participating in environmental direct action in the 1990s with the Earth/Animal Liberation Front. Specifically, he is accused of participating in the sabotage of a horse slaughtering facility that resulted in the permanent closure of the company. His charges include arson, conspiracy to commit arson, and destruction of an energy facility.
He has been wanted by federal authorities for 12 years, during which he is alleged to have traveled in Mexico, El Salvador, Cuba, Lebanon, Syria, and Russia.
Defend Joseph Dibee—Defend Autonomous Movements
Why is the state still persecuting environmentalists nearly twenty years after actions that never injured anyone? Because as the consequences of resource accumulation and ecological collapse intensify, cracking down on resistance is becoming an ever more urgent priority for the authorities. In The Dawn, Friedrich Nietzsche suggests that you can measure the health of a society according to the number of parasites it can tolerate; today, the custodians of order know that they cannot tolerate any resistance whatsoever, on pain of insurrection.
As prisoners across the country prepare for a nationwide strike against forced labor and undignified conditions, the authorities are preemptively cracking down on organizers. Many rebellious black protesters are imprisoned for attempting to engage in proportionate response to racist extrajudicial police murders in Ferguson, Baltimore, Charlotte, Milwaukee, and elsewhere around the US. Indigenous and non-native water protectors faced unprecedented violence from state counterinsurgency forces and private security firms during the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock, North Dakota. Over 200 anarchists and other anti-fascists faced eight or more felony charges apiece in one of the largest conspiracy cases in US history on account of participating in protests against the inauguration of President Donald Trump, during which anarchists smashed the windows of corporate storefronts, clashed with police, and burned a limousine. Those charges were finally dropped in July after a year and a half of punitive mass intimidation directed at the arrestees.
The state is pouring all its resources into repression at a time when self-organized revolt and mutual aid are needed more than ever. Fascists and neo-Nazis are targeting hurricane relief organizers while Facebook and Google censor radical content online. Tech giants like Amazon and Palantir are working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to capture undocumented people while landlords and developers collaborate with IBM and finance capitalists to reimagine cities emptied of the working class, transforming vibrant and rebellious communities into enclaves for the wealthy.
Joseph Dibee was arrested with the collaboration of Cuban authorities in a coordination between rival authoritarian powers that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. As climate chaos, popular uprisings, and economic uncertainty continue to shake the globe, we are witnessing unprecedented collaboration between states in policing and extradition. It remains to be seen what this means for other rebels from previous eras—such as Assata Shakur, who has lived in Cuba for many decades despite being at the top of the FBI’s “most wanted” list. What is clear is that all who oppose the coordinated international suppression of resistance must organize now to defend those who are currently being targeted, lest the authorities be emboldened to expand their scope still further.
Imagining a New Horizon of Struggle
The resurgence of street-level fascism in the US on the coattails of the Trump campaign is merely the tip of the iceberg. Worldwide, we have seen a wave of reactionary populism that will continue to circumscribe the popular imagination for a number of years. As sea levels rise and natural disasters continue to displace poor and working class people in Latin America, the Middle East, Indochina, and Oceania, warlords, right-wing gangs, xenophobic governments, and broad sections of the wealthy and ruling classes will collaborate to produce fanatical nationalist and life-denying discourses. Refugees from across the world are already being denied safe passage into the gated communities of the global north.
It is no longer realistic to imagine that climate change and ecological chaos can be prevented. But this only makes it more paramount to defend what wildness remains, impose consequences for the most environmentally destructive activity, and defend those who take risks to make the world hospitable for both human and nonhuman life. If we do not want to spend the next century locked in ethno-nationalist, religious, and racial warfare, we have to foster new struggles against climate change and ecological destruction, we have to build mutual aid networks capable of surviving in disaster zones, and we have to resolutely defend everyone who fights for a world without cages. Free Joseph Dibee.
You can send letters of care and encouragement to Joseph. DO NOT write about his case or reference anything illegal. Write him here:
Joseph Dibee
SWIS #812133
11540 NE Inverness Dr.
We don’t forget those who fight.
“Green Scare Defendant Apprehended in Cuba After 12 Years“—statement from Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center
The SHAC Campaign
Green Scared?—A comprehensive overview of the Green Scare and the lessons it holds for today’s activists.
Desert: Reflections on the implications of unstoppable global climate change for ecologist strategy.
We borrowed the header image from Steve Cup, a radical artist based in New York City.
‹ Vorige: New Posters about Democracy in English and Swedish
Tearing Down the Monuments to Thieves: Nächste ›
CrimethInc.com Now Fully Functional in Portuguese
Including Books, Zines, Posters, and Articles
Anunciando o site CrimethInc. em Português
Incluindo Livros, Zines, Posters e Textos
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The Roots of Turkish Fascism
And the Threat It Poses
Localizations:
In the above photo, we see Turkish fascists marching with torches in 2014, chanting anti-Kurdish slogans and displaying the hand signal of the Grey Wolves three years before US fascists marched with the same kind of torches at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Like the United States and many other countries, Turkey has been on a trajectory towards escalating authoritarianism for a long time; it is arguably further along this trajectory than most. How did an autocratic government gain control in Turkey, forging an alliance between a once-secular nationalism and fundamentalist Islam? Studying the roots of present-day fascism in Turkey will help us to understand the origins of the Turkish invasion of Rojava, identify potential comrades and fault lines within Turkish society, and catch a glimpse of what the future may look like everywhere if we don’t succeed in halting the rise of autocracy.
The appendix includes an interview with a member of Revolutionary Anarchist Action, an anarchist organization active in Turkey for ten years.
Not long ago, Turkey was a darling of the Western world. A favorite tourist destination of Europeans and Russians, home to the one of the longest-standing US foreign military bases, and a top recipient of IMF/World Bank loans, the country bridging Asia and Europe once had a generally a favorable reputation among all from US military brass to financial speculators. This image has been severely tarnished by the Turkish military’s latest incursion into northern Syria, which elicited widespread disapproval from various politicians as well as international social movements.
Yet although the invasion took many people by surprise, Turkey itself has always been shaped by a mix of fascisms—an ethno-state built upon the slaughter of Armenians and the expulsion of Greeks as well as the colonial assimilation of the local Kurdish population. At its foundation, the national Turkish identity was conceived for the benefit of the Muslim population, borrowed from the “nation system” by which the Ottoman Empire divided the population according to religion.
For its first 27 years, starting in 1923, the Turkish State was run by a one-party corporatist system that can properly be described as fascist. After 1950, additional political parties were permitted to enter the parliamentary system—at least until the military coup in 1960.
In the ensuing years, Turkey was influenced by the global revolutionary leftist wave. This relatively inclusive period ended with the military coup in 1980; the fascistic neoliberal regime that followed was very similar to Pinochet’s Chile. The war against Kurdish movements intensified during the 1990s alongside political instability, with one coalition government disintegrating after another. The early 2000s, when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took the stage, appeared to represent a break with classical Turkish politics, a liberal democratic turn—but the honeymoon gradually ended as authoritarian neoliberalism blended with traditional Turkish fascism. The latest iteration of Turkish fascism, embodied by President Erdoğan, represents the melding of a deep-rooted nationalism with more recent political Islam.
On the surface, this ideological merger is surprising, as the two currents used to be at odds. The founding principles of the Turkish state as articulated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk emphasized that it was to be a secular state. This secularism, while repressive in some ways—for example, prohibiting the public display of religious garb—was also far from complete. Since the founding of the state, its ministry of religious affairs has repeatedly attempted to regulate and instill Sunni Islam throughout Turkey. More importantly, amalgamations of state forces, Sunni nationalist militias, and mobs have carried out periodic massacres against Turkey’s Alevi population1— in 1938 in Dersim against Alevi Kurds, 1978 in the cities of Maraş and Malatya, in Çorum in 1980, in Sivas in 1993.
Despite the nationalist underpinnings of the state and the periodic mobilization of Islam at the service of Turkish nationalism, this form of hegemonic fascism chiefly emphasized the Turkic roots of the Central Asian steppe, rather than the blend of the Ottoman imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism Erdoğan peddles today. This form of fascism was weaponized against the leftist student movement of the late 1960s and ’70s, in which the initial founders and cadres of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) also cut their teeth, including the well-known leader Abdullah Öcalan himself. Both the state and related fascist paramilitary formations committed massacres, such as the infamous 1978 raid in Ankara in which seven young members of the Turkish Workers Party were murdered. Some of the perpetuators of that particular massacre later became agents in Operation Gladio, the CIA- and NATO-directed international paramilitary organization that was responsible for carrying out the Italian “strategy of tension” (strategia della tensione) against the Autonomist movement of the 1970s. Their exploits stretched over decades. These state operatives also organized the counter-insurgency forces that targeted PKK members and their Kurdish financiers across Turkey in the 1990s.
Leftist youth being rounded up by the military junta of the September 12, 1980 coup d’etat.
The Rise of Political Islam
Meanwhile, amid the violent turmoil between leftist students and state-backed fascist paramilitaries, the founders of modern Turkish political Islam were quietly organizing. Among them was Fetullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic cleric currently in exile in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Gülen‘s long relationship with the AKP and with Erdoğan himself has been tumultuous to say the least. Starting out in the eastern Turkish city of Erzurum as a member of a congregation following the teachings of Said Nursi, Gülen became the cleric of a small number of followers in the western city of Izmir in the late 1960s and ’70s. (Said Nursi, an avid anti-communist, was also prosecuted by the Turkish state until his death in 1960; his particular variant of Islam was deemed a threat to the Kemalists because it incorporated capitalism and modernity.)
Erdoğan’s roots can be traced to a rival Islamist movement, the National Perspective Movement (Milli Görüş, a reference to the Ottoman link between the Turkish Nation and Islam) founded by Necmettin Erbakan. Gülen and Erbakan differed in strategy. Erbakan advocated for a political movement to capture parliamentary seats and ultimately the government, while Gülen pursued a more insidious approach that combined business-building and the cadrefication of various organs of the state, primarily the military and judicial ones, including the police forces.
Often competing, these two strands of Turkish political Islam rose to prominence in the early 1980s following the military coup of September 12, 1980.The coup put the military government of Kenan Evren in power, which arrested nearly 650,000 people—mostly leftist revolutionaries. Behind cell doors, 171 were killed during torture and interrogation; 49 were executed outright. This brutal wave of repression paved the way for the rise of political Islam, mostly as a counterforce to the leftist wave sweeping through the Turkish youth and unionized workers. The process was accelerated by President Turgut Özal, who folded the Turkish economy into the global neoliberal system by limiting public investment, taking measures to attract foreign capital, enacting sweeping privatizations of public institutions, and transitioning to an export-driven economy.
Kenan Evren, the Turkish military general at the helm of the September 12, 1980 military coup and consequently responsible for the rise of political Islam in Turkey today.
Öcalan had fled the country prior to the 1980 military coup. In the 1980s, from Syria, he started to organize the PKK more seriously, organizing formal guerilla trainings and introducing his ideas into Kurdish society in the villages and cities of southeastern Turkey.
Ultimately, both strands of political Islam—the Gülenist “Congregation” and Erbakan’s “National Perspective Movement”—succeeded in their respective strategies. The Congregation deeply infiltrated the military and the judiciary, while Erbakan’s Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) became a coalition partner in the 1996 general elections with its founder serving as prime minister. Erdoğan’s initial rise in Turkish politics, as mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998, came about by way of his membership in Erbakan’s Welfare Party. Following the suppression of the Welfare Party by Turkey’s National Security Council and Erdoğan’s brief fourth-month imprisonment for reciting an Islamist poem, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was formed in 2001.
The AKP came to power in the 2002 general elections with a sweeping victory, forming a single-party government for the first time since Özal’s reign in the 1980s. They succeeded in harnessing voter frustration about the neoliberal response to the 2001 Turkish economic crisis. An alliance with the Gülenist movement also contributed to their rapid rise to power. The Congregation cadre played an essential role, since until then Islamist parties and governments had always been shut down by the courts or military. Supporting each other, the two previously divergent currents within political Islam even took on the longstanding nationalist military cadres of Turkey via various conspiratorial operations and investigations.
However, this tenuous alliance broke apart around 2011. The causes of the split were complex. On the surface, the catalyst was the peace negotiations between the AKP and the PKK taking place in Norway. The temporary rapprochement was a thorn in the side of the staunchly anti-PKK Gülenists. The breakup was also precipitated by the divergence between Turkish and US policy towards the Syrian conflict, as Gulen was becoming a client of the US. More fundamentally, the rise of Erdoğan and the AKP became an existential threat to the Gülenists, as the former were able to hoard an increasingly large slice of the crony capitalist pie for themselves. During the AKP years, the volume of privatization—i.e., wealth transfer from the public sector to private individuals—reached $60 billion, almost ten times as much as during the prior administrations. The conflict between the two sides raged for five years, ultimately culminating with the failed July 15, 2016 coup attempt by Gülenist cadres in the military.
Gülen and Erdoğan cozying up to each other in the 1990s.
The Failed Coup
The coup attempt provided the perfect pretext for Erdoğan to consolidate his power. He was able to purge his old Gülenist allies, who had become a threat to his reign, and to unleash a storm of repression against all opposition, including the Kurdish movement and various leftist groups and activists. Erdoğan had once referred to Gülen respectfully as his Hodja, or teacher; now he disparagingly refers to him by the location in the US where Gülen lives in exile, “Pennsylvania.” Alongside his practice of referring to the YPG by pronouncing the acronym in English, this shows how Erdoğan intentionally presents himself to the Turkish population and to the Muslim umma in general (all Muslims imagined as a singular community bound by religion) as some sort of anti-imperialist.
The declaration of a state of emergency following the coup attempt gave Erdoğan the power to issue emergency decrees. This led to the jailing of more than 8000 members of the Kurdish-led Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), the dismissal of more than 6000 academics from their universities for opposition views, and a policy of zero tolerance for any public demonstration critical of the AKP—even though none of these groups had anything to do with the coup. In its scope, if not in its brutality, the repression Erdoğan unleashed after the coup attempt compares with what occurred after the successful military coup of 1980.
The failed coup also provided a renewed “origin story” for the AKP, which had been on the ropes since the Gezi Uprising of 2013.
At the end of May 2013, riot police brutally evicted an occupation defending Gezi Park in Taksim Square at the center of Istanbul. People from many different struggles and demographics responded, forcing the police out of the area and building barricades around the neighborhood. For ten days, the subsequent occupation maintained a liberated police-free zone in the heart of Istanbul, while hundreds of thousands of people—including rival football clubs, various left groups, and anarchists demonstrated against the government all around Turkey. In retrospect, this was one of the last outbreaks of revolt in the wave of movements that began with the Greek insurrection of December 2008 and concluded with fascists gaining a foothold in the Ukrainian revolution of 2014.
The Gezi uprising was the longest lasting, most widespread, and most participatory street-level insurrection to date in Western (i.e., non-Kurdish) Turkey. The communal structures that emerged in the encampment offered a glimpse of future revolutionary social relations. After the occupation was evicted, the momentum of the movement continued, albeit losing steam, for another year.
Revolution Market at Gezi during the uprising—everything for free.
Yet in the end, the movement failed to reconstitute itself after the police regained control of the streets. This was partly a matter of fatigue. Likewise, the spontaneity of the movement—unquestionably one of its greatest strengths—ultimately failed to offer a clear way to bring the participants back together after they were dispersed from Taksim Square; the various political factions once again withdrew into their respective ideological ghettos. Still, the Gezi uprising remains alive in many people’s memories, even if the constriction of public politics following the coup attempt has made it difficult to speak about it publicly.
After the failed coup, Erdoğan went so far as to paint the Gezi uprising as another unsuccessful putsch. While it became impossible to organize according to the ideals of the Gezi uprising, the coup attempt enabled Erdoğan to fashion a new narrative in which he and his government were protecting Turkey from threats, both internal and external. The public displays glorifying citizen “martyrs” who died opposing the military and the renaming of bridges, parks, avenues and many other public spaces to reflect the events of July 15, 2016 keep the failed coup alive in the psyche of Turks, creating a sense of national unity in the face of “foreign enemies.”
The opening ceremony of one of the many July 15 Martyrs Parks springing up in small towns around Turkey. This one from Bozüyük, Bilecik has a miniature model of the Bosphorus Bridge—now also named the July 15 Martyrs Bridge—a focal point of the July 15, 2016 coup attempt.
The years since the coup attempt have seen Erdoğan tighten his political stranglehold on the country. At the same time, this has made him more isolated and vulnerable, compelling him to search for new political allies—principally in the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which now maintains a tenuous coalition with the AKP. This coalition has come to embody the long-term effort to bring together a synthesis of Turkish nationalism and Islam. This is the dominant political ideology of the Erdoğan regime today; it is best exemplified by the hand-sign insignias seen both at AKP rallies and amid the jihadist proxies of Turkey operating in Rojava. On one side is the grey wolf symbol of the fascist MHP; on the other, the four fingers of Rabia, which was popularized by Erdoğan in solidarity with the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. It represents the four pillars of AKP fascism: one nation, one flag, one homeland, one state.
Turkish military forces throwing up hand signs representing the fascist Grey Wolves and the Islamist Rabia occupy Afrin in western Rojava, February 2018.
Prior to the invasion, Erdoğan’s grip on power was slipping. It was a blow to the AKP that despite Erdoğan forcing a re-vote, the center-left nationalist Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate won the Istanbul mayoral election—twice, and by a much higher margin the second time—thanks in part to support from the hard nationalist Good Party (IYI) and implicit support from the HDP. Meanwhile, some longtime AKP members, including some of its founders, have split from Erdoğan and are considering forming a new party or parties. The same kind of internal fracture has been initiated by former members of the Nationalist People’s Party (MHP).
Looking at all the autocrats around the world—Bolsonaro, Duterte, Trump, Putin, Xi, Sisi, and Orban, not to mention the aspiring demagogues not yet in power—one could say that Erdoğan was the original strongman, save Putin. Erdoğan and the other despots make a point of glorifying each other: Orban crows about how “Turkey has a leader with a strong legitimacy,” while Trump remarks, in reference to Xi Jinping’s lifetime appointment, “Maybe we’ll have to give it a shot one day.”
In the same way, revolutionaries from the US to the Philippines must learn from what has happened in Turkey. We should analyze the alliances, even if they are apparently fragile, within the nation’s right-wing groups; we should examine the political ideologies of the various factions that make up the state; most importantly, we must discover how to drive wedges in the cracks between them in order to topple the structure they comprise together. On the one hand, we have to understand how nationalism and religious fundamentalism are mobilized to reciprocally reinforce one another, so we can undermine those alliances before they make it impossible for us to organize and act. On the other hand, we have to communicate an alternative vision for society to the segments of the population that are most susceptible to this blend of nationalism and fundamentalism.
Erdoğan and Evren in 2005 at the funeral for another general, Nurettin Ersen, who was behind the September 12, 1980 coup.
The Kurdish Struggle Perseveres
The Kurdish movement in Turkey and across the border in Syria has repeatedly proven capable of reinventing itself in order to outmaneuver its enemies. The most recent iteration of the movement’s legal political party, the People’s Democracy Party (HDP), captured the imagination of large swathes of the left throughout western Turkey, forging something of a united front with progressive forces beyond traditionally Kurdish regions of the country for the first time. Although limited, the relative political success of the party presented serious challenges to the AKP’s dominance. But the greatest gain made recently by the Kurdish freedom movement has occurred amid the northern fronts of the Syrian civil war in Rojava.
When the AKP first assumed power, there was initially a level of misplaced hope from segments of the Kurdish movement as well as the liberal left that it might finally chip away at the nationalist legacy of the Turkish State. Erdoğan’s rise marked a departure from classical Turkish politics; it was understandable that a historically oppressed group like the Kurds, long denied basic freedoms under an official policy of brutal nationalist assimilation, would be cautiously optimistic. In addition, a peace process got underway that recognized Abdullah Öcalan as a party to the process from the island prison where he is held in complete isolation. These glimmers of optimism quickly vanished as the AKP deemed the HDP a political threat to its hegemony following their defeat in the June 2015 general election. In response to this development, Erdoğan deployed combatants through a well-known jihadi pipeline from Northern Syria to counteract the Kurdish movement in Turkey.
Öcalan visited by now imprisoned HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş and current HDP co-chair Pervin Buldan during the peace process in 2013.
The social revolution carried out by the Kurdish movement in Rojava has been widely celebrated on various radical media outlets; more mainstream and corporate outlets have commended its military prowess to such an extent that it is not necessary to reexamine it here. The important thing to understand is that Turkish politics are tightly linked with the crisis in Syria. Not only did the revolution in Rojava inject lifeblood into the Kurdish movement in Turkey, it also compelled the Turkish state to intensify its repression. On one side of the border with Syria, the Turkish state facilitated the flow of arms and recruits to ISIS. On the other side, the dream of Kurdish autonomy in Turkey was reinvigorated; the ideas given life in Rojava continue to inspire revolutionaries across the world. This enthusiasm is best exemplified by the international volunteers fighting alongside the YPG and YPJ and the outpouring of international solidarity in response to the invasion of Rojava.
Islamist ideology, first introduced into the Turkish military structure via the Gülenist cadres, has further penetrated through newly forged relationships with groups active in the Syrian war. The presence of these groups was displayed for all to see during the months-long incursions into Kurdish strongholds during the summer of 2015. The Islamist graffiti left by the Turkish military should persuade anyone who has doubts about this.
Graffiti left by the Turkish military after their occupation of Nusaybin in summer 2015: “There is Allah, there is no grief.” “Allah protect the Turks.”
Suicide bombers specifically targeted those attempting to build solidarity between Turks and Kurds experiencing Turkish military occupation. The first such suicide bombing attack took place in July 2015 targeting a delegation of leftist youth in the city of Suruç who were attempting to travel to Kobanê to take toys to the children of the war-torn city. That attack killed 33 people. Despicably, the state used it as an excuse to launch the previously mentioned full-scale assault of summer 2015. Even more deadly was the bombing of a march protesting the war in the Kurdish territories; this took place in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on October 10, 2015, killing 109 people. In both cases, the attackers were ISIS-affiliated Turkish cells well known to and at times facilitated by the state. The police department of the city that the bombers were from, Adıyaman, and the National Intelligence Agency (MIT), maintained continuous surveillance on them—and didn’t arrest or detain them despite there being warrants out for their arrest.
The AKP has tossed a few minor concessions to the Kurdish population, such as a state-run Kurdish television station and a partial easing of the restrictions on speaking and singing in Kurdish. But these crumbs are scattered over the ashes of whatever political autonomy the Kurds had been able to carve out for themselves. Even participation in standard parliamentary or municipal politics has become practically impossible. At least a dozen elected members of the parliament have been imprisoned alongside dozens of co-chair mayors of municipalities. Since the latest municipal elections in spring 2019, HDP co-chairs have been forced out of office in 15 municipalities, replaced with new mayors appointed from Ankara.
Turkish nationalists are quick to point to prominent Kurds who have enjoyed privileged positions in Turkish society, just as their US equivalents claimed that Obama’s presidency heralded the arrival of a post-racial America. The prominence of a few individuals does not diminish the fact that Kurds, as a people, have historically been an internal colony of Turkey. In the Turkish economy, Kurdish people serve as a cheap, hyper-exploited labor force for dangerous “unskilled” jobs—for example, as precarious, seasonal agricultural workers in the lowest rungs of the service sector and as expendable manual day-laborers in industries such as construction. Environmentally and culturally destructive large-scale development projects such as mega-dams have been built in the Kurdish territories in the east to supply power and other commodities to western Turkey. Public services and investment are minimal in Kurdish areas. The Kurds have fought back fiercely over the past several decades, but today, at least in Turkey, any autonomy they have gained is eroding, coinciding with a recent spike in racist attacks against Kurdish people across the country.
It should go without saying that Kurds have no hegemonic belief system: some are more political than others, some more left-leaning, and, in terms of religion, some are staunchly pious, while others are not. One factor contributing to the electoral successes of the HDP is that they have set aside some of the PKK’s national liberation and Marxist rhetoric in order to attract a wider range of Kurdish voters. There are Kurds who support the AKP, but a larger existential threat to the Kurdish freedom movement is the growing segment of the Kurdish population that is exhausted from what feels like a never-ending conflict. Even if they do not support the AKP, they are weary of war and, in some cases, heartbroken by or fed up with the PKK on account of its strategic blunders.
HDP parliament members attempting to pass out leaflets for their annual congress; the line of riot police serves to prevent them from doing so. At the front is Garo Paylan, the first Armenian member of the Turkish parliament in the country’s history.
The restructuring of the Turkish military following the coup attempt has also contributed to the crisis besetting the Kurds. In fact, many of the high-ranking commanders involved in the coup were also behind the brutal military invasions and curfews imposed throughout the Kurdish regions of Turkey in the summer and fall of 2015, which resulted in the slaughter of more than 4000 people. The implication of these officials in the coup allowed Erdoğan to wash his hands of responsibility for the massacres, ironically placing the same Gülenist prosecutors and judges that had just led the crackdowns against Kurdish and leftist activists on the receiving end of state repression alongside their former opponents. For all intents and purposes, the whole judicial and law enforcement apparatus, which had been populated by Gülenist cadres, has been thrown into disarray in the aftermath of the failed coup.
The military leadership roles occupied by Gülenists until 2015 are once again in the hands of the old-school Turkish nationalist cadres that the Gülenists had purged with the help of the AKP. These cadres are at least as hostile to the Kurdish movement as their predecessors. In this regard, it is highly plausible that the same Turkish nationalists who just acceded to these military posts played a role in encouraging the most recent invasion of Rojava.
Graffiti left in the rebel neighborhood of Sur, in Amed (Diyarbakır), during the 2015 summer/fall siege. “Allah is all you need—you will see the power of the Turks.” It is signed “Esedullah Team,” a previously unknown paramilitary formation operating with the Turkish military. Local witnesses claim they were speaking in Arabic and shouting Islamist slogans.
The invasion of Rojava and the ensuing wartime mobilization has effectively silenced any semblance of mainstream political opposition. A recent parliamentary decision to green-light the invasion was approved by all political parties except for the Kurdish led HDP. Lone politicians from the CHP or other political figures who voice their opposition to Erdoğan’s colonial ambitions are subject to a barrage of attacks from the media and the judicial apparatus.
In his megalomania, Erdoğan often likens himself to some kind of neo-Ottoman sultan with imperial ambitions for the region. This calls for a certain degree of muscle flexing even if there is no long-term strategy at play. But the strategy of transforming Northern Syria into a kind of proxy dependent on Turkey provides certain advantages to Erdoğan. For a long time, the Turkish economy and currency have been on the brink of collapse. The war economy and construction and development projects in Northern Syria might stave off the inevitable, at least temporarily.
Erdoğan greeting Assad during a family vacation in the Mediterranean resort city of Bodrum, Turkey in 2008.
At the same time, Turkey is home to more than three million Syrian refugees and unknown thousands of jihadists who are sheltered and formally trained in camps run by the Turkish state in both Turkey and Syria. All the mainstream political parties have been stoking racism against Syrian refugees to solicit votes. The AKP has also been scapegoating Syrian refugees for the declining economy—the latest numbers show near 14% unemployment in Turkey. Repopulating Rojava with refugees from other parts of Syria would not only displace the Kurdish population, it would also pander to the racism against Syrians mounting in the western cities of Turkey like Istanbul, a racism that the opposition is also implicated in.
The fundamental cause of the invasion is the ingrained enmity between the Turkish State—at its foundation, regardless of the ruling party—and the Kurdish people fighting for autonomy and recognition as an ethnic group. Having recently more or less neutralized the PKK within the borders of Turkey, the time has come for Erdoğan to take the war where the Kurdish freedom movement is the strongest, the liberated territories of Rojava.
The moment of the suicide bombing during the anti-war demonstration calling for peace in the Kurdish territories of Turkey, October 10, 2015, Ankara.
Opposition Politics in Turkey and Solidarity Today
The abrupt yet drawn-out withdrawal of the US has opened up space for Russia to take almost full control of the situation in Syria on the ground. If Turkey still wants to have a say, it is now beholden to Russian imperialism. Erdoğan has already found himself trying to juggle a contract for F-35 fighter jets from the US—now cancelled—with a surface-to-air S-400 Russian missile defense system—in place but not operational. Given that Turkey is still a NATO country, it finds itself obliged to perform an ever-more precarious balancing act with its Russian counterpart. The current shift of powers on the ground in Syria only further complicates the matter.
Eventually, Turkey will have to re-recognize the Assad regime without the Russian mediation currently allowing it to save face. On the other side of the lines of conflict, the survival of the past five years of revolutionary gains in Rojava will depend on how the Kurdish movement manages to navigate a treacherous geopolitical terrain and at the same time generate international solidarity. Up to this point, Kurdish groups have demonstrated a shrewd understanding of the constantly shifting geopolitical dynamics, surviving the ups and downs and gradually rising to prominence on the international stage. In the short-term, the situation is desperate, but perhaps the long game will not be as catastrophic. Nevertheless, it is hard to make such predications with our vision obscured by the fog of war.
Göze Altunöz of the Revolutionary Communards Party/United Freedom Forces (BÖG) handing out leaflets against fatal workplace accidents, described as “workplace murder” on the leaflet, before she travelled to Rojava to fight alongside the YPG/YPJ. She lost her life on November 6, 2019.
Yasin Aydın of the Revolutionary Communards Party/United Freedom Forces (BÖG) handing out leaflets against workplace accidents, described as “workplace murder” on the leaflet, before he travelled to Rojava to fight alongside the YPG/YPJ. He was killed on November 6, 2019.
How much potential is there for domestic opposition to Erdoğan? Combined with the extraordinary powers concentrated in his presidency, the post-coup political, social, and psychological environment has enabled repression to reign supreme throughout Turkey. Even describing what is happening in Syria as an “invasion” or a “war” can get you in trouble with the authorities. Saying that you are against the latest invasion of Rojava and for peace is sufficient to get you arrested. Freedom of speech is non-existent; the internet is censored to a great degree. Journalists with opposition viewpoints collect court cases by the dozen—if they’re lucky. Just as often, they are imprisoned, sometime even without charges.
Anarchists and radicals had recently been able to carve out some space in Turkey, even organizing successful marches—for example, against recent gold-mining projects. The women’s movement has remained steadfast in organizing its mass annual March 8 demonstrations. There is still a small degree of labor militancy. But any perceived “tolerance” from the state goes out the window when it comes to expressing solidarity with the Kurds. In fact, the state has recently released some bourgeois journalists and intellectuals with opposition views from prison and seemingly accepted the constitutional court’s decision to drop the cases against nearly 1000 mostly non-Kurdish academics who had signed a petition for peace during the 2015 occupation and military operations against Kurdish cities. This “forgiveness” from the patriarch functions as a warning to any potential opposition as he focuses on the Kurdish threat.
Unfortunately, for now, all that is being done to oppose this war, and still with great risk, is to express disapproval of the invasion of Rojava. Direct actions and demonstrations have hardly taken place except for at a small scale in mainly Kurdish provinces and in the rebellious popular neighborhoods of the cities of western Turkey. These heroic acts of resistance have been brutally repressed, almost instantaneously, by the Turkish State.
According to one poll, 75% of the population supports the invasion of Rojava—but that still leaves at least a quarter of the population opposing it, many of whom remain in solidarity with the Kurdish struggle and continue to participate in various other radical and revolutionary projects however they can. Some segments of the Turkish left have joined the SDF with their own fighting units. Still, most of those who oppose the war are currently unable to act effectively within the borders of Turkey due to overwhelming state repression. This creates the impression that all of Turkey supports the war and opposes Kurdish autonomy.
The HDP was conceived partly as a means to bolster the Kurdish movement by forging a common struggle with Turkish progressives concentrated in western Turkey. As described above, this project has made some headway towards achieving its goals, but the current situation illustrates why the liberation of the Kurdish people depends above all on their own organization and power.
Resisting in the belly of the beast: the Gezi Resistance, June 2013.
Actions that target the organs of the Turkish state, such as their embassies and state owned-businesses like Turkish Airlines, will keep the pressure on while expressing vital solidarity with both the Kurds and the other radical formations under attack in Turkey. Political cronyism has filled the pockets of AKP politicians and their families in the past decade and a half, and a large chunk of this money has been harvested overseas due to the instability of the Turkish economy. Research about where the personal wealth of AKP leaders and top cadres is being invested could provide new targets for solidarity actions.
Some in the old left cling to their supposed anti-imperialism, effectively supporting Turkish colonialism and Russian imperialism in the name of opposing US imperialism. This position is increasingly absurd in view of the desperate struggle for survival the Kurdish movement is waging in one of the most difficult political terrains in the world, in the face of multiple imperial powers’ ambitions, despite being double-crossed by the US government and many others. Anarchists should show serious yet critical solidarity, without becoming confused by the tenuous alliances that Kurdish organized forces have had to make with the enemies of their enemies, the friends of their enemies, and even their actual enemies in hopes of staving off jihadist massacres and averting Turkish-backed genocide. Solidarity with the Kurdish freedom movement does not mean supporting the US military or US imperialism, it means respecting the difficult decisions people make when they are threatened with annihilation.
Lastly, many Turkish and Kurdish comrades have been exiled from Turkey, but remain politically active. It is difficult to estimate how many political refugees have fled Turkey, but migration trends in Germany, the chief destination for such exiles, offer a good indication. Since the 2015 coup attempt, Germany has seen a tenfold increase in annual asylum applications from Turkish citizens, culminating in nearly 11,000 requests in 2018. Outside of countries such as Germany and the UK where Turkish and Kurdish movements have historically been organized, dissidents may find themselves isolated or unsure how to carry on the struggle. Anarchists everywhere should take the initiative to create space for those in exile. In working together on common projects, international supporters will learn more about ideas and developments from the region, while those in exile will gain new networks and means by which to continue their struggles. Learning from the Kurdish proposals of democratic confedaralism, autonomy, and jineoloji (women’s science) and implementing whatever lessons are applicable locally is an effective form of solidarity that goes beyond the current—albeit necessary—emergency response to the Turkish aggression.
Taksim Square, Istanbul, June 2013. Today, revolutionary currents are suppressed in Turkey, but this will not last forever.
Appendix: A Brief Interview with Revolutionary Anarchist Action in Turkey
In summer 2013, we interviewed the Turkish group Revolutionary Anarchist Action (Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet, or DAF) about the uprising that began in Gezi Park. We spoke with them again in 2014 about the defense of Kobanê and solidarity organizing between DAF and the autonomous experiment then unfolding in Rojava. A great deal has transpired since then. Following the Turkish invasion of Rojava, which is still in progress despite a fake ceasefire, we interviewed a participant in DAF once again to hear about what the conditions in Turkey are like for anarchists today.
Historically, what has been the relationship between Turkish anarchists and Kurdish organizations in Turkey?
First of all, “Turkish anarchist” is not a useful term to describe the people living here who call themselves anarchists. In these lands—and also in the organizations—there are people from different ethnicities. Kurdish people have been struggling against the various tyrannies in this region for decades, so the solidarity relation of DAF is the solidarity relation with the liberation struggle of the people.
The Rojava Revolution and the defense of Kobanê put the issue of “Kurdish Resistance” on the agenda of anarchists worldwide, but for DAF, our relations of solidarity began much earlier. They date back to 2009, when DAF was established. Moreover, it is not just a question of solidarity. There has been a war in Kurdistan and a state political strategy of assimilation for a long time. So an anarchist who is living in this region needs to develop an analysis and take a side on this matter. Our position has been clear: against the tyrannies of the states, we take the side of the people who are resisting.
With this perspective, we have expressed our solidarity in protests and by participating in clashes alongside the Kurdish Freedom Movement. We have been in streets over and over to observe Newroz [the Kurdish new year] and at the commemorations of the big massacres. Not just to express solidarity, but also because this is part of our responsibility to be and act as anarchists.
We also participate in organizing the Conscientious Objection movement in Turkey. Being a conscientious objector is also important in reference to this issue, because the war is made by militaries. Therefore, we are trying to spread conscientious objection in the region.
Members of DAF engaged in solidarity efforts on the Turkey/Syria border in 2014.
What are the conditions for anarchists and other dissidents in Turkey right now? What activities are anarchists still undertaking?
Especially after the coup trial and the State of Emergency, repression of revolutionaries increased. The government has used the State of Emergency politically to strengthen its power.
Right now, it is very easy to get sent to jail. Sharing something via social media is enough to be put in jail. Repression of publications remains a major problem. If the authorities don’t like an article, it is easy to ban a magazine. Many writers and editors are in jail now for things they have published.
Any kind of protest can only take place according to the wishes and management of the police—and therefore, the wishes and management of the state. No protest of any kind having to do with Kurdish issues is permitted. No one can protest, write, or comment on the war.
These are the circumstances under which we are trying to organize and spread the anarchist idea.
Our newspaper has been banned for a while because of charges of “making terrorist propaganda.” Some of our writers and distributers have been sentenced, and some comrades have been sentenced for participating in protests. Two collective cafés, the main economic mainstay of our organization, have faced difficulties because of police repression. Comrades who are conscientious objectors also face difficulties.
Is there any open opposition to the invasion of Rojava in Turkey?
In general, the authorities forbid and attack any kind of protest against the war.
Turkey carries out military conscription. Are there movements against conscription and militarism in general?
I have described the political perspective of the movement for conscientious objection. DAF is one of the establishers of the Conscientious Objection Association. The anti-militarist movement is really important, since we are acting in such a militaristic state.
Our participation in the anti-militarist movement is as old as our movement. Men are forced to join the army at age 20. The association organizes campaigns for conscientious objection, publicizes and investigates the suspicious murders in the military, and supports conscientious objectors through the judicial process.
From our perspective, there is a fundamental difference between the militarist violence of the state and the people’s struggle for freedom. We cannot compare the violence of states with any resistance struggle. Moreover, unlike some socialist organizations that call themselves a red army, Kurdish organizations call themselves self-defense units rather than a military.
What is the situation for Kurdish people in Turkey right now?
It is harder than ever. It is impossible to take any kind of action. The fascist propaganda of the state continues via its own media and also from so-called opposition parties. The pressure towards cultural assimilation and the political repression targeting Kurdish people are intense.
What do you believe the immediate goals of Erdoğan’s invasion to be? And how do you think he aims to achieve them?
When we are talking about this region of the Middle East, it is hard to understand or predict strategies. They undertook the invasion against the wishes of the US and other Western allies, but also, it is hard to understand their strategy. It is obvious that the US are not allies to the Kurdish people in Rojava. This is the reality of politics in Middle East.
Concretely, the state is taking the advantage of the war to accomplish interior political goals. So that is part of their strategy. The State of Emergency established by Erdoğan and his government endangered their political power. The only thing that legitimizes their power is the elections, so they are trying to foster a nationalist, militarist wave in order to maintain their “legitimacy.”
Prisoner Support and Anarchist Organization in Turkey
Our interview with DAF about the Gezi Park Uprising
A guide in photos to the Gezi Uprising
More on the Gezi Uprising
On the Turkish invasion of Rojava
More on the Turkish invasion
On the connection between Turkish fascism and other fascist currents, we also recommend Stefan Ihrig’s book Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination
The 33 mostly Turkish leftist youth murdered by an Islamist suicide bomber in Suruç, Urfa on July 20, 2015 as they were preparing to bring toys to children in Kobanê.
The Alevi sect, in the Shia branch of Islam, is associated with the leftist revolutionary tradition in Turkey. While many are practicing Muslims, the ritual of singing and circular collective dancing (semah) during a community ceremony (cem) at the house of cem (cem evi) is more important than praying at the mosque. They have been persecuted and massacred since the Ottoman Empire. ↩
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Turkkilaisen fasismin juuret ja uhka
Lebanon: A Revolution against Sectarianism
Chronicling the First Month of the Uprising
Tres meses de insurrección
Un colectivo anarquista de Hong Kong evalúa los logros y los límites de la revuelta
Looting Back
An Account of the Ferguson Uprising
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Arthur Oswin Austin
Ohio Insulator high voltage test lab located on the estate of Arthur Oswin Austin, Ohio Brass Company, Barberton, OH, 1929
Stockton, CA, USA
General Electric (GE), Ohio Brass Company
Arthur Oswin Austin was one of the pioneers and leading authorities on high-voltage transformers, insulators, and lightning effects on power transmission lines. Austin was born in Stockton, California, U.S.A. on 28 December 1879, the son of Oswin Alonzo and Mary Louisa (Hamman) Austin. He was the eldest of three brothers, all of whom were engineers. Arthur, or A. O. Austin as he preferred to be known, was a good student at Stockton's elementary and secondary schools, preferring scientific subjects and showing a mechanical aptitude. He matriculated at Stanford University, painting houses and doing camera work to help pay for his education. He graduated from Stanford in 1903 with a Batchelor of Arts degree in electrical engineering.
Upon graduation, Austin took a position with the General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York and Pittsfield, Massachusetts for approximately a year before returning to California to take a job on the engineering staff of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company of San Francisco where he was in charge of insulator inspection and development. In 1904, Austin invented the petticoat suspension insulator disc, a type which went into general use for suspension insulators. In 1905, he began working for the Lima Insulator Company in Lima, New York until the plant was destroyed by fire in 1908.
On 28 December 1907, he married Eleanor Briggs of New York City. She died on 19 September 1919, and he married her sister, Augusta Briggs, on 5 July 1921.
In 1909, he began working for the Akron High Potential Porcelain Company in Barberton, Ohio, which became the Ohio Insulator Company, and later the Ohio Brass Company, Barberton Division. In addition to being the factory manager of the Barberton plant, he also served on the board of directors of the holding company. In 1926, Austin bought the estate of O.C. Barber, who had made his fortune manufacturing matches. The estate became the setting for the second of the four high voltage laboratories established by Ohio Brass. Austin presented a paper "A Laboratory for Making Lightning" in Paris, France in 1929.
In 1933, he opened his own consulting firm, A. O. Austin, Inc. He continued to serve the Ohio Brass Company as a consultant. He was credited with thirty-four inventions or major developments have been credited to Austin. The "cap and pin" suspension insulators used in the construction of a 110 kilovolt power transmission line built in 1909 from Niagara Falls to Ontario were his invention. Much of the data used in developing methods of protecting aircraft from lightning strikes came from experiments conducted at the High Voltage Outdoor Laboratory at his farm.
A. O. Austin published a number of papers in AIEE journals. Here is a list of them.
He died on 7 June 1964 in Barberton, Ohio.
The IEEE History Center gratefully acknowledges the materials and assistance given by John F. Wiitibschlager, High Voltage Lab Manager 1963-1993, in writing this article
Retrieved from "https://ethw.org/w/index.php?title=Arthur_Oswin_Austin&oldid=145306"
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EUR-Lex - 32016R2376 - EN
Document 32016R2376
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/2376 of 13 October 2016 establishing a discard plan for mollusc bivalve Venus spp. in the Italian territorial waters
C/2016/6482
OJ L 352, 23.12.2016, p. 48–49 (BG, ES, CS, DA, DE, ET, EL, EN, FR, HR, IT, LV, LT, HU, MT, NL, PL, PT, RO, SK, SL, FI, SV)
No longer in force, Date of end of validity: 31/12/2019
ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2016/2376/oj
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Official Journal of the European Union
L 352/48
COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION (EU) 2016/2376
of 13 October 2016
establishing a discard plan for mollusc bivalve Venus spp. in the Italian territorial waters
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,
Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,
Having regard to Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 on the Common Fisheries Policy, amending Council Regulations (EC) No 1954/2003 and (EC) No 1224/2009 and repealing Council Regulations (EC) No 2371/2002 and (EC) No 639/2004 and Council Decision 2004/585/EC (1), and in particular Article 15(6) thereof,
Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 1967/2006 of 21 December 2006 concerning management measures for the sustainable exploitation of fishery resources in the Mediterranean Sea, amending Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1626/94 (2), and in particular Articles 15a thereof,
Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 aims to progressively eliminate discards in all Union fisheries through the introduction of a landing obligation for catches of species subject to catch limits.
Article 15(6) of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 empowers the Commission to adopt discard plans by means of delegated acts for a period of no more than 3 years on the basis of joint recommendations developed by Member States in consultation with the relevant Advisory Councils. Discard plans may also include technical measures regarding fisheries.
Italy, as the single Member State with a direct management interest in the mollusc bivalve Venus spp. fisheries, in the Italian territorial waters, submitted a recommendation to the Commission in line with the procedure of Article 18 of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013. This recommendation was submitted in the form of a national management plan for discard of the Venus spp. stock, after consultation of the Mediterranean Advisory Council (MEDAC). Upon submission of this recommendation, the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) reviewed the scientific contributions presented by Italy. The measures included in the joint recommendation comply with the provisions of Article 18(3) of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013.
Article 15a of Regulation (EC) No 1967/2006 empowers the Commission to establish, for the purpose of adopting discard plans and for the species subject to the landing obligation, a minimum conservation reference size with the aim of ensuring the protection of juveniles of marine organisms. Minimum conservation reference sizes may derogate, where appropriate, from the sizes established in Annex III to that Regulation.
According to the conclusions of the STECF on the national management plan for discard of the Venus spp. stock, Venus spp. is among the species with a high survival rate, which justifies for a request for derogation form the landing obligation for the discarded fraction of the catch. A reduction of a minimum conservation reference size from 25 mm to 22 mm is not incompatible with the length at maturity, so it should not have a significant impact on the protection of the juvenile organisms. It is predicted to lead to only a small reduction of the reproductive potential of the stock, which is not considered to have any important impact on the stock. Finally, it was concluded that the proposed scientific monitoring program is likely to provide sufficient data to evaluate the effects of the discard plan.
In order to ensure appropriate control over the implementation of the landing obligation, the Member State should establish a list of vessels covered by the present Regulation.
As the measures provided for in this Regulation have a direct impact on the economic activities linked to fisheries and the planning of the fishing season for Union vessels, it should enter into force on the third day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. In accordance with Article 15(6) of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013, this Regulation should apply for a period of no more than 3 years,
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:
This Regulation specifies the details for implementing the landing obligation that shall apply to Venus spp. fisheries in the Italian territorial waters, pursuant to Article 15(1)(d) of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013.
Minimum conservation reference size
1. By way of derogation from the minimum conservation reference size established in Annex III to Regulation (EC) No 1967/2006, and for the purposes of Article 15(11) of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013, the minimum conservation reference size of Venus spp. in the Italian territorial waters shall be of a total length of 22 mm.
2. The measurement of the size of the Venus spp. shall take place in accordance with Annex IV to Regulation (EC) No 1967/2006.
List of vessels
1. Member State authorities shall determine the vessels subject to the landing obligation.
2. By 31 December 2016, Member State authorities shall submit to the Commission, using the secure Union control website, the list of all vessels authorised to fish Venus spp. using hydraulic dredges in the Italian territorial waters. Member State authorities shall maintain this list updated at all times.
Entry into force
This Regulation shall enter into force on the third day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
It shall apply from 1 January 2017 until 31 December 2019.
However, Article 3 shall apply from the entry into force.
This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in the Member States in accordance with the Treaties.
Done at Brussels, 13 October 2016.
For the Commission
(1) OJ L 354, 28.12.2013, p. 22.
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Uzbekistan Bans Children From Mosques on Eid
RFE/RL's Uzbek Service Sep 24, 2015
A Eurasianet partner post from RFE/RL
TASHKENT -- Uzbekistan's government has banned people under the age of 18 from attending regular Friday Prayers or special prayer services at mosques across the country, including the Eid celebrations on September 24 that mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The order, issued by Uzbekistan's Education Ministry on September 23, warns parents they will face a fine of about $750 –- equal to 15 months' salary at the country's minimum wage –- if their children are caught by the authorities inside a mosque during prayer services.
It also warns imams at mosques not to allow anyone under the age of 18 into prayer services.
The Uzbek government frequently expresses concerns about the threat posed by Islamic extremists amid increasing Islamic sentiments in the country.
Ubaidullo Azimov, a local official in Tashkent, told RFE/RL that the government's position was that "children's brains should not be distracted" from school studies by religion.
He said the government thinks children should only learn what is taught at school, and that religious studies should take place only after students have finished their high-school studies.
A decree issued by President Islam Karimov on August 18 declared that September 24 is a public holiday in Uzbekistan so that Muslims can celebrate Eid. It makes no specific reference to any ban on children in mosques.
Karimov's decree also congratulates the country's Muslims on the holiday.
This year's Eid celebrations come at the height of Uzbekistan's two-month cotton harvest.
Despite the public holiday, all university students and employees at state institutions were required to work on September 24 to harvest cotton -- including medical specialists, teachers, and workers at state-owned firms.
Copyright (c) 2015. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Congress probes American cancers at Uzbekistan base
Uzbekistan sustains poverty by blocking internal migration
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The Way We Were (1973)
Although it’s a highly problematic film, The Way We Were achieved monumental success—and remains deeply beloved by many fans today—simply because of a casting masterstroke. It’s hard to imagine two actors with more seemingly incompatible energies than Robert Redford, the coolly handsome Californian whose persona is predicated on internalized conflict, and Barbra Streisand, the unconventionally beautiful New Yorker whose persona is predicated on a dynamic blend of brashness and neuroses. Yet the two stars generated unmistakable heat together, and the story of The Way They Were echoes the divide between their personas. Add in the fact that both actors were at the peak of their box-office appeal, and it becomes clear why the movie was a major hit. Thus, while it’s unlikely that subsequent generations will ever embrace the film as a timeless classic, the movie remains a beguiling example of what happens when the right actors converge with the right material at the right time.
Because, of course, The Way We Were does much more than just serve up marquee-name charisma—Arthur Laurents’ thoughtful script merges politics with romance in unexpected ways, and Sydney Pollack’s slick direction bridges Old Hollywood glamour and New Hollywood social consciousness. As such, even though The Way We Were is excessive and schmaltzy (with more than a few plot holes), it’s one of the most intelligent big-screen love stories of the ’70s. Laurents, an acclaimed playwright and screenwriter who was blacklisted for left-leaning political activities during the ’50s, created a vivid narrative spanning several decades. Over the course of various extended flashbacks, The Way We Were tracks the experiences of Katie Morosky (Streisand) and Hubbell Gardner (Redford), who first meet in college.
She’s Jewish, loud, and political. He’s a golden-god WASP oblivious to current events. Initially, they’re as repelled by each other as they are attracted, because Katie comes on too strong and Hubbell doesn’t come on strong enough—she’s the ultimate activist, pushing for social change and condemning those who aren’t with her on the front lines, while he’s the ultimate embodiment of entitlement, a naturally gifted writer accustomed to happening upon good fortune. In essence, these polar-opposite characters represent defiance of authority and compliance with the status quo, respectively. As the years pass, Katie and Hubbell miss opportunities for romantic connection. When they finally consummate their attraction, the intensity of their bond surprises both of them. They marry, but life intervenes in tragic ways. Among other things, Hubbell takes a sell-out job as a Hollywood screenwriter, and Katie’s ongoing political activities make Hubbell a target as the Hollywood blacklist emerges. The linchpin moment is a test of Hubbell’s integrity—will he rise to Katie’s principled level or not?
Laurents’ storytelling is unavoidably episodic and repetitive, giving the feel of a soap opera. (Marvin Hamlisch’s syrupy score contributes to this problem, although the title song he composed with Alan and Marilyn Bergman is haunting, thanks to Streisand’s emotional vocals.) Many supporting characters teeter on the brink of one-dimensionality, especially Hubbell’s mistress, Carol Ann (Lois Chiles), and certain transitions within the story feel like arbitrary narrative choices made solely for the purpose of raising the tearjerker stakes. Yet The Way We Were is not, ultimately, the sort of movie from which one expects immaculate dramaturgy—it’s a glossy hymn to the kind of overpowering love everyone hopes to experience at least once. Particularly during the bittersweet final scene, The Way We Were sings that hymn beautifully.
The Way We Were: GROOVY
Labels: barbra streisand, groovy, lois chiles, robert redford, sydney pollack
Jabberwocky (1977)
Terry Gilliam’s first solo directorial effort, the whimsical medieval fantasy Jabberwocky, occupies a peculiar place in the lore of Monty Python, the legendary UK comedy troupe of which Gilliam is the sole American member. Two years prior to the release of Jabberwocky, the troupe issued the beloved comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is also set in medieval times. Therefore, because Jabberwocky features a Python behind the camera as well as one in front of the camera—Michael Palin plays the leading role—comparisons between the two films are unavoidable. (A third Python, Terry Jones, plays a glorified cameo.) By any measure, Jabberwocky pales next to Holy Grail—which is slightly unfair, since the latter picture was never intended as a follow-up to Holy Grail. Quite to the contrary, Jabberwocky is a straight-ahead narrative, instead of a loose collection of sketches. It’s also a fairly grim examination of themes related to fate, heroism, and politics. Many of the gags in Jabberwocky have a tragicomic quality, since the story concerns an everyman who stumbles into greatness without ever actually being great. Gilliam, who cowrote this loose adaptation of a Lewis Carroll poem with Charles Alverson, must have known he was asking for trouble by making a project with so many similarities to Holy Grail—but then again, asking for trouble has been Gilliam’s modus operandi throughout his entire directorial career.
For all of these reasons, Jabberwocky is more noteworthy as a Python anomoly than as a proper film. The narrative is sluggish, since Gilliam seems more interested in production design than in dramaturgy. One is hard-pressed to think of a filthier movie about the Middle Ages—nearly every location is slathered with putrid-looking sludge, and the overuse of haze filters gives the cinematography a murky look. This grubby aesthetic is accentuated by the handmade nature of the film’s costumes and props, especially the title monster, a dragon that Palin’s character must slay. Seeing as how Gilliam put his image-making gifts to better use in subsequent work—beginning with his next film, the wonderful fantasy-adventure Time Bandits (1981)—it’s not as if the exercise of making Jabberwocky was a waste. For many people, however, the experience of watching the film may be a waste. Despite being a tremendously nimble comic actor, Palin is far too gentle a personality to command attention in the contact of an action story. Similarly, even though Gilliam is a genuine visionary, he falls into one style-over-substance trap after another. Some viewers may be able to groove on Jabberwocky’s irreverence, but many more will get tired of sifting through dull scenes and second-rate jokes while searching for moments of inspiration.
Jabberwocky: FUNKY
Labels: creature features, funky, michael palin, monty python, terry gilliam
Hannah, Queen of the Vampires (1973)
An American-Spanish coproduction that was shot in Europe, with leading actors from the U.S., this underwhelming horror flick has been distributed under several different titles, including Crypt of the Living Dead—and it’s even been distributed in two different color schemes, because some prints are in black-and-white and some are in color. Such are the fates that befall movies in the public domain. Anyway, Hannah, Queen of the Vampires is standard shock fare, somewhat in the Hammer Films mode. After an archeologist is killed while exploring a crypt on a remote European island, his intrepid son, Chris (Andrew Prine), travels to the same location in order to investigate his father’s death. Abetted by skittish local schoolteacher Mary (Patty Sheppard) and her spooky brother, Peter (Mark Damon), Chris learns the crypt is occupied by the corpse of Hannah (Teresa Gimpera), a 700-year-old vampire whom the island’s residents fear has been resuscitated. After the usual perfunctory scenes of Chris scoffing at the superstition of provincial types, Chris splits his time between romancing Mary and answering hypnotic calls to visit Hannah’s tomb. This repetitive business goes on for a while. Then the villagers do their pitchforks-and-torches bit. Seen in its original color version, Hannah, Queen of the Vampires is so dull and trite that even calling it ordinary would be a compliment. However, there’s something to be said for the scratchy black-and-white print that’s in circulation, because the monochromatic incarnation of the movie has a Bergman-esque quality. Seriously. Turn off the sound, and it’s possible to groove on moody low angles of angst-ridden people drifting through clouds of mist and walking around graveyards. However, noting that Hannah, Queen of the Vampires is best appreciated without its color or its soundtrack says everything you need to know about the movie’s inherent virtues.
Hannah, Queen of the Vampires: LAME
Labels: andrew prine, creature features, lame
Note: When I posted my original review of Burnt Offerings two years ago, a handful of readers complained that I hadn’t given the movie a fair appraisal, so I made a mental note to revisit the film after some time had passed. Now, I’m happy to report that I enjoyed Burnt Offerings a lot more on second viewing—hence the following.
Despite scoring on the small screen as the creator of the vampire soap opera Dark Shadows (1966-1971) and as the director of a number of creepy TV movies, filmmaker Dan Curtis wasn’t able to achieve big-screen success. In fact, he directed only one significant theatrical feature, the haunted-house thriller Burnt Offerings, which is long on atmosphere and short on gore. The movie’s biggest “special effects” are the quietly creepy score by Bud Cobert and the twitchy leading performances by Karen Black and Oliver Reed. One could easily pick apart the logic of the storyline, which Curtis and co-screenwriter William F. Nolan adapted from a novel by Robert Morasco, but horror shares with the comedy genre a simple litmus test—whatever works, works. And since Burt Offerings builds nicely from a disquieting opening sequence to a nasty finale, the movie basically works, in the sense of giving viewers a solid case of the heebie-jeebies.
When the story begins, psychologically scarred academic Ben Rolf (Oliver Reed) and his kindhearted wife, Marian (Karen Black), move into a California vacation home accompanied by their young son (Lee Montgomery) and their dotty old aunt (Bette Davis). The house’s owners, eccentric siblings Arnold Allardyce (Burgess Meredith) and Roz Allardyce (Eileen Heckart), instruct the Rolfs to deliver meals on a daily basis to the Allardyces’ elderly mother, who lives in an upstairs room but never sets foot anywhere else. Foolishly accepting an offer that’s too good to be true (the rental price of the house is outrageously low), the Rolfs soon get caught in the building’s otherworldly spell. While Marian becomes obsessed with looking after the house and the never-seen Mother Allardyce, Ben starts to experience inexplicable homicidal compulsions, as well as eerie flashbacks to his mother’s funeral.
Although Curtis and his cohorts eventually provide a tidy explanation for the supernatural nature of the house’s power over its occupants, many aspects of the story are left intentionally mysterious, and that might be the film’s strongest element. For instance, recurring images of an enigmatic chauffeur (Anthony James) linger not only because the cadaverous and perpetually grinning chauffeur is so creepy-looking, but because the chauffeur represents an entire secret realm of unknowable malevolence.
The biggest challenge when watching Burnt Offerings is accepting how quickly the house gets its hooks into the Rolfs—the usual “why don’t they just leave?” syndrome. (See: The Amityville Horror, etc.) That’s where Curtis’ long record of setting a spooky mood comes into play, because for those willing to join Curtis’ leisurely trek into the shadows, Burnt Offerings has a seductive quality. Black is aptly cast, thanks to the way her close-set eyes make her seem a little bit off right from the beginning, and Reed essays his underwritten role with gravitas and menace. Davis expresses suffering well, and the tag team of Eckhart and Meredith provide a wealth of weirdness in their single scene. Ultimately, Burnt Offerings may be too predictable and slow-moving to qualify as one of the decade’s best fright flicks, but it’s a fun exercise in style—and it comes close to doing for outdoor swimming pools what Jaws did for the Atlantic Ocean.
Burnt Offerings: GROOVY
Posted by By Peter Hanson at 12:56 PM 3 comments:
Labels: anthony james, bette davis, dan curtis, groovy, karen black, oliver reed
Cold Sweat (1970)
British director Terence Young made a wide variety of action films and thrillers following his triumphant work on the first James Bond movie, Dr. No (1962), as well as two follow-up 007 adventures. For instance, in the early ’70s, Young made three pulpy flicks in a row with badass leading man Charles Bronson—in addition to this tense crime thriller, the duo made the offbeat Western Red Sun (1971) and the violent mob movie The Valachi Papers (1972). Like the other Bronson-Young collaborations, Cold Sweat is entertaining if not especially distinctive. Bronson stars as Joe Martin, an American fisherman living in France with his European wife, Fabienne (Liv Ullmann). One day, a crook busts into Joe’s house claiming to know the fisherman from some shady episode in the past. Joe shocks Fabienne by calmly murdering the assailant. Then, the minute Joe and Fabienne discard of the intruder’s body, more unwanted visitors arrive, led by cruel American ex-soldier Captain Ross (James Mason). Turns out Joe and several other men participated in criminal enterprises while they were serving in the U.S. military, but Joe bailed during a robbery. Since Joe’s disappearance led to jail time for everyone else, Ross is back for revenge. Caught in the middle are Fabienne and her teenaged daughter.
Based on a story by celebrated fantasy writer Richard Matheson, Cold Sweat actually feels a bit more like a narrative that Elmore Leonard might have contrived, which is a compliment—operating outside his usual supernatural safety zone, Matheson establishes a nasty situation fraught with unexpected complications. For instance, much of the picture involves a race to save a dying man (explaining any more would spoil the story), and this suspenseful element gives Young license to film a crazy car chase through a twisty mountain road. Whenever the movie’s action scenes are juiced by exciting music from composer Michel Magne, Cold Sweat becomes an enjoyable exercise in escapism. Bronson gives an uncharacteristically lively performance, playing a even-tempered survivor instead of his usual sociopathic executioner, and Ullmann’s dramatic chops give a strong emotional counterpoint. Not so impressive are Mason, ridiculously miscast as a refugee from the Deep South, and Bronson’s real-life bride, Jill Ireland, who gives a shrill turn as a hippie chick. Compounding the casting problems, Cold Sweat is easily 20 minutes too long. That said, buried amid the bloat and tonal missteps are plenty of adrenalized thrills.
Cold Sweat: FUNKY
Labels: charles bronson, funky, james mason, liv ullmann, richard matheson, terence young
Jory (1973)
Released amid a slew of Westerns about teenagers becoming gunfighters—including the excellent John Wayne melodrama The Cowboys (1972)—Jory is not a particularly memorable example of its genre, but the picture is significant as the first of many ’70s movies to star blue-eyed heartthrob Robby Benson. So vulnerable he always seemed on the verge of bursting into tears, ’70s-era Benson was a poster boy for teen sensitivity. And while his work in Jory falls far below the angst-ridden standard he set later in the decade, it’s interesting to encounter the actor in an offbeat context, since he’s such an inherently modern creature that he seems out of place among cowboys and frontier varmints. Exacerbating the overall artificiality of Jory is a clichéd storyline about a young man who straps on six-shooters to vent the anger he feels toward an unjust universe. When the narrative begins, 15-year-old Jory (Benson) and his alcoholic father, Ethan (Claudio Brook), drift into a small town. After the pathetic but harmless Ethan gets murdered by a thug in a saloon, Jory kills the assailant, then flees the small town to join a horse drive led by even-tempered foreman Roy Starr (John Marley). Despite Roy’s entreaties to avoid violence, Jory falls under the influence of flashy cowboy Jocko (B.J. Thomas), who collects guns and practices quick-draw stunts. More bloodshed ensues.
The main drama revolves around Jory’s choice of whether to live by the gun, per Jocko’s example, or by a code of personal honor, per Roy’s example. Jory also falls in love with Amy (Linda Purl), the pretty daughter of the rancher for whom Roy’s crew works. Everything in Jory happens more or less by rote, and director Jorge Fons presents scenes in a perfunctory fashion—except for good pacing, Fons brings zero style to the production. Another awkward element is the cornpone score by Al De Lory. What makes Jory moderately watchable, therefore, is the acting, which runs the gamut from coolly efficient to notably awkward. Marley underplays effectively, presenting an appealing brand of stoicism, while starlets Anne Lockhart (as a prostitute whom Jory befriends) and Purl provide sincerity. Thomas, best known as the singer of pop tunes including “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” makes such an unimpressive acting debut that it’s peculiar he wasn’t recruited to croon the movie’s fruity theme song. Why is he here? At the center of it all is Benson, who hits the same puppy-dog notes so many times that he occasionally seems lobotomized. It’s a testament to the innate sweetness of his persona that his characterization eventually becomes emotionally credible.
Jory: FUNKY
Labels: anne lockhart, funky, john marley, robby benson, westerns
Get Christie Love! (1974)
Perhaps because the fun of the blaxploitation genre was so intertwined with R-rated nastiness—drugs, pimps, violence, vulgarity—none of the various attempts to created blaxploitation-themed TV series met with much success. For instance, Richard Roundtree reprised his big-screen role as private dick John Shaft for a string of toothless TV movies airing in 1973 and 1974, and singer/actress Teresa Graves starred in Get Christie Love!, an hour-long drama that ran for one season from 1974 to 1975. The mildly entertaining pilot movie for Get Christie Love! shares little in common with theatrical blaxploitation flicks except for an African-American leading actress and an urban-crime milieu. Adapted from a novel by Dorothy Uhnak, the 74-minute feature introduces viewers to Christie Love, a funny, self-confident, and sexy plainclothes detective who works narcotics and vice. Christie spends most of the movie investigating the life of Helena Varga (Louise Sorel), the girlfriend of a high-powered gangster, because an informant’s tip leads police to believe that Helena possesses an incriminating ledger. Even though Get Christie Love! opens with scenes that are suitable for a Pam Grier movie—cops witness the murder of their informant, Christie goes undercover as a prostitute to catch a serial killer—the movie quickly loses its edge.
As portrayed by the wholesomely pretty Graves, Christie is one-third ass-kicker, one-third bloodhound, and one-third therapist, digging though Helena’s past to find leverage with which she can persuade Helena to help the authorities. The movie includes a few quasi-exciting showdowns, like the bit when Christie judo-throws an assailant off the high balcony of a hotel, but for the most part she gets what she wants via painstaking investigation instead of seducing gullible men or strong-arming beefy goons. In other words, Get Christie Love! ain’t Foxy Brown: The Series by a damn sight. Graves has a pleasant touch for light comedy (no surprise, since she was briefly a regular on Laugh-In), and costar Harry Guardino does what he can with the stock role of an exasperated supervisor. As the pilot for a standard-issue ’70s cop show, Get Christie Love! is harmless enough, and it provides a minor historical footnote because Graves was the first black woman to play the lead on a network drama. (She followed in the footsteps of Diahann Carroll, who broke the sitcom barrier with the 1968 debut of Julia.) As an example of the blaxploitation genre, however, Get Christie Love! is laughably tame.
Get Christie Love!: FUNKY
Labels: blaxploitation, funky, harry guardino, inspiration for TV show, teresa graves
Revered Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini dialed down his flamboyant style for Amarcord, arguably the last unqualified artistic success of his career. A gentle dramedy somewhat in the vein of François Truffaut’s most nostalgic features, Amarcord (translation: “I remember”) provides a fanciful vision of Fellini’s adolescence in a small Italian town during the years immediately preceding World War II. Essentially a loose compendium of colorful episodes woven around the maturation of the lead character, Amarcord tackles a wide range of themes in lieu of a proper plot, so the film requires great patience on the part of the viewer. (In addition to the stop-and-start structure, the movie lumbers through an excessive 124-minute running time.)
Within the picture’s vignettes are moments of humor, insight, juvenile ribaldry, political satire, and warmth. Viewers who are interested in Fellini’s biography and/or this fraught period of Italy’s history will, naturally, derive more from the experience than those merely craving entertainment. Speaking as someone with zero tolerance for the cartoonish style of Fellini’s later films, I can report that I was surprisingly engaged by many sequences, even though I found the movie as a whole underwhelming. Yet mine appears to be a minority opinion—during its original release, Amarcord earned such accolades as the last of Fellini’s several Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film.
Major characters include Titta (Bruno Zanin), a teenager learning life lessons from eccentric neighbors and relatives; Aurelio (Armando Brancia), Titta’s hot-tempered father; Lallo (Nando Orfei), Titta’s lovelorn uncle; Gradisca (Magali Nöel), the town’s most glamorous woman; and Giudizio (Aristotle Caporale), the village idiot who periodically breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience. Some of the re-created memories in Amarcord convey a beautiful sense of community-wide romanticism, like the sequence in which town residents paddle boats into the ocean so they can view the passage of a newly christened Italian ocean liner. Other episodes are more whimsical, such as the sequence of Lallo climbing into a tree and screaming “I want a woman!” over and over, despite relatives’ attempts to talk him down. Predictably, many scenes reflect the director’s fetish for ample-sized women. In one such passage, a massively endowed store clerk nearly smothers Titta to death with her, well, tittas.
Amarcord features so many recurring images and themes that it’s as dense as a novel, which means it’s probably a fascinating film to dissect. However, this also means that many elements get short shrift, notably the political commentary. Still, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno and composer Nino Rota help create unity, and the spirited performances lend vitality. Thus, even though the film’s simple pleasures occasionally get obscured by nonsense (such as a pointless musical number in a harem), Amarcord may be the most accessible and worthwhile of Fellini’s ’70s movies.
Amarcord: FUNKY
Labels: federico fellini, foreign movies, funky, world war II
Stunts (1977)
Gonzo director Richard Rush has opined that during the long gestation periods of his film projects, disreputable producers frequently copied his ideas and created lesser versions that diminished his box-office potential. Watching Stunts, which bears an uncomfortable resemblance to Rush’s demented drama The Stunt Man (1980), it’s tempting to give Rush’s complaint credence. Like The Stunt Man, Stunts depicts an out-of-control film shoot on which a maniacal director’s quest for spectacle endangers the lives of stunt performers. Yet the similarities mostly end there, since The Stunt Man is as deep as Stunts is shallow. Stretching credibility way past the breaking point, Stunts implies that authorities would allow production to continue after not one but three on-set deaths, and that authorities would be content letting macho stuntmen investigate the mortalities. Just because Stunts is silly, however, doesn’t mean the movie lacks entertainment value. The various stunt scenes, including falls from tremendous heights and tricky automotive gags, are staged and filmed well, with hack director Mark L. Lester employing a range of stylish camera angles and maximizing tension through the use of brisk editing. Furthermore, the production values are slightly more than adequate, and it’s always fun to see behind-the-scenes footage showcasing what movie sets looked like back in the day.
Atop all that, Stunts shamelessly panders to audience expectations with such clichéd characters as the lone-wolf stud, the nosy reporter, the obnoxious director, and the tweaked special-effects guy. Incarnating these one-dimensional roles is a fun ensemble cast comprising offbeat men and sexy women. Robert Forster, at his most endearingly indifferent, stars as a heroic stunt man investigating the death of his brother. Portraying his fellow daredevils are Joanna Cassidy (Blade Runner), Bruce Glover (Diamonds Are Forever), and Richard Lynch (The Sword and the Sorcerer), among others. Meanwhile, petite blonde Candice Rialson and sultry brunette Fiona Lewis play the women romancing Forster’s character, while veteran character actor Malachi Throne appears as the overbearing director. Alas, none of these actors is given a single original moment to play—beyond the trite elements already mentioned, Stunts features a starlet sleeping her way to the top and a scene of macho dudes honoring a pact by pulling a paralyzed pal off life support. Nonetheless, the movie’s colorful milieu, impressive stunts, and zippy pace make for 90 minutes of pleasant viewing.
Stunts: FUNKY
Labels: bruce glover, candice rialson, fiona lewis, funky, joanna cassidy, mark l. lester, movies about movies, richard lynch, robert forster
Season of the Witch (1972)
Following a brief detour into romantic comedy, of all things, Pittsburgh-based indie filmmaker George A. Romero—the man behind 1968’s Night of the Living Dead—returned to low-budget horror for his third movie, which has been released under several titles but is primarily known as Season of the Witch. Featuring such Romero signatures as dreamlike portrayals of violence and snarky lampooning of middle-class values, the movie generally has more attitude than it does impact, and it also takes quite a while to get going. Yet once Season of the Witch reaches cruising altitude, it presents a handful of dynamic scenes as well as a somewhat interesting portrait of the main character’s existential malaise. Headlining a no-name cast, Jan White stars as Joan Mitchell, the suburban housewife of a macho businessman who alternates between abusing her and ignoring her. Longing for meaning in her life, Joan visits a medium who turns out to be a full-fledged Wiccan, and this encounter leads to Joan’s experimentation with witchcraft. Also woven into the storyline are Joan’s adulterous affair with an obnoxious man and her fraught relationship with her teenage daughter, who considers Mom an impossible square and therefore doesn’t suspect that Mom’s up to something freaky.
As a narrative, Season of the Witch—or, if you prefer one of the film’s earlier titles, Jack’s Wife or Hungry Wives—is something of a dud. Suffice to say, domestic drama is not Romero’s strong suit as a writer. Worse, the photography in most scenes is flat and ugly, though Romero somewhat predictably finds his cinematic groove during terror scenes. Another problem is that Joan doesn’t become fully indoctrinated into the supernatural world until about 55 minutes into the most ubiquitous version of the movie, which runs 103 minutes. (Unexpurgated prints are over two hours long, which seems like it would be an interminable running time given how much filler is present in the 103-minute version.) Despite these flaws, Season of the Witch is an interesting footnote to the career of a director closely associated with over-the-top gorefests, because Season of the Witch proves he can create disquieting effects without showing viscera. In fact, the movie’s creepiest scene is probably the vignette of Joan pleasuring herself while listening to her daughter get it on with a boyfriend in the next room. Calling Dr. Freud! The recurring trope of Joan dreaming about a masked home invader works well, too, and a shopping montage set to Donovan’s eerie ’60s song “Season of the Witch,” the inspiration for the film’s title, has some ironic bite.
Season of the Witch: FUNKY
Labels: funky, george romero, women's studies
Thieves Like Us (1974)
Watching Robert Altman’s ’70s movies, I often get the sense of a director who believed his own hype—to say nothing of a critical community and a fan base determined to attribute every move Altman made with great significance. Perhaps because his work on M*A*S*H (1970) hit such a sweet spot of political satire, supporters seemed determined to describe each subsequent Altman film as proof of his genius. For instance, Thieves Like Us has long enjoyed a solid reputation as an insightful character piece about Depression-era crooks whose lives are filled with despair, ignorance, and longing. On the plus side, the movie does indeed fit that description. On the minus side, Thieves Like Us arrived midway through a long string of similar movies, all made in the wake of Bonnie and Clyde (1967). So, while Thieves Like Us is unquestionably made with more artistry than, say, the average Roger Corman-produced Bonnie and Clyde rip-off, the subject matter and themes are so familiar that it’s mystifying why people make a fuss over Thieves Like Us. Because, quite frankly, if the most noteworthy aspects of the picture are Altman’s atmospheric direction and the spirited acting of the quirky cast, Altman did atmosphere better in other films (especially 1971’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller) and all of his pictures feature spirited acting by quirky casts. Oh, well.
In any event, this beautifully shot but overlong and underwhelming drama follows three crooks who break out of a Mississippi prison and begin a bank-robbing spree. They are Bowie (Keith Carradine), a young romantic; Chicamaw (John Schuck), a hot-tempered thug; and T-Dub (Bert Remsen), an old coot with a big ego and a bad limp. Between jobs, the crooks try to build home lives, though everyone in the universe of these characters knows violent death is inevitable. Making the most of his time outside of jail, T-Dub inappropriately courts a much younger woman to whom he’s related. Meanwhile, Bowie romances Keechie (Shelley Duvall), the no-nonsense daughter of a fellow criminal. In his characteristically subversive fashion, Altman demonstrates only marginal interest in the actual criminality of his characters—most of the robberies happen off-camera, with Altman training his lens on cars and streets while the soundtrack features excerpts from old ’30s radio shows.
This raises the inevitable question of why Altman bothered to make a movie about a subject he found boring, as well as the question of why it took three screenwriters (Altman, Joan Tewkesbury, Calder Willingham) to adapt Edward Anderson’s novel. And for that matter, why does a movie containing so little narrative material sprawl over 123 minutes? The answer to that last one, of course, is that Altman indulges himself on every level, letting scenes drag on endlessly and also including dozens of his signature slow zoom-in shots. That said, the performances are strange and vivid, with several Altman regulars (Carradine, Duvall, Schuck, Tom Skerritt) joined by Louise Fletcher and others. Each does something at least moderately interesting. Taken strictly on its story merits, Thieves Like Us is so threadbare that it’s best to accept the piece as an exercise in cinematic style. Whether you find the style infuriating or intoxicating will determine the sort of experience you have with Thieves Like Us.
Thieves Like Us: FUNKY
Labels: bert remsen, funky, john schuck, keith carradine, robert altman, shelley duvall, tom skerritt
Under the heading of “you get what you pay for,” Squirm is a low-budget, Jaws-influenced creature feature about a small Georgia town menaced by killer worms. Not giant or radioactive killer worms, mind you, just plain creepy-crawlies that slither their way toward unsuspecting victims. The highly dubious premise for the movie holds that a lightning storm infuses the dirt around the town with massive amounts of electricity, driving the invertebrates crazy. Thus, in the aftermath of the storm, people in remote locations—boats, forests, sheds—get chewed to death by hordes of slimy critters. Meanwhile, our intrepid hero, youthful out-of-towner Mick (Don Scardino), struggles to protect a local girl, Geri (Patricia Pearcy), once the scope of the epidemic becomes clear. (Per the Jaws formula, Mick also clashes with a belligerent and skeptical sheriff.) Even by the low standards of ’70s monster movies, Squirm is quite silly. One suspects that writer-director Jeff Lieberman knew how little gas he had in the narrative tank, because he juices worm-attack scenes with gimmicks ranging from extreme close-ups of nasty non-arthropods brandishing teeth to cacophonous sound effects implying that worms make noises as loud as those generated by jungle animals.
Plus, since the creatures in this feature are neither fast nor inherently formidable, Lieberman’s principal shock technique involves sudden cuts that reveal huge piles of worms occupying grotesque places, such as the insides of skeletons. In fact, the movie’s goofy climax literally features a tide comprising thousands of invertebrates scaling a staircase, as if the creatures intentionally pile upon themselves to reach human victims. Other notable flaws include a script filled with stupidly convenient twists and a woeful lack of self-aware humor. Having said all that, Squirm isn’t the worst picture of its type. Scenes move along briskly, the humid-looking Georgia locations suit the material, and the various shots of worms are sufficiently unpleasant. Better still, Lieberman approaches camp with a subplot about a redneck driven mad after being half-eaten by worms; the film’s biggest money shots involve the redneck wearing a facial prosthetic that simulates homicidal critters crawling through holes in his face.
Squirm: FUNKY
Labels: creature features, don scardino, funky, gore, rednecks
Rhinoceros (1974)
A movie reteaming actors Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel, the stars of Mel Brooks’ The Producers (1967), was not inevitable. Lest we forget, The Producers did poorly during in its original release, although it achieved legendary status later. Nonetheless, it’s disappointing to report that the second Wilder-Mostel picture lacks the madcap magic of their first collaborative venture. Based on the absurdist play by Eugène Ionesco, Rhinoceros was produced for the American Film Theatre, a short-lived program of stage adaptations exhibited on a subscription basis. The problem with this particular adaptation, alas, is that it can’t decide if it’s a broad farce or a cerebral satire. Ionesco’s original play was set in France and filled with dialogue and images that critics interpreted as lampoons of fascism. Transplanted to modern-day America, the film version loses all of its political bite, transforming into an oh-so-’70s treatise on the dangers of joining the Establishment. And yet if the only thing that the picture did was deliver a clear theme by way of a few laughs, it might have been worthwhile. Instead, the piece retains Ionesco’s central comic premise of a world in which people are becoming rhinoceroses. (Again, the key word is “absurdist.”) Given license to depict rampaging animals, screenwriter Julian Barry and director Tom O’Horgan fill much of the picture with loud scenes of chaos and destruction, interspersed with mannered comedy bits like the scene in which Mostel and Wilder pratfall their way through a grooming regimen. It’s all very artificial and pretentious and tiresome, qualities that are exacerbated by Mostel’s intolerably obnoxious performance. Mugging and screaming like he’s playing to an amphitheater, the actor succumbs to all of his worst tendencies here. Wilder, meanwhile, plays to his strengths, shifting between hysteria and sweetness, though the material fails him at every turn. (Offbeat ’70s screen vixen Karen Black appears in a supporting role, though she seems adrift thanks the inanity of the narrative.) Rhinoceros is praiseworthy on some levels, simply for the commitment with which the cast and filmmakers attack the text, but the way this American version omits the play’s original purpose renders the whole exercise futile. Plus, the fact that O’Horgan never actually shows a rhinoceros runs counter to the stupidly literal nature of the overall enterprise—why chintz on the one thing that could never appear in stage versions?
Rhinoceros: LAME
Labels: american film theatre, gene wilder, karen black, lame, zero mostel
The Proud and Damned (1972)
An enervated south-of-the-border Western in the vein of The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Professionals (1966)—but lacking the sophisticated execution of those great films—The Proud and Damned stars leather-faced tough guy Chuck Connors as the leader of a roving gang comprising ex-Confederate soldiers. Looking for a new start after the end of the Civil War, the gunslingers wander into Colombia, where they get jobs as hired muscle for a dictator. Sent to intimidate the impoverished citizens of a region that’s fomenting rebellion against the dictator, the American mercenaries predictably switch allegiances to the oppressed locals. Meanwhile, one of the Americans falls in love with a pretty senorita despite a language barrier. Excepting perhaps a major tragedy that occurs two-thirds of the way through the picture, not a single thing in The Proud and Damned has the power to surprise. The actions, character, dialogue, and situations are all so painfully familiar that it’s a struggle to stay awake while watching the picture, especially since the performances are as listless as the material. (It says everything you need to know that the only marquee-name actor in the picture besides Connors is Cesar Romero, best known for playing the Joker on the ’60s Batman series.) Writer-producer-director Ferde Grofé Jr. strings together clichés with a stunning lack of imagination, and he films everything in the flat style of a bad ’70s TV show. Furthermore, he evinces zero ability to generate legitimate dramatic tension. As such, actors are stuck in boring compositions, batting vanilla dialogue back and forth without any semblance of genuine human conflict. In other words, even though it might be unfair to describe The Proud and Damned as awful, since everything that happens more or less makes sense, it’s absolutely fair to describe The Proud and the Damned as vapid. Literally nothing in this movie hasn’t been done better elsewhere.
The Proud and Damned: LAME
Labels: cesar romero, chuck connors, lame, westerns
Indie provocateur John Waters’ breakthrough movie, Pink Flamingos, is currently rated NC-17, and the text provided by the MPAA to justify the rating sums up the nature of the film: “For a wide range of perversions in explicit detail.” After directing two no-budget black-and-white features, Waters was ready to make a big noise with his first color feature, so he applied his signature cheerful insouciance to the task of creating the most disgusting characters ever filmed. Accordingly, Pink Flamingos depicts a war between two depraved criminals for the title of “Filthiest Person Alive.”
The star of the show is, of course, Waters’ singular muse, the 300-pound drag queen Divine, who plays a character named Divine—although the character often travels under the alias “Babs Johnson.” Living in a trailer with her odd family, which includes an adult son and daughter as well as Edie (Edith Massey), an overweight senior who sleeps in a crib and spends every waking hour eating eggs, Divine/Babs finds fulfillment by committing crimes and grotesque acts. For instance, she nearly runs over pedestrians while driving, and she urinates in public like an animal. Meanwhile, Connie Marble (Mink Stole) and her husband, Raymond Marble (David Lochary), lead a similarly revolting lifestyle. They kidnap young women, hold the women hostage in their basement so the women can be impregnated by their servant, Crackers (Danny Mills), and then sell the resulting babies to lesbian couples—using the profits to bankroll their drug operation.
Even a partial list of taboo acts performed in Pink Flamingos is startling—especially when one considers that only some of the following behavior is simulated. Divine/Babs performs fellatio on her son. A flasher ties sausages to his penis before displaying himself to innocent bystanders. A party guest does a strange puppetry routine involving his sphincter muscle. Revelers kill police officers and eat the bodies. Two people have sex while mutilating chickens. And, in the most notorious scene of Waters’ filmography, Divine/Babs eats dog feces. (As Waters himself proclaims in the exuberant voiceover that precedes the dog scene, “This is a real thing!”)
Crudely made and deliberately tasteless, Pink Flamingos ventures so far past revulsion that it enters the realm of the surreal—and yet in a (very) strange way, it’s a rather sweet film. Waters’ affection for the weirdo characters (and the brazen performance-artist types portraying them) is contagious, and Waters has an unmistakable flair for comic irony. Scoring a montage of Divine/Babs doing foul things with ambiguously gendered rock star Little Richard’s classic tune “The Girl Can’t Help It” is droll, and it’s hard not to laugh at such stupidly funny lines as, “I guess there’s just two kinds of people, Miss Sandstone—my kind of people and assholes.”
Which, incidentally, encapsulates the whole perverse joie-de-vivre that drives Waters’ cinematic exploits. In the world of Waters’ movies, freaks are the cool people and straights are the ones who don’t get the joke. That’s a beautiful thought, even if Waters delivers it in Pink Flamingos via some of the ugliest imagery ever captured on film. In other words, if your tolerance for the repugnant is low, give Pink Flamingos a wide berth and content yourself with Waters’ later work, which explores similar thematic material in a less confrontational way. But if you’re eager to prove your mettle by enduring something truly nasty, rest assured Pink Flamingos goes about as far as any movie you’ll ever encounter. Word to the wise, though—don’t eat while you’re watching.
Pink Flamingos: FREAKY
Labels: divine, freaky, john waters, midnight movies, X-rated
The Great Santini (1979)
Robert Duvall was mostly known for brilliant supporting performances until the title role in this melodramatic family story finally allowed the singular actor to display a full spectrum of colors. Portraying U.S. Marine Corps pilot Lt. Col. “Bull” Meechum, Duvall showboats while displaying the character’s mischievous side, torments innocents when exhibiting the man’s mean streak, and unravels while revealing the character’s deep-rooted psychological turbulence. Duvall was entrusted with only one more equally dimensional role—in the poetic character study Tender Mercies (1983)—before slipping into a long run of high-paying but largely unchallenging supporting roles in the ’80s and early ’90s. Given this set of circumstances, The Great Santini and Tender Mercies remain two of the most important artifacts demonstrating Duvall’s unique gifts at full power.
Adapted by Lewis John Carlino (who also directed) and Herman Raucher from a semiautobiographical novel by Pat Conroy, The Great Santini takes place in 1962 South Carolina. Meechum, whose nickname is “The Great Santini” even though he’s Irish, is a hard-driving soldier who feels lost between wars. Unable to take out his aggressions on enemy combatants, Meechum bullies his family even as his wife, Lillian (Blythe Danner), and their four kids adjust to life in a new city. Receiving special abuse is Meechum’s oldest son, Ben (Michael O’Keefe), a high-school basketball player struggling to understand why his father is such a hero on the battlefield and such a monster at home.
Carlino, who only directed three films (the others are the erotic 1976 drama The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sa and the flimsy 1986 teen-sex comedy Class), presents Conroy’s narrative in a beautifully unvarnished way, so the best moments in The Great Santini are the most intimate ones. For instance, it’s hard to forget the brutal scene of Meechum repeatedly bouncing a basketball against Ben’s head, forcing the boy to cry as a means of validating Meechum’s alpha-male role. In fact, nearly every scene featuring Duvall is memorable, because he creates such a full-blooded characterization—Duvall preens, rages, struts, yells and generally releases his character’s sociopathic id, incarnating a mini-Patton without a worthy adversary. And yet for all of the flamboyance the actor brings to the role, the true beauty of Duvall’s performance is the deep sympathy he conveys for Meechum; with Duvall as our guide into this man’s troubled soul, we learn to love a character who does hateful things.
Young costar O’Keefe, appearing in one of his fist features after several years of TV work, gives as good as he gets, offering plaintive sincerity to counter Duvall’s masterful blend of personality traits. The elegant Danner, meanwhile, reveals the fortitude that allows her character to thrive in a difficult marriage. The Great Santini is so dramatically compelling and emotionally truthful that it seems a shame to note its flaws, but there’s no denying the contrived nature of a subplot involving Ben’s black friend, Toomer (Stan Shaw). Injecting wobbly elements of racism, sacrifice, and tragedy into the story, the subplot eventually leads someplace important, but getting there isn’t the smoothest ride. That said, Shaw’s work is deeply affecting, and costar David Keith, who figures in the subplot, makes a vivid bad guy. The bottom line, however, is that The Great Santini is robust entertainment powered by extraordinary acting. Like its main character, the movie is imperfect and impossible to ignore.
The Great Santini: RIGHT ON
Labels: blythe danner, lewis john carlino, right on, robert duvall, stan shaw
Mr. Sycamore (1975)
The Hanged Man (1974)
Adam at Six A.M. (1970)
Willard (1971) & Ben (1972)
Crescendo (1970)
Lost and Found (1979)
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978)
Journey Back to Oz (1974)
Wacky Taxi (1972)
Once Upon a Scoundrel (1974)
The Gospel Road (1973)
The Greek Tycoon (1978)
Paper Moon (1973)
Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) & Come Back, Charles...
Save the Tiger (1973)
Mixed Company (1974)
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Ms. Foundation for Women
Public Voices Fellowship
Ms. Foundation Events
Press and Statements
2019 Gloria Awards
Ms. Foundation for Women on Independence Day
Ms. Foundation for Women on Independence Day: “It is imperative that we not forget those whose freedoms have been stripped away on our soil and whose humanity continues to be denied.”
Ms. Foundation for Women, one of the first and largest women’s funds in the United States,
issues the following statement:
NEW YORK (July 4, 2019) – Ms. Foundation for Women President and CEO Teresa C. Younger released the following statement on America’s Independence Day:
“While many across the country will be celebrating this weekend with fireworks, barbecues, and other holiday commemorations, it is imperative that we not forget those whose freedoms have been stripped away on our soil and whose humanity continues to be denied.
“Independence Day in this country should represent liberty and justice for all, yet thousands traveling to escape from the inequalities and injustice of their own lands are being met at our borders with persecution and imprisonment. Parents who are risking everything for the hopes and dreams of their children are arriving in the United States only for their sons and daughters to be ripped out of their arms and thrown into concentration camps.
“This is not freedom. These Trump Administration practices deny people all sense of their bodily autonomy, including the right to seek asylum, the right to parent, and the right to live with dignity. How can we celebrate freedom for all when crowded migrant camps with inhumane living conditions are operating all along our nation’s borders?
“And yet, turning a blind eye towards the injustices of women and people of color is nothing new in the sordid history of our country. Colonizers pillaged indigenous communities for land and wealth, ripped children from their families, and sought control over women’s bodies through violence and ownership. While we’ve celebrated Independence Day since 1776, we didn’t abolish slavery until 1865, and even in states across the country today, our government is working to unilaterally strip women of their freedom and independence as they police women’s bodies and remove their right to decide whether or not to parent.
“This day is used to signify our success in the fight for freedom, but we cannot celebrate success until all who seek a brighter tomorrow can do so humanely, with complete bodily autonomy and the right to make decisions for themselves, without the fear of losing their child or being forced to live without basic necessities in horrifying conditions.
“On this Independence Day, we must remember that the path to freedom is not over. The Ms. Foundation and its grantee-partners are united in our fight against the blatant sexism, xenophobia and racism that currently guides our nation’s policies, and we will not stop until we achieve true equality for all.”
Ms. Foundation spokespeople are available for interviews by phone or in-person from NYC. To schedule, please contact Sunshine Sachs at MsFoundation@sunshinesachs.com.
For 45 years, the Ms. Foundation for Women has worked to build women’s collective power in the U.S. to advance equity and justice for all. The Ms. Foundation invests in, and strengthens the capacity of women led movements to advance meaningful social, cultural, and economic change in the lives of women. With equity and inclusion as the cornerstones of true democracy, the Ms. Foundation works to create a world in which the worth and dignity of every person are valued, and power and possibility are not limited by gender, race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or age.
Feminist Celebrity of the Year Bios 2015
Women of Vision 2016
The mission of the Ms. Foundation for Women is to build women’s collective power in the U.S. to advance equity and justice for all. We achieve our mission by investing in and strengthening the capacity of women-led movements to advance meaningful social, cultural, and economic change in women’s lives.
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The U.S. Government Response to Biothreats and Emerging Infectious Diseases (Video)
Lecture / Panel
Please join the Foreign Policy Association for a talk with Dr. Robin Robinson, Director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Preparedness & Response, Department of Health and Human Services.
Mobilizing new assets and infrastructure for development and manufacturing of biothreat MCMs has enabled more rapid and stronger responses to recent emerging outbreaks including H7N9 outbreaks in China last year and the current Ebola epidemic in Africa this year.Dr. Robinson will explore these new assets and infrastructure and what stronger responses mean for the general American public. Dr. Robinson will discuss the results of the recent Ebola vaccine trials.
Dr. Robinson will be speaking as part of the Dame Jillian Sackler Distinguished Lecture Series on Global Health.
Dr. Robin Robinson
Director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Preparedness & Response U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
In April 2008, Dr. Robin Robinson was appointed head of the Biomedical Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response within HHS by the Pandemic and All-Hazard Preparedness Act of 2006. He also led the nation’s effort to develop and manufacture the largest amount of vaccine in U.S. History in response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. For his leadership in this role, Dr. Robinson was the recipient of the Department of Defense’s Clay Dalrymple Award in 2008 and a finalist for the Service to America Medal in 2009. Dr. Robinson received a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Millsaps College in 1976, a Doctoral degree from the University of Mississippi Medical School in medical microbiology in 1981 with a dissertation on herpesvirus oncogenesis, and completed in 1983 a NIH postdoctoral fellowship with the State University of New York at Stony Brook in molecular oncology. Dr. Robinson also serves on the World Health Organization (WHO) international expert teams on Pandemic influenza vaccines.
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Freedom of Religion is not a license to discriminate against others
I received the following comment regarding my article yesterday titled, Kim Davis, Clerk of the Rowan County Circuit Court, held in contempt and ordered into custody.
I mean is she really wrong? What im saying is , we tend to fall asleep until let’s say some stupid politician makes some law that insults or could harm our life or may be our children’s future. And like Kim, it awakes us. I mean let’s be real. I don’t trust politicians. But I understand her. It probably frighten her . to give or contribute to an abomination. Its frightening.
The comment posted to my pending file because the person had not previously posted a comment and been approved. For reasons that will become clear, the comment offended me and I felt compelled to respond to it. Here is my response.
I think your comment is offensive. I do not believe that same-sex marriage is an abomination, mostly because I have known many gay males and lesbian women during my adult life. For example, when I moved into Seattle to be closer to work in the early 80s, I rented an apartment on Capitol Hill that was within walking distance to downtown and the state and federal courthouses where I practiced law. I soon discovered that I was living in the heart of the gay and lesbian community. I was the only straight male in my apartment building. Over the next week or so, I ran into quite a few lawyers and several judges in the neighborhood whom I knew from work. They lived there. I suddenly realized they were homosexual. They weren’t quite sure what to make of me since I was obviously straight, but since I was on their turf by choice they figured I wasn’t prejudiced. They welcomed me to the neighborhood. They made no effort to pretend they were straight and within a short period of time they began to introduce me around to their friends. I was a little uncomfortable at first but I got over it quickly They were good people and they showed a genuine interest in getting to know me. I ended up forming many lasting friendships.
It didn’t take me very long to realize that gay males aren’t sexually interested in straight males, just as straight males aren’t sexually interested in gay males.
As time went by, I got to know their significant others, people they would have married. but for the fact that the law did not allow it. All of this was happening during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 80s. Several people I knew died of AIDS. This was a terrible time that I will never forget. Many of their families had long ago rejected them and they only had themselves to turn to for comfort. That really pissed me off. Often a sick and dying person’s partner could not even visit their dying partner in a hospital or obtain any information about their condition because the were not “family.” Eventually, hospices were created on Capitol Hill to permit them to pass in dignity with their partners and friends present.
As a result of these experiences, I have been a firm supporter of equal rights for lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people for many years. Yes, indeed, I support same-sex marriage and proudly so. I celebrated and shed more than a few tears when the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decided <em>Obergefell v. Hodges</em> back in June. At long last, the SCOTUS held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians. Therefore, laws that prohibit same-sex marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Freedom of Religion Clause of the First Amendment is misunderstood by most Americans. It prohibits Congress from making any law regarding the establishment of a religion. Many of our Founding Fathers were atheists who wanted a prohibition in the Constitution prohibiting the government from endorsing any religion or religious view. This prohibition is the basis for the doctrine of separation of church and state. People who claim nothing in the Constitution authorizes the separation of church and state are absolutely wrong.
Freedom of religion means that a person can hold any religious belief they desire. They can even claim a religious basis to hate on blacks, women, Muslims, lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender, Latinos, the poor, and any other person or group they don’t like. However, that does not mean that they can assault, murder, enslave or discriminate against them, even if they can point to some passage in the Bible that approves of doing so. For example, the Bible says God told Moses and the Israelites to slaughter everyone in Jericho and all the Canaanites. A person in this country today is not going to be able to beat a murder charge for killing a Palestinian living here on the ground that the Bible condones what he did. Similarly, a person cannot claim a religious exemption to a murder charge because they believe in the Old Testament <em>lex talionis</em>, an eye for an eye and killed someone in an act of revenge.
Kim Davis is the elected Clerk of the Rowan County Circuit Court. Issuing marriage licenses is one of her duties. If she truly believes her religious beliefs won’t permit her to do that, then she should resign her position.
Instead, she claims a religious right to discriminate. As I said, the Freedom of Religion Clause only applies to beliefs. It cannot be used as a sword to justify doing something that the law prohibits or refusing to do something that the law requires. Therefore, she can’t discriminate against same-sex couples who want to get married by refusing to issue them a marriage license.
In addition, while I do not pretend to be a Biblical scholar, I do not believe homosexuality is forbidden. Homosexuality has been around forever and in ancient Egypt it was accepted. Same thing in Greece. Alexander the Great, a military genius and fierce warrior who conquered the known world (Egypt, Persia and India) around 330 BC was a homosexual and no one thought any less of him for that. Nevertheless, even if God supposedly called it a sin, which I seriously doubt, that still does not give any person a right to discriminate against gays.
She took her best shot at convincing a judge that she was right. She lost in the United States District Court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The United States Supreme Court declined to consider her appeal. She has exhausted her legal options and now she is refusing to do her job while selfishly imposing her religious beliefs on other people. She also wants to become a martyr.
Kim Davis is not a hero and she is definitely not a martyr. She’s a bigot imposing her deeply held prejudices on others and for that reason she deserves no sympathy. She is literally contemptible and deserves to be exactly where she is: the Rowan County Jail.
22 Comments | Freedom of Religion | Tagged: Freedom of Religion is not a license to discriminate, Kim Davis | Permalink
The Hobby Lobby case violates the First Amendment
I write again today about the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case. I believe it is an awful decision with great potential to be used to impose a set of religious beliefs on people who oppose those beliefs.
The Freedom of Religion Clause was intended to assure and protect a person’s right to believe anything they wanted to believe that might reasonably be described as a religious belief, including a denial of the existence of God and a supernatural world. To protect religious freedom, the First Amendment prohibits Congress from enacting a law that discriminates against a person because of their religious belief.
Beliefs must be distinguished from actions. Although beliefs are protected, actions taken that are consistent with a particular religious belief are not protected. For example, a person cannot be discriminated against because they believe in human sacrifice, but they can be prosecuted for murder if they sacrifice a human.
In the Hobby Lobby case the Supreme Court has ruled that an employer can impose its religious beliefs against abortion and emergency contraception on its employees by excluding those acts from coverage in an employee health insurance policy.
Abortion and emergency contraception are lawful medical procedures. By upholding the employer’s religious based opposition to abortion and emergency contraception, which are lawful medical procedures, the court has approved of action taken in support of a religious belief to deny insurance coverage for lawful medical procedures.
A decision to have an abortion or to undergo emergency contraception is no one’s business except the doctor and the patient. A health insurance policy should cover all medical procedures. Denial of coverage based on religious belief permits people holding one belief to impose it on others who do not share that belief and that is exactly what our Founding Fathers sought to prohibit with the Freedom of Religion Clause.
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12 Comments | Freedom of Religion | Tagged: Freedom of Religion, Hobby Lobby case | Permalink
Arizona legislature passes bill legitimizing discrimination against homosexuals
When the going gets tough, the hypocritical and willfully ignorant right-wing-hate-machine in Arizona gets weird.
Standing the First Amendment on its head the Arizona legislature has passed a bill legitimizing discrimination by businesses against homosexuals.
If signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer, the law would permit business owners with sincerely held religious beliefs to refuse service to homosexuals. It also would create a legal defense for any business, church or person to assert in any action brought by the government or an individual claiming discrimination, and it would authorize the business, church or person to seek an injunction prohibiting the government or an individual from claiming discrimination (1) once they show that their actions are based on a sincere religious belief and (2) the claim places a burden on the free exercise of their religious beliefs.
The First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
These fools do not understand the difference between between belief and action. In 1879 Chief Justice Waite of the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) wrote in Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879),
Freedom of religion means freedom to hold an opinion or belief, but not to take action in violation of social duties or subversive to good order.
/snip/
[to rule otherwise], would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government would exist only in name under such circumstances.
The Court used human sacrifice as an example of a religious practice that the law can prohibit.
Wiki provides a good summary of developments since the SCOTUS decided Reynolds.
In Cantwell v. State of Connecticut the Court held that the free exercise of religion is one of the “liberties” protected by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment and thus applied it to the states. The freedom to believe is absolute, but the freedom to act is not absolute.
In Sherbert v. Verner (1963), the Supreme Court required states to meet the “strict scrutiny” standard when refusing to accommodate religiously motivated conduct. This meant that a government needed to have a “compelling interest” regarding such a refusal. The case involved Adele Sherbert, who was denied unemployment benefits by South Carolina because she refused to work on Saturdays, something forbidden by her Seventh-day Adventist faith. In Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), the Court ruled that a law that “unduly burdens the practice of religion” without a compelling interest, even though it might be “neutral on its face,” would be unconstitutional.
The need for a compelling interest was narrowed in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), which held no such interest was required under the Free Exercise Clause regarding a law that does not target a particular religious practice. In Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (1993), the Supreme Court ruled Hialeah had passed an ordinance banning ritual slaughter, a practice central to the Santería religion, while providing exceptions for some practices such as the kosher slaughter. Since the ordinance was not “generally applicable,” the Court ruled that it needed to have a compelling interest, which it failed to have, and so was declared unconstitutional.
In 1993, the Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which sought to restore the compelling interest requirement applied in Sherbert and Yoder. In City of Boerne v. Flores (1997), the Court struck down the provisions of the Act that forced state and local governments to provide protections exceeding those required by the First Amendment on the grounds that while the Congress could enforce the Supreme Court’s interpretation of a constitutional right, the Congress could not impose its own interpretation on states and localities. According to the court’s ruling in Gonzales v. UDV (2006), RFRA remains applicable to federal laws and so those laws must still have a “compelling interest”.
[citations omitted]
The Arizona legislature can cite to no compelling state interest to support or justify this proposed law legitimizing discrimination against homosexuals other than discrimination for the sake of discrimination.
Next steps these fools will take, if Governor Brewer signs this POS bill into law, probably will be to pass bills legitimizing slavery and the human sacrifice of homosexuals, illegal immigrants, minorities and the mentally ill as activities that cannot be prohibited by the Free Exercise of Religion Clause.
I don’t know about y’all, but I have had enough of these disgusting racist and homophobic fools.
Time to call them out for what they are, mock them relentlessly and boycott Arizona until the voters replace them with representatives who respect the rights of all people regardless of race, gender, sexual preference and religious belief.
A good beginning, if Governor Brewer signs the bill into law would be to petition the NFL to move next year’s Superbowl from Arizona to another location outside of Arizona and boycott Arizona and the Superbowl, if the NFL refuses to do so.
54 Comments | First Amendment, Free Exercise of Religion, Freedom of Religion, Uncategorized | Tagged: Discrimination against Homosexuals, First Amendment, Free excercise of religion does not justify discrimination against homosexuals, Freedom of Religion | Permalink
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Trump Awarded 'Bravery' Medal By Afghan Community In Logar Province
Radio Free Afghanistan
U.S. President Donald Trump
A community gathering in Afghanistan’s Logar Province has awarded U.S. President Donald Trump a “bravery” medal, thanking him for his tough stance against Pakistan.
Said Farhad Akbari, a community leader in the province, told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan on January 14 that more than 300 people at an informal “jirga,” or council, of concerned citizens agreed to award the medal to the U.S. president.
“This is a handmade medal from available gold,” Akbari said.
He said the handwritten message on the award states: “This Bravery Medal is from the Afghan people to Donald Trump, president of the United States of America.”
Akbari said the cost of the medal was about 45,000 afghanis ($645), considered a large sum for many in the region, about 60 kilometers outside of the capital, Kabul.
He said those supporting the award paid from their own funds and that he personally presented the medal to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on January 13.
Akbari, who said he fought against Taliban extremists in southeastern Logar Province in recent years, now is head of the Saadat tribe in the region and operates a construction company.
Akbari told RFE/RL that members of the community have “waited 16 years” for someone in the U.S. administration to make comments of the sort that Trump has made in recent weeks concerning Pakistan.
The government in Kabul has long accused Pakistan of backing and sheltering militants who carry out attacks on their soil. Islamabad denies the allegations.
Trump and other U.S. officials have also accused Pakistan of providing a safe haven for the insurgents, who often attack Afghan government, civilian, and religious sites, along with U.S. coalition forces.
In a Twitter posting on New Year’s Day, Trump accused Islamabad of taking $33 billion in aid over the past 15 years while offering back "nothing but lies & deceit."
The White House later announced it was suspending some $2 billion in assistance to Pakistan’s military until it did more to fight terrorism.
Pakistan military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on January 12 said his entire nation feels “betrayed over U.S. recent statements despite decades of cooperation."
The United States has been in Afghanistan since 2001, when it led an invasion to drive the Taliban from power after it said the group's leaders were sheltering Al-Qaeda militants responsible for the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.
U.S. forces have remained as part of a NATO-led coalition ever since, although active combat operations were turned over to Afghan forces in 2014, and international troop levels have fallen from a peak of more than 100,000 to about 16,000.
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Ken Bruce
BBC Radio 2, 12 September 2000 9.30
BBC Radio 2 is a radio service which began broadcasting on 30 September 1967. It replaced Light Programme.
Feedback about Ken Bruce, BBC Radio 2, 9.30, 12 September 2000
Please leave this link here so we can find the programme you're referring to: http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/cf4f0eee09c14534b362a621a2045f6a
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Fifth Avenue near the corner of Dithridge Street looking toward the University of Pittsburgh campus showing (Hotel) Webster Hall, the Bellefield Presbyterian Church, and the Knights of Columbus building. The K of C building was originally the home of University of Pittsburgh Chancellor William Jacob Holland. Holland sold the house to the Knights of Columbus in 1912. The building eventually became the home of WQED-TV and then became the home to the University’s music department.
Fifth Avenue (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Webster Hall (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Bellefield Presbyterian Church (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Pittsburgh City Photographer Collection, 1901-2002
Pittsburgh City Photographer Collection
No Copyright - United States. The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information.
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RN, Registered Nurse - (94112)
This job is brought to you by:
Anchor Hospitalis searching for caring and compassionate psychiatric Registered Nurses (RN) for a variety of shifts including evening/nights and weekends.
$2,500.0 Sign-On Bonuses are available for full time positions.
What Role Will You Play?
Registered Nurses (RNs) atAnchor Hospitaldeliver quality nursing care to patients with varying psychiatric, behavioral and mental health diagnoses, ensuring their safety and continued care. RNs play a pivotal role in treatment planning and patient and family education.
Established in 1986, Anchor Hospital specializes in the treatment of behavioral health and addictive disease disorders for teens, adults and seniors. Our mental health facility in Atlanta, Georgia is located on a secluded, 55-acre campus, less than three miles from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and is accredited by the Joint Commission. Our continuum of services includes a 24/7 free, confidential psychiatric assessment by Georgia behavioral health professionals. Anchor Hospital is a proud supporter of the National Action Alliance on Suicide Prevention. We provide Georgia behavioral health education and resources to help improve the communities we serve.
What Will You Get To Do?
Registered Nurses (RN) are responsible for completing the following duties and tasks:
Assess patients through a systematic process of interacting with the patient, the patients significant others, and the appropriate health care providers.
Administer medications in a safe, accurate, and timely manner utilizing the Five Rights of medication administration.
Collect and analyze data regarding the patients physical, psychosocial, environmental, self-care, educational, and anticipated discharge planning needs.
Determine patients alcohol or drug toxicity and identify signs of withdrawal.
Develop a comprehensive outline of care and specific goals and interventions to be included in treatment planning. Prepare interdisciplinary treatment plans for assigned patients and monitor patients progress toward meeting treatment plan objectives.
Monitor patients following nursing unit policies and procedures.
Wait! Theres More.
Anchor Hospitaloffers full time employees a comprehensive benefits package including:
Health, Dental and Vision Plans
23-days of Paid Time Off
401k Retirement Plan with company match
Continuing Education Offerings
Stock Purchase Plan
Universal Health Services (UHS): Healthcare Delivered with Compassion
Anchor Hospital is a member of the Universal Health Services (UHS) family. At UHS, we're looking for exceptional people who share our vision and values, who share our focus on hard work, enthusiasm, teamwork, loyalty, trust and cooperation. We've embraced these traits and built a team of employees who consistently work to achieve the highest level of service excellence. People are our most valuable resource at UHS as we are committed to providing high quality acute care and behavioral health services to residents of the communities we serve. We are equally committed to offering our employees unlimited opportunity in an environment that encourages professional development.
One of the nations largest and most respected hospital companies, Universal Health Services, Inc. (UHS) has built an impressive record of achievement and performance. Steadily growing from a startup to an esteemed Fortune 500 corporation, UHS today has annual revenue nearing $10 billion. In 2017, UHS was recognized as one of the Worlds Most Admired Companies by Fortune; ranked #276 on the Fortune 500, and listed #275 in Forbes inaugural ranking of Americas Top 500 Public Companies.
Our operating philosophy is as effective today as it was 40 years ago: Build or acquire high quality hospitals in rapidly growing markets, invest in the people and equipment needed to allow each facility to thrive, and become the leading healthcare provider in each community we serve.
Headquartered in King of Prussia, PA, UHS has more than 81,000 employees and through its subsidiaries operates more than 320 acute care hospitals, behavioral health facilities and ambulatory centers in the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the United Kingdom.
UHS is a registered trademark of UHS of Delaware, Inc., the management company for Universal Health Services, Inc. and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Universal Health Services, Inc. Universal Health Services, Inc. is a holding company and operates through its subsidiaries including its management company, UHS of Delaware, Inc. All healthcare and management operations are conducted by subsidiaries of Universal Health Services, Inc. To the extent any reference to "UHS or UHS facilities" on this website including any statements, articles or other publications contained herein relates to our healthcare or management operations it is referring to Universal Health Services' subsidiaries including UHS of Delaware. Further, the terms "we," "us," "our" or "the company" in such context similarly refer to the operations of Universal Health Services' subsidiaries including UHS of Delaware. Any employment referenced in this website is not with Universal Health Services, Inc. but solely with one of its subsidiaries including but not limited to UHS of Delaware, Inc.
UHS is not accepting unsolicited assistance from search firms for this employment opportunity. Please, no phone calls or emails. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at UHS via-email, the Internet or in any form and/or method without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of UHS. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is hired by UHS as a result of the referral or through other means.
A valid State of Georgia Nursing (RN) (Registered Nurse) License or NLC License from a participating state is required. Previous psychiatric, behavioral or mental health nursing experience is helpful but not required.
Jobs Rated Reports for Registered Nurse
Posted: 2019-11-07 Expires: 2020-02-20
See more Registered Nurse jobs
118th2018 - Registered Nurse
Overall Rating: 118/220
Median Salary: $70,000
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Why Isn't Gatsby in the Public Domain?
Parker Higgins - EFF
Filed to:copyright
When The Great Gatsby rolls out to theaters across the country this weekend, it will bring to the screen a story familiar to millions from a literary classic that's often dubbed the proverbial "Great American Novel." Here’s what many folks don’t know: even though the book was published nearly 90 years ago and is a long-established part of our shared cultural heritage, it has not yet entered the public domain.
Yes, even though F. Scott Fitzgerald died 73 years ago (and is therefore unlikely to be incentivized to produce more work), The Great Gatsby is still restricted by copyright.
F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
In fact, it won't be truly free to the American public until January 1, 2021 — and even then only if copyright terms aren't extended again. Thanks to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, no published US works will enter the public domain until 2019.1 Some countries have slightly saner copyright terms, but the U.S. Trade Rep is working diligently to use international agreements like the TPP to ratchet up terms around the world.
Still worse, a tragic 2012 Supreme Court decision declared that even once in the public domain, works can be yanked back out by Congressional action. Between excessively long copyright terms and the uncertainty of public domain status, creating new works that depend on the commons has become difficult and dangerous.
We feel the pernicious practical effects of lengthy copyright terms every day. For example, a study last year of books on Amazon showed that books published after the critical public domain cut-off date of 1923 are available at a dramatically lower rate than books from even an entire century before. The result is a "missing 20th century" in the history of books.
Nor is the problem confined to books. Another study by an MIT economist examined an archive of baseball magazines that included some issues in the public domain and some still burdened by copyright. By contrast, images from the public domain issues can be digitized and redistributed, and so their availability has greatly improved the quality—and thus increased the readership and editing engagement—of Wikipedia articles on baseball players from that era.
You may or may not care about particular baseball players from the 1960s, but the situation repeats itself over and over again across different fields. In the name of preserving profits for a handful of rightsholders, our cultural history is left to decay in legally imposed obscurity.
A diminished public domain doesn't just rob us of past works, but of the future works that could rely on an expanded public domain. Rightsholders have the power to veto derivative works simply by refusing to license the works. And if the rightsholder can't be tracked down or confirmed — a real possibility when we’re talking about works that are nearly a hundred years old — the difficulty of getting a license can halt production altogether.
Ironically, this hurts the same studios that pushed the Copyright Term Extension Act in the first place. Adapting well-known works is a powerful way to reach an audience familiar with the characters and story, and a strong public domain provides fertile grounds for new works. For example, Disney’s early films mined the public domain freely, leading to classic versions of well-known fairy tales, but its lobbying for expanded copyright restrictions has deprived others — and the public — of the same possibilities.
Gatsby director Baz Luhrmann himself took advantage of the public domain with his 1996 film Romeo + Juliet. The movie was, of course, a heavily modernized and modified version of Shakespeare's classic play—exactly the kind of thing that a rightsholder might veto for "artistic integrity," if there were a Shakespeare "estate" that were as good at lobbying as Disney and the MPAA.
But it was also a critical and popular success, racking up nearly $150 million at the box office, and the world of film would be a poorer place without it. It should be obvious to Hollywood the value of the public domain as a critical component of a thriving creative culture—both in artistic terms and economic ones. Bloating the copyright term may have seemed like a fine way to protect that year's profits, but ultimately it comes at a great cost to both Hollywood and the public interest.
Republished from the EFF under Creative Commons
1 That is, no published works will enter the public domain through copyright expiration. However, works by the U.S. federal government, for example, are never subject to copyright restrictions, and the authors of some private works like the animated film "Sita Sings the Blues" have waived all copyright obligations.
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Culture is Not Your Friend: Terence McKenna’s Radical Perspective
Image by Dim Media
by Jordan Bates
“We have to create culture, don’t watch TV, don’t read magazines, don’t even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow.”
— Terence McKenna
Terence McKenna is one of those cult-famous, societal-fringe figures of whom the majority of people have never heard. He’s also someone whose views probably have a polarizing effect on anyone who encounters them. At the very least, though, Terence was an exceptionally original thinker, and those who explore a fraction of his work will note his erudition and incredible ability to articulate his thoughts.
McKenna was an American philosopher and ethnobotanist who passed away in the year 2000. He was known for possessing expertise on a broad range of subjects including history, biology, geology, botany, and ecology. He toured and lectured extensively on everything from language and science to shamanism and extraterrestrials, developing a sizable and enthusiastic following.
His controversial status is in large part due to his vocal advocacy of mind-altering substances. McKenna was a well-known psychonaut–one who explores consciousness through the ingestion of psychedelic hallucinogens–and a staunch proponent of the use of naturally occurring psychoactive compounds.
Obviously this latter aspect of McKenna’s legacy is an immediate turn-off to many. For a major sector of the population, the colossal stigma surrounding psychedelic substances is sufficient reason to lambaste the views of a well-known user. I, however, am not so quick to dismiss such a person, especially one as lucid, compelling, internally consistent, and dedicated to free inquiry as Terence McKenna.
McKenna’s Views on Mass-Consumerist Culture
I’ve delved into hours of McKenna’s lectures, and I am particularly interested in his ideas on culture. When McKenna speaks of culture, he seems to refer primarily to modern, mass-consumerist culture, so keep that in mind.
McKenna held a rather unfriendly position toward culture that can be summed up succinctly by one of his most famous quotations: “Culture is not your friend.” McKenna saw modern culture as a sort of engine detached from the interests of the individual and serving the manipulative, power-focused agendas of various institutions and wealthy individuals.
The following short video contains a portion of one of his lectures in which he addresses culture. I encourage you to watch it now (I will transcribe and elaborate on its central ideas below):
What Civilization is and What it Could be
McKenna certainly had a way of poetically articulating his ideas, and the video opens with what I feel is one of Terence’s most memorable metaphors:
“What civilization is is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other’s shoulders and kicking each other’s teeth in. It’s not a pleasant situation. And yet you can stand back and look at this planet and see that we have the money, the power, the medical understanding, the scientific know-how, the love, and the community to produce a kind of human paradise.”
With this statement McKenna addresses the hyper-competitive environment that is symptomatic of the modern capitalistic socioeconomic paradigm. Our culture has a tendency to glorify competition, and many would argue that competition drives innovation and “progress” (a slippery word). I doubt McKenna would argue that competition has not been essential to the invention of our modern world, but he seems to step back and ask, “Yes, but when will it be enough?”
McKenna suggests that we’ve reached a stage of technological advancement and knowledge that would allow us to “produce a kind of human paradise.” This declaration sounds vague and idealistic, but based upon what I know of McKenna, I assume that by “human paradise” he envisioned something like a drastic change in the work paradigm, an elimination of poverty and starvation, a great reduction in disease and illness-related death, the end of war, and a much more palpable sense of a world community.
Read this: Microdosing: The Revolutionary Way of Using Psychedelics
“Culture is Not Your Friend”
These items might sound far-fetched, but McKenna is not the first to suggest that such a situation is possible with our modern technology. R. Buckminster Fuller comes to mind as another prominent thinker who held similar views. After making this statement, McKenna elaborates on what he believes prevents us from attaining this state of affairs–namely, a lack of significant resistance to the poor leadership, dehumanizing values, and damaging cultural “control icons” that he perceives in the world. He states:
“Culture is not your friend. Culture is for other peoples’ convenience and the convenience of various institutions, churches, companies, tax collection schemes, what have you. It is not your friend. It insults you. It disempowers you. It uses and abuses you. None of us are well-treated by culture.”
But the culture is a perversion. It fetishizes objects. It creates consumer mania. It preaches endless forms of false happiness, endless forms of false understanding in the form of squirrelly religions and silly cults. It invites people to diminish themselves and dehumanize themselves by behaving like machines.”
Modern World as Dystopia?
McKenna holds that modern culture is centered around the agendas of those who are almost certainly not you. He believes that culture diminishes and dehumanizes the vast majority of the population by inviting them to unreflectively reinforce its models.
Artist’s rendering of Terence McKenna aka “Uncle Terence”. Credit: “thöR (Creative Commons)
McKenna seems to suggest that instead of focusing on creating the type of world that is possible, we are caught up in a game of culture–a robotic pursuit of fetishized objects and false visions of a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
To some, this view may seem rather grim and dystopian. I don’t see it that way. I see it as a warning that remains pertinent in 2015. The culture McKenna refers to does exist, and its effects are far-reaching and potentially insidious. However, I know that there are many, many people who are aware of this cultural game and do not conform to its status quo, who resolve to try to choose their own way of life and who see through the glitzy media-images.
Simply by being among this latter group of people, I think we’re doing the work that McKenna believed needed to be done–the work of resisting the damaging and dehumanizing aspects of modern consumerist culture. The mere realization that we are culturally conditioned to behave in certain ways is a sufficient catalyst to begin assuming a more active and reflective role in deciding how to live and act.
I see nothing wrong with being a cultural participant, but it should be our goal to develop a deeper awareness of the ideals our culture would have us pursue. When we understand the culture’s vision for our lives, we can continue to exist within our given society while challenging its flaws in subtle ways. We can deliberately express ourselves in forms that disrupt its norms, and we can consciously choose which aspects of it are worth partaking in. In this way, we become active constituents of culture, shifting and re-imagining its values, contributing to the gradual creation of a culture that we can call our “friend”.
Read this: Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna
McKenna Suggests We Must Create Culture
McKenna was certainly a vocal critic of mass culture, but to his credit, he was also quite vocal about offering alternatives. He believed strongly in the importance and utility of art, the primacy of felt experience, and the need to create our own values and alternative spaces for expression.
I’ll leave you with one last quote from another of Terence’s lectures that is especially poignant here. He was a frank and opinionated speaker, to be sure, but don’t let his style put you off. Terence was also always quick to check his own views and make light of his position. He didn’t want to insult people–he just wanted us to ask questions. This message from beyond the grave is valuable to each of us; ponder it with an open mind:
“We have to create culture, don’t watch TV, don’t read magazines, don’t even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you’re worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you’re giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told ‘no’, we’re unimportant, we’re peripheral. ‘Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.’ And then you’re a player, you don’t want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.”
― Terence McKenna
This article originally appeared on RefineTheMind.com.
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Jordan Bates is the Co-Owner of HighExistence and Creator of Escaping the Rat Race: The Radically Honest Toolkit to Escape 9-to-5, Follow Your Bliss, and Live Free. 🔥⚔️
Dhyan (37) July 30, 2015
Nice read, and a great individual he was. Borders can limit, borders can create safety. And we move in between. Once I lived from weeds and herbs, in nature. After a while I became clean and mindless, and lonely like hell. Borders protect, borders limit. And in between we live, and experience. We need culture and organisation, health care, etc. And yet in no lawbook stands we need love. We invented fridges and vacuum cleaners our potency is high. But our understanding of life seems very limited.
@Dhyan Reply
Yogeshwar (1) July 31, 2015
Y’know, I’m conflicted about Terence. Back in the Sixties I was a trip guide. But I got smart, watched my brain cells expiring realtime. Turned to self discipline and yoga; i.e., open up the chakras the right way. Integrative vs Disintegrative. So on one level I’m biased toward thinking McKenna was a wimp. While anybody who serves to wake people up out of the trance can be a good thing. Question is, what are you waking them up to? Clueless (o) in the comments asks why we have culture at all. After all, we’re all the same! Misses the point. Anybody followed the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson? C’mon folks! You’re exploring consciousness and you don’t know you’ve been here before? When you’re reborn do you want to have to reinvent the wheel all over again? No. A sane individual is going to say, “No.” No I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. I want to take up where I left off. Culture is useful in that regard because you can return and call it BS all over again. I will begin to respect those writing and commenting when “we” cease kicking the dog of the former “Medieval” worldview; i.e., Church as State; and begin waking up to the current mindwarp; i.e., Scientism. When you can get a few fingers and toes out of that Matrix you begin to show signs of raising of consciousness. BTW, that is the larger set of which “consumerism” is the small set. In the days of the internet there’s little excuse.
Y'know, I'm conflicted about Terence. Back in the Sixties I was a trip guide. But I got smart, watched my brain cells expiring realtime. Turned to self discipline and yoga; i.e., open up the chakras the right way. Integrative vs Disintegrative. So on one level I'm biased toward thinking McKenna was a wimp. While anybody who serves to wake people up out of the trance can be a good thing. Question is, what are you waking them up to? Clueless (o) in the comments asks why we have culture at all. After all, we're all the same! Misses the point. Anybody followed the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson? C'mon folks! You're exploring consciousness and you don't know you've been here before? When you're reborn do you want to have to reinvent the wheel all over again? No. A sane individual is going to say, "No." No I don't want to reinvent the wheel. I want to take up where I left off. Culture is useful in that regard because you can return and call it BS all over again. I will begin to respect those writing and commenting when "we" cease kicking the dog of the former "Medieval" worldview; i.e., Church as State; and begin waking up to the current mindwarp; i.e., Scientism. When you can get a few fingers and toes out of that Matrix you begin to show signs of raising of consciousness. BTW, that is the larger set of which "consumerism" is the small set. In the days of the internet there's little excuse.
@Yogeshwar Reply
martouk (67) September 1, 2015
I am going to offer these comments on what was said. McKenna was correct when he said, “We have to create culture,” but there is the rub. Humanity has been creating cultures since its beginning, yet we keep making the same mistakes. Why? There is one very simple reason, every culture is nothing more than an expansion of the ego. Culture is nothing but group ego. Cultural identity is expanded ego identity, just as are religions, political systems, academia, science or any other group belief system one can name. The only way we can create a new culture is by truly creating something new. This means that we can no longer paint within the lines of ego-consciousness cultural reflections. To create a new culture, we have to create a new consciousness that surpasses the ego. This, the ego will never do, but every individual has within them the power to make this change. When enough people can make this change in cognitive awareness, then we can create a truly new culture. Until that happens, humanity will continue to make the same mistake the ego has throughout time by creating cultures in its own image.
I am going to offer these comments on what was said. McKenna was correct when he said, "We have to create culture," but there is the rub. Humanity has been creating cultures since its beginning, yet we keep making the same mistakes. Why? There is one very simple reason, every culture is nothing more than an expansion of the ego. Culture is nothing but group ego. Cultural identity is expanded ego identity, just as are religions, political systems, academia, science or any other group belief system one can name. The only way we can create a new culture is by truly creating something new. This means that we can no longer paint within the lines of ego-consciousness cultural reflections. To create a new culture, we have to create a new consciousness that surpasses the ego. This, the ego will never do, but every individual has within them the power to make this change. When enough people can make this change in cognitive awareness, then we can create a truly new culture. Until that happens, humanity will continue to make the same mistake the ego has throughout time by creating cultures in its own image.
soul (1) July 30, 2015
Ive been asking myself, why civilizations and nations need to have culture, where in fact we are all the same, we are all human, we are all spiritis inhabiting our physical bodies.
For example, why does Japanese culture differ from American Culture from nations in the middle east. Why are there such things not allowed in one culture but allowed in others.
And in some cultures, violating some cultures and traditions would mean death, where in fact, in other culture, that violation is not a violation. Why those people who violated a culture in one nation should be punished, where in fact, they will not be punished in other culture for the same violation.
Basically, culture can be summed up in the following statements:
General Culture Is Not Practical Knowledge. General Culture Makes Boring Conversation. If You Think It Makes You Interesting, You’re in for a Big Surprise. As explained in the article “Why General Culture Is Bullshit” read article http://bit.ly/1I61JcN
Ive been asking myself, why civilizations and nations need to have culture, where in fact we are all the same, we are all human, we are all spiritis inhabiting our physical bodies. For example, why does Japanese culture differ from American Culture from nations in the middle east. Why are there such things not allowed in one culture but allowed in others. And in some cultures, violating some cultures and traditions would mean death, where in fact, in other culture, that violation is not a violation. Why those people who violated a culture in one nation should be punished, where in fact, they will not be punished in other culture for the same violation. Basically, culture can be summed up in the following statements: General Culture Is Not Practical Knowledge. General Culture Makes Boring Conversation. If You Think It Makes You Interesting, You’re in for a Big Surprise. As explained in the article "Why General Culture Is Bullshit" read article http://bit.ly/1I61JcN
@soul Reply
Nice narcistic viewpoint
M4G1C LOG1C14N (304)M July 31, 2015
His poetic / philosophical meanderings always get me thrilled :) !
@M4G1C LOG1C14N Reply
The Most Celebrated Meditation on Death in Human History
Dogma is Sickness. It’s Time to Transcend It.
“Failure” is No Big Deal
How to Stop Judging Yourself
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Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1937, The Far East, Volume III
Chapter VII: November 23–December 12, 1937
Failure of attempt to negotiate military-aid agreement between China and Soviet Union, November 23; arrival at Hankow of Ambassador Johnson, November 27; British inquiry as to use of naval power in Far East for protection of Anglo-American rights, November 27; German Ambassador’s conference with Generalissimo Chiang at Nanking respecting Japanese proposals, December 2; Japanese military parade through Shanghai International Settlement despite Anglo-American representations, December 3; Vice Premier Kung’s views on ending Far Eastern conflict, Chinese Foreign Office acceptance of German good offices vis-à-vis Japan, December 3; continuing American opposition to peace settlement contrary to principles of Washington Treaty of 1922, December 8
[778] The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Davies) to the Secretary of State
Moscow, November 23, 1937—11 a.m.
[Received November 23—9:30 a.m.]
793.94/11239: Telegram
[779] The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
Tokyo, November 23, 1937—3 p.m.
[780] The Consul at Tsingtao (Sokobin) to the Secretary of State
Tsingtao, November 23, 1937—3 p.m.
[Received November 24—12:20 a.m.]
[781] The Second Secretary of Embassy in China (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State
Nanking, November 23, 1937—3 p.m.
[Received November 24—9:35 p.m.]
793.94 Conference/286: Telegram
[783] The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
Washington, November 23, 1937—7 p.m.
124.93/379: Telegram
[784] The Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
Shanghai, November 23, 1937—8 p.m.
[Received 10:45 p.m.]
793.94/11285a: Telegram
Nanking, November 26, 1937—9 a.m.
[Received 9:20 a.m.]
[792] The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss)
Shanghai, November 27, 1937—9 a.m.
[Received 4:03 p.m.]
Tokyo, November 27, 1937—noon.
[795] The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
Hankow (U. S. S. “Luzon”), November 27, 1937—1 p.m.
[Received November 27—10 a.m.]
[Received November 27—7 a.m.]
[797] Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
[Washington,] November 27, 1937.
603.002/411⅔
[799] Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Wilson)
793.94/11430
[801] Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Hamilton) of a Conversation With the Chief of Naval Operations (Leahy)
893.0146/592
Nanking, November 29, 1937—noon.
[Received November 29—3 p.m.]
[806] The Consul General at Hong Kong (Southard) to the Secretary of State
Hong Kong, November 30, 1937—9 a.m.
[807] The Secretary of State to the Second Secretary of Embassy in China (Atcheson), at Nanking
124.93/394a: Telegram
Undeclared War Between Japan and China: (Documents 1-1112)
Political and military developments: (Documents 1-952)
Chapter VII: November 23–December 12, 1937 (Documents 778-888)
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A Nasty Trick 'The Main Battleground of The Comfort Women Issue'
韓国(25) 限定配信(93) 山岡鉄秀(9)
Tetsuhide Yamaoka
● A Young Man Who Called Himself 'Miki Dezaki'
● Not the Film that was Promised
● Strange Catchphrases on the Flyer
● Vulgarity, Shock and Derision
● What of the Movie, The Main Battleground of The Comfort Women Issue?
● Missing Experts like Tsutomu Nishioka
● Film's Poor Organization
● How Many Comfort Women?
● Dezaki Doesn't Listen
● Origins of Alleged 200,000 Comfort Women
● Coercive Recruitment
● The Semarang Incident
● Sex Slaves
● Off the Rails in the Second Half
● Bullying with Comfort Women Statues
● The Conspiracy Theory
● Introducing the Japan Conference
● Bringing Up Constitutional Revision
● Biased Motivation from the Beginning
● Internationalizing the Comfort Women Issue
● Perpetuating a One-Sided Perspective
Author: Tetsuhide Yamaoka
President of the Australia-Japan Community Network Inc.
A Young Man Who Called Himself 'Miki Dezaki'
About three years ago, a young man who called himself "Miki Dezaki" approached several well-known conservative opinion leaders, introducing himself as a graduate student of Sophia University. He asked for interviews with them in order to make a documentary film, he said, focused on the comfort women issue. He alleged the project was to complete his master's degree.
One of Dezaki's emails said:
"As I researched, I found the comfort women issue was more complex than I had read in the Western liberal media. In my research I found there was no evidence that the women were coerced to become comfort women, and that the lives of the comfort women were not as bad as some activists or experts insisted. I have to admit that I had believed the media reports, but now I have doubts. […] As a graduate student, I have the ethical duty to introduce interviews with you with respect and fairness. Also, this is academic research and there are certain academic standards and conditions which must be met, so it will not be biased journalism."
He approached Kent Gilbert, Yoshiko Sakurai, Nobukatsu Fujioka, Mio Sugita, Yumiko Yamamoto, Tony Malano (also known as "Texas Daddy") and Shun'ichi Fujiki (the manager of Texas Daddy's Japan Secretariat), among others. All of them took Dezaki at his word and expected he would make a fair and neutral documentary film as promised. On that basis, they agreed to interviews with him.
Not the Film that was Promised
Time passed. On March 27, 2019 I headed for a small theater in Shibuya where I had heard a preview of the film would be screened.
By then I had also heard that all of the above-mentioned interview subjects regretted cooperating with Dezaki on the film which, contrary to their expectations, turned out to be just another propaganda film about the comfort women.
I wondered what had gone wrong. The film was supposed to present a fair debate between advocates of the comfort women as sex slaves theory and those who believe comfort women were not sex slaves.
Information indicated that advocates of the "sex slaves" point of view who appeared in the film included Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Etsuro Totsuka, Hirofumi Hayashi, Koichi Nakano and Takashi Uemura.
Two prominent South Koreans were also said to appear in the film. The first was Mihyang Yun, a representative of The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan. The second was Park Yu-ha, a professor at Sejong University in Seoul and author of the book, The Comfort Women of the Empire (published 2013 in South Korea, now banned) who was prosecuted in South Korea for publishing her book.
All of those mentioned were influential people.The title of the film, Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of The Comfort Women Issue, (Independent, 2019) was provocative, and I wanted to see what the film was like.
Strange Catchphrases on the Flyer
The flyer for the film included some very strange catchphrases. It said:
"Surprisingly thrilling!!!! This is the most aggressive documentary film today."
"You probably you don't know Miki Dezaki, a Japanese American YouTuber, unless you are one of the Japanese online right-wingers who was made very angry by him. Dezaki was all the more curious to know about Japanese online right-wingers and their repetitive threats against him. So he threw himself into the comfort women issue, which most Japanese people don't want to discuss anymore."
The catchphrases clearly showed Dezaki had no intention of making a fair and neutral documentary film.
The flyer added that he was a YouTuber and that his movies (plural) had made many people angry.
It made me wonder what in his movies has provoked anger, and beyond that, what his movies are like. I felt compelled to check his previous work. Two of his films are introduced here.
Vulgarity, Shock and Derision
The first movie is titled, Racism in Japan. It was said to be based on his experience teaching English at Itoman High School in Okinawa.
Dezaki spoke to the students in Japanese and asked: "Is there is racism in Japan? If you think so, raise your hand." Only a few students raised their hands. He asked the same question in other classes and again, only a few students raised their hand each time.
Dezaki then looked dissatisfied and turned to speak to the camera in English. "I know there is a lot of racism in America. And I am not saying that America is better than Japan." He then continued his monologue:
"But there is racial discrimination in Japan. In the Edo era [about three hundred years ago] a caste system was put in place with Burakumin at the bottom. These people are still discriminated against today. And in Japanese there is a word for disposable cameras, called baka-chon camera. Baka means stupid, and chon is a derogatory term used for Korean people. Furthermore, even though they are the same Japanese, Okinawans were discriminated against. During World War II, when Japanese soldiers pushed them to the front to use as human shields. And a few years back, a good friend of mine tried to get an apartment in Tokyo and was denied by landlord because he was Okinawan."
The second movie is titled, Shit Japanese Girls Say.
Surprisingly, Dezaki appears in the video in female dress and a wig, without shaving off his mustache and beard. Posing with lewd undulations and uttering silly phrases, he pretends to imitate cute young Japanese girls:
"She said she lost 5 kg on the banana diet."
"Hey. Who are you emailing?"
"I got this on sale."
"Eew. He's blood type B."
"Have you met any good guys lately?"
"Stop it! You're embarrassing me."
"I heard if you massage like this your boobs will grow."
"Uza! (annoying)."
"Let's go to Korea. I've been learning Korean lately. Kamsahamnida (Thank you very much)."
He goes on and on, seemingly endlessly.
Suddenly, the words, "The End" appeared. A moment later, a man in a woman's dress entered again, this time with braids and blond hair. He looked out toward the sea and shouted the vulgarity, "I want a penis!"
What in the world did he want to say in the movie? The title included the word "shit." The content ridicules Japanese women and Japanese culture. It seems to have been made for non-Japanese and has already been watched by as many as 680,000 people
What of the Movie, The Main Battleground of The Comfort Women Issue?
"Hello, folks!" The film began with a scene, in which three men, Tony Malano (Texas Daddy), Shun'ichi Fujiki (Texas Daddy Japan Secretariat) and Mitsuhiko Fujii (head of the Rompa Project), visited the statue of a seated comfort woman in a park in Glendale California. A video by "Texas Daddy" duplicating the scene played in the background, with narration added by Dezaki. The scene seemed to have been selected because Malano introduced Dezaki in his video.Then speakers appeared one after another, making their various claims.
But was it "surprisingly thrilling" as Dezaki's flyer had promised? No, and the reason is clear. This film was far from fair.
Dezaki promised the film would explore the issue from a neutral position. However, he immediately expressed disdain for those whose perspective was that the comfort women were not sex slaves, calling them "revisionists" and "denialists." Instead, from the beginning it was clear that the film was made from the perspective of proponents of the sex-slave argument.
His tone was very rude to those who cooperated with him on the film, raising questions about his motives, among other things. I could not help but suspect that his email promises to those whose views he disdained were simply a trap to induce them into appearing in the film.
Missing Experts like Tsutomu Nishioka
A point that caught my attention was that Dezaki avoided interviewing the most prominent scholars on the comfort women issue when their views did not fit with his conclusion. Instead, the film proceeded in a manner that propelled the "sex slave" view.
He featured interviews with prominent Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi who have long advocated the sex slave story. He should have interviewed scholars with comparable qualifications on the other side
Instead, two very important scholars, Ikuhiko Hata and Tsutomu Nishioka, were left out of the film. Hata's name was mentioned (though he was not interviewed), but Nishioka was completely ignored. This failure alone demonstrated the lack of balance in Dezaki's work.
I was able to ask Dezaki in person about this point on April 4 when the film was previewed at The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. Dezaki answered: "I had wanted to have interviews with Hata and telephoned him. He was absent then and his wife told me to telephone again that night. But as an American I thought it rude to telephone someone at night. I telephoned him next morning. Then he scolded me and refused to be interviewed. As for Nishioka, I saw his views on the Internet. He was just like other antis. I thought he was not important and did not contact him."
I thought he must have been joking - how could he call himself a fair filmmaker? Presenting an argument with the experts all on one side would be like watching a baseball game missing alternating offense and defense. Nishioka has researched the issue for 25 years and he is the most knowledgeable scholar and persuasive expert critical of the sex slave theory. Most of those opposing the theory have read his books, so it is quite natural that his views overlap with others who learned from his work.
Film's Poor Organization
Speakers in the film were organized in a peculiar fashion. Among those critical of the sex slave perspective, the interview with Kent Gilbert went on at great length – as if he was the most important speaker from that perspective. On the other hand, Yoshiko Sakurai, who is more prominent and influential, was featured for a very short time. Nobukatsu Fujioka, the only scholar opposing the sex slave theory in this film, spoke a little longer, but little of it was about the comfort women issue.
On the other side, many scholars who are advocates of the sex slave viewpoint spoke in the film. They included Yoshiaki Yoshimi (historian, Chuo University), Hirofumi Hayashi (historian, Kanto Gakuin), Koichi Nakano (political scientist, Sofia University), Kohki Abe (faculty of international studies, Meiji University) and Setsu Kobayashi, (constitution scholar and professor emeritus, Keo University).
Korean scholars Lee Nayoung (sociologist), Kim Changnok (jurist) and many others also appeared in the film as advocates of the sex slave position. South Korean scholar
Lee Yonghun of Seoul University, who holds the view comfort women were not sex slaves, was ignored. It was a very unbalanced choice.
How Many Comfort Women?
Gilbert and Fujiki asked Dezaki about the allegations bandied about by proponents of the sex slave viewpoint. Based on the sheer number of soldiers, "If there had been 200,000 comfort women [as sex slave proponents allege] and they had been forced to have sex ten times a day, then Japanese soldiers would have had to have sex six times a day,"
Dezaki answered, "OK. Let's discuss your calculation later." He then he moved on to Yoshimi, asking "How did you calculate the number, 200,000?"
Yoshimi explained,"The number of Japanese soldiers was 3.5 million at most. It should be assumed that there were no brothels on the front line and that there were 3 million soldiers. At the time, one comfort woman to every 100 soldiers was needed. So the number of comfort women would have been 30,000. Then if you suppose half of them worked in shifts, the number would have been 45, 000. If instead you assume all of them worked in shifts, then there would have been 60,000 comfort women. On this basis, I think the number was at least 50,000."
Mihyang Yun of The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan didn't bother to explain how she calculated the number. Instead, she defended the number 200,000 by saying: "We are only using the number which was calculated by scholars."
In other words, there was no evidence to support Dezaki's allegation that there were 200,000 comfort women.
Mina Watanabe, executive director of the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace said: "When human rights organizations reporting on the comfort women ask us how many there were, we always suggest being careful about using specific numbers and avoiding use of the number 200,000 in particular. To be honest, if those organizations hear a number such as 400,000, then they claim there were 400,000 victims without considering accuracy. While we don't know the actual number, there are still people who think, "the more, the better".
One thing is clear: the number 200,000 comfort women is groundless. Speakers such as Yoshimi use too many assumptions in their calculation. At the same time, the number, "at least 50,000" used by some others reflects only the assumed demand, not the supply of comfort women. Even if there was a demand for 50,000 comfort women, there is no guarantee a sufficient number could be supplied in the middle of the war.
Dezaki Doesn't Listen
Instead of considering the testimony of those he interviewed, Dezaki instead proceeded to reach a peculiar conclusion.
Based on the interviews, his conclusion should have been that one must be careful because there is no basis for the 200,000 comfort women number. Rather than doing so, however, Dezaki gave credence to the sex slave advocates' position.
First, he said the number of comfort women was increased or decreased for political reasons by the two sides. Second, he concluded those he called revisionists did not know how to calculate the number (suggesting the other side did). Finally, he said objective data on the actual number of the comfort women did not exist.
He ignored the patient explanation of those who disagreed with him in the movie and their criticism of Yoshimi's calculation. His argument doesn't make sense, but Dezaki has no intention of listening to what they have to say.
Origins of Alleged 200,000 Comfort Women
The number 200,000 began to appear everywhere on the day after January 11, 1992. On that day, the Asahi Shimbun morning edition published an article saying:
"Military comfort woman: In the 1930's, there were frequent rape cases by Japanese soldiers in China. So, in order to soothe the anti-Japanese sentiment and prevent sexually transmitted diseases, brothels were provided. According to the testimony of former soldiers and former military doctors, at the beginning, about eighty percent of the women in the brothels seemed to be Koreans. After the Pacific War broke out, in the name of women's volunteer corps, many Korean women were gathered and forced to provide sex. Some say the number was 80,000. Others say it was 200,000."
The article confused two very different things – comfort women and the Women's Volunteer Corps which had nothing to do with comfort women – in calculating the number, 80,000 or 200,000.
One very important point is that the term "military comfort woman" was coined by Kako Senda, a writer, in the 1970's. Actually, "comfort women" did exist. But there was no such occupation as "military comfort women." In his book, Senda wrote that he had read an article of the Seoul Shinmun which said, "From 1943 to 1945, about 200,000 young Korean women were gathered in the name of the Women's Volunteer Corps and between 50,000 and 70,000 of them were forced to become comfort women."
A researcher doubted Senda's work and sought out the article he referenced. He found it had nothing to do with comfort women. Instead, it said:
"About 200,000 women from Japan and Korea were gathered for the Women's Volunteer Corps. Between 50,000 and 70,000 of them were Koreans."
In August 2014 the Asahi Shimbun admitted it had confused comfort women with the women's volunteer corps and withdrew the relevant articles.
It is a fact that advocates of the "sex slave" theory used these unfounded large numbers in order to make the comfort women issue look very big so they could use it politically and diplomatically. Had Dezaki interviewed a scholar such as Tsutomu Nishioka, author of the book, Asahi Shimbun: Great Crimes Against the Japanese (Goku Publishing, 2014, in Japanese), this would have been readily pointed out.
Coercive Recruitment
At one point the film shows a circa 2007 clip of Prime Minister Abe answering questions in the Diet. He said, "There were no such cases as government authorities intruding into private houses and forcibly taking women away. There was no coercion."
The film then produced a clip of Etsuro Totsuka for the purpose of criticizing Abe. Totsuka was the lawyer who coined the word "sex-slave" and spread it throughout the United Nations. In the film, he said: "Abe claims that the women were not coerced because they were not forcibly taken away against their will and tied with ropes. But, legally speaking, 'coercive' means 'against their will.' Then, 'being deceived' is categorized as 'coercive' because it is 'against their will.' Most Korean women at that time were deceived."
In other words, since there was no coercion and there were no reported cases of forcible removal of women on the Korean Peninsula under Japanese governance, Totsuka expanded the definition of coerced to include the sense of "being deceived."
Gilbert and Fujiki were brought in and said: "The [comfort] women were recruited mainly by Korean dealers. There would have been cases in which women were deceived by the private dealers."
Mio Sugita added, "Newspapers at that time reported on many cases in which malicious dealers were arrested by the Japanese military, governor-general of Korea or the police."
The film then brought in Hirofumi Hayashi to refute. He argued, "Reports in newspapers at that time had nothing to do with the coercive recruitment of the comfort women. Certainly the police arrested malicious dealers who deceived women and prostituted them. But the police overlooked dealers who were requested to do so by the military."
All the same, I wish Hayashi had provided evidence for his statement. How could the police tell so-called malicious dealers from dealers who had allegedly been requested by the military?
Similar claims I was aware of had all been found to be groundless. If the police had been so discriminatory, it would have been very difficult to maintain security at the time.
The Semarang Incident
Suddenly, the film brings in the Semarang Comfort Station incident in which 35 women including some Dutch women were forced to be comfort women. Japanese military officials in charge of the region at the time immediately investigated after learning of the incident, freed the women and ordered the comfort station closed.
Gilbert claimed the case was evidence that coercive recruitment was illegal at that time. But Yoshimi refuted, saying: "In that incident, victims were white women and Japanese military feared being blamed by the allied forces. I have heard no story about freed Asian women. White women and Asian women must have been treated differently."
Yoshimi's claim was merely an assumption. Dezaki, however, engaged in further conjecture and concluded, "The case in Indonesia is very strong evidence. There might be no evidence that Korean women were coercively recruited, but the Japanese military was reckless enough to force white women to be comfort women at the risk of being blamed internationally, so they must have done the same things to Korean women."
Throughout the film, advocates of the sex-slave theory speak in hypotheticals and reach conclusions by inference. They don't have facts.
It is a fact that the Semarang Comfort Station incident was a criminal case brought by Japanese authorities at that time, just as it would be had it occurred today. One might theorize that there were incidents like this on the Korean Peninsula or other places. But this incident provided no evidence that any Korean women were coercively recruited by the military as a matter of official practice.
Totsuka clearly knew this but engaged in the circular argument anyway that "coercive" and the sense of "being deceived" are the same. However, the bottom line is that advocates of the sex-slave theory in the film fail to prove that coercive recruitment by the military ever existed.
Sex Slaves
Those who believe the comfort women were not sex slaves appeared next in the movie. They offered evidence that the "comfort women were well paid and able to save and send money to their families. When their contract came to an end, they were free to go home. They enjoyed shopping. They went to sports events and parties with Japanese soldiers. They were far from sex slaves."
But advocates of the sex-slave theory countered the argument by claiming that, "According to international law today, they were slaves."
Sex-slave advocate Yoshiaki Yoshimi's claim was particularly interesting. He refuted the evidence that the comfort women had time for recreation by using a convoluted reference to American Negro slaves, saying: "I think their daily lives were so hopeless that they couldn't live without such recreation. For example, American Negro slaves gathered and had concerts or dance parties on Saturdays and Sundays. They also went hunting. They were so hopeless that slave owners had to allow them to do so to survive."
He and other sex-slave advocates failed to mention, however, that some Japanese soldiers fell in love with comfort women and married them, and that there were former comfort women who cherished the memory of Japanese soldiers who were their former lovers. The sex-slave advocates in the film instead appear simply to want to disgrace Japanese by all means possible.
Kohki Abe, a member of the faculty of international studies at Meiji Gakuin, then appeared in the film. He claimed that based on international law the comfort women are defined as "sex slaves".
Kohki Abe said, "Slavery is a situation in which someone is utterly under the control of another. Even if the comfort women were able to earn lots of money and go out for pleasure, they were under another's control and had to get permission to do so. Therefore, they were slaves."
If that was true, then today's ordinary salaried workers are all slaves!
If he wanted to make a claim based on international law, the claim should have been either "it is technically possible to define them as slaves according to today's international law," or "all prostitutes throughout history, not only the wartime comfort women serving the Japanese military, would be defined as sex slaves according to international law."
In the end, The Main Battleground of The Comfort Women Issue failed to deepen the argument on the comfort women because Dezaki did not bring together experts from both sides to discuss the issue and he approached the issue with bias and very shallow knowledge in the first place,
Off the Rails in the Second Half
In the film, the most unexpected voice among the sex-slave advocates was Hisae Kennedy, whom I have never met. She was once a popular advocate against the sex-slave theory, but as narrated in the film she suddenly disappeared from public view. Surprisingly, in the film she began by criticizing her former friends and supporters, explaining that her views were changed by scholar Ikuhiko Hata's argument that the Nanjing Massacre actually happened, though on a small scale.
She then brought up a report addressing the comfort women issue by the U.S. government's IWG (Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group). The IWG was established by the Clinton administration and took eight years to scrutinize classified documents at a cost of $30 million USD. In the end, it found no new or incriminating information on Japan's wartime comfort women system.
Kennedy herself had introduced the IWG report to Japan, as had some American journalists. However, in the film she dismissed the conclusions of the report, saying: "The purpose of the IWG was to investigate Nazi war crimes. They didn't find anything new about the Japanese comfort woman system because it was like looking for socks in the kitchen cabinet."
An individual is free to change their opinion, but not to bend the facts. The original purpose of the IWG was to investigate Nazi war crimes, as she says. But in response to strong protests by an anti-Japanese federation of Chinese American groups calling itself the "Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WW II in Asia," the official purpose was expanded to include the investigation of alleged war crimes by the Japanese military.
The conclusion of the investigation was that the U.S. military at the time found the comfort women to be ordinary prostitutes. Hence the Americans did not pursue the matter.
Bullying with Comfort Women Statues
Scatted throughout the film, Dezaki shows several videos of public hearings held by local governments in Glendale and San Francisco California, where anti-Japanese comfort women statues were erected. He uses these to emphasize local acceptance of the claims of the sex-slave advocates.
There were efforts of Japanese American parents to stop the statues, which had led to the increased bullying of Japanese American children. Their efforts were all unsuccessful, but Dezaki disputed the bullying itself and argued the claims were made up by a member of the Japanese Diet, Mio Sugita, who he said had never met such parents.
In that, Dezaki was very much like many anti-Japanese activists organizations, which have often regarded Japanese claims as groundless and ignored them.
I myself met several Japanese American mothers whose children were actually bullied or harassed and had long interviews with them. But they were not fighters and they didn't file complaints with the police or ask hospitals to provide medical certificates on the effects of the bullying. Although they didn't have a leader to help them fight the bullying, they still petitioned Prime Minister Abe on the issue of the statues. This is a big step for ordinary mothers. They would not have done so unless they were deeply concerned.
The Conspiracy Theory
This film was two hours and even Dezaki admitted it was too long. If I had been in a position to offer him advice, I would have recommended he cut the latter half of the film, because it was where he lost all logical train of thought.
According to the flyer on the film, while he said he was going to make a fair and neutral documentary about the comfort women issue, he intended to reveal "a conspiracy" behind the controversy in the second half. Instead, he failed quite miserably. and ended up introducing a groundless conspiracy theory.
The conspiracy theory Dezaki introduced in the film but couldn't prove seemed to be as follows: The aim of the Japan Conference and the Abe administration was to rearm and return to the glory of prewar Japan, based on the Yasukuni view of history in which Japan was infallible. The comfort women issue was a historical stain which they want to erase. So they tried to silence former comfort women and deny the existence of the issue.
Introducing the Japan Conference
By the middle of the film I began to feel a little tired. Then unexpectedly, the words "Japan Conference" abruptly appeared on the screen. I was surprised because the Japan Conference had nothing to do with the comfort women.
Setsu Kobayashi, professor emeritus at Keio University and a constitutional scholar, began talking He argued the Japan Conference had the power to influence the Abe administration. He said it "intended to revive the constitution of the Empire of Japan" and return the country to an era where basic human rights were denied. And in his view, Yoshiko Sakurai was leading their campaign.
He continued speculating: "The Japan Conference is supported by Shinto shrines, including the Yasukuni Shrine. Yoshiko Sakurai probably has a free office within the shrine's grounds."
He then came to a very strange conclusion: "The Japan Conference's doctrine of getting back to prewar Japan is terrifying. But I am determined to fight against it, even if I get murdered in the battle.”
What a delusion! The Japan Conference and Yoshiko Sakurai have never expressed the slightest intention to revive the constitution of the Empire of Japan.
And I have a very good news for Kobayashi. His name has seldom been mentioned among conservatives. There is no one who has a reason to kill him. I can assure him that he is safe.
I asked the Japan Conference whether or not Dezaki had asked them for an interview when making the film. The answer was no. The Japan Conference also released a statement denying Dezaki's accusations. Dezaki did not bother to check the facts.
Hideaki Kase, a foreign policy critic and chair of the Tokyo headquarters of the Japan Conference appeared next. At one time he wrote and spoke often in political and business circles, and even now his name might be found on the lists of some conservative organizations. He is introduced in the film as a man who orchestrates many conservative organizations from behind the scene.
However, the Dezaki account of Kase as the man behind the scene is entirely fictional. Kase has not been actively involved in or spoken on the comfort women issue. Furthermore, he has not been the representative of the Japan Conference itself. So he had little to offer in response to Dezaki's questions.
Bringing Up Constitutional Revision
Although the relationship to the comfort women issue was unclear, Dezaki next moved on to warn the Japanese people about revising the constitution. He threatened: "If you Japanese revise the pacifist constitution and rearm Japan, you Japanese will be involved in wars by us Americans!"
Dezaki didn't seem to know that Japan has a Self Defense Force and is already armed to defend itself. The Abe administration now wants to revise the constitution in order to improve Japan's security, but at the same time the right to collective defense would remain partly restricted so that Japan would not fight in wars unrelated to its own defense.
Biased Motivation from the Beginning
Dezaki said in a press conference that he honestly wanted to know why Japanese revisionists were trying to "cover up" the comfort women issue, revealing that his bias goes back to the beginning of his project.
Nevertheless, his work, The Main Battleground of The Comfort Women Issue, should be appreciated for what it accomplished. The film clearly showed that the claims of sex-slave theory advocates are all groundless and that their aim was simply to keep the comfort women issue unsettled forever.
Internationalizing the Comfort Women Issue
Why has the comfort women issue aroused such an international interest? It is necessary to examine the original accusation against the Japanese government in order to understand internationalization of the issue.
The Asahi Shimbun, together with Yoshida Seiji, a story-teller, spread the story like this:
"On the Korean peninsula, Japanese soldiers forcibly dragged young Korean women out of their homes and made them sex slaves and, in the name of the Women's Volunteer Corps, the Japanese military gathered Korean women and made them comfort women. There were as many as 200,000 victims."
For a while, Japanese people (and even the American Kent Gilbert) believed the story because they couldn't imagine at the time that The Asahi Shimbun, one of the biggest newspaper in Japan, would publish a completely fabricated story.
Later, the entire story was proven to be an absurd fiction, which angered Japanese people. When The Asahi Shimbun found it impossible to ignore critical public opinion, the newspaper admitted the falsehoods, retracted the story and its president resigned. The paper was not pressured by the government, as Dezaki wrongly claimed in the film.
But the fabricated story had already spread to many countries. Comfort woman statues were erected here and there with the fake story carved onto the monuments. When some people pointed out the dearth of witnesses, another falsehood was spread, alleging the witnesses were all killed by the Japanese military in order to destroy evidence. Obviously, some groups wanted to make a political football out of the issue.
At first, Japanese people were sympathetic to the former comfort women. But as the truth was revealed, many became fed up with the falsehoods being proliferated.
As the movie, The Main Battleground of The Comfort Women Issue showed, advocates of the -sex-slave theory, including Yoshimi, clearly knew such exaggerated stories and accusations by anti-Japan activists were untrue. But, in spite of that, they never acknowledged the truth.
Instead, they persisted in backing up anti-Japan activists and condemning Japan with arguments such as, "it could be technically interpreted that the women were coercively recruited and technically they were sex slaves". Their aim seemed to be to keep the comfort women issue unsettled forever.
Perpetuating a One-Sided Perspective
The comfort women issue will never be settled if the South Korean government, anti-Japanese activists and advocates of the sex-slave argument such as Dezaki persist in the simplistic one-sided view that Japan is the perpetrator and South Korea the victim.
Recently, two scholars, Thomas J. Ward and William D. Lay from the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA, published a thesis exploring the issue titled Park Statue Politics: World War II Comfort Women Memorials in the United States. The following is an excerpt from the abstract of the book:
"They recount only the Korean version of this history, which this text finds incomplete. They do not mention that, immediately following World War II, American soldiers also frequented Japan’s comfort women stations. They say nothing of how, to the present day, GIs continue to patronize Asian women and girls organized in brothels near their barracks. The Korean narrative also ignores the significant role that Koreans played in recruiting women and girls into the system. Intentionally or not, comfort women memorials in the United States promote a political agenda rather than transparency, accountability and reconciliation."
Dezaki's movie, The Main Battleground of The Comfort Women Issue, do no more than play the same role as the comfort woman statues. It is simply another example of malicious propaganda and biased journalism that is useless as a tool to resolve the issue.
In conclusion, should I have an opportunity to address conservative opinion leaders, I would like to offer the following advice. In the future when someone asks for an interview, please check their identity before you agree – even if they have introduced themselves as a graduate student. If that someone is a YouTuber who appears in his own video as a man in female dress shouting sexually tinged vulgarities, then you should probably decline the request.
Special thank you to Masaaki Shimizu for preliminary translation.
日本語版はこちら（Japanese Version）
山岡鉄秀（Tetsuhide Yamaoka）
情報戦略アナリスト。AJCN Inc.代表・公益財団法人モラロジー研究所研究員。1965年、東京都生まれ。中央大学卒業後、シドニー大学大学院、ニューサウスウェールズ大学大学院修士課程修了。2014年、豪州ストラスフィールド市において、中韓反日団体が仕掛ける慰安婦像設置計画に遭遇。子供を持つ母親ら現地日系人を率いてAJCNを結成。「コミュニティの平和と融和の大切さ」を説いて非日系住民の支持を広げ、圧倒的劣勢を挽回。2015年8月、同市での「慰安婦像設置」阻止に成功した。著書に、国連の欺瞞と朝日の英字新聞など英語宣伝戦の陥穽を追及した『日本よ、もう謝るな！』（飛鳥新社）
韓国 限定配信 山岡鉄秀 Tetsuhide Yamaoka 著者 外国語記事
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Renaissance Women of the CWHL
brettpardy / January 4, 2019
Photo from The CWHL.
Co-Authored by Brett Pardy and Courtney Szto.
Women’s sports, on the whole, is far more interesting than men’s sports. That’s right, we said it. We make this assertion based on the fact that women athletes have to cultivate a life outside of the playing field, even if only to make ends meet. But subsistence purposes aside, women athletes tend to be more well-rounded human beings because, again, we (generally) socialize girls and women this way: to put the needs of others ahead of their own and to know that sports is not a viable career for women. The ability to live a one dimensional life in the name of dedication to one’s craft continues to be a “privilege” only accessible to men. Even WNBA athletes, who have a salary cap of $115,000 per season (a number that seems a pipe dream for women’s hockey right now), often have side hustles, suggesting that perhaps, as much as sport gives us, there is something in the soul that cannot be soothed by sport alone:
Jessica Breland, Atlanta Dream, opened BR3 spa.
Rebekkah Brunson, Atlanta Dream, opened the Sweet Gypsy Waffles food truck.
Angel McCoughtry, Atlanta Dream and 2-time Olympic gold medalist, owns McCoughtry’s ice cream shop.
Elena Della Donne, Washington Mystics, makes (incredible) custom furniture under Della Donne Designs.
Della Donne, in particular, has been an outspoken advocate for pay equity and women’s sports stating:
It’s hard to fall in love with a sport or a team or a player if you’ve never seen them and don’t know much about them…I wish I could just play basketball and have that be my thing. But if I have to give some media knowledge or PR ideas, then fine.
Elen Della Donne with one of her custom tables. Photo from Ranker.
In other words, women do not have the luxury of being just athletes — they have to be more than athletes in order to be recognized as athletes. As sports producer and broadcaster, Robyn Flynn commented on a recent episode of the Changing on the Fly podcast, if you are nostalgic for the days of the “Original Six” when players worked full time jobs and then showed up at the rink to play a game, this is exactly where the CWHL is today.
The ironic thing about sports is that we constantly trumpet how it teaches character and prepares boys for life after sport. Yet, once boys and young men are in the high performance pipeline, the sporting system does a really good job of making children out of men: This is when you eat. This is when you sleep. This is when you need to be on the bus. Wear this, don’t wear that. Interests outside of the rink are actively discouraged (see the debacle surrounding the Vancouver Canucks and Fortnite as a recent example). Former NHL defender Andrew Ference recalls, “if you’re getting involved in other things outside of the game itself, you open yourself up to criticism, even if it had nothing to do with the game that you play.” The result is we are left with retired athletes who have a difficult time transitioning into “civilian” life because they have been coddled into a narrow lifestyle for decades of their lives. Many players take on coaching and management roles, which is understandable, but at the same time it could be read as a retreat to the familiar where these patterns are repeated and passed onto the next generation of players. For too many athletes the practice/game day or in-season/off-season cycle is the only life they know.
With the CWHL only able to offer stipends between $2,000 to $10,000 per year, the league’s non-national team or China Sports Ambassador players have to have secondary jobs. University hockey is the gateway to the CWHL and that step is crucial to broadening horizons for these women. We also see that pattern mirrored for the 30’ish percent of NHL’ers who go the university route. Andrew Copp of the Winnipeg Jets offered this reflection to the Toronto Star:
It’s funny that this interview is happening because I kind of had a little bit of a meltdown yesterday. Not like an actual meltdown, but kind of about rounding out myself as a person. I was a very successful student. My parents spent a lot of money on my education when I was younger – I went to a private elementary and middle school – and I’m very confident in my abilities to do a lot of different things in the world, not just play hockey.
We’re so sheltered here, you know? And I don’t want to say I’ve been sheltered my whole life, but I’ve been very privileged. So, kind of rounding out myself as a person is really important to me, and I feel like education really does that for you. Hockey doesn’t last forever.
Taking it one step further, many CWHL players have graduate degrees and have parlayed them into pretty cool jobs. As two people who have been through and/or are currently running the grad school gauntlet, there aren’t enough stick taps in the world to show how impressed we are with their ability to juggle pro hockey and grad/professional school. Thus, in an attempt to help you and the media fall (more) in love with the CWHL and its players, we’d like to highlight 10 current CWHLers who might not be household names but seem like pretty awesome human beings who personify what it means to be a more than an athlete.
Catherine Daoust, 22, Les Canadiennes de Montreal, Defence
Photo from Les Canadiennes.
Daoust is a rookie member of Les Canadiennes. She was part of the University of Minnesota-Duluth’s Rocketry Club during her mechanical engineering degree. She combined her engineering and hockey skills during her time interning with CCM, where she helped develop test protocols for equipment durability and safety. (Instagram @cathdaoust12)
Melanie Deroschers, 26, Les Canadiennes de Montreal, Defence
Photo by Courtney Szto.
Melanie Deroschers, a member of the 2017 Clarkson Cup championship Les Canadiennes, has a Master’s in neuroscience and a full time job, but she has managed to carve out some time to create a sports podcast in between practices. Her thirst for knowledge is super apparent in The Last Stretch, co-hosted with Safia Ahmad (Media Relations for Les Canadiennes). It offers insight into everything and everyone that goes into making elite athletes possible. They have interviewed coaches, scouts, researchers, and media in the first few episodes and in episode 10 we get to hear about Mel’s recent trip to China with Les Canadiennes. Check it out! (Instagram @djmellyd @thelaststretchpodcast)
Ailish Forfar, 24, Markham Thunder, Forward
Photo from PensionPlanPuppets
Many athletes go into media post-careers, but Forfar is simultaneously carving out space on the ice and in the production booths. She was one of three bloggers selected by the International Paralympic Committee to cover this year’s Paralympics in PyeongChang. This season, Forfar started an online women’s hockey “CWHL All-Access” in collaboration with other Ryerson Sport Media students. It also helps that she is an Assistant Coach for the Ryerson Rams women’s team. Most recently, it was announced that she will be doing some video work for the Toronto Maple Leafs. (Instagram @ailishforfar)
Anissa Gamble, 25, Toronto Furies, Forward
Gamble promoting the Contour Diabetes app on her Instagram. Photo by Chris Tanouye.
Gamble returned this season from three years away from hockey. What was she doing those 3 years, you ask? She was working on her Masters in Science (MSc) in Experimental Surgery. Gamble, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as a child, was part of a team working on transplanting islet cells, which produce insulin. Gamble intends on returning to further medical education after hockey and in the meantime is a holistic diabetes management coach. (Instagram @anissa.gamble)
Melanie Jue, 30, Shenzhen KRS Vanke Rays, Defence
Photo from the Montreal Journal.
The Cornell graduate came out of retirement to join the Kunlun Red Star for the 2017-2018 season. This year she is part of the newly amalgamated Shenzhen KRS Vanke Rays. If living and working in a foreign country wasn’t enough of a challenge, Jue recently enrolled in the University of British Columbia’s Master’s in High Performance Coaching & Technical Leadership Program, which means she has to juggle online classes from across the Pacific. She decided to boost her coaching credentials in order “to be as educated and prepared to take on growing and developing the sport off the ice.” She also stresses:
Coaches generally don’t get taught how to run their sport like a business and I want to return to coaching with not only playing and tactical experience but also a managerial perspective. Additionally, I felt like taking this course would add to my credibility as a coach. As a female coach, we have more hurdles we need to jump through versus our male counterparts and the more knowledge I can possess the more opportunities I will have. (Personal communication)
(Instagram @Jue216)
(Dani)Ella Matteucci, 25, Markham Thunder, Defence
Photo from Markham Thunder Instagram.
Matteucci is a multi-sport athlete. The Clarkson University grad has also been a member of the Canadian Women’s National Baseball team for a number of years now. In 2015, she helped the team win a silver medal at the Pan American Games. As a senior in high school, she was the only girl on the field and pitched a no-hitter against a “midget” AA boys team (see Courtney’s recent post on the problematic use of “midget” for sports categories).
Alexis Miller, 24, Worcester Blades Defense
Photo from Worcester Blades
Like Gamble, Miller returned to hockey this year after completing a Master’s degree, hers in urban affairs. Miller is currently an Assignment Manager at Barton Associates, a healthcare staffing company. And, in 2017, she cycled across the United States with her Dad raising over $30,000 for her hometown children’s hospital. (Instagram @alexis_miller).
Carolyne Prevost, 28, Toronto Furies, Forward
Photo from Women’s Hockey Life.
Prevost appears to be good at every sport – she has competed for Canada internationally in both hockey and taekwando, plays elite level soccer, and is currently ranked 3rd in the world at the Crossfit Games. She is perhaps the world’s most talented high school PE teacher. Her Crossfit Games bio sums it up pretty well:
Carolyne is a high school math, science and physical education/health teacher. She plays professional hockey for the Toronto Furies in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. She also plays soccer for a women’s premier team in Toronto. Carolyne has won 11 National Championships in 4 different sports in her athletic career. She has represented Canada on different National teams in both taekwondo and in hockey. She found Crossfit in 2013 at the age of 23 after being released from the Hockey Canada National Program.
(Instagram @cprevost27 – check out her December 27th post…)
Jetta (Plakhotnyi) Rackleff, 27, Worcester Blades, Goaltender
Photo from Twitter @JettaRackleff.
Rackleff was the first woman to graduate from the Rochester Institute of Technology’s engineering program while also playing a NCAA sport. Currently, she works for the US Air Force’s weather department as a chemical engineer on risk mitigation efforts. Before she landed a full-time gig with the Air Force, she worked part-time at Pure Hockey in the goaltending department. (Instagram @jettarackleff)
Kaitlin Spurling, 27, Worcester Blades Forward
Photo: BDZ Sports
Spurling is a Harvard political science (Department of Government) grad who has returned to North America after several years playing semi-pro hockey and teaching in Austria. While playing for the Blades, she is juggling work as a paralegal and attending New England Law school. Back in high school she also rowed crew as Varsity captain.
Honourable Mention: Kacey Bellamy, 31, Calgary Inferno, Defence
Photo from the NHL.
Bellamy, with 7 World Championship Gold Medals, is undoubtedly already a well-known star in the world of women’s hockey. Still, any national team stalwart who writes poetry makes the cut as a renaissance woman. She just published a book of poetry titled, “Unbroken Heart of Gold: A collection of poems,” and at the time of publishing this post she has nothing but 5 star reviews on Amazon! (Instagram @kaybells22)
Now that we all feel like chronic underachievers, what do we do with this knowledge? Personally, as authors, we find ourselves in a paradox. We know that these women deserve better. They deserve better pay, better media attention, better facilities, better league infrastructure, better fan support. Yet, it is because they lack these things that we have interesting women to talk about. So how do we professionalize the sport while also ensuring that we don’t end up with the bland but wealthy professional male athletes to whom we have become accustomed? Simply implementing rules designed to encourage going to university before professional sports would not work, given that the NCAA system has shown itself to prioritize more play and less study, especially from its revenue earning athletes. For example, NFL star Michael Bennett wrote in his book, Things That Make White People Uncomfortable, that he wanted to major in sociology, but the football team encouraged him to do something less demanding. Nor is university the only path to becoming an interesting, well-rounded, and empathetic person.
Instead, a culture of learning and developing interests beyond competition has to become a priority. The professionalization of sport has, across the board, been financially beneficial for sponsors and executives; yet, increasingly offers a disconnected and (arguably) unhealthy environment for fans and athletes alike. If sport is supposed to create well-rounded athletes who enhance the societies around them then the CWHL has something aspirational to offer the hockey world.
Don’t forget to support the CWHL by:
Watching them on Sportsnet this weekend, January 5 & 6, 2019! [CWHL Weekend]
Getting your tickets for the CWHL All-Star Game, January 20th at Scotiabank Arena (and say Hi to Courtney who will be attendance!)
Getting your Clarkson Cup tickets for March 24th in Toronto.
Make sure you are following the CWHL teams to learn more about these formidable women.
Know of other players who should get a little signal boost for their awesomeness? Let us know in the comments, tweet us, or if you are a player keep your LinkedIn and Twitter profiles updated 😂. We are researchers by trade, we’ll find ya!
January 4, 2019 in Blog posts. Tags: Ailish Forfar, Alexis Miller, Anissa Gamble, Carolyne Prevost, Catherine Daoust, CWHL, Daniella Matteucci, gender equality, Jetta Rackleff, Kacey Bellamy, Kaitlin Spurling, Melanie Desroschers, Melanie Jue, pay equity, women's hockey
The Sad State of Women’s Hockey Coverage, and Some Suggestions for Change
“Minor hockey featuring the world’s best female players” – The Dilemma that is the CWHL
A Poorly Timed Joke: Gerry Dee’s CWHL promo tweet
← Hockey in Puerto Rico, Part II: Re-building and growing hockey in Latin America
A Poorly Timed Joke: Gerry Dee’s CWHL promo tweet →
3 thoughts on “Renaissance Women of the CWHL”
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Hoopla at the Hoe-down Undergarment over load
Race you to the database
Headhunter20 Uncategorized Comments Off on Race you to the database
Exposed: Obama Is Creating A Secret ‘Race Database’ That He Has Massive Plans For
Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites.
At the heart of this vast data mining and analysis by Obama and company is the program run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that critics fear will provide the justification for federal bureaucrats to manipulate the socio-economic mix of virtually any neighborhood in any part of the country, urban or suburban.
Well Known Black Pro-Confederate Flag Activist Killed During Apparent Car Chase…
According to The New American, Anthony Hervey has been speaking out in support of the Confederate battle flag for many years, ever since he discovered his great-great uncle had fought as a black soldier in the Confederate Army of the Mississippi, ultimately sacrificing his life at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.
This inspired Hervey to found the Black Confederate Soldier Foundation, with the mission of fostering new thought about the role of blacks in the Civil War and a vision of creating a special memorial for the southern black soldiers who fought and died for the Confederacy.
In 2000, Hervey declared, “We currently live under a psychological form of reconstruction. Whites are made to feel guilty for sins of their ancestors, and blacks are made to feel downtrodden. This keeps all of us from communicating. The political correctness of today is killing the pride of the people.”
ALERT: Captured “Islamic State” Leader Makes Shocking Revelation About Getting US Funding
A commander in the ranks of the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State, captured in December, revealed a shocking bit of information that should have patriotic Americans furious.
Yousaf al Salafi, captured in the town of Lahore, Pakistan, was picked up for his role in the recruitment of fighters through local Imams who were paid upward of $600 per head for each fighter they sent to the front lines in Syria.
The worst part? After squealing like a pig to authorities, he revealed that most of the funding for the terrorist recruitment scheme was routed through the United States.
One Of Many: Grandmother Killed In Her Sleep, Suspects Are Illegal Aliens Under Deportation…
BIAS POTUS! Black Sheriff: Obama Downplayed Chattanooga Because Victims Don’t Look Like Trayvon
While President Barack Obama is busy avoiding the fact that five U.S. servicemen were killed in Chattanooga by an Islamic terrorist, other leaders are sounding the alarm about the threat America faces.
One such leader is Milwaukee Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr., who went on Twitter and expressed why Obama’s reaction to the violent murders was essentially a “shoulder shrug.”
Obama’s shoulder shrug on these brave soldiers massacred in TN is because none of them look like Trayvon Martin.
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See the Difference / Stories / Kevin Gray
I really enjoyed the camaraderie in the woodshed and the fantastic instruction. It gave me a new purpose in life because it gave me a skill, one I was really proud of
Kevin Gray’s first rocking horse commission came from Lady Houghton, wife of the former Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS). It was a very proud moment for Kev. The journey from novice woodworker to becoming a member of the Guild of Rocking Horse Makers started after he saw one being made at Help for Heroes Phoenix House Recovery Centre in Catterick. He then enrolled on a seven-month course held at the Recovery Centre: “The course was brilliant. I really enjoyed the camaraderie in the woodshed and the fantastic instruction.
“It gave me a new purpose in life because it gave me a skill, one I was really proud of.”
Kev had always wanted to join the military, ever since he was a child. Joining the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, he later moved to the Royal Artillery and served for seven and a half years in the UK and abroad, including Northern Ireland and the Gulf War. It wasn’t until he was on an exercise following these tours that he realised how much his time on operations had affected him. Diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Kev was medically discharged in 1995, it was an abrupt end to a career he thought he would be in for life:
“PTSD has a massive effect on your life. One day you feel as if you’re bullet proof and the next you’re weak as a feather.
“I was absolutely distraught when I was told I was going to be medically discharged. The only thing I’d ever wanted to be was a soldier and to have that taken away from me due to a mental health disorder was very difficult to deal with.”
It was during a particularly tough period nearly 17 years later, that Kev contacted Help for Heroes. The Charity began supporting him before inviting him to become an Ambassador: “From there my life changed for the better. The support from Help for Heroes has been absolutely incredible.”
This role has provided Kev with a platform to share his story with other Veterans and Service Personnel that Help for Heroes support:
“I’m proud to be an Ambassador, it gives me a sense of purpose. Speaking to people in the same situation makes them realise they’re not alone. With Help for Heroes and the Band of Brothers, there’s a massive feeling of belonging.
“I missed the Army for almost 20 years but for the past two and a half years I’ve been involved with the Charity, I no longer miss it. I feel like I’m part of it all again which is fantastic.”
The 47-year-old has taken part in various activities through Help for Heroes such as wheelchair basketball, archery and kayaking which have all helped build his self-esteem, but it’s the rocking horses that remain his passion: “I’m creating history because I know they’ll last a long time. I’ll happily pass on what I’ve been taught to anyone who wants to know how to make them.
“I’ll always support my fellow Veterans. Help for Heroes has allowed me to reach my potential and provided me with the tools to get there. There are many Veterans out in the community with an abundance of skills and talent and if that can be nurtured then they can also reach their full potential and become a force for good too.”
Barrie Griffiths
AJ Pingram
Rob Shenton
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The Invisible Shackles of America’s Social Credit System.
China’s social credit system is coming to America, but Big Tech is enforcing it.
Bradley Brewer
The phrase “social credit system” or “social credit score” is relatively unknown to Americans. But in the People’s Republic of China, the communist government has been developing such a system for the last decade, and are looking to roll it out nationwide by 2020.
Americans needn’t fear Big Brother but their fellow “well-intentioned” citizens who serve as the thought police in the cyberpunk dystopia of 2019.
The Chinese government intends to use social media data, surveillance, and purchasing trends to develop a “score” for its citizens to gauge their “buy-in” to the state. Presumably, the better the score, the more “benefits” citizens are entitled to receive from the government. Conversely, a bad score would severely handicap your life, punishing you for your socially maladaptive behavior, either real or perceived.
At its worst, this gives the Chinese government the ability to wield tech companies as a weapon to ultimately stifle the commerce, travel, and social interaction of those that are “blacklisted”—in other words, full dictatorial power. Of course, China has never been a pillar of freedom and liberty. It comes as no surprise that it is developing a sophisticated system to crush dissent. The Hong Kong protests have brought much of China’s reality to the forefront of international discussion.
What does come as a surprise, however, is the emergence of the similar—if not identical— modes of technologically-mediated social control and coercion in a democracy like the United States—but with a sinister twist. Here, this form of political control doesn’t emanate from a central government, as is the case with China, which can offer a rallying point for protest and public outcry. Here in the U.S., we’re facing a decentralized system that is much more difficult to pinpoint and fight.
THE POLICE STATE VS. THE POLICED STATE: TECHNOLOGICALLY-MEDIATED POLITICAL CONTROL
In a country like China, the system is necessarily top-down. The Communist government can’t afford for their citizens to realize what individual freedom offers. The social credit system and the police state that implements it is designed to stifle that internal drive for democracy. That is why the stakes are so high for the Chinese Communist Party in the fight against Hong Kong; Beijing has to control the narrative—or risk mass dissent and protest on the mainland.
The social credit system and the police state that implements it is designed to stifle that internal drive for democracy.
The same technological infrastructure that facilitates censorship and ideological control by the Chinese government, however, allows for censorship and ideological control in the U.S. Only this time, it’s rule by a loud, virulent minority—not the state.
Here, there are those (primarily leftists) who actively call for the censoring of those they disagree with and the removal of those individuals from the marketplace (of both ideas and commerce), subsequently removing them from public life. They include groups like Antifa, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and your everyday social justice warrior. These are the people who, unfortunately, and unbelievably, drive the narrative and force action in this country—despite making up a small portion of the population.
The fault doesn’t just lie with social justice warriors, however. The majority of our citizens sit quietly and let this breach of liberty take place—like “good Germans,” as it were.
It isn’t merely ideological censorship. With the rise of the cashless society, we are almost wholly dependent on the central banking system, like it or not. Transactional companies like PayPal, Venmo, and Patreon are just as integral to our system of commerce as the nation’s largest banks (Chase, Bank of America, etc.). They have the power to take away your ability to participate in the marketplace at a moment’s notice.
In the age of Trump, we have seen countless citizens stripped of their access to this financial system. Joe Biggs, Alex Jones, and many other individuals have had financial accounts closed—often for ambiguous reasons. But almost all of those facing bans have been right-leaning voices speaking out against the mainstream narrative in the culture war. They have all-but been removed from the American financial system, crippling their primary means to make a living and continue their work.
How does this happen in a free society?
Chinese surveillance
REVOKING PLATFORM ACCESS IS REVOKING CIVIL RIGHTS, AND WE ARE THE KEY TO BREAKING THESE SHACKLES
Steadfast commitments to “rule of law” and “the Constitution” won President Trump the 2016 election. As an avid supporter of President Trump and his policies, I believe that he will go down as one of the greatest Presidents in our nation’s history. But the freedoms he campaigned for are under threat—so much so that sometimes, it feels like we lost the last election.
You have little-to-no real rights to free speech in today’s town square, and it is private agents, not the government, playing off the whims of a cadre of noxious Little Brothers.
The social credit system we’re entangled in isn’t easily identifiable. If this “system” were a government-based problem, much of it would likely be fixed already. President Trump is actively calling out Big Tech, the “fake news” media, and business entities that act against the interests of the American people, but he can only do so much with unilateral authority.
It is not enough for the left to hold disagreements. Instead, this loud minority actively calls for the censorship and banishment of conservative thought leaders from the social media landscape.
As has been pointed out previously on Human Events, platform access is a civil right. Social media platforms are the modern “town square,” a place where everyone comes to discover and share information and weigh-in with opinions. Everyone, regardless of their politics, class, or creed, should have access to this marketplace of ideas.
In contrast to common-sense expectations—and even their own bottom line—social media companies and tech giants are capitulating to the loud minority. For instance, Google is working with groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center to censor individuals’ content if it is deemed “problematic.”
It has become the norm for influencers (again, mostly right-leaning) to be banned from social media platforms for stepping out of the proverbial line. You have little-to-no real rights to free speech in today’s town square, and it is private agents, not the government, playing off the whims of a cadre of noxious Little Brothers.
Most of the issues we face can’t be tackled directly (outside of the silent majority standing up and demanding a change), but there are areas where legislation could protect our rights. A law at the state and federal level guaranteeing social platform access as a citizen’s civil rights would be one example of such legislation. This won’t be a total fix, but Congress has the power to curb much of what is taking place. Congress must act to protect our rights, but they are unlikely to do so until they feel the heat from their constituents—the people.
Ultimately, Congress can only act in response to public outrage. They effectively need public outrage to push legislation. That is why you always see a reinvigorated push for gun control right after mass shootings. True, the left is better at expressing outrage. The right has always been more interested in keeping to themselves, but we see where that has gotten us—to the cusp of social and economic tyranny. The electorate has to stand up and speak out against this erosion of our rights. We have to fight to prevent the establishment of our own opaque and amorphous version of the social credit score.
We cannot be enslaved by the technologies that are supposed to connect us. Enough is enough.
In this article:big tech, facebook, Featured, large
Is Google Voter Manipulation Real?
Written By Bradley Brewer
Bradley Brewer is a conservative writer and political contributor, currently working with New Right Network.
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News & Press: iBIO News
iBIO and E&Y unveil report that reveals Midwest as the most vibrant bioscience hub in the US
Posted by: Monique Velasquez
CHICAGO – iBIO President and CEO David Miller today announced that a new independent study has ranked the Midwest at the top of the nation’s biotechnology industry, and Illinois is at the core of the most vibrant bioscience hub in the United States. The announcement was made to the world biotechnology community at the BIO International Convention in Chicago and cites "The Economic Engine of Biotechnology in Illinois,” a new report from iBIO and the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition, conducted by Ernst & Young LLP.
"This comprehensive report by Ernst & Young quantifies the size and scope of our Illinois biotech sectors and their profound impact on job and tax contributions here,” said David Miller. "The report shows not only that Illinois is a remarkably diversified biotech powerhouse, but also that our state is at the heart of a Midwest region that easily holds its own with either coast.”
The report demonstrates that Illinois stands out as a significant player in the biotechnology industry in three ways. First, Illinois is at the core of the most vibrant bioscience cluster in the United States; second, biotechnology is a critical component and driver of the state’s economy; and third, the State of Illinois is committed to fueling this growth and advancing the biotechnology industry.
The Midwest Super Cluster, which includes Illinois and the surrounding eight-state region, surpasses California and the East Coast in biotechnology-related employment, number of establishments, and research and development expenditures according to "The Economic Engine of Biotechnology in Illinois.” The report, offers four key findings:
Within the Midwest Super Cluster there are more than 16,800 biotechnology establishments employing more than 377,900 people. By comparison, California has 7,500 biotechnology establishments that employ 230,000 people, and the East Coast cluster employs 253,000 among its approximately 7,100 biotechnology establishments.
The overall economic output of Illinois' biotechnology industry is more than $98.6 billion with 81,000 direct jobs and more than 3,500 biotechnology companies in the state. In fact, Illinois residents employed by biotechnology companies earn up to 91 percent more than the average Illinois resident. The biotechnology industry in Illinois has demonstrated the strongest revenue growth in recent years among all of the states analyzed in this study, an average annual growth of 13.3 percent.
During the past decade, the top seven universities in Illinois have steadily increased their research and development expenditures, creating new opportunities for biotech startups. Expenditures have nearly doubled since 2001, growing from $727 million to more than $1.3 billion.
The ability to secure early-stage funding is spurring innovation and growth among startup biotechnology companies in Illinois. Venture capital funding in Illinois has seen a 209 percent increase between 2009 and 2012.
"Ernst & Young is committed to helping the Midwest become one of the top biotechnology communities in the world,” said Ernst & Young’s Midwest Health Sciences Leader Jo Ellen Helmer. "To succeed, our region must continue to invest in the industry and increase collaboration and partnerships, as well as facilitate ongoing research, recruit the talent needed to ensure growth and emphasize the ease and ability to secure early-stage funding.”
Ernst & Young LLP conducted direct interviews with senior industry leaders throughout the Midwest region to create the report. Data was also gathered from reports by Battelle Memorial, information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Science Foundation, various university technology transfer offices, biotechnology organizations, publicly available data sources and reports, as well as proprietary databases. The nine-state Midwest Super Cluster includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin. Dan Shoenholz, a Principal in Ernst & Young’s Life Sciences Commercial Advisory Services Practice, led the study.
The full report may be viewed at www.ibio.org/illinoisbiotechreport.
About iBIO
iBIO, which commissioned the study, aims to make Illinois and the surrounding Midwest one of the world’s top life sciences centers, a great place to do business and a great place to grow new technology ventures. iBIO advocates for sound public policy at the local, state and federal levels, improves our region’s ability to create, attract and retain businesses, and orchestrates industry involvement to help restore America’s leadership in math and science education.
To learn more about iBIO and its programs, visit www.ibio.org.
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Central America and Mexico
Baskets and Ceramics
Prints and Works on Paper
Folk and Intuitive Art
Gifts $100-$250
Born in Duffield, VA., on the North Fork of the Clinch River, in 1911. In 1938 he moved to Clintwood, in the coal fields of far southwestern Virginia, to run his uncle's hardware store.
Fred Carter was the master of what artist, film-maker and writer Jack Wright (see reference below) has called "Appalachian Art Brut". A largely self-taught artist, Fred Carter did not turn to the wood sculpture for which he is known until he was in his fifties.
Carter was a retired Clintwood, Virginia hardware-store owner who could have rested on his laurels as a skilled and respected Appalachian wood-carver and stone-mason. Instead he chose to make trouble for himself by depicting Indians, refugees and historical figures ranging from Martin Luther King to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his work. Most notably, in both his sculpture and his paintings, he exposed the ravages of coal mining on both the miners and their environment: "Are you asking me how I felt when they began to tear up our mountains and rape the land and poison our streams and dry up our wells and springs?" (in conversation with writer Jack Wright in 1985, quoted in his article "Appalachian Art Brut: Reflections on the Life Works of Fred J. Carter" - Appalacahian Journal, Fall 2001). His work was his answer.
One of Fred Carter's most arresting works is his heroic larger than life-size figure of a coal miner, now installed at the Emory and Henry College library. He carries, besides his iconic helmet, lunch-pail, UMW bag and shovel, an iron lung on his chest. His ultimate work, also installed at Emory and Henry, is a janus-like figure of natural life and a mechanistic vision of death, called "The Final Battle".
Since his death in 1992 Carter has been honored by several retrospective exhibits, most notably Unrecognized Artists at the William King Regional Arts Center in Abingdon in 1997, and Fred Carter Retrospective: A Primitive Visionary's World View, curated by DR Mullins for the 1912 Gallery at Emory and Henry College., Emory, Virginia, in 2000.
In the fall of 2013 the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Md., devoted an entire gallery to Fred Carter's work as part of their year-long thematic exhibit, Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity!.
The work of Fred Carter is featured in the Summer 2014 issue of Raw Vision magazine with the article Appalachian Prophet by Len Davidson.
The works by Fred Carter on this page are shown courtesy of their owners. They are shown in the interest of honoring the legacy of this significant and under-appreciated artist. None of them are currently available for sale.
Related Exhibitions:
Appalachian Visionaries: Ollie Cox, Shawn Crookshank, D.R. Mullins and Fred J. Carter (1911 - 1992).
Related Web Gallery:
Appalachian Artists
Sorry, we are sold out of these items. Please check out the archive tab to view items we have sold.
SKU: FCA-2
Fred Carter (1911 - 1992, Clintwood, Virginia)
Currently on longterm loan to the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, and is exhibited as part of their permanent collection. It was the most spectacular piece in AVAM's 2014-2015 exhibit, "Human, Soul and Machine: The Coming Singularity". It was previously on exhibit at Emory and Henry College, Emory, Va.
Wood sculpture, c.1990
The "Last Battle", it's the final battle between good and evil. On the one side you see the agonized face of man as he's being destroyed and on the other side you see the face of... it speaks for itself. it could be a dehumanized person or robot with a touch of the military and the evil is represented by the snake, or serpent which is devouring them both, when evil gets so far along in any society its self-destructive, it feeds on itself. And it is clear that evil is winning.
Fred Carter, from 1985 interview.
SKU: FCA-04
Fred Carter (1911 - 1992, Clintwood, Virginia),
Not for Sale (private collection)
Currently on exhibit at Emory and Henry College, Emory, Va.
White walnut sculpture, c.1985
Quo Vadis was a big white walnut tree. Standing and had a big fork that stuck up. Came a March wind and blew it down. I saw a thing there on the ground just all stretched out. I just looked at that tree and I saw a crucified force there. And that very day I got my chain saw and I cut it big and I drug it up to the front of there and I went to work on it. And I saw that thing just while it was down. Where goest thou? He's a mutant and he's in great trouble. It seems like everything is crying out. What is evil and wasteful is man.
Behold my Miracle
Walnut sculpture
(55" x 20"), c.1980
I was back, at Easter (1980), in the mountains, and a fellow was sawing up firewood. Now this was part of a walnut log... cut down 40 or 50 years ago... There was a limb going up through here about 10 feet long... I said, “Don’t cut that up for wood... I see something in this that I want to make... I see a pregnant woman... So I brought it home and began to look at it... the wood began to talk to me and tell me what it is...
So I will probably call this Behold My Miracle. That’s what the mother is saying,... “Behold me in the greatest moment of the miracle.
Dual Portrait (Fred and Vickie Carter)
(18 1/2" x 9") 1985
(20 1/2" x 9 1/2")c.1980's
(18" x 9 1/2"), 1988
(24" x 30 1/2") c.1980's
Fred Carter at the William King Museum of Art
About Indigo Arts
Indigo Arts Gallery showcases the finest international folk and contemporary art. Regular exhibitions feature Haitian paintings, sculpture and vodou flags, Mexican prints and paintings, Nicaraguan "primitivista" paintings, Cuban self-taught artists, Indian folk paintings, West African barbershop signboards and African and Oceanic sculpture.
Indigo Arts Gallery
Crane Arts Building, Suite 408
1400 N. American St.
By appointment or by chance.
HOURS BY APPOINTMENT OR BY CHANCE
All photographs and text Copyright Indigo Arts Gallery, LLC., 1998-2020. Use without permission prohibited. Web hosting and development: Oculeum, LLC
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Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi is Special Adviser for international affairs to Pakistan’s largest media conglomerate, the Jang/Geo Group. She served as Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US (1993 – 1996, 1999 – 2002) and as High Commissioner to Britain (2003 – 2008). She served as a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Affairs from 2001 to 2005. She was the first woman in all of Asia to become the editor of a national newspaper. In 1994 Time magazine nominated her as one of a hundred people in the world who will help shape the 21st century, the only one from Pakistan. Dr. Lodhi is a member of the Council of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, a member of the Senate of Pakistan’s National Defense University, serves on the advisory board of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics and is a member of the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum. Dr. Lodhi was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington in 2010 and a Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School in 2008. She is the recipient of the President’s award of Hilal-e-Imtiaz for Public Service in Pakistan. She is the author of two books: Pakistan’s Encounter with Democracy and The External Challenge. Her latest book, an edited volume titled Pakistan: Beyond the ‘Crisis State,’ was published in 2011
Dr. Farzana Shaikh is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London and a Fellow of the Asian Studies Centre at St Antony’s College, Oxford. She has published widely on Pakistan and the intellectual history of South Asian Islam, and held lectureships in the UK, the US and Europe. Her books include Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860-1947 (1989, 2012) and Making Sense of Pakistan (2009), which was selected by Outlook India in 2014 as one of ‘100 Best Books of All Time’ and by The Guardian in 2010 as one of four ‘essential books’ on Pakistan for Prime Minister Cameron’s government. Her new work explores the politics of Sufism in Pakistan. She is a frequent media commentator on Pakistan and has testified before the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. Born and largely educated in Pakistan, she has a Ph.D. from Columbia University, New York and is a former Research Fellow of Clare Hall Cambridge.
Mr. Moeed Yusuf is the South Asia adviser at the United States Institute of Peace Center in the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention and is responsible for managing the Institute’s Pakistan program. Yusuf will be engaged in expanding USIP’s work on Pakistan to cover aspects that remain critical for the U.S. and Pakistan to better understand the other’s interests and priorities. His current research focuses on youth and democratic institutions in Pakistan, and policy options to mitigate militancy in the country.
Dr. Hassan Abbas is Professor of International Security Studies at National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs. He is also currently a Senior Advisor at Asia Society and a non-resident fellow at Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. He remained a Senior Advisor at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (2009-2011), after having been a Research Fellow at the Center from 2005-2009. He was the Distinguished Quaid-i-Azam Chair Professor at Columbia University before joining CISA and has previously held fellowships at Harvard Law School and Asia Society in New York . In his authoritative and highly readable account, The Taliban Revival, Dr. Hassan Abbas examines how the Taliban not only survived but adapted to their situation in order to regain power and political advantage.
Ms. Huma Yusuf is a South Asia political risk consultant, media researcher, and digital strategist, and an award-winning Pakistani journalist and policy analyst. She writes for Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper and the International New York Times. She is a Global Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington D.C., and was the Pakistan Scholar there in 2010-11. She is writing a book on the impact of Pakistan’s independent media on politics, extremism, and foreign policy. Huma has contributed policy and security analysis on Pakistan and Afghanistan for think tanks such as the United States Institute of Peace (Washington D.C.), the Jinnah Institute (Islamabad), and the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center (Oslo). She has also conducted extensive media policy research for organisations such as Open Society Foundations and BBC Media Action.
Dr. Walter Anderson recently retired as chief of the U.S. State Department’s South Asia Division in the Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia; held other key positions within the State Department, including special assistant to the ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and member of the Policy Planning Staff in Washington, D.C.; previously taught at the University of Chicago and the College of Wooster; current research involves Hindu nationalism and India’s assertive foreign policy in the Indian Ocean and its littoral; Ph.D., political science, University of Chicago.
Dr. Ayesha Jalal is the Mary Richardson Professor of History at Tufts University where she teaches at both the History Department and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She obtained her BA, majoring in History and Political Science, from Wellesley College, USA, and her doctorate in history from the University of Cambridge. Dr Jalal has been Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1980-84), Leverhulme Fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge (1984-87).
Professor Touqir Hussain is a former senior diplomat from Pakistan, having served as Ambassador to Brazil, Spain and Japan. He also held senior positions in the Pakistani Foreign Office, including that of Additional Foreign Secretary heading the bureaus of the Middle East and of the Americas and Europe. From 1996 to 1998, he was the Diplomatic Adviser to the Prime Minister. He is Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and the Syracuse University (Washington, D.C., campus). Earlier he also taught at the University of Virginia. He also was a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace from 2004 to 2005, and a Research Fellow with the Center for the Study of Globalization at the George Washington University from 2006 to 2010.
Dr. Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is a Pakistani nuclear physicist, essayist, and defense analyst. He has also taught at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) where he worked on topics in theoretical applications in the topological insulators, various Hall effects, and Graphene. Dr Hoodbhoy has been professor of nuclear and high-energy physics, and also the head of the Physics Department at the Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU). He graduated and received a PhD from MIT and continues to do research in Particle physics. He received the Baker Award for Electronics in 1968, and the Abdus Salam Prize for Mathematics in 1984. He has authored various books and scientific research papers. Dr. Hoodbhoy is a prominent social activist and regularly writes on a wide range of social, cultural and environmental issues.
Dr. Marvin G. Weinbaum is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and served as analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research from 1999 to 2003. He is currently a scholar-in-residence and Director of the Pakistan Center at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC. Professor Weinbaum has his doctorate from Columbia University in 1965, his MA from the University of Michigan in 1958, and his BA from Brooklyn College in 1957. Dr. Weinbaum has been the recipient of research awards from the Social Science Research Council, the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, IREX, the American Political Science Association, and other granting agencies. Dr. Weinbaum has also written more than 100 book chapters and professional journal articles, mostly about Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, but also on Egypt and Turkey. Dr. Weinbaum’s recent publications focus on U.S.-Pakistan relations, Pakistan’s political future, state building and the security challenges in Afghanistan and ties between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Michael Kugelman is the Asia Program Deputy Director and Senior Associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center, where he is responsible for research, programming, and publications on the region. His main specialty is Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan and U.S. relations with each of them. Mr. Kugelman writes monthly columns for Foreign Policy’s South Asia Channel and monthly commentaries for War on the Rocks. He also contributes regular pieces to the Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank blog. He has published op-eds and commentaries in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Politico, CNN.com, Bloomberg View, The Diplomat, Al Jazeera, and The National Interest, among others. He has been interviewed by numerous major media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Guardian, Christian Science Monitor, National Geographic, BBC, CNN, NPR, and Voice of America. Mr. Kugelman received his M.A. in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He received his B.A. from American University’s School of International Service.
Raza Ahmed Rumi is is a Pakistani policy analyst, journalist and an author. Currently, he is visiting faculty at Ithaca College and Cornell Institute for Public Affairs. Raza is Editor, Daily Times, one of Pakistan’s national newspapers. Earlier he was an editor at The Friday Times, a liberal weekly paper for nearly a decade. He is also a columnist at Express Tribune and contributes to several publications across the world. Earlier, he worked in broadcast media as a leading commentator and hosted talk shows at Capital TV and Express News. He was a Director at Jinnah Institute, a public policy think tank and Executive Director of Justice Network- a coalition of NGOs.He is author of ‘Delhi by Heart’ and ‘The Fractious Path: Pakistan’ Democratic Transition published by Harper Collins (2013 and 2016 respectively). In March 2014, he survived an assassination attempt in Pakistan in which his driver died. Shortly thereafter, he left Pakistan and has been affiliated with New America Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, the National Endowment for Democracy. He is a research fellow at Berkley Centre for Religion, Peace and World Affairs and The Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, Cornell University.
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February 11, 2016 in News
The Buck Stops Here: Obama’s challenge to Muslim Americans begins at home (COMMENTARY)
This essay was republished by the Washington Post on February 11, 2016.
By Athar Javaid | Religion News Service
“Right now, many Muslim Americans are worried because threats and harassment against their community are on the rise,” President Obama recently wrote in a commentary for Religion News Service. “We’ve seen Muslim Americans assaulted, children bullied and mosques vandalized, and we’ve heard shameful political rhetoric against Muslim Americans that has no place in our country.”
The president’s words recognize higher levels of anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence in America, the intensification of an Islamophobia that spiked after 9/11.
On one hand, American society is conflating Islam with the group that calls itself the Islamic State and reacting to Muslims in a way reminiscent of its 1940s internment of ethnic Japanese. On the other hand, there is concern that acts of radical Islamic fundamentalists present a threat to the nation.
A nonexhaustive list of such events might start in 2009, when 13 people were killed and 30 were wounded by a lone gunman at Fort Hood, Texas. In May 2010, a car bomb was poised to go off in New York’s Times Square. Recently, two shooters killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif. — the latest tragedy among a number far too large.
There is fair and growing angst within American society about the behavior and treatment of Muslims. But the greater concern should be the emergence of a vicious cycle arcing from fear, to grievance, to violence.
Are we already spiraling? While the 9/11 hijackers were foreign nationals, those behind more recent attacks are often American-born or naturalized citizens. Many grew up in this country and even earned college degrees by virtue of their U.S. citizenship.
To prevent similar events in the future, we may be inclined to ask of past perpetrators: “Were you motivated entirely by religious radicalization, or was your anger sparked by mistreatment and disenfranchisement?” Whatever the answer, the required response will involve the Muslim community, a part of which has shown little inclination to address the problem of the radicalized within it.
We’re seeing now that events like those since 2009 make victims of survivors as well as the deceased. Muslim communities in North America and around the globe mourn alongside the bereaved, but with their grief there is also the fear that all who practice Islam will come to be perceived as terrorists. The natural reaction is to turn inward, and as current events show, it is reasonable for Muslims to be fearful.
But it is also reasonable to believe that homegrown terrorist attacks can be prevented, and if we are learning anything, it’s that the best opportunity — and the responsibility — to do so begins at home — first with immediate family members and then friends, co-workers, community members and religious leaders. It ends with law enforcement authorities.
What can Muslims do to break the cycle of violence and Islamophobia?
Work within Muslim communities to identify extremism and radicalization before it culminates in violence. Uniting a community under a common goal can turn strangers into friends and make the communities warmer, more vigilant and safer for everyone. Neighborhood and community watches do this already and are organized for the same purposes — safety and crime prevention. A well-run program can achieve greater socialization, spot early signs of concern and effectively prevent crime without abandoning personal privacy.
American society is made stronger and more resilient when it is a community of overlapping communities and when responsibilities are shared.
“You are not Muslim or American. You are Muslim and American,” Obama said in his RNS commentary, echoing a recent speech at a Maryland mosque. It is as much a statement of fact as it is a challenge, and in both cases, it begins at home.
Athar Javaid is president of INDUS — Mobilizing People’s Power, a Washington, D.C.-registered 501(c)3 tax-exempt think tank and advocacy group dedicated to a progressive and politically stable Pakistan, strong U.S.-Pakistan relations and community integration and civic promotion in the United States. INDUS has no political affiliations in the United States or political ambitions in Pakistan.
Throwing A Challenge to the Elites of Pakistan
Case in Point: An Illuminating example of grass roots leadership
Pathways to Change Pakistan Policy Symposium
INDUS Youth Leadership Initiative
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Mini Biography of Jaime Coker & Trisha Sanders
Pop Culture Artists
Jaime Coker is a self taught artist and illustrator who overcame a difficult childhood to follow his dream of becoming an artist. Due to his ongoing struggles with illness as a child, physical restrictions spurred his desire to draw and create. He would often be fascinated with the cartoons, movies, tv shows, and toys that he saw around him.
Soon after arriving in Hawaii at age 10, he and his family were separated, beginning his tenure in the Hawaii foster care system. Despite these circumstances, he never lost faith to focus on the positive aspects of life and his dream of becoming an artist, drawing and sketching whenever the opportunity presented itself.
While in Hawaii, Jaime met his wife Trisha. Trisha was also artistically inclined and a creative individual in her own right. After relocating to Minnesota, Jaime reestablished contact with his family. Shortly after, Jaime’s brother passed away. Following his encouragement and in his memory, Jaime returned to school to get his MBA and worked harder on improving his artwork.
In Fall of 2016, Jaime and Trisha were presented with an opportunity to exhibit their artwork at a local comic convention. The experience was life-changing, and spurred a love of conventions and talking to attendees not only about their artwork, but about their fandoms and their favorite pop culture related tv shows, movies, comic books, etc.
Hence, Jaime Coker Creations was fully born, the result of a long standing love of art, pop culture, people, and following your heart. The company specializes in pop culture representation and “mashing up” the beloved icons therein to create new works of art. Many of the commissions undertaken by Jaime and Trisha include creating original mashups and also taking fans and transforming them into their favorite fantasy, science fiction, or comic book heroes. “Celebrate your fandom” is not only a motto, but also a way of life!
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Home International News Licypriya Kangujam met with The President of Namibia
Licypriya Kangujam met with The President of Namibia
New Delhi: Licypriya Kangujam, a 7 years-old Indian schoolgirl & climate activist from Manipur met with The President of Namibia Mr. Hage Geingob in the sideline of UNESCO Partners’ Forum yesterday in Luanda, Angola. She addresses various concerns about environmental changes in Namibia specially water scarcity due to climate change and also to enact a climate change law in his country at the earliest. She also urge the world leader to plant more trees as an ultimate solution to fight the climate change.
She also met with the President of Angola Mr. João Lourenço, Mr. Ibrahim Kieta, President of Mali, Mr. Denis NGUESSO, President of The Republic of Congo, First Lady of Angola Ms. Ana Lourenco, First Lady of Namibia Ms. Monica Geingos, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2018 Mr. Denis Mukwege, UNESCO Director General Ms. Audrey Azoulay, President of the African Union & Former Prime Minister of Chad Mr. Moussa Faki Mahamat, Football star & Chelsea Striker Mr. Didier Drogba and many other great personalities on first day of her visit to this African country for the first time.
She draws the attention of the World leaders on the global climate crisis and appeal for their immediate action to combat the rising sea level, air & plastics pollution, land desertification, natural disasters, etc.
She said, “As a kid, I have to go to school and read my books. But when our future is at stake, I feel its not a wise decision to sit in the class and read about mathematics, science and environment. I need to raise my voice to save our future before it’s too late to all world leaders. You may not have much impact now but it will be on your own children and grandchildren. Don’t keep our future at stake. Act Now.”
“I can already see the effects of global warming in my country. “Internally displaced peoples, farmer–herdsmen clashes, insecurity — all driven by climate change,” she says. “Also, the increase in food price, floods sweeping away farmers′ land, droughts affecting the yield of crops, and excessive rainfall.”, she added.
“I’m 7 years old, going into my senior year in high school, and I am growing up in a world whose life systems are unraveling. In 10 years, I’ll be 17. My life will just be beginning when the world is ending. It is not fair to my entire generation that we are inheriting this monstrosity of a problem. It’s hard enough trying to grow up and live your life, let alone inherit this crisis that makes it so your future will be full of chaos and disaster.” says Licypriya.
On 20th September, she will also participate in the Global Climate Strike in front of the National Assembly of Angola with her supporters and other fellow young climate activist of the world in support of Ms. Greta Thunberg, Swedish Climate Activist. Main event will be at UN Headquarter, New York. This will be the first climate movement in Angola going to be initiated under her leadership to ignite young minds of children and youth of Angola to take concern on Climate Change.
It can be noted that Angola is contributing 3.09% of the Green House Gas emissions growth in global index and also already loss over 50% of its forest land and now remaining only 46.40% due to huge population growth. climate change in Angola will potentially impact four key sectors in the country: water resources, agriculture, fisheries, and human health.
Climate variability and change are likely to exacerbate many ongoing challenges as Angola continues to recover from nearly three decades of civil war. Extreme rainfall events and temperature changes are expanding the range and transmission period for disease vectors.
Sea level rise is placing coastal populations (approximately 50 percent of the total population) and infrastructure at risk of inundation and storm surge. Warming oceans combined with overfishing will continue to stress marine resources and threaten coastal livelihoods. Already food insecure, Angola’s dependence on food imports and small-scale subsistence farming leave it particularly vulnerable to increased temperatures and rainfall variability which can impact crop yields, reduce livestock productivity, and expand the range of agricultural pests.
On 27th September, she is organizing a massive climate protest in front of the Parliament House of India with hundreds of children with their parents and environmentalists. She wrote in her twitter, “Parents must come out with their children to save our future.”
Prof Sir David King, Former Chief Scientists of UK says BBC, he’s been scared by the number of extreme events, and he called for the UK to advance its climate targets by 10 years.
But the UN’s weather chief said using words like “scared” could make young people depressed and anxious.
Campaigners argue that people won’t act unless they feel fearful.
Prof King, a former chief scientific adviser to the government, said: “It’s appropriate to be scared. We predicted temperatures would rise, but we didn’t foresee these sorts of extreme events we’re getting so soon.”
He said the world had changed faster than generally predicted in the fifth assessment report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2014.
He referred especially to the loss of land ice and sea ice, and to the weather extremes in which he said warming probably played a role.
The physicist Prof Jo Haigh from Imperial College London said: “David King is right to be scared – I’m scared too.”
“We do the analysis, we think what’s going to happen, then publish in a very scientific way.
“Then we have a human response to that… and it is scary.”
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Homelj2019-09-20T12:35:20+00:00
James Thornton Harris is an independent historian, essayist, and journalist.
He began his career as a daily newspaper reporter and worked at The Sacramento Bee, The Press Democrat, the Santa Cruz Sentinel and The Ukiah Daily Journal.
He is a regular contributor to the History News Network and his work has appeared in many publications including Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, Heirs, New West, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Latest Published Articles & Essays
Great Britain’s Secret Role in Prodding a Reluctant U.S. to Superpower Status
By lj|2019-12-31T22:42:34+00:00December 30th, 2019|
Remembering Altamont, the Day the Sixties Died
By lj|2019-12-31T22:39:36+00:00December 1st, 2019|
Distinguished Soldier and Statesman
By lj|2019-12-31T22:42:23+00:00October 13th, 2019|
San Francisco History Museum Highlights America’s First Immigration Restriction: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
By jth|2019-09-20T12:07:14+00:00September 19th, 2019|
A Fresh Take on Watergate Illuminates the Present
Racism in America: What We Can Learn from Germany’s Struggle with Its Own Evil History
The Troubled Legacy of the CIA’s Top Counter-Spy
By jth|2019-09-20T12:14:26+00:00April 11th, 2019|
The Life and Death of Marie Colvin
Beschloss’ Presidents of War Overlooks Jackson’s Indian Genocide
Identity and the Politics of Resentment
By jth|2019-09-20T12:17:13+00:00October 23rd, 2018|
California: State of Resistance
How The Blue Wall Crumbled
Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made
Looking at World War 1 With a Contemporary Lens
When Mexico Feared U.S. Immigrants
How Charlottesville, S.C., Whitewashed its History of Slavery
Who Qualifies as a Founding Father?
What do North Korea and Colonial Virginia Have in Common?
Copyright © James Harris. Website by Lisa
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Education through lifelong learning is one of the essential functions of our government. There is an inscription on the exterior of the Boston Public Library which I view every day from my office window. It states simply and succinctly that “THE COMMONWEALTH REQUIRES THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE AS THE SAFEGUARD OF ORDER AND LIBERTY”. And fifty seven years ago in Brown v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court said:
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.
That inscription and court case promote strong images and words. They are central to the notion of self-governance and are a significant piece of our generational responsibility to create educational, economic and social opportunities for young people. And that’s why I have and will continue to work to enhance the educational offerings to students of all ages in Franklin and Medway. From our early childhood development centers to our senior centers, and everything in between, we must promote education.
In America, education has historically been left in the hands of local communities. It’s part of the idea that the governance of education is best done at the local level, where the parents, teachers, administrators, and students are intimately more aware of the needs of their schools. Indeed since colonial times, Massachusetts required the towns to maintain a system of public schools. The statute of 1647 — which is the precursor to G. L. c. 71, Section 1 — required every town with fifty or more householders to appoint a schoolmaster in the town “to teach all such Children as shall resort to him to Write and Read,” and every town of one hundred or more householders or families to “set up a Grammar School, the Master thereof being able to Instruct Youth so far as they may be fitted for the University.”
In the 1830s and 1840s, a young man proposed a new system called common schools that would serve all boys and girls, and teach a common body of knowledge that would give each student an equal chance in life. He said:
It is a free school system, it knows no distinction of rich and poor…It throws open its doors and spreads the table of its bounty for all the children of the state….Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the equalizer of the conditions of men, the great balance wheel of the social machinery.
That man was Horace Mann. And was born here in the 10th Norfolk District in Franklin. In Massachusetts, the education of our youth continues to be our primary obligation. Our state rightfully has high expectations for performance in our schools. And along those ends, attracting and retaining the best and brightest teachers in our local public school systems has been one of the top priorities for me. As a State Representative, I will work to support those efforts.
Massachusetts has always been a community with high expectations for its schools – in academics, in athletics, in the arts and in community service. In my years with the School Committee, our focus on the classroom delivered a consistently high-performing school district. Students and parents here enjoy a high return with minimal investment. Our children face an increasingly competitive and demanding world. We must continue to invest in their future. We should do everything in its power to bolster that commitment and strengthen our education system. I will bring that commitment with me to Beacon Hill.
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Archive for the ‘Barbery, Muriel (2)’ Category
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery
Purchased at Chapters.ca
Translated from the French by Alison Anderson
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is one of those intriguing publishing success stories that come along every year or two, riding a wave of word-of-mouth support onto bestseller lists. A check at amazon.com today shows it at #111 overall and #22 in literary fiction, impressive numbers for a book that has been out for more than 18 months. I’m willing to bet that a lot of book clubs are reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog this year — and part of me can understand why.
Those kind of novels are not my normal fare, but I do venture into the territory occasionally (and not just in prize competitions). Actually, with Muriel Barbery it started out as an inadvertent detour — I picked up Gourmet Rhapsody (reviewed here) a few months ago since its premise (the death of a miserable food critic) interested me. I assumed it was Barbery’s second novel, but a helpful correction in comments from Claire set me right: second translated into English, but first in the writing. This book is novel number two for the author.
The “hedgehog” of the title is 54-year-old Renee Michel:
For twenty-seven years I have been the concierge at number 7, rue de Grenelle, a fine hotel particulier with a courtyard and private gardens, divided into eight luxury apartments, all of which are inhabited, all of which are immense. I am a widow, I am short, ugly and plump, I have bunions on my feet and, if I am to credit certain early mornings of self-inflicted disgust, the breath of a mammoth. I did not go to college, I have always been poor, discreet, and insignificant.
Because I am rarely friendly — though always polite — I am not liked, but am tolerated nonetheless: I correspond so very well to what social prejudice has collectively construed to be a typical French concierge that I am one of the multiple cogs that make the great universal illusion turn, the illusion according to which life has a meaning that can be easily deciphered.
The narrative stream centred on Mme Michel is told in the first person and it does not take long to discover that she does not regard her concierge’s small loge as a prison cell, but rather a castle. She has chosen isolation as a form of protection and is quite happy to have only one friend, a Portugese cleaning lady in the same building who stops by each day for tea. While born a peasant, she is intelligent and has an aptitude for self-education — she is well read, knows her philosophers and her music. The wealthy residents of the building are more than willing to treat her as a grumpy, if polite, servant and that suits Renee’s purpose just fine.
The second narrative stream of the book features Paloma Josse, the twelve-and-a-half-year-old daughter of one of the resident families — her father is a former government minister. She hates her older sister, mother and father (pretty much in that order) and all that they represent:
We are, basically, programmed to believe in something that doesn’t exist, because we are living creatures; we don’t want to suffer. So we spend all our energy persuading ourselves that there are things that are worthwhile and that that is why life has meaning. I may be very intelligent, but I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to struggle against this biological tendency. When I join the adults in the rat race, will I still be able to confront this feeling of absurdity? I don’t think so. That is why I’ve made up my mind: at the end of the school year, on the day I turn thirteen, June sixteenth, I will commit suicide.
Before taking her leave, however, Paloma intends to complete two sets of documents: Profound Thoughts and Journal of the Movement of the World.
Her story is also told in the first person in the form of these documents. As a reader you have to be willing to accept that this pre-teen is wise well beyond her years — I found it difficult at times, but was willing to give the author licence.
In fact, that contrast of two individuals of significantly different ages who have chosen isolation as their place in the world is the strongest part of the book. Renee’s choice was made because of a traumatic family incident in childhood — while she never actually says it “no good comes from trying to rise above your station” would pretty much sum up her world view. Barbery is less clear with Paloma’s motivation: the trauma of approaching adulthood is probably the best explanation.
Of course, for the novel to go anywhere these two characters are going to have to be engaged with the world. That comes with the arrival of Kakuro Ozu as a new resident in the building — he is a Japanese film director whose work Renee knows well. It isn’t a spoiler to say that the three eventually form a bond but I’ll leave those details out.
For this reader, The Elegance of the Hedgehog is not without its problems. The choice of June 16 (that would be Bloomsday) as Paloma’s birth-death date provides one illustration. Renee’s cat is named Leo (after Tolstoy); Ozu’s are Levin and Kitty. Barbery spends most of her time in Japan now so there is a whole set of Japanese references that passed me right by. My issue is that the author uses these as a kind of literacy legitimacy checklist (“did you get the one about whomever” I am sure is a frequent book club observation) rather than to add depth to the story. They arrive with often clumsy frequency and start to very much get in the way of the better parts of the book.
A more serious problem is that Barbery uses her parallel first-person narratives as an excuse to explore ideas about Art, Beauty and Meaning (she doesn’t always use capital letters, but often does). While that is a laudable objective, most of them do tend to read like the thoughts of a concierge or pre-teen, which is what probably made the capital letters necessary. Again, things to be talked about after you have read the book but, for me at least, not much food for thought.
All of which leaves me reacting to this novel very much in the way that I did to Gourmet Rhapsody. Parts of it are quite good and that central theme of isolation is attractive. Barbery writes originally in French and is more than competent at creating those wonderful, cascading sentences that distinguish French fiction. Unfortunately, too often the book wanders into muddy diversions that add little and leave one waiting for them to end.
I am somewhat surprised to see this book on the IMPAC shortlist, given their recent winners. The last four — Man Gone Down, DeNiro’s Game, Out Stealing Horses and The Master — all come from a much edgier part of the literary world than this novel. While I can certainly understand why many readers like this book very much (even if I am not as enthusiastic), I would be very surprised if the jury agrees with that assessment. Of course, I have been wrong before.
Posted in Author, Barbery, Muriel (2) | 16 Comments »
Gourmet Rhapsody, by Muriel Barbery
Having already confessed a fondness for “school” novels (see here), the time has also now come to admit an equal KfC weakness for “foodie” fiction books that take an ominous turn (not surprising for KfC, I guess — please visit my chicken franchise if you get the chance). John Lanchester’s A Debt to Pleasure has been a favorite for a while. Even better for me (and far less well known) is Timothy Taylor’s Stanley Park, where a brilliant young chef plays a marvelous hoax. And yes, the Stanley Park of the title is the same one that you have been seeing on your television screens from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver if you have been watching that. I obviously have, given the lack of posts here, and may well revisit Taylor’s novel once the Games are over.
All of which is a lengthy introduction to why Muriel Barbery’s Gourmet Rhapsody hit my reading list, despite some of the grumpy professional reviews it received when the translation appeared last summer. Pierre Arthens, the world’s greatest food critic, has been told that he has 48 hours or less to live and, as he faces his demise, he discovers a challenge:
I am going to die and there is a flavor that has been teasing my taste buds and my heart and I simply cannot recall it. I know that this particular flavor is the first and ultimate truth of my entire life, and that it holds the key to a heart that I have since silenced. I know that it is a flavor from childhood or adolesence, an original, marvelous dish that predates my vocation as a critic, before I had any desire or pretension to expound on my pleasure in eating. A forgotten flavor, lodged in my deepest self, and which has surfaced at the twilight of my life as the only truth ever told — or realized. I search, and cannot find.
Gourmet Rhapsody is structured with two story lines, told in alternating chapters. The critic’s search for his forgotten flavor is one of them and it provides a very useful device that allows Barbery to describe food, eating and tasting of an incredible range. There is a fair bit of fancy stuff described but don’t let that put you off because many of the memories come from childhood. Consider this introduction of one of his first foodie memories:
I cannot pinpoint exactly my first gastronomic ecstasies but there is no doubt as to the identity of my first preferred cook: my own grandmother. On the menu for celebrations there was meat in gravy, potatoes in gravy, and the wherewithal to mop up all that gravy. I never knew, subsequently, whether it was my childhood or the stews themselves that I was unable to re-experience, but never again have I sampled as fervently (I am the specialist of such oxymorons) as at my grandmother’s table the like of those potates: bursting with gravy, delectable little sponges. Might the forgotten taste throbbing in my breast be hidden somewhere in there? Might it suffice to ask Anne [his wife] to let a few tubers marinate in the juices of a traditional coq au vin?
The second narrative stream is not about food at all. We learn immediately that the critic is a complete and utter cad and has been for all of his adult life. Totally obsessed with his reputation and his interest in food, he mistreats his wife, regards his children as “imbeciles” and treats everyone around him (save a sycophant nephew) with contempt. The narrators for this stream are a succession of characters he has abused (wife, children, grandchildren, beggars) who respond in kind and a couple he has not (a dog and a cat). Wife Anna pretty much sums up this side of his character:
I have always known what sort of life we would lead together. From the very first day, I could see that for him, far away from me, there would be banquets, and other women, and the career of a charmer with insane, miraculous talent; a prince, a lord constantly hunting outside his own walls, a man who, from one year to the next, would become ever more distant, would no longer even see me, would pierce my haunted soul with his falcon’s eyes in order to embrace a view that was beyond my sight. I always knew this and it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered were the times when he came back, and he always came back, and that was enough for me, I would be the woman to whom one returns unfailingly, however absentmindedly and vaguely.
So how does all of this land? For me — and remember I confess my foodie bias — that stream works quite well. In addition to childhood memories, there are a couple of wonderful descriptions of simple picnics, the narrator’s first experience with Scotch whisky and even persuasive dramatic tension as the narrator begins to come closer and closer to remembering that “forgotten flavor”.
The other narrative stream is far less successful. The narrator is such a complete bastard in the way that he treats other people that their memory of him becomes quite predictable and, frankly, not very interesting. While Barbery manages to successfully develop the search for a flavor, there is no tension at all in this side of the story. I found myself almost skimming those chapters as the novel approached its conclusion.
Barbery’s first book, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, (which I have not read) was a bestseller that attracted substantial critical acclaim — three pages of review excerpts of it introduce my volume of Gourmet Rhapsody. This slim volume (156 pages of smallish, well-spaced type) certainly does not seem to meet that standard. (EDIT: Thanks to a comment from Claire, I now realize that this book is Barbery’s first, although her second in English translation. If you check the comments, I think you will agree that that makes a difference in evaluating it.)
Yet, for a foodie reader, it was still a worthwhile experience and, unusually for a not-very-good book, does get much better as it approaches its end. Barbery has a very nice touch of humor in many of those late sections (I haven’t quoted an example because any would be a spoiler). If you don’t like reading about food, give the book a miss. Even if you do, I’d still say both A Debt to Pleasure and Stanley Park are better reads. On the other hand, given the limited number of “foodie” novels that are available, Gourmet Rhapsody is an entertaining diversion. Alas, it is not much more.
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PGA Legend
TRAVELS FROM: Texas
One of the most successful American golfers of his era, Ben Crenshaw has two major championships, nineteen PGA Tour wins and four international titles. His inspirational and motivational skills were stunningly demonstrated in 1999 as he captained the victorious US Ryder Cup team (a team he played for four times). That same year he was given the PGA’s highest honor, the Bobby Jones Award for sportsmanship in golf.Although Ben still plays golf on the senior tour he has branched out into golf course architecture with his own firm, Coore & Crenshaw. Together with Bill Corre he has designed and built some of the best new courses in America, including The Sand Hills in Nebraska, The Plantation Course in Hawaii, Friars Head in New York and Bandon Trails in Oregon. Ben is available for corporate golf outings or to share his inspirational stories of motivation and leadership in a more formal setting
en Crenshaw won his first tournament in the fourth grade with a score of 96. At fifteen, he won the state junior tournament and in 1968 he took his first national title at the Jaycees Junior Championship. Throughout college Crenshaw's sole concentration was on golf. However, he hesitated to join the professional tour before finishing his studies because he wanted a college degree in case his golfing skills failed him. After clinching his third NCAA title in 1973, and winning ten other championships that year, Crenshaw could no longer resist the temptation to turn pro. In August of 1973, he officially qualified as a PGA professional.
Few players in the history of golf have made a more auspicious debut than Ben Crenshaw. In just six weeks on the tour, he captured $79,749 in prize money, including winning the very first PGA Tour event he entered, the San Antonio-Texas Open. Crenshaw's seemingly effortless game and easy-going manner soon garnered him the respect of the other pros and over the years earned him the nickname "Gentle Ben." In 1991, Crenshaw received the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor the United States Golf Association bestows upon its members. The award was especially meaningful for Crenshaw since Bobby Jones had always been his idol and model in the game. Crenshaw will always be remembered for his emotional victory in the 1995 Masters Tournament. With the passing of his teacher and close friend, Harvey Penick, during Masters week, Crenshaw returned to Augusta and somehow won his second Masters..and secured his place in golf history. In late 1997, Crenshaw was honored by the PGA of America by being named Captain of the 1999 American Ryder Cup Team. Crenshaw and the American team went on to an emotional victory in the 1999 Ryder Cup.
Golf from the Heart: Strategies for Success
The Fundamentals of Winning
Team Building and Poise Under Pressure
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John Kenagy, MD
Authority on Disruptive Innovation as a New Healthcare Strategy; Author, Designed to Adapt: Leading Healthcare in Challenging Times
TRAVELS FROM: Washington
Dr. John Kenagy knows healthcare as a physician, executive, academic researcher and advisor. In addition to his clinical experience as a vascular surgeon, he has been Chief of Surgery, Chief of Staff and Regional Vice President for Business Development in a not-for-profit healthcare system. But, his most meaningful experience was becoming a patient. His frustration with current methods was fueled by an injury – he suffered a broken neck in a fall from a tree. Critically injured, he discovered that his recovery depended on the efforts of dedicated individuals working in an unpredictable and often unresponsive system. Searching for new answers, he became a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School. His research included developing disruptive innovation healthcare strategy with Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen and translating to healthcare the drivers of success in resilient, highly adaptive companies like Toyota, Intel and Apple.
Dr. John Kenagy knows healthcare as a physician, executive, academic researcher and advisor. In addition to his clinical experience as a vascular surgeon, he has been Chief of Surgery, Chief of Staff and Regional Vice President for Business Development in a not-for-profit healthcare system. But, his most meaningful experience was becoming a patient.
His frustration with current methods was fueled by an injury – he suffered a broken neck in a fall from a tree. Critically injured, he discovered that his recovery depended on the efforts of dedicated individuals working in an unpredictable and often unresponsive system.
Searching for new answers, he became a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School. His research included developing disruptive innovation healthcare strategy with Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen and translating to healthcare the drivers of success in resilient, highly adaptive companies like Toyota, Intel and Apple.
The result is Adaptive Design®, a clinically intelligent, self-sustaining system for rapidly developing, doing and improving patient-centered care within and across disciplines.
His contributions have been widely recognized:
– Visiting Scholar, Harvard Business School
– Clinical Professor of Surgery, University of Washington
– Adjunct Professor of Pharmacy and Therapeutics, University of Pittsburgh
– His best-selling book Designed to Adapt: Leading Healthcare in Challenging Times was named Healthcare Management Book of the Year by the – American College of Healthcare Executives
– Forbes Magazine featured Kenagy as “the man who would save healthcare.”
Value-Driven Care: How to Rapidly Provide More Care for Less Cost
Patient Experience: Partner to Meet Patient Needs Ideally
Sense, Respond, Adapt: Manage the Unpredictable in Real-Time
How to Design, Do and Improve Across the Care Continuum
Culture: Build Physician and Staff Accountability to Thrive at the Point-of-Care
Centers of Value and Excellence: CoVE’s and the Future of Healthcare
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THE GOOD POPE
Saints / June 2016 / 0 Comments
Submitted by admin on 20 November 2018
We look at the life of a humble loving priest who rose from poverty to become Pope. This popular and well loved pontiff, acting on the promptings of the holy spirit, changed the way that we worship today.
In October 1962 Pope John XXIII (23rd) opened the Second Vatican Council. He invited 2,450 Cardinals, Bishops, advisors, and consultants from around the world to the Vatican for a series of meetings that took place over three years. This gathering produced sixteen documents that have been described as the greatest expressions of Catholic teaching the world has ever known. These documents had a major impact on the Catholic Church and were the legacy that this humble Pope, the son of poor peasants, left for the world. One observer said, “It was he who enabled the Church to transform from a static, authoritarian Church that spoke in monologues, to a dynamic Church that promoted dialogue, both with the world and within the Church itself.” Let us look at the life of Pope St John XXIII.
Angelo Roncalli was born on November 25 1881 at Sotto Il Monte in Italy, the third of thirteen children, where his parents were tenant farmers. Growing up in a hard-working poor family he knew the struggle of making ends meet. He went to the local school, where he did quite well and at the age of twelve he entered the Seminary at Bergamo. He said, "I was a good, innocent boy, a little timid. I wanted to love God at all costs and I thought of nothing other than becoming a priest at the service of simple souls in need of patient and diligent care."
He studied theology in Rome and was ordained in 1904. As a young priest he was appointed to be secretary to the Bishop of Bergamo and was a military chaplain during the war. He was a good administrator and a well loved priest and in 1921 he went to Rome to work in one of the Vatican departments. In 1925, he became an Archbishop and was sent to Bulgaria. Later, he worked in Turkey and Greece. In 1953 he became the Cardinal of Venice, and was expected to spend his final years there. Fr Roncalli was a caring and devoted pastor who was known for his openness to everyone, rich or poor of whatever faith or none.
Following the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, the Cardinals assembled and to many people’s surprise, (including his own) they elected Cardinal Roncalli as the new Pope. In his memoirs he wrote, “To have accepted with simplicity the honour and the burden of the pontifcate, with the joy of being able to say that I did nothing to obtain it, absolutely nothing; indeed I was most careful and conscientious to avoid anything that might direct attention to myself. As the voting in Conclave wavered to and fro, I rejoiced when I saw the chances of my being elected diminishing and the likelihood of others, in my opinion truly most worthy and venerable persons, being chosen.” (Pope John XXIII. P 325, Journal of a Soul)
At 76 years old, it was felt that he would be a transitional Pope, living out his last few years as a figure head for the Church making few significant changes. He took the name John in honor of the beloved disciple. He had a lively sense of humor. One day when journalists asked him how many people worked at the Vatican, he answered, “About half.” He often made jokes about himself. After a photo shoot he said, “From all eternity, God knew that I was going to be pope. He had eighty years to work on me, so why did he make me so ugly?” Pope John XXIII was also a man of great mercy and kindness, very much like Pope Francis today, and he continued to reach out to the poor and marginalised.
Although he was Pope for less than five years, God used him to bring sweeping changes to the Catholic Church. From the start Pope John began to restructure things. Inspired by the Holy Spirit he appointed more Cardinals from different parts of the world. He announced that he would hold the first diocesan synod for Rome, revise the Code of Canon Law and the Holy Spirit inspired him to call an ecumenical council for the whole Church (Vatican II). It is said that while passing an open window he felt a draught and it came to him that it was time to throw open the windows of the church and let the fresh air of the Spirit blow through it.
Before the Second Vatican Council could end Pope John XXIII died in his bed at the age of 81 on June 3, 1963. The whole world mourned his death. One newspaper published a drawing of the earth shrouded in mourning with the caption, "A Death in the Family." He had once said that “to be a Saint we need to practice that self-giving love that flows from dying to self, from laughing at one's own foibles and humbly enduring the foibles of others. Saints aren't so much superstars of holiness as humble sinners, ready to allow God to love them just as they are.” This is exactly how Angelo Roncalli lived his life. His feast day is on October 11, the anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962.
Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but what it is possible for you to do.
Pope St John XXIII
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Tom Petty, Aerosmith and Jackson Browne Records Inducted Into Grammy Hall of Fame
MCA / Columbia / Asylum
Aerosmith's "Walk This Way," Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever and Jackson Browne's self-titled debut album are among the recordings that will be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
The Recording Academy chose those and 22 other records for their "qualitative or historical significance," according to a press release.
The Academy is also honoring songs by Leonard Cohen ("Hallelujah"), the Troggs ("Wild Thing"), Link Wray & His Ray Men ("Rumble"), Fats Domino ("I'm Walkin'"), Dolly Parton ("Coat of Many Colors"), Curtis Mayfield ("Move on Up"), Nina Simone ("To Be Young, Gifted and Black") and Brenda Lee ("Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree").
The oldest recording recognized this year is "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," which was released by Edward Meeker With the Edison Orchestra in 1908; Full Moon Fever, from 1989, is the most recent on the list. You can see the full lineup at Legacy Recordings.
With a groove influenced by the Meters and James Brown and lyrics inspired by Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, "Walk This Way" wasn't a hit when Aerosmith first released it in 1975. But it caught on a year later and reached No. 10. More than a decade later, they re-recorded it with Run-DMC and took it to No. 4.
Full Moon Fever was Petty's solo debut, though it featured all but one of the Heartbreakers. It sold 5 million copies and included three Top 40 hits, including the No. 7 "Free Fallin'." Jackson Browne established the singer-songwriter as a recording artist after a few years writing songs for others, and featured "Doctor My Eyes," "Rock Me on the Water" and "Jamaica Say You Will."
"The Grammy Hall of Fame is proud to be a pillar of musical excellence and diversity year after year, honoring some of the most iconic recordings of all time," Neil Portnow, President/CEO of the Recording Academy, said in a statement. "We are proud to acknowledge the ever-changing landscape and evolution of musical expression for which the Academy has become known. We’re honored to add these masterpieces to our growing catalog and are delighted to celebrate the impact they’ve had on our musical, social and cultural history."
Aerosmith Albums Ranked
Next: Top 10 Tom Petty Songs
Source: Tom Petty, Aerosmith and Jackson Browne Records Inducted Into Grammy Hall of Fame
Filed Under: aerosmith, Jackson Browne, tom petty
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Tag: co-operatives
Korsch on Marx on Gotha on Co-operatives
From Karl Korsch’s Introduction to the Critique of the Gotha Programme (1922)
“Equally complex and at first sight obscure motives lie behind Marx’s furious and relentless attack in section III on the one socio-economic demand the Gotha Programme makes — the demand for ‘establishing producers’ co-operatives with State aid’. Here, as with the iron law of wages, Marx’s fierce attack is not really against the call for producers’ cooperatives as such, but only against the particular role that they play in Lassalle’s system. In fact, ten years earlier Marx had actually included ‘the establishment of producers’ associations and other institutions of use to the working class’ among the practical demands of the I.W.A. statues, and in his Inaugural Address he hailed the co-operative movement, along with the ten-hour day, as ‘up to now the greatest victories of the political economy of labour over the political economy of property’. At that time he even emphatically demanded the ‘development of co-operative labour on a national scale’, aided by ‘the means of the State’. Here, too, there would superficially appear to be no real conflict between Marx’s position and the demand made by the draft Gotha Programme. In fact, however, this example of Marx’s anger is a vivid expression of a deep and substantive difference between his outlook and that of Lassalle. For Marx was only too well aware of the real nature of this scheme (amply demonstrated in any event by the rest of the Programme). The plan for associations of co-operatives conceived in the 1860s along ‘Lassallean’ lines (whatever Lassalle himself may originally have said when first advancing this demand) relied much more on State aid than on the creation of a co-operative economy itself. Its real aim was to use aid to the producers’ associations to change the ‘limited bourgeois state’ into a ‘socialist state that would fulfil the ethical idea of freedom’ — instead of seeking the necessary material preconditions for attaining a socialist society in the predominance of the political economy of the working class over the political economy of property (which may be furthered, among other things, by producers’ cooperatives). This was a flagrant violation of a major principle in the I.W.A. Declaration of Principles which stated that ‘the economic emancipation of the working class is the principle aim, which every political movement must serve to advance’. Marx in section III of the Critique seeks to demolish the key concept of ‘co-operatives based on State credit’ as a regression into crude ideological and utopian errors. (This idea has recently found its worthy successors in the equally empty notions of many German socialists about ‘socialization’ or ‘seizing real values’.) Marx reaffirms against these illusions the true materialist and revolutionary meaning of the words ‘producers’ associations on a national scale’ by saying: ‘That the workers desire to establish the conditions for co-operative production on a social scale, and first of all on a national scale, in their own country, only means that they are working to revolutionize the present conditions of production, and it has nothing in common with the foundation of co-operative societies with State aid’.”
Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme
Some earlier notes I made on the text and the role of co-operatives.
Author Joss WinnPosted on July 27, 2016 Categories NotesTags co-operatives, Gotha Program, Karl Korsch, Karl MarkLeave a comment on Korsch on Marx on Gotha on Co-operatives
Students for Co-operation Winter Conference
Students are increasingly organising themselves around co-operative values and principles, providing goods, services and housing to their members. There are a growing number of student housing co-ops (in Sheffield, Birmingham, Edinburgh…), an emerging national body of student housing co-operatives, a national federation of student co-ops, and a new network of young co-operators led by AltGen, an organisation that supports young people to set up their own worker co-operatives.
Highlights from Young Co-operators Weekend in Bradford from Blake House on Vimeo.
Students for Co-operation are holding their national winter conference at the University of East Anglia, February 12-14th, and I will be attending again to jointly run a workshop on co-operative higher education. Mike Neary and I attended a national meeting last June to run a workshop on co-operative higher education at the start of our ISRF-funded research project. Now approaching the end of the project and having run five more workshops on different themes relating to co-operative higher education since then, it will be good to return and discuss some of our findings.
Author Joss WinnPosted on February 9, 2016 Categories BlogTags co-operative university, co-operatives, conference, SSC-ISRF, studentsLeave a comment on Students for Co-operation Winter Conference
The co-operative university: Labour, property and pedagogy
I begin this article by discussing the recent work of academics and activists to identify the advan- tages and issues relating to co-operative forms of higher education, and then focus on the ‘worker co-operative’ organisational form and its applicability and suitability to the governance of and practices within higher educational institutions. Finally, I align the values and principles of worker co-ops with the critical pedagogic framework of ‘Student as Producer’. Throughout I employ the work of Karl Marx to theorise the role of labour and property in a ‘co-operative university’, drawing particularly on later Marxist writers who argue that Marx’s labour theory of value should be understood as a critique of labour under capitalism, rather than one developed from the standpoint of labour.
You can download this article from the journal, Power and Education.
A pre-print version of this article is available from the University of Lincoln research repository.
An earlier and expanded version of this paper given at the ‘Governing Academic Life’ conference is also available from the University of Lincoln research repository.
Author Joss WinnPosted on April 8, 2015 Categories Journal articlesTags academic labour, co-operative university, co-operatives, Higher education, Marx, Student as Producer, worker co-operatives2 Comments on The co-operative university: Labour, property and pedagogy
A Short History of Hacking: Values and principles for co-operative higher education
My keynote talk for Newcastle College’s Student as Producer conference, March 27th 2015.
Thank you for inviting me here today to contribute to your student conference. It’s a real privilege and luxury to be able to spend the day with you and to learn about all the great work you’re doing. Last year, my friend Prof. Mike Neary spoke at your ‘Student as Producer’ conference. Mike and I have worked together and with many other colleagues on Student as Producer for a number of years now and within our own institution and elsewhere, such as Newcastle College, the core ideas of Student as Producer are interpreted in new ways and take on new forms.
At Lincoln, since our original HEA-funded project ended, Student as Producer has developed into a substantial programme of ‘student engagement‘ led by Dan Derricott, an ex-Vice President of our Student Union. At the University of Warwick, the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning funds Student as Producer projects relating to research, collaboration or performance. At Vanderbilt University in the USA, 2014 was themed the year of Student as Producer. At the University of British Columbia in Canada, funding has been made available for the redesign of 100 courses, affecting around 34,000 student enrolments. These are just some of the examples of Student as Producer being put into practice, expressed in words like ‘engagement’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘partnership’. I know that Newcastle College has a new ‘HE Partnership Strategy’ based on the ideas of Student as Producer. I want to introduce, or rather recover, another word that is essential to my own understanding of Student as Producer and that is: ‘co-operation’. I’ll explain what I specifically mean by this in a minute.
First though, the title of my talk today probably requires some explanation: ‘A short history of hacking: Values and principles for co-operative higher education.’ The first part of the title refers to work I did on Student as Producer during 2009-2014. The second part refers to my current work, which I see as a development of Student as Producer, while remaining true to its original principles.
What has ‘hacking’ got to do with Student as Producer? When you hear the word ‘hacking’ or ‘hack’, many of you may think of something malicious and illegal, such as ‘someone’s hacked into my Facebook account’, or ‘the News of the World has been accused of phone-hacking’.
However, an earlier meaning of ‘hacking’ was first used in the late 1950s by teachers and students belonging to the Tech Model Railroad Club at the world renown Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Even today MIT maintains a ‘Hack Gallery‘ which records various audacious and creative pranks undertaken around campus over the decades. In 1959, ‘hack’ at MIT referred to “something done without constructive end” and, according to records kept at that time, a year later a ‘hack’ specifically referred to “an article or project without constructive end.” It was, “a term for an unconventional or unorthodox application of technology, typically deprecated for engineering reasons.” A ‘hacker’ of course, is someone who hacks, but more specifically, “a hacker avoids the standard solution.” Since the early 1960s, the terms hack, hacker and hacking have taken on a variety of related and nuanced meanings and among computer scientists, electronics enthusiasts and software developers it’s still regarded as an honorary term for someone who is clever, creative, has unusual expertise and enthusiasm for their work and are defacto members of a global community of hackers who collaborate through the Internet.
In my own work on Student as Producer at Lincoln, I originally focused on the research and development of institutional technology with students and our recent graduates. We mainly worked on projects relating to the infrastructure of the university: things like a research data management system, web publishing systems, identification and authentication protocols and curriculum data anlaysis. Throughout these projects, I referred to our work as ‘hacking the university‘ (actually, I was never creative nor clever enough to be a hacker, but some of the students I worked with truly were). During this time, we were trying to re-think and ultimately re-engineer the fabric of the university around the idea of ‘openness’: Open technologies, open data, open ways of doing research and teaching and learning.
In 2011, we held a national student ‘hackathon‘ where nearly 200 students worked around the clock on developing prototypes for new university services. Student as Producer formed the basis and justification for all this work and in particular, a quote from the writer Walter Benjamin, who inspired Mike Neary’s early formulation of Student as Producer:
“[For]… the author who has reflected deeply on the conditions of present day production … His work will never be merely work on products but always, at the same time, work on the means of production. In other words his products must have, over and above their character as works, an organising function.” (Benjamin 1934: 777)
Our work on the technological infrastructure of the university was an attempt to “reflect deeply on the conditions of present day production” in higher education, and “at the same time, work on the means of [knowledge] production.”
The point being, that Student as Producer is not simply about partnership, engagement, and collaboration – although it is all those things. It’s about confronting the idea of higher education and the institutional form that it takes so that as we produce new knowledge, which is what distinguishes a higher education, we reflect deeply on the means of knowledge production itself.
What I’m leading to is that, as you know, Student as Producer is much more than research-engaged teaching and learning. It is a pedagogical framework but one that is intended for rebuilding or re-engineering knowledge production itself. It’s anticipated that the institutional form reflects the pedagogic principles rather than the other way around. At Lincoln, it’s “the central pedagogical principle that informs other aspects of the University’s strategic planning” articulated currently in a major initiative to involve students in the running of the university.
This brings me to the second half of my talk where I want to look forward rather than backwards and think about how Student as Producer can be developed further.
One of the exciting and sometimes frustrating things about working with hackers is that they are always retooling. By this, I mean that they are always looking for ways to improve the tools they are working with and in doing so, the process of production itself. It reflects the fact that software developers often have the ability to author or improve the software tools that will help them develop new software products, a bit like a carpenter who can fashion a better carpentry tool so as to improve their cabinetmaking. This reflects the deep level of knowledge about the process of software production that hackers have. When they run into problems in the development process, hackers often have the knowledge required to address the problem, whether it’s an irritating bug or an inefficiency in the system. Furthermore, they often have the autonomy to make that intervention, because the tools they use are open source and can be freely modified. And because they’re open source there is a community of other hackers they can co-operate with on the problem at hand, if they themselves aren’t quite sure how to fix it.
A VISUALISATION OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Knowledge, autonomy, openness, community, co-operation are all required if we are to “work on the means of [knowledge] production”. And when we are able to genuinely work on the means of knowledge production, through the principles of openness, autonomy and co-operation, it can have a ‘recursive‘ effect on our understanding of the world around us and embolden us to desire and demand these principles in other aspects of our social lives.
The point I want to underline here is not the simple assertion that students should be recognised and included as part of the research activities of higher education – of course they should – but that if we remain true to that objective, the fabric of the institution, or the ‘means of production’, has to change too, including the way the institution is governed. Which is where I come back to the idea and practice of ‘co-operation’.
Student as Producer has always had a radically democratic agenda, valuing critique, speculative thinking, openness and a form of learning that aims to transform the social context so that students become the subjects rather than objects of history – individuals who make history and personify knowledge. Student as Producer is not simply a project to transform and improve the ‘student experience’ but aspires to a paradigm shift in how knowledge is produced.
For me, Student as Producer has always been more about how students, academics, professional staff, cleaners, caterers – the whole college community – can democratically and co-operatively govern their institutions. At first, I approached this through the idea and practice of ‘openness’, enabled by research and development into new institutional technologies, but at the heart of this was an attempt to intervene in the way we worked with each other. I draw inspiration for this not only from Student as Producer, which from its original articulation referred to ‘co-operation’, but also from the international co-operative movement which has its own set of values and principles. The values are those of
“self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, co-operative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others.”
The co-operative principles are: Voluntary and Open Membership; Democratic Member Control; Member Economic Participation; Autonomy and Independence; Education, Training and Information; Co-operation among Co-operatives; and Concern for Community.
As you can see, education is one of the key principles for the international co-operative movement, but I want to draw your attention to the other principles of open membership, democratic control, autonomy, co-operation among co-operatives, and concern for community.
The choice of these values and principles has been discussed, debated and refined over the 170 year history of the international co-operative movement and last agreed in 1995. This combination of values and principles does not take a single institutional form (as you know, co-ops are multivarious in the forms they take) but like Student as Producer, I think they offer a framework for re-engineering the governance of higher education and the production of knowledge in our so-called ‘knowledge economy’, enabling teachers, students, administrators, cleaners, caterers… to democratically control our institutions.
Newcastle College should be commended for recognising the need to involve students in the governance of your institution. In your own HE Partnership Strategy you state that “meaningful partnership working is reliant upon the equal distribution of democratic power.” You argue rightly that this isn’t just achieved by listening to the so-called ‘student voice’ but by “empowering students to drive and implement change.” And “this will involve redistributing power across our HE communities up to and including HE Academic Board through engaging students in all stages of the decision making process.” My question to you is how do you intend to constitute this form of democracy. You say that you will embed it “throughout all aspects of the HE learning experience” but what constitutional form will that take and how will you hold each other to account? These are not questions unique to your own stated objectives, but are being asked all the time by people who desire democracy in their work as they do in their politics.
The question I am interested in then, is what steps might we take to reconstitute and transform our institutions into member-run, democratically controlled co-operatives? Institutions that enable us to reflect deeply on the conditions of present day knowledge production and truly put Student as Producer into practice?
Since 2011, academics and individuals within the co-operative movement have been discussing this question, partly inspired by the way 800 schools in the UK have recently become co-operatives. We are writing about co-operative higher education for journals and books, talking about it at conferences like this one, and thinking of ways that colleges and universities can become actual co-operatives or at least more like co-operatives. The suggestions range from converting the whole institution into a co-operative, constitutionally and legally, to running parts of the institution co-operatively, such as courses, research groups, committees and the various services that operate with and within colleges and universities. Staff and students could also be encouraged and supported to create their own co-operatives both inside and outside the university, setting up housing co-ops, food co-ops, technology co-ops, and even community-run education co-ops, joining a growing federation of student co-ops in the UK.
In the course of this process of transformation, as we learn how to practice democracy, autonomy, openness and solidarity, I expect that the ‘recursive’ effect will begin to take effect and we’ll want to assert these principles in other areas of our lives, too, demanding a similar transformation in the social world we are part of. That’s what Student as Producer is all about.
THIS STORM IS WHAT WE CALL PROGRESS
Author Joss WinnPosted on March 27, 2015 March 27, 2015 Categories Conference papersTags co-operative university, co-operatives, hacking, keynote, Newcastle College, Student as ProducerLeave a comment on A Short History of Hacking: Values and principles for co-operative higher education
Open education and the emancipation of academic labour
I have previously argued that open education is a liberal project with a focus on the freedom of things rather than the freedom of people (Winn, Joss. 2012. “Open Education: From the Freedom of Things to the Freedom of People.” In Towards Teaching in Public: Reshaping the Modern University, edited by Michael Neary, Howard Stevenson, and Les Bell, 133– 147. London: Continuum). Furthermore, I have argued that despite an implicit critique of private property with its emphasis on ‘the commons’, the literature on open education offers no corresponding critique of academic labour (Neary, Mike, and Joss Winn. 2012. “Open Education: Common(s), Commonism and the New Common Wealth.” Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization 12 (4): 406–422). In this paper, I develop my critical position that an emancipatory form of education must work towards the emancipation of teachers and students from labour, the dynamic, social, creative source of value in capitalism. In making this argument, I first establish the fundamental characteristics of academic labour. I then offer a ‘form-analytic’ critique of open access, followed by a corresponding critique of its legal form. Finally, I critically discuss the potential of ‘open cooperatives’ as a transitional organisational form for the production of knowledge through which social relations become ‘transparent in their simplicity’ (Marx, Karl. 1976. Capital, Vol. 1. London: Penguin Classics, 172).
Download this article from Learning, Media and Technology journal.
If you do not have institutional access to the journal, there are 50 copies available outside the paywall. If they have all gone, a pre-print can be downloaded from the University of Lincoln research repository. Or contact me for further help accessing my work.
Author Joss WinnPosted on March 17, 2015 March 20, 2015 Categories Journal articlesTags co-operatives, Marxism, open access, Open Education, value formLeave a comment on Open education and the emancipation of academic labour
Marx on co-operatives, political power, solidarity and knowledge
Karl Marx’s Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association, “The First International”, October 21-27 1864. (my emphasis)
“But there was in store a still greater victory of the political economy of labor over the political economy of property. We speak of the co-operative movement, especially the co-operative factories raised by the unassisted efforts of a few bold “hands”. The value of these great social experiments cannot be overrated. By deed instead of by argument, they have shown that production on a large scale, and in accord with the behests of modern science, may be carried on without the existence of a class of masters employing a class of hands; that to bear fruit, the means of labor need not be monopolized as a means of dominion over, and of extortion against, the laboring man himself; and that, like slave labor, like serf labor, hired labor is but a transitory and inferior form, destined to disappear before associated labor plying its toil with a willing hand, a ready mind, and a joyous heart. In England, the seeds of the co-operative system were sown by Robert Owen; the workingmen’s experiments tried on the Continent were, in fact, the practical upshot of the theories, not invented, but loudly proclaimed, in 1848.
At the same time the experience of the period from 1848 to 1864 has proved beyond doubt that, however, excellent in principle and however useful in practice, co-operative labor, if kept within the narrow circle of the casual efforts of private workmen, will never be able to arrest the growth in geometrical progression of monopoly, to free the masses, nor even to perceptibly lighten the burden of their miseries. It is perhaps for this very reason that plausible noblemen, philanthropic middle-class spouters, and even keep political economists have all at once turned nauseously complimentary to the very co-operative labor system they had vainly tried to nip in the bud by deriding it as the utopia of the dreamer, or stigmatizing it as the sacrilege of the socialist. To save the industrious masses, co-operative labor ought to be developed to national dimensions, and, consequently, to be fostered by national means. Yet the lords of the land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defense and perpetuation of their economic monopolies. So far from promoting, they will continue to lay every possible impediment in the way of the emancipation of labor. Remember the sneer with which, last session, Lord Palmerston put down the advocated of the Irish Tenants’ Right Bill. The House of Commons, cried he, is a house of landed proprietors. To conquer political power has, therefore, become the great duty of the working classes. They seem to have comprehended this, for in England, Germany, Italy, and France, there have taken place simultaneous revivals, and simultaneous efforts are being made at the political organization of the workingmen’s party.
One element of success they possess — numbers; but numbers weigh in the balance only if united by combination and led by knowledge. Past experience has shown how disregard of that bond of brotherhood which ought to exist between the workmen of different countries, and incite them to stand firmly by each other in all their struggles for emancipation, will be chastised by the common discomfiture of their incoherent efforts. This thought prompted the workingmen of different countries assembled on September 28, 1864, in public meeting at St. Martin’s Hall, to found the International Association.”
Author Joss WinnPosted on November 24, 2014 Categories NotesTags 1864, co-operatives, knowledge, Marx, political power, solidarityLeave a comment on Marx on co-operatives, political power, solidarity and knowledge
Open Co-operatives (2)
In the first part of my notes on ‘open co-operatives’, I focused on Michel Bauwen’s most recent statement, Why We Need a New Kind of Open Cooperatives for the P2P Age. There, he outlines four recommendations for the creation of open co-ops, which are a new synthesis of values and practices of the global P2P, FLOSS and Free Culture movement, with the values, principles and practices of the historic, global co-operative movement. The recommendations are:
That coops need to be statutorily (internally) oriented towards the common good
That coops need to have governance models including all stakeholders
That coops need to actively co-produce the creation of immaterial and material commons
That coops need to be organized socially and politically on a global basis, even as they produce locally.
Earlier, I made notes on the first two points, suggesting that the co-operative movement indeed already addresses these in quite substantial ways. What appears to be especially novel about Michel’s proposal for ‘open co-ops’ is that the principle and practice of ‘common ownership’ is extended to the product of the co-operative as well as the means of production. This is novel from the point of view of traditional co-operatives, but taken for granted in the world of P2P, FLOSS and Free Culture. However, what that movement lacks is the innovation and experience in developing complementary organisational forms, which the co-operative movement has been working on for over 150 years.
What is also important to note, is that Bauwens regards all of this work on open co-ops, not as the ultimate objective, but as necessarily transitional to the practice of communism, as coined by Marx: ‘From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs’.
Here, I want to focus on Michel’s third recommendation, having just read a number of other articles that discuss the Peer Production ‘Copyfarleft’ License (PPL). More specifically, I consider part (a) of his third recommendation which is intended to address the creation of a self-sustaining immaterial commons. Part (b) of his recommendation, which is the creation of a self-sustaining material commons is not directly addressed here, although many of my comments will be relevant. I will return to this and his fourth recommendation at a later date.
The Peer Production License (PPL) was created by Dmytri Kleiner. It is based on the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA v3.0 license and includes an additional restriction (point three below) to those that already exist in the CC license:
Share-alike/Copyleft: This requires the consumer of the product to license their derivative product under the same terms as the originating product, such that the benefits of each creative work licensed under these terms perpetuate. This resists outright ‘free-loading’ and strategically develops a commons of social property, which is based on a general, indirect degree of reciprocity. This social property is not ‘public’ in terms of regulated by the state, nor individually or collectively ‘private’ as in joint-stock. It is created through what Pedersen (2010) neatly refers to as ‘reciprocity in perpetuity’.
Non-commercial: The work cannot be used for commercial advantage or private monetary gain i.e. profit. This resists the exploitation of the commons for money, or put another way, it resists the expansion of the value-form of commodities into the money form while still being trapped in the value-form.
Co-operative: This is an exception to the non-commercial clause above which states that commercial use can be made of the product by democratic, worker-owned organisations that distribute their profits among themselves e.g. co-operatives. This is to allow for and promote the use of the common property of co-operatives in their mutual interest of building a commons. It applies to the immaterial, non-rivalrous knowledge products of the co-operatives. This is the novel addition to the original CC-BY-NC-SA license. It permits a restricted type of commercial use among co-ops while resisting the dissolution of the commons into the anti-social private sphere.
The producers of the work should be acknowledged: This resists the dissolution of the property into the public domain and ensures that the originating producer(s) are respectfully credited for their contribution. It also adds a dimension of transparency and traceability as to the provenance of each contribution. This is important for a system, such as that proposed by Bauwens and Kleiner, which is based on any kind of reciprocity and equivalence, including that of money.
The PPL license has been discussed in four recent articles:
Miguel Said Vieira & Primavera De Filippi (2014) Between Copyleft and Copyfarleft: Advanced reciprocity for the commons.
Michel Bauwens, Vasilis Kostakis (2014) From the Communism of Capital to Capital for the Commons: Towards an Open Co-operativism.
Stefan Meretz (2014) Socialist Licenses? A Rejoinder to Michel Bauwens and Vasilis Kostakis.
Jakob Rigi (2014) The Coming Revolution of Peer Production and Revolutionary Cooperatives. A Response to Michel Bauwens, Vasilis Kostakis and Stefan Meretz.
Vieira and De Filippi provide a good discussion of what the PPL offers, the reasoning behind the license, and its advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage, they say, is that the PPL offers a license that sits between standard copyleft (e.g. GPL) licenses and non-commercial copyleft licenses (e.g. CC-BY-NC-SA). 1 Kleiner’s intention in restricting commercial use of the commons property is to restrict its use to those organisations that do not exploit labour (in the technical sense of paying labour less than its actual value) and thereby resist the alienation of labour.
Kleiner is said to have referred (I can’t find a direct reference) to this as the ‘non-alienation clause’. The assumption here is that democratically controlled, worker-owned co-operatives overcome the alienation of wage labour because, in effect, they act as their own capitalist and do not draw a wage as such, but rather they draw from the surplus they collectively make. I have discussed this at length with reference to Jossa’s work on Labour Managed Firms (here, here). Most recently, Jossa has conceded that in fact such firms do not fully overcome alienation, a point that was clear to me from engaging with his earlier work, where I wrote:
“In the absence of the wage-relation i.e. the LMF, workers sell the products that they created and own, rather than sell their labour for a wage. It seems that for Jossa, the key to the capitalist firm and therefore the ‘anti-capitalist’ LMF, turns on how property relations are organised. For Jossa, freedom from capitalism is equated with owning the means of production and from that “decisive” moment, a transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production occurs (Jossa, 2012b:405). For Jossa, once property relations are re-organised in favour of the worker, such that the wage can be abolished, labour is no longer a commodity and its value is no longer measured in abstract labour time because “work becomes abstract when it is done in exchange for wages.” (Jossa, 2012a: 836)”
The problem with Jossa and with the idea of a ‘non-alienation clause’ is that it overlooks or misunderstands the nature of alienation. As I have said before, “What Jossa seems to overlook is that ‘value’, not the wage, mediates labour in a capitalist society.”
In a Preface to Capital, Marx referred to the commodity as the “economic cell-form” from which everything else in capitalist society can and should be examined. According to Marx, in Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, a commodity is characterised by having a use-value and an exchange-value. The use-value is the product or service’s utility and the exchange value is its value, or rather the exchange value is the the realisation of the commodity’s value. The value of a commodity is expressed in its exchange value.
Marx said that an understanding of political economy (i.e. capitalism) “pivots” on the understanding of the dual character of labour, as it is expressed in the dual character of the commodity. That is, the use value of the commodity is an expression of the concrete character of labour and the exchange value (value) is the expression of the abstract character of labour. By ‘abstract labour’, Marx was defining the way that value is determined not by the amount of concrete labour that someone put into the production of the commodity, measured by clock time (this was the common view of political economists at that time), but by the homogeneous mass of labour as it exists at any one time as a social whole. This qualitative and commensurable character of labour is quantified, not by clock time, but by ‘socially necessary labour time’, or
“the labour time required to produce any use-value under the conditions of production normal for a given society and with the average degree of skill and intensity of labour prevalent in that society.” (Marx, Capital)
Marx’s discovery was not simply that labour is useful and can be exchanged like any other commodity, but that its character is “expressed” or “contained” in the form of other commodities. What is expressed is that labour in capitalism takes on the form of being both concrete, physiological labour and at the same time abstract, social, homogeneous labour. It is the abstract character of labour that is the source of social wealth in capitalism (i.e. value) and points to a commensurable way of measuring the value of commodities and therefore the wealth of capitalist societies.
What Jossa and perhaps other advocates of worker co-operatives overlook is that in order to understand the social form of wealth in capitalist societies (i.e. ‘value’ ultimately expressed in money), we have to, according to Marx at least, understand the true nature of the commodity as an expression of a particular, historically specific, form of labour which is socially divided by the imposition of private property and other coercive forces; it becomes mediated by value in the form of money, which allows access to that property. Labour should not simply be understood as concrete, physiological labour, but simultaneously as the abstract, social mass of global labour that now extends to most societies across the world. Likewise, the measure of the value of that labour and therefore the commodities it produces, is also characterised by a dynamic, globally determined measure of the social labour time necessary to produce all commodities. In practice, this means that if a person can produce a widget in the Far East in less time than a person in Europe, that efficiency will find its way into determining, through competitive markets, the overall productivity of those widgets and impact on the value of the commodity and therefore the value of the labour in Europe. In this way, as Marx argued, increasing productivity decreases the value of a commodity and pushes down the value and social necessity of labour, rendering an increasing population superfluous to capital’s needs (i.e. under- and unemployment).
As I have argued before,
“In dismissing abstract labour as something overcome in the wage-less Labour Managed Firm, Jossa remains trapped by an economistic understanding of social relations and therefore trapped by value. The same can be said for the worker co-operative form in general. It is a transitional organisational form that moves away from attributes of capitalist labour (towards ownership of the means of production, a democratic division of surplus), but does not in itself overcome the determination of value imposed by the competition of the market.
Freedom is not the emancipation of labour, as in Jossa’s argument, but rather the emancipation from the twofold character of labour, a point also made by Postone, Neary, the Krisis group and others.”
On account of all this, I agree with Meretz‘s excellent critique of copyfarleft, where he concludes:
“Despite all his radical rhetoric, Dmytri Kleiner doesn’t want to touch the basic principles of commodity production. All he wants is a slightly more equal distribution of wealth based on commodity production. This has been the goal of many people, a lot of people have tried to realise it, and despite so many defeats many people still want it. They will not succeed. It is simply not sufficient to achieve workers’ control over the means of production if they go on being used in the same mode of operating. Production is not a neutral issue, seemingly adaptable for different purposes at will, but the production by separate private labour is necessarily commodity production, where social mediation only occurs post facto through the comparison of values – with all the consequences of this – from the market to ecological disaster.”
This is a common critique by Marxists of the potential of worker co-operatives. Effectively, they ‘degenerate’ into capitalist firms (see Egan, 1990) because they are forced to participate in a competitive marketplace alongside traditional capitalist firms. They are accused of focusing too much on the democratic ownership and control of property, while ignoring the fundamental character of the capitalist mode of production. I understand this and agree that it is almost certain to happen. However, does this mean that democratically controlled producer co-operatives are in fact a dead end? I don’t think so and from Bauwen’s text on open co-operatives and other articles I have read, his insistence that P2P and open co-ops are to be understood as ‘transitional’ forms of production and property ownership, suggests that he is also aware of this, but at the same time is concerned with what can be done in today’s historical, material conditions.
We can see this in a more recent exchange between Meretz and Bauwens regarding the Peer Production License. Meretz published a critique of the PPL, in which I think he rightly critiques the notion of ‘reciprocity’ as required by the PPL and Copyfarleft. 2 As I noted above, the value of a commodity is expressed or realised by its exchange value. Marx discussed at length what is meant by exchange value and what is occurring in the act of exchange in capitalism. He referred to this as the ‘value form‘ and with great dialectical rigour, began by discussing it in its ‘simple form’ and then ‘expanded form’, then ‘general form’ and final as the ‘money form’. In effect, he begins by discussing value most abstractly and gradually develops his theory to find its expression in the concrete form of money.
At the heart of the value form (i.e. that which socially characterises value in capitalism), is the idea of equivalence achieved through the exchange of commodities. The value of one or more commodities enters into a relationship with one or more other commodities, whereby each is simultaneously relative and equivalent to the other. The value of one commodity is achieved in its confrontation with another. Meretz understand all of this well and rightly argues that the PPL limits reciprocity while the GPL promotes it. The term ‘reciprocity’ is used by Bauwens and Kostakis to describe a fair exchange between people. Therefore, what makes an exchange under the PPL license reciprocal requires a qualitative understanding of the contribution being made and a quantitative measure of that contribution. This is exactly what, according to Marx, capitalism has achieved in its organising principle of wage labour and private property mediated through the money form. Abstract labour is the qualitative ‘substance’, measured by socially necessary labour time. For Bauwens and Kostakis, it appears that among open co-operatives, this form of exchange is replaced by a more direct form of negotiation:
“the PPL/Commons-based reciprocity licenses would indeed limit the non-reciprocity for for-profit entities, however they would not demand equivalent exchange but only some form of negotiated reciprocity.”
In their paper on the PPL, Vieira and De Filippi attempt to tackle this issue by proposing an alternative or complementary license which better defines the reciprocal contribution required, suggesting that “only those who contribute to the commons are entitled to commercially exploit them – but only to a similar or equivalent extent (i.e. they can take only as much as they have given to the commons).” They then go on to propose a non-circulating “peer-currency” system of tokens. They argue that their additional reciprocity clause “introduces an expectation of ‘advance reciprocity’… because every entity has to contribute beforehand in order to obtain tokens and thus make commercial uses of the commons.” The result of this, they suggest, is that “large corporations such as Google or Facebook will only be able to use their work to the extent that they contribute back to the commons – either by producing and contributing for the commons in order to obtain credits, or by paying the proper licensing fees.”
To be honest, I don’t know what to make of this. On the face of it, it seems absurd to me since we already have a token system intended to ensure equivalent reciprocity: Money. I also can’t see how it changes anything in terms of the large corporations benefiting more from the work of smaller producers since a large corporation can afford to make their like-for-like contribution quite easily, whereas it would be very difficult for a small worker co-op to match the contribution of the large corporation – reciprocity extends both ways. Anyway, putting that aside, a system of non-circulating tokens is something that Marx suggested might be necessary in the transition towards full communism, as he recognised that during this transitional state, people would still expect to receive an equal amount back in return for their labour:
“Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society — after the deductions have been made — exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption.
But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form”
When Bauwens and Kostakis state, “A commons-based reciprocity license would simply ask for reciprocity”, I think they are underestimating the difficulty of achieving this in practice. Not only that, but the GPL and other Copyleft licenses have taken us beyond the point of requiring reciprocity. Further on in their article, critically discussing the GPL, they refer to
“what anthropologists call ‘general reciprocity’, that is at the collective level, a minimum of contributions is needed to sustain the system. Nevertheless there is absolutely no requirement for direct reciprocity. The reciprocity is between the individual and the system as a whole.”
My view, and I think it is Meretz’s too, is that this is actually a very positive thing, which from an understanding of the value-form, moves us away from the imposition of equivalence on all aspects of social life. Yet, against the GPL, Bauwens and Kostakis are arguing for a more “direct” form of reciprocity which would be enforced by the PPL.
As I said in my first set of notes on open co-ops: Reciprocity is the logic of (imposed) scarcity. Non-reciprocity is the logic of abundance. Although Meretz goes on to define a distinction between ‘positive reciprocity’ and ‘negative reciprocity’, I don’t think this is helpful. The aim should be to altogether overcome the compulsion of reciprocity, which is the logic of poverty, protected by law.
“In modern society, where the conditions of life are private property, needs are separated from capacities. A state of abundance would alter this. Needs and capacities would come together, and close off the space between them. In modern society, this space is filled by the dense structures of private property-political order and the law of labour: in a state of abundance they would have no place. If the productive capacities already deployed were oriented towards need, necessary labour would be reduced to a minimum, so that nothing would stand between men and what they need to live. Money and the law of labour would lose their force, and, as its foundations crumbled, the political state would wither away. The state of abundance is not a Utopian vision but the real possibility of conditions already in existence.” (Kay and Mott 1982)
Yet, again I am reminded of Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme, where he recognises that the material premises have to be in place and apparent to the majority of individuals in society in order for the logic of the former social conditions to be abandoned:
“Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.”
The GPL is a license that recognises the premise of abundance in the immaterial social realm, where the notion of “each to each” can exist in practice. Although still an expression of liberal capitalist jurisdiction, it is an expedient means towards developing and demonstrating the premises for communism. My view is that for the immaterial commons, the GPL remains adequate to the task of growing that commons – criticisms of it being non-reciprocal are confusing reciprocity with equivalence, which is one of the reasons we should be against reciprocity altogether.
The ‘communistic’ nature of the GPL has been discussed at length by Jakob Rigi, who also bases his argument on the theoretical and methodological foundations developed by Marx. In his response, he states:
“I commend Bauwens & Kostakis for their activist approach and their good intentions to develop an alternative to capitalism and establish an ethical economy. Unfortunately, however, their approach not only fails to achieve these goals, but perpetuates capitalism.” (2014: 393)
He argues that Bauwen and Kostakis’ desire (as expressed in the PPL) to retain the essential categories of capital (e.g. surplus value, profit) only perpetuates capitalism. Rigi goes into great detail in his discussion about how co-operatives are trapped by the logic of capitalism and must at some point degenerate, die, or overcome the necessity of commodity production. On this, he agrees with Meretz:
“To sum up the cooperative is implicated in the capitalist mechanism of exploitation either as an exploited or exploiting party in the both processes of the formation of values and that of the production prices of the commodities they produce. A single commodity is a social interface (relation) in a double sense. On the one hand as a value bearing entity it is an interface between all labour that produces that type of commodity. And on the other, as a price bearing entity it is an interface between all constituent elements of the total social capital, i.e. the capitalist economy as a whole. No magic of cooperation can change these realities. The only way for cooperatives to break with the logic of capital is to break with the market, i.e. not to produce commodities.” (Rigi 2014: 395)
Rigi provides a good discussion on the parasitic nature of rent, arguing that knowledge products, e.g. software, literally have no value, and that along with interest on capital, rent should be part of the total abolition of capitalism. He agrees that “the idea of peer-producing cooperatives as a platform for launching peer-production is appealing. But these cooperatives’ main direction should be to work against the market and money and break with them.” (397)
In principle, I agree, but Rigi’s critique remains adhered to a traditional view of worker struggle against capital and overlooks the implications of his own explanation of the labour theory of value. He begins his critique of Meretz’s rejoinder to Bauwens and Kostakis by stating:
“I agree with most of Meretz’s criticism of Bauwens & Kostakis. However, I find two problems in his rejoinder. His distinction between exchange and reciprocity is not helpful. Second, he does not grasp the GPL’s communist nature and its revolutionary-transformative historical potentials..” (398)
Likewise, I agree with most of Meretz’s criticisms, too, but as with Meretz, a problem remains with Rigi’s understanding of reciprocity in terms of capitalist exchange, too.
“Of course, Meretz is correct that the GPL as a license is a contract, a juridical form, a social rule and not immediately reciprocity. But this contract stipulates a universal reciprocity, and in this sense it is communistic. Communism is nothing but universal reciprocity… Communism is nothing but realization of individual potentials through voluntary participation in social production and making the product available to all members of society regardless of their contributions.” (398-9)
To develop his argument around reciprocity and exchange, Rigi draws on the work of Marshall Sahlins (1974). He states that Sahlins’ study of ‘Stone Age Economics’ distinguished between three different types of reciprocity: “negative (commodity exchange), balanced (gift exchange) and general reciprocity.” Bauwens and Kostakis regard the GPL license as promoting ‘general reciprocity’, where “there is no logic of equivalence, you give without expecting to receive something back directly.” (Rigi 2014: 398) Rigi argues that the GPL does not fit any of Sahlins’ forms of reciprocity because,
“the giver always receives back something larger (the whole im- proved software = the sum of all contributions) of what s/he gives (her/his contribution). On the other hand the receiver is not obliged to contribute, i.e. s/he receives the sum of all contributions without being obliged to contribute as long as s/he does not publish the derivative. We may call this a communist form of reciprocity.” (398)
Just as Meretz wants to distinguish between positive and negative forms of reciprocity, Rigi is also unable to abandon the idea and creates another sub-category of reciprocity, too. As I stated above, it is my view that, according to Marx’s labour theory of value, communism is the overcoming and negation of the conditions that require reciprocity (i.e. scarcity and poverty) and that “each according to each” describes a social world where no concern for reciprocity remains.
Both Meretz and Rigi understand the centrality of the mode of production in capitalism, over and above the mode of distribution. Both authors understand Marx’s labour theory of value, too. Yet both critics of the PPL and open co-operatives, fall back on a critique of exchange and distribution, rather than fully engaging in a critique of production.
Why is it so difficult for us to abandon the idea of reciprocity in a future society of abundance? Sahlins’ ‘negative’, ‘balanced’ and ‘general’ forms of reciprocity are each conditioned by specific, historical modes of production and their subsequent social customs. It is impossible to determine the precise nature of communist, or post-capitalist society but according to Marx, we can say that ‘post-capitalism’ points to a society where value has been abolished as the form of social wealth.
What does it mean to abolish value? It means that the ‘value form’ (the exchange of relative and equivalent use-values) no longer mediates our social relations as it does today and this means that our social relations are no longer determined by the ‘commodity form’ (the necessity to produce use-values primarily for exchange-value). And because the commodity form is nothing more than the expression of the dual character of labour (concrete and abstract labour), we find that the abolition of value is in fact the abolition of labour, or rather capitalism’s dual form of labour. Since it is absurd to suggest that any future society would abolish the physiological requirement of usefully expending energy, the abolition of labour is not the abolition of concrete useful labour, but the abolition of the abstract, social, homogeneous form of labour brought about due to the division of labour and its corresponding institution of private property. With this uniquely capitalist qualitative form of labour abolished, so would its measure (and therefore the measure of value) of ‘socially necessary labour time’ be overcome, too. In moving towards such a society, labour, according to Marx, would transition gradually from being indirect as it is now, mediated by exchange, to being ‘direct labour’, characterised not by reciprocity, but by the custom of “each according from their ability to each according to their own.” Such a social custom is not the product of the creation of a new form of exchange, but rather a new mode of production based on freely associated concrete labour. Freedom then, is freedom from abstract labour measured by socially necessary labour time (i.e. freedom from value). That ‘freedom’ from abstract (wage) labour is currently being objectively imposed on the under and unemployed. The challenge for the open co-operative movement is to create a new, sustainable form of social wealth, built upon the general social knowledge developed through the capitalist mode of production, such that we might be fortunate enough to abandon the capitalist social factory altogether.
Elsewhere (and here), I have highlighted the importance of Peter Hudis’ recent work in understanding Marx’s views on post-capitalism. I think it is especially valuable in thinking about the issues I have discussed around ‘open co-operatives’ not least because his work recognises both the necessity of abolishing value, but also the importance of worker co-operatives as a means to achieve that aim.
Hudis, quoting Marx, notes that in the transition to post-capitalism “social relations become ‘transparent in their simplicity’ once the labourers put an end to alienated labour and the dictatorship of abstract time.”
“Marx is not suggesting that all facets of life become transparent in the lower phase of socialism or communism; indeed, he never suggests this about conditions in a higher phase either. He is addressing something much more specific: namely, the transparent nature of the exchange between labor time and products of labor. This relation can never be transparent so long as there is value production; it becomes transparent only once indirectly social labour is replaced by directly social labour.” (209-10)
Direct labour then, is a transparent process instead of the opaque process of indirect, value-creating, alienated capitalist labour. The conditions for this form of labour do not simply come about by wishing for them or even demanding them, but are the outcome of historical conditions of production, as Hudis explains:
“Marx does not, of course, limit his horizon to the initial phase of socialism or communism. He discusses it as part of understanding what is needed in order to bring to realization the more expansive social relations of a higher phase. Marx conceives of this phase as the passing beyond of natural necessity—not in the sense that labor as such would come to an end, but rather that society would no longer be governed by the necessity for material production and reproduction. This higher phase, however, can only come into being as a result of a whole series of complex and involved historical developments, which include the abolition of the “the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and thereby also the antithesis between mental and physical labor.” It is impossible to achieve this, he reminds us, in the absence of highly developed productive forces. Marx never conceived it as possible for a society to pass to ‘socialism’ or ‘communism’ while remaining imprisoned in conditions of social and technological backwardness. And yet it is not the productive forces that create the new society: it is, instead, live men and women.” (210)
Direct labour is made possible by the human development of productive forces that provide the requisite conditions of abundance so that the conditions of material and therefore social necessity are surpassed and we are no longer subordinated to the necessity of the division of labour in order to achieve such levels of productivity and abundance. Capitalism has achieved the current levels of productivity and abundance precisely through co-operation, which Marx called the the “fundamental form of the capitalist mode of production.”
“When numerous labourers work together side by side, whether in one and the same process, or in different but connected processes, they are said to co-operate, or to work in co-operation… Co-operation ever constitutes the fundamental form of the capitalist mode of production.” (Marx, Capital Vol.1, Ch. 13)
We should be mindful that ‘co-operation’ is fundamental to the capitalist mode of production in that it represents the socialisation of labour that has been divided and alienated from its product. In their earlier work, Marx and Engels explicitly argued for the abolition of the division of labour. For example:
“We have already shown above that the abolition of a state of affairs in which relations become independent of individuals, in which individuality is subservient to chance and the personal relations of individuals are subordinated to general class relations, etc.—that the abolition of this state of affairs is determined in the final analysis by the abolition of division of labour. We have also shown that the abolition of division of labour is determined by the development of intercourse and productive forces to such a degree of universality that private property and division of labour become fetters on them. We have further shown that private property can be abolished only on condition of an all-round development of individuals, precisely because the existing form of intercourse and the existing productive forces are all-embracing and only individuals that are developing in an all-round fashion can appropriate them, i.e., can turn them into free manifestations of their lives. We have shown that at the present time individuals must abolish private property, because the productive forces and forms of intercourse have developed so far that, under the domination of private property, they have become destructive forces, and because the contradiction between the classes has reached its extreme limit. Finally, we have shown that the abolition of private property and of the division of labour is itself the association of individuals on the basis created by modern productive forces and world intercourse.” (More examples here)
So, to return to my question above: Why is it that even Marxists, who have a grasp of the labour theory of value, end up arguing for new forms of distribution to supersede the existing form?
The essential work of Historian, Moishe Postone, provides an answer:
“I attempted, through a close reading of the most fundamental categories of Marx’s critique of political economy, to grasp the most basic features of capitalism – those that characterize the core of the social formation through its various historical configurations. On that basis I argued that traditional Marxism took basic features of liberal capitalism – the market and private ownership of the means of production – to be the most fundamental features of capitalism in general. Relatedly, it regarded the category of labor as the standpoint from which capitalism was criticized. Capitalism became identified with the bourgeoisie; socialism with the proletariat.
According to my interpretation, however, far from being the standpoint of the critique of capitalism, labor in capitalism constitutes the central object of Marx’s critique and is at the heart of Marx’s core categories of commodity and capital. I argued that, at the heart of the social formation is a historically specific form of social mediation constituted by labor – namely, value. This form of mediation (which is also a form of wealth) is at the same time a historically specific form of domination that can be expressed through, but is not identical with, class domination. It is abstract, without any specific locus, and is also temporally dynamic. This form of domination, which appears as external necessity, rather than as social, generates both the mode of producing in capitalism as well as its intrinsically dynamic character. It is, of course, impossible to even begin to go into the complexity of the issues involved, but several important implications are that industrial production, which historically comes into being under capitalism, does not represent the foundation of socialism, but is intrinsically capitalist; that the problem with growth in capitalism is not only that it is crisis-ridden, but that its very form of growth itself is problematic; that the existence of the bourgeois class is not the ultimate defining feature of capitalism and that state capitalism (briefly described by Marx as early as 1844) can and has existed; finally, that the proletariat is the class whose existence defines capitalism , and that the overcoming of capitalism involves the abolition, not the glorification, of proletarian labor.
Traditional Marxism had already become anachronistic in a variety of ways in the 20th century. It was unable to provide a fundamental critique of the forms of state capitalism referred to as “actually existing socialism.” Moreover, its understanding of emancipation appeared increasingly anachronistic, viewed from the constituted aspirations, needs, and motivating impulses that became expressed in the last third of 20th century by the so-called “new social movements.” Whereas traditional Marxism tended to affirm proletarian labor and, hence, the structure of labor that developed historically, as a dimension of capital’s development, the new social movements expressed a critique of that structure of labor, if at times in an underdeveloped and inchoate form. I argue that Marx’s analysis is one that points beyond the existing structure of labor.”
I realise that by this point I have departed from a direct response to Michel Bauwens’ statement on open co-operatives, but in doing so, I have begun to respond to his critics (with whom I share many views), and to the implications of Bauwen’s proposed project. Although the implications of the abolition of labour and the subsequent abolition of private property and capital itself may seem like a pipe-dream, it is also a necessity. Marx does offer a rigorous and compelling theory for why it must be undertaken and to a lesser extent how it can occur. His work was by no means complete and it requires constant re-evaluation in light of our own historical conditions, but as Postone remarks, that re-evaluation also requires an engagement with the fundamental categories of capitalism in order to grasp its basic features.
Postone argues that industrial production is intrinsic to capitalism, which suggests that post-capitalism will be characterised by a post-industrial form of production. P2P production could be, as Bauwen’s argues, a “proto-mode of production” for a future society, and producer co-operatives of freely associated labour could be its organisational form. Postone and Hudis‘ respective re-evaluations of Marx’s work, as well as others such as Kurz and Trenkle, offer compelling critiques of our existing mode of production, not from the standpoint of labour but as critiques of labour itself.
The successful creation of a post-capitalist society will require a thoroughly global perspective, rather than a retreat into localism and guild-like modes of production and it will build on the achievements of capitalism as a highly productive, though devastating historical mode of production. The latter sections of Rigi’s paper provide a sketch of what this might look like and one point is key: “These cooperatives must be revolutionary, second, they must break with the market as much as they can.” This insistence that co-operatives and its members are political activists accords with Kasmir’s study of Mondragon, the world’s largest co-operative. It’s failings as a co-operative, she argues, is because of its disconnect with working-class objectives, such that workers “do not consider the firms theirs in any meaningful way.” Kasmir (1996) argues that one of the lessons we can learn from Mondragon is that of the “importance of politics, the necessary role of organization, and the continuing value of syndicates and unions for transforming the workplace.” (199-200) Members of a worker co-operative must regularly question how their mutual work forms a critical, social project. “If workplace democracy is to be genuine, it seems that it must be premised on activism.” (199)
In my view, the combination of knowledge and experience from within the international P2P movement and that of the international co-operative movement, under the banner of ‘open co-operativism’ is a very positive move and Bauwens work (as well as Kleiner and others) is important for initiating this and providing us with something to respond to and collectively develop, in both theoretical and practical ways.
Author Joss WinnPosted on June 19, 2014 Categories NotesTags abundance, Bauwens, co-operatives, GPL, Hudis, labour, Marxism, open co-operatives, open coops, P2P, post-capitalism, Postone, PPL, reciprocity, valueLeave a comment on Open Co-operatives (2)
My paper for the conference, Governing Academic Life is available for download and I welcome comments here or via email. Thank you.
We are witnessing an “assault” on universities (Bailey and Freedman, 2011) and the future of higher education and its institutions is being “gambled.” (McGettigan, 2013) For many years now, we have been warned that our institutions are in “ruins” (Readings, 1997). We campaign for the “public university” (Holmwood, 2011) but in the knowledge that we work for private corporations, where academic labour is increasingly subject to the regulation of performative technologies (Ball, 2003) and where the means of knowledge production is being consolidated under the control of an executive. We want the cops off our campus but lack a form of institutional governance that gives teachers and students a right to the university. (Bhandar, 2013)
Outside the university, there is an institutional form that attempts to address issues of ownership and control over the means of production and constitute a radical form of democracy among those involved. Worker co-operatives are a form of ‘producer co- operative’ constituted on the values of autonomy, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In most cases the assets (the ‘means of production’) of the co-operative are held under ‘common ownership’, a social form of property that goes beyond the distinction between private and public.
I begin this paper by discussing the recent work of academics and activists to identify the advantages and issues relating to co-operative forms of higher education. I then focus in particular on the ‘worker co-operative’ organisational form and discuss its applicability and suitability to the governance of and practices within higher educational institutions. Finally, I align the values and principles of worker co-ops with the critical pedagogic theory of ‘Student as Producer’.
Author Joss WinnPosted on June 16, 2014 June 23, 2014 Categories Blog, Conference papersTags co-operative university, co-operatives, Higher education, labour, pedagogy, Property, Student as Producer3 Comments on The Co-operative University: Labour, property and pedagogy
Peter Hudis – Alternatives to Capitalism
I have recently finished Peter Hudis’ book, ‘Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism‘. It is one of the most interesting and useful books that I’ve read in some time. Below, he discusses the topic of the book with reference to Occupy, worker co-ops and other contemporary responses to capital.
The audio significantly improves from one minute into the talk and his talk ends at 55 minutes when he takes questions.
Of particular interest to me is the outline his gives (around 36 mins in) of what Marx deemed necessary to eliminate the conditions of alienating value production i.e. freely associated, non-alienated labour.
Extend democracy into the economic sphere, into the workplace.
Workers’ co-operatives. Direct ownership stake and control of the workplace.
Eliminate the social division of labour between ownership and non-ownership. Workers have a direct stake in the outcome of labour.
In control of the workplace, workers would make work less alienating, less harmful.
Co-ordination between co-operatives is needed, nationally and internationally. Democratically elected planning authority, subject to recall.
Update 29th April 2014: Here’s another talk by Hudis:
Update 16th June 2014: Another good talk to the Workers and Punks University (discusses coops and councils from around 40min onwards)
Author Joss WinnPosted on March 25, 2014 June 5, 2015 Categories BlogTags alternatives, capitalism, co-operatives, communism, Marx, Occupy, Peter Hudis, socialism, video, worker co-ops1 Comment on Peter Hudis – Alternatives to Capitalism
Marx on individualism, equality and democracy
As I’ve mentioned before, I am one of several scholars participating in the Social Science Centre’s course on ‘Co-operation and education‘. This week (week five), we were discussing co-operative values and principles, with a particular focus on ‘autonomy’ (4th principle) and ‘democracy’ (2nd principle). The reading for this week was Ian MacPherson’s ‘Speech Introducing the Co‐operative Identity Statement to the 1995 Manchester Congress of the ICA’, and the article on democracy from the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.
In addition to this, I also went looking for something that discussed Marx’s views on democracy, partly because he usually acts as a counter to the dominant liberal history of ideas, and also because I have been thinking about the role of democracy, equality and the individual in the context of teaching and learning in a post-capitalist form of higher education. The article I ended up reading was Springborg (1984) Karl Marx on Democracy, Participation, Voting, and Equality, Political Theory, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Nov., 1984), pp. 537-556. Below are my rough thoughts and notes on Springborg’s article…
Marx’s views on democracy share things in common with classical political philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and Hegel. He viewed participatory democracy negatively as a form of radical individualism as it emphasises first and foremost the agency of the individual rather than of the community as a whole through representatives. Springborg identifies three main arguments from Marx in defence of the idea of democracy:
1. Democracy is “the essence” of the political. It is more than its legal, juridical form. In his 1844 Manuscripts and 1843 Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, communism and democracy are described separately in the same terms.
Springborg paraphrasing Marx on communism:
“the resolution of the antithesis between essence and existence, form and content, individual and species; it is the riddle of history solved and knows itself to be that solution.”
Marx:
“Democracy is the resolved mystery of all constitutions. Here the constitution not only in itself, according to essence, but according to existence and actuality is returned to its real ground, actual man, the actual people, and established as its own work. The constitution appears as what it is, the free product of men… democracy is the essence of every political constitution, socialised man under the form of a particular constitution of the state… stands related to other constitutions as the genus to its species; only here the genus itself appears as an existent, and therefore opposed as a particular species to those existents which do not conform to the essence. Democracy relates to all other forms of the state as their Old Testament. Man does not exist because of the law but rather the law exists for the good of man. Democracy is human existence, while in the other political forms man has only legal existence. That is the fundamental difference of democracy.”
Springborg: “Under the aegis of democracy, first the abstract distinction between civil society and the state and second the state itself as an abstraction are surpassed. Thus “in true democracy the political state disappears.” (Marx) This is because democracy as unity of particular and universal, part and whole, is no mere constitutional form but a system whose principles actually govern.” (my emphasis)
“In democracy the constitution, the law, the state, so far as it is political constitution, is itself only a self-determination of the people, and a determinate content of the people.” (Marx)
I understand this to mean that rather than the state being an abstraction set apart from people, under a true democracy the people constitute the state (they are the “essence of the political”) to the extent that the state as a determinate abstract force in society is negated. True democracy is stateless. It is literally the ‘rule of the people’, expressed through social, human existence.
2. Democracy does not require the participation of all members of society as individuals in the decision-making process. Both direct or representative participation is to falsely conceive of the problem. Membership in a true democratic society does not demand participation in the state. The artificial distinction between society and the state is wrong in the first place.
“In a really rational state one could answer, ‘Not every single person should share in deliberating and deciding on political matters of general concern’, because the individuals share in deliberating and deciding on matters of general concern as the ‘all’, that is to say, within and as members of the society. Not all individually, but the individuals as all… Hegel presents himself with the dilemma: either civil society (the Many, the multitude) shares through deputies in deliberating and deciding on political matters of general concern or all [as] I individuals do this. This is no opposition of essence, as Hegel subsequently tries to present it, but of existence, and indeed of the most external existence, quantity. Thus, the basis which Hegel himself designated as external – the multiplicity of members – remains the best reason against the direct participation of all. The question of whether civil society should participate in the legislature either by entering it through deputies or by the direct participation of all as individuals is itself a question within the abstraction of the political state or within the abstract political state; it is an abstract political question.” (Marx)
This is, I think, a warning that questions about ‘participation’ in democracy are situated/trapped in the very conceptual approach they are trying to escape from. To suggest that everyone participate in deciding matters of political concern is to assume that the state continues to remain an abstract political force, apart from people, that benefits quantitatively from the direction of each individual. Marx wants to avoid “the methodological individualism of radical democracy.” (Springborg) In a true democracy, the state is not external to the people and therefore does not and cannot act apart from the will of individuals who act “as all.” It is a fundamentally different conception of large scale human social relations as well as posing a different “ontology” of the political. Marx notes that according to Hegel:
“In its proper form the opposition is this: the individuals participate as all, or the individuals participate as a few, as not all. In both cases allness remains merely an external plurality or totality of individuals. Allness is no essential, spiritual, actual quality of the individual. It is not something through which he would lose the character of abstract individuality. Rather, it is merely the sum total of individuality. One individuality, many individualities, all individualities. The one, the many, the all – none of these determinations changes the essence of the subject, individuality.
All as individuals should share in deliberating and deciding on political matters of general concern; that is to say, then, that all should share in this not as all but as individuals.” (Marx, summarising Hegel)
Where Marx fundamentally differs from Hegel is in his conception of how the state exists as a social form, not in abstraction but ontologically and epistemologically as its members:
“The very notion of member of the state implies their being a member of the state, a part of it, and the state having them as its part. But if they are an integral part of the state, then it is obvious that their social existence is already their actual participation in it. They are not only integral parts of the state, but the state is their integral part. To be consciously an integral part of something is to participate consciously in it, to be consciously integral to it. Without this consciousness the member of the state would be an animal.” (Marx)
To consciously ‘be’ is more than to simply ‘participate’ in something. One’s existence is already participation to the extent that the state can only exist as a form of the social existence of all individuals. What ‘activates’ this integration or transcendence is being/becoming conscious of such an existence. Marx recognises that “it is a tautology that a member of the state, a part of the state, participates in the state, and that this participation can appear only as deliberation or decision”.
“The false alternatives of political participation either as “all” or “not all” is predicated on the abstract separation of civil society and the state, which in turn falsely presumes the political to be constituted by single political acts performed by individuals, focusing exclusively on the legislature as the locus of popular participation.” (Springborg)
“On the other hand, if we are talking about definite concerns, about single political acts, then it is again obvious that not all as individuals accomplish them. Otherwise, the individual would be the true society, and would make society superfluous.” (Marx)
“Let us note that although Marx dismisses the traditional concept of the state as a real collectivity with sovereign power that can represent and be represented, he retains the notion of society as a collectivity in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One of his objections to the possibility of all participating in political decisions making as individuals is that this proposition is based on a radical individualism that fails to see society itself as a corporate entity representative of the interests of the individuals who constitute it.” (Springborg)
“The question whether all as individuals should share in deliberating and deciding on political matters of general concern is a question that arises from the separation of the political state and civil society.” (Marx)
In a true democracy, where “civil society is actual political society”,
“…it is nonsense to make a claim which has resulted precisely from a notion of the political state as an existent separated from civil society, from the theological notion of the political state. In this situation, legislative power altogether loses the meaning of representative power. Here, the legislature is a representation in the same sense in which every function is representative. For example, the shoemaker is my representative in so far as he fulfils a social need, just as every definite social activity, because it is a species-activity, represents only the species; that is to say, it represents a determination of my own essence the way every man is the representative of the other. Here, he is representative not by virtue of something other than himself which he represents, but by virtue of what he is and does.” (Marx)
I understand this to mean that representative power in a truly democratic society is not determined by legislative power, but rather by social activity which fulfils a social need. One individual is representative of another by virtue of their social activity as a human being. Representation exists in a natural state, before and apart from the fabrication of legislative representation. The shoe-maker represents me through her social activity. I represent the shoe-maker through my social activity. Our social activity is representative of each other and all others of our species. As Springborg notes, Marx goes
“against all attempts to impose the rubric of strict equality in such a way that functional substitution becomes the test of an individual’s integrity as a person. Such levelling egalitarianism is premised on radical individualism that aims to make all persons featureless monads, alike in the sameness and incapable of actualising the rich range of potentialities that human nature promises. Marx’s argument has serious implications for some of the campaigns waged in the name of Marxist humanism, feminism, etc., which, as he predicted, merely reproduce voluntarily the prerequisites for a higher state of capitalism that devours women and children allowing no distinctions of gender, race, ethnicity, etc…” (Springborg)
“For the first time, nature [in capitalist society] becomes purely an object for humankind, purely a matter of utility; ceases to be recognized as a power for itself; and the theoretical discovery of its autonomous laws appears merely as a ruse so as to subjugate it under human needs, whether as an object of consumption or as a means of production. In accord with this tendency, capital drives beyond national barriers and prejudices as much as beyond nature worship, as well as all traditional, confined, complacent, encrusted satisfactions of present needs, and reproductions of old ways of life. It is destructive towards all of this, and constantly revolutionizes it, tearing down all the barriers which hem in the development of the forces of production, the expansion of needs, the all-sided development of production, and the exploitation and exchange of natural and mental forces.” (Marx, Gundrisse)
This is a reminder, I would add, that in capitalist society, efforts towards ‘equality’ serve the purpose of ensuring everyone equally has the opportunity and capacity to sell (exchange for money – a wage) their labour power, the source of capitalist wealth (value). Marx showed that this is so-called ‘freedom’ under capitalism. Rather than view civil society equally and quantitatively as an abstract ‘population’ of individuals, Marx showed how the abstraction of exchange, (based on abstract labour, the measure of which is socially necessary labour time), is the necessary basis of capitalism’s equality. Human need and the capacity to produce goods and services to meet those needs is the precondition for an equality based on exchange, which capitalism exploits by separating individuals from the means of production (private property) such that they have to sell their labouring capacity in exchange for a wage so as to meet those needs through the exchange of money.
“the individual has an existence only as a producer of exchange value, hence that the whole negation of his natural existence is already implied; that he is therefore entirely determined by society; that this further presupposes a division of labour etc., in which the individual is already posited in relations other than that of mere exchanger, etc. That therefore this presupposition by no means arises either out of the individual’s will or out of the immediate nature of the individual, but that it is, rather, historical, and posits the individual as already determined by society.” (Marx, Gundrisse)
Human need and capacity are mediated indirectly through the abstract equivalence of value in the form of money, rather than the direct and reciprocal labour of individuals. This commodified relationship under capitalism, where both labour-power and its product is commodified , is in one sense unequal in that the labourer is paid less than her labour is worth. For a portion of the day, she works for ‘free’, enabling her employer, the capitalist, to sell the product of labour power for a value which is higher (i.e. not equivalent) than it cost them to produce. Thus, value, the substance of which is abstract labour measured by socially necessary labour time (time, being the ultimate measure of equivalence), determines human equivalence in capitalist society and not the direct meeting of human needs and capacity i.e. inequality (what Marx, in the Grundrisse, called “natural differences”).
“Only the differences between their needs and between their production gives rise to exchange and to their social equation in exchange; these natural differences are therefore the precondition of their social equality in the act of exchange, and of this relation in general, in which they relate to one another as productive. Regarded from the standpoint of the natural difference between them, individual A exists as the owner of a use value for B, and B as owner of a use value for A. In this respect, their natural difference again puts them reciprocally into the relation of equality. In this respect, however, they are not indifferent to one another, but integrate with one another, have need of one another; so that individual B, as objectified in the commodity, is a need of individual A, and vice versa; so that they stand not only in an equal, but also in a social, relation to one another. This is not all. The fact that this need on the part of one can be satisfied by the product of the other, and vice versa, and that the one is capable of producing the object of the need of the other, and that each confronts the other as owner of the object of the other’s need, this proves that each of them reaches beyond his own particular need etc., as a human being, and that they relate to one another as human beings; that their common species-being [Gattungswesen] is acknowledged by all. It does not happen elsewhere — that elephants produce for tigers, or animals for other animals.” (Marx, Grundrisse)
Later Springborg elaborates further, stating that
“equality as mutually substitutable individuals is equality by virtue of a false abstraction. For what is crucial about human beings is the variety and plenitude of their talents and functions. The cultural richness and depth of society is a reflection not of mere numbers of individuals, equal and undifferentiated, but of the opposite. Thus to fix on equality as a critical concept is a sign of intellectual mediocrity that cannot cope with the problem of unity and difference.”
Furthermore, Marx
“… gave depth to the Hegelian analysis by perceiving the phenomenon of exchange, and not merely the arithmetical abstraction of society as a collection of individuals, as the basis for equality. He was thus able to interpret the old socialist slogan demanding justice according to need not as the expression of equality, pace Hegel, but as its opposite, a formula tailored to the specific differences of need and capacity characteristic of individuals. When in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, he boldly proclaimed that distribution according to need, rather than strict equality, would herald the crossing of “the narrow horizon of bourgeois right,” Marx meant what he implied: that equality was an extrapolation from the presuppositions of capitalism. He had said as much in The Holy Family, declaring that the idea of “‘equal possession’ is a political-economic one and therefore still an alienated expression.”
3. Debates over direct or participatory democracy are misled. Political participation rests on universal political suffrage: the vote. Voting, “considered philosophically… is the immediate, the direct, the existing and not simply imagined relation of civil society to the political state”. (Marx) The unity of the political and the social is symbolised by universal suffrage. “Indeed it is the struggle for universal suffrage that brings about the dissolution of the dualism of civil society and the state.” (Springborg)
Thus, the struggle to achieve legislative power is the struggle of civil society to “transform itself into political society, or to make political society into the actual society… [this] shows itself as the drive for the most fully possible universal participation in legislative power.” (Marx) Legislature then, is “an articulation of the political will of the community as such”. (Springborg) Marx argues that it is not the depth of engagement in legislature but the universalism of suffrage that is key, whether active or passive.
“It is not a question of whether civil society should exercise legislative power through deputies or through all as individuals. Rather, it is a question of the extension and greatest possible universalisation of voting, of active as well as passive suffrage.” (Marx)
Rather than see voting as a meaningless exercise, it should be considered philosophically:
“Voting is not considered philosophically, that is, not in terms of its proper nature, if it is considered in relation to the crown or the executive. The vote is the actual relation of actual civil society to the civil society of the legislature, to the representative element. in other words, the vote is the immediate, the direct, the existing and not simply imagined relation of civil society to the political state. It therefore goes without saying that the vote is the chief political interest of actual civil society. In unrestricted suffrage, both active and passive, civil society has actually raised itself for the first time to an abstraction of itself, to political existence as its true universal and essential existence. But the full achievement of this abstraction is at once also the transcendence [Aufhebung] of the abstraction. In actually establishing its political existence as its true existence civil society has simultaneously established its civil existence, in distinction from its political existence, as inessential. And with the one separated, the other, its opposite, falls. Within the abstract political state the reform of voting advances the dissolution [Auflösung] of this political state, but also the dissolution of civil society.” (Marx)
In theory then, universal suffrage transforms, for the first time, the existence of civil society into a political existence. The political state is no longer an abstraction and civil society, its dialectical opposite, is dissolved, too. The outcome of the synthesis of this dialectic, enabled by universal suffrage, is the political existence of all transformed into true social existence. This dissolution, I think, is resolved gradually through the praxis of consciously becoming political: At first with the struggle towards universal suffrage; and then the struggle to understand what this means philosophically and recognise that out-dated and out-moded legislation is no longer deemed suitable or necessary to the historical material conditions of this political existence. Such conditions are conditions of abundance that allow the “natural differences” among people to labour directly with one-another reciprocally, not mediated by the equivalence of exchange value. To labour ‘directly’ does not necessarily mean ‘local’ to one-another face-to-face, but rather directly meeting need with capacity regardless of and without concern for ‘equivalence’.
What does this mean for democracy, equality and freedom in post-capitalist society? Democracy will be the social existence of individuals who no longer have a juridical existence quantified by an abstract state. A political existence is to be (ontologically and epistemologically) a social human being. i.e. not an individual. Equality will be mutual recognition of the difference in our needs and capacities i.e. inequality. Freedom will be a life of non-reciprocity where ‘equivalence’ is redefined as the meeting of one person’s needs with the abundant social capacity of others. It will be a freedom which tends to our natural differences (not ‘natural rights’), undetermined by ‘exchange’ conceived as an abstract calculation of one’s value.
Author Joss WinnPosted on February 16, 2014 June 12, 2014 Categories NotesTags co-operatives, democracy, equality, freedom, Individualism, SSC, SSILeave a comment on Marx on individualism, equality and democracy
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A Broken Dream Recovered
A refabrication of this famously broken Craig Kauffman work will make its debut in the Ahmanson Building on Thursday. We asked contemporary curator Howard Fox to write about the original, the new version, and the curatorial issues they inspire.
Craig Kauffman, Untitled, 1967, © Estate of Craig Kauffman
LACMA is about to re-acquire a signature work by a major artist associated with the SoCal Light and Space movement of the 1960s and ’70s: Craig Kauffman’s 1967 Untitled Wall Relief, one of his best-known and widely illustrated works, made of spray-painted acrylic lacquer on vacuum-formed Plexiglas. Re-acquire? How can that be?
Longtime visitors to LACMA may be well-acquainted with the sleek, capsule-like, wall-bound object acquired as a gift of the Kleiner Foundation in 1973. Turgid and puffy, the plastic body of the work was spray-painted on its interior in a pinky-magenta color reminiscent of grape-flavored bubblegum or some exotic shade of nail polish and sported a tumescent banana-yellow streak bulging horizontally across its center. In his groundbreaking study of California art, Sunshine Muse: Art on the West Coast, 1945-1970, first published in 1974, the artist/critic Peter Plagens celebrated Kaufman’s elegant yet audacious Plexiglas paintings, vaunting their “verily immoral color combinations (magenta/yellow, orange/blue)” and lauding them as “unashamedly perfumy objet[s] d’art.” LACMA’s wall relief—surely the piece Plagens had in mind when he invoked “magenta/yellow”—is arguably a signature work for this artist.
Untitled Wall Relief was exhibited many times in LACMA’s permanent collection and was featured in numerous important exhibitions, including LACMA’s 1981 survey Art in Los Angeles: Seventeen Artists in the Sixties; LACMA’s 2000 extravaganza, Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000; a Kauffman survey in La Jolla; and in other exhibitions in San Francisco, San Antonio, and Ft. Worth; and was last seen in Paris in the 2006 exhibition Los Angeles 1955–1985: Birth of an Artistic Capital at the Centre Pompidou.
There, a museum worker walked into the Level 6 special exhibition galleries one day to discover the work lying on the floor, severely—fatally—damaged. Sections at the edge had broken off in the fall leaving gaps as obvious as missing teeth, and though the rest of the object remained intact, it suffered multiple fractures and one out-and-out break as significant as the San Andreas Fault. The pristine sleekness of the piece—its very aesthetic integrity—was in ruin. To this day, nobody who investigated the unfortunate incident knows for sure how it occurred. And, except in forensic inquiry, how it happened really doesn’t matter. The work was lost. In the aftermath, LACMA, the Centre Pompidou, and the artist agreed that it was appropriate to attempt to re-fabricate the work under the artist’s supervision in Los Angeles. The Centre Pompidou worked directly with Kauffman to cover the costs of shipping and re-fabrication, while the Pompidou’s insurance paid LACMA the then-current market value of the work; the artist has graciously agreed to LACMA’s use of that sum to purchase the 2008 re-fabrication of Untitled Wall Relief.
To anyone familiar with the 1967 original, there is no question that this is its twin. And yet, there are significant differences. The coloration of the original was slightly more candy-like and goofy—what Plagens called “immoral” and “perfumy”—while this new incarnation is somewhat more ruby-tinted, like port wine, and its yellow is slightly more egg-yolky. Yet it is a vital piece in its own right, with all the edginess and spunk of the original. Purists and some aestheticians might question the notion of this new work’s authenticity, denouncing it as an “impostor” or a surrogate put forth in lieu of its lost forebear. Indeed, this wall relief of 2008 is a separate object; but it has the same artistic DNA: Kaufman himself cast the new work directly from the carcass of the original, and he mixed the colors himself. The re-fabrication was executed completely under Kauffman’s control, and he was satisfied with the result. The interests and hopes of both the artist and LACMA’s contemporary curators—to recover a lost work of art—were congruent. The artist’s satisfaction with the result informed LACMA’s curatorial thinking as well.
We may question how relevant elusive notions of authenticity are in this case. Since the 1960s, many artists working in such directions as minimalism, conceptual art, and new media have created artworks that are replicable without limit. Carl Andre arranges industrially manufactured copper and lead panels in checkerboard patterns on the floor but is not responsible for any other physical or formal aspect of his sculptures; Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings are formulated by written instructions conceived by the artist but executed by someone else; Lynn Hershman makes interactive works that exist only in cyberspace and are equally “authentic” when viewed or manipulated on anybody’s computer. In all these instances, the mythic hand of the artist—the inspired vision and unique virtuoso “touch” of the creative genius—are simply not a factor or an issue in the aesthetics of the art.
Similarly, Craig Kauffman’s Untitled Wall Relief, while unquestionably the creation of the artist’s aesthetic choices and sensibility, is fabricated by vacuum-formation, a mechanical process to shape plastic sheeting on a mold through the application of heat, pressure, and vacuum action. There are various technologies, some obsolete, to vacuform plastic and to spray-paint its colors, but they are industrial technologies, not ones associated with traditional ateliers. Kauffman’s 2008 wall relief is of course not the selfsame object as the 1967 original. Yet the new work is not necessarily to be regarded as less authentically a creation of Kauffman any more than photographic prints made from a master negative and printed long after the original picture has been taken are any less “authentic” than earlier prints—even if there are discernible differences among them and though vintage prints command a higher market value—as long as they are authorized by the photographer. Assertions about the sanctity of an initial iteration of a work can be misguided; in cases where the fabrication is largely mechanical and the artist has assented to the result, common sense should avoid “fetishizing” the original.
LACMA owns two other Plexiglas paintings by Craig Kauffman and many works on paper. With the mishap of the irreparable damage to Untitled Wall Relief of 1967, LACMA lost a significant work from its internationally respected collection of Southern California art. The work’s re-embodiment in this new object brings its history full circle and enables the work to remain represented in the collection.
Senior Curatorial Fellow, Contemporary Art
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
2 Responses to A Broken Dream Recovered
roberta bloom says:
hogwash….a twin born 40 years after it’s sibling is not a twin…but another member of the family. thank you for the history and the context….for anyone fascinated by museum practices this is a wonderful story and worthy of contemplation.
Frank Lloyd says:
This is a very cogent and accurate view of the 2008 process of re-creation by Kauffman of “Untitled” (originally made in 1967). Mr. Fox is to be commended again for his curatorial content, especially the historical facts: “…Kauffman himself cast the new work directly from the carcass of the original, and he mixed the colors himself. The re-fabrication was executed completely under Kauffman’s control, and he was satisfied with the result. The interests and hopes of both the artist and LACMA’s contemporary curators—to recover a lost work of art—were congruent. The artist’s satisfaction with the result informed LACMA’s curatorial thinking as well.”
Solving the Mystery of the Queen’s Train
All That Had Been Lost: An African American Journey through the Luba Exhibition
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Muse ’til Midnight with Tycho, Willits, and the Silver Lake Chorus
Muse ’til Midnight has a history of bringing music and art together after-hours at LACMA, and this year our mashups are better than ever. Scott Hansen, who has been mastering dreamy downtempo techno for the past ten years as Tycho, is featured at Urban Light with a Willits DJ set opening the evening. Later, the Silver Lake Chorus takes the dreamy evening into their own hands (and voices) with live performances inside Van Gogh to Kandinsky and John Altoon.
We had a chance to speak with the event’s performers and get an inside look at their relationship to art, music, and what they’re looking forward to about the event.
Tycho, image courtesy of the Windish Agency
First things first, let’s introduce you and what you do.
Scott Hansen (Tycho): I am a musician/producer and a visual artist working in graphic design and video. Tycho is an audio/visual project which combines all of these disciplines.
Christopher Willits: I love to create experiences of peaceful intensity. I do this through sounds and images. I’ll be playing a DJ set at LACMA, no live guitar, voice, or images with the music, but I like that challenge–creating images without using light.
The Silver Lake Chorus: We arrange, sing, and create music that reflects the indie spirit of our community in Silver Lake. Our current album features never before heard songs written for us by awesome indie musicians like Justin Vernon, Tegan & Sara, and Ben Gibbard.
Christopher Willits, photo by Tomo Saito
Does the world of visual art inspire you when you’re composing and creating music?
SH: I don’t see a very distinct separation between the music and the imagery I create as Tycho. They are both means to the same end, to translate a larger vision. There is a lot of interplay between both sides during the composition process, it’s not so much that they inform each other, but that they are both coming from the same source and that they are both designed to reinforce a singular vision.
TSLC: Absolutely. Often when we’re arranging we turn to paintings for inspiration. Visual art is an amazing tool that helps us find a given mood or tone. Also, we rehearse in an abandoned church with stained glass windows all around, which always seems to inspire us, especially for the more haunting or ethereal numbers we do.
The Silver Lake Chorus warming up inside the John Altoon exhibition
Tell me about the first time you had an “art experience”—the first time you felt affected, moved, or changed by a work of art.
SH: Around about eight-years-old my dad’s friend gave me a set of mix tapes with most of the Beatles’ discography. I think hearing the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour for the first time taught me what music appreciation could be. Until then I had just heard stuff my parents played or songs on the radio with a passing interest.
CW: I think I was two or three and I was doing this circular sufi-like dance listening to my parents cranking “L.A.Woman” by the Doors.
TSLC: I remember being at summer camp when I was really little, and we did an art project where we cut a circle in the bottom of a paper bag, like the ones you get at the grocery store. We were given paint and were instructed to paint the bag however we wanted, then put the paper bag on like a suit of armor, putting our head through the hole we’d cut on the bottom of the bag. Once we’d finished, I was gallivanting around in my colorful brown paper armor and feeling like a totally different person, like I was a magical creature from a different time. That’s a pretty cool feeling all from a brown paper bag, some scissors, and some paint. (Mikey Wells, Choral Director)
The Silver Lake Chorus rehearsing inside the Van Gogh to Kandinsky exhibition
Describe your dream museum visit.
SH: A space dedicated to preserving the history of music technology. Ideally the instruments would be playable but I know that’s not really feasible.
CW: An immersive experience of sound and light and smell. I have not experienced this where it felt completely connected, so my friends and I are striving to create this experience in a new space in San Francisco soon.
What are you most looking forward to about performing at LACMA’s Muse ’til Midnight?
CW: I’m excited to connect with a bunch of new people and really just have some fun, celebrate life with a bunch of friends and friendly strangers. Scott and I are like brothers and it’s always fun to create a space together.
TSLC: Being part of an event where timeless works of art, guests who are looking to have an experience, and musicians come together to share in a truly unique and colorful evening. Singing harmonies in massive, reverberant exhibition halls amidst expressionist art sounds like a really good time.
Muse ’til Midnight, happening this Saturday, August 2, at 8 pm. On the lineup:
8 pm: Willits DJ set
9 pm: Tycho DJ set
10:30 pm: The Silver Lake Chorus live
Don’t miss this arty party: tickets to Muse ‘til Midnight are available now at lacma.org.
Meghan McCauley, New Members Manager
The Written Image: Books and Portfolios from the Rifkind Center
When you hear the names of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, you might think of the colorful, expressive, and often large-scale paintings that they did in the early 20th century—many examples of which can be seen in Expressionism in Germany and France: From Van Gogh to Kandinsky, currently on view in the Resnick Pavilion. Lesser known is their more intimate work; indeed, the young generation of German avant-garde artists favored printmaking in addition to painting. The newly opened permanent-collection installation The Written Image presents selected works from the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies and the Prints and Drawings Department at LACMA and explores the rich and varied dialogue between the written word and the print in its various manifestations.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Triumph of Love (Triumph der Liebe), 1911, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, © Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, courtesy Ingeborg & Dr. Wolfgang Henze-Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern
In the early 20th century, prints produced as single sheets, portfolios, books, and periodicals became a favorite means of expression for artists, since they were able to use these media to execute relatively inexpensive original art rapidly and widely disseminate it. For instance, emerging artists were hired to create illustrations, which would then be inserted in avant-garde periodicals such as Der Sturm (The Storm) or Die Aktion (The Action). For many of these young men and women, it was their first opportunity to publish work and make a living off art.
Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Macbeth V, 1918, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Donavon W. and Mary C. Byer
Expressionist artists found a major source of inspiration in literature, turning to classic and modern publications alike. The works of the renowned German writer and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and those of the famous English playwright William Shakespeare provided the artists with popular narratives, which they reinterpreted in highly expressive prints. Other Expressionists turned to more contemporary writers: the English poet Oscar Wilde, who had died in 1900, became another major source of inspiration. His poem The Ballade of Reading Goal became a favorite text for the young generation of artists and was illustrated by many, notably Erich Heckel.
Oskar Kokoschka, The Sailboat (Das Segelschiff), from The Dreaming Boys (Die träumenden Knaben), 1908, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, purchased with funds provided by Anna Bing Arnold, Museum Associates Acquisition Fund, and deaccession funds © 2014 Fondation Oskar Kokoschka / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ProLitteris, Zürich
Some artists would also write poems or plays and illustrate them. With his book The Dreaming Boys (Die träumenden Knaben) from 1908, the Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka created an original work combining lithographs and text. Although initially commissioned by the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshop) as a children’s book, Kokoschka’s poems about sexual longing and the accompanying, often suggestive, prints are removed from children’s tales and lean toward an original form of Bild-Dichtung (poetry with images) composed in a very expressive and provocative style.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Cover of Gustav Schiefler, The Graphic Work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (Das graphische Werk von Ernst Ludwig Kirchner), 1922–24, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, © Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Courtesy Ingeborg & Dr. Wolfgang Henze-Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern
Besides the written word, the book itself became also a medium for artistic creativity—from the cover, dust jackets, and bindings to the frontispieces, title pages, and endpapers. The original graphics created by artists to adorn the book became works of art in their own right. Especially for their catalogues raisonnés, artists such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde would give free rein to their artistic imagination, contributing original prints to further single out their work. Kirchner in particular excelled in combining image and text in his simplified, rough-hewn woodcuts.
Ludwig Meidner, Portrait of Paul Westheim, 1924, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, © Ludwig Meidner-Archiv, Jüdisches Museum der Stadt Frankfurt am Main
After World War I, illustrated books and printed portfolios became increasingly popular with collectors. This was due in large part to several German publishers and art dealers, who often worked directly with the artists and commissioned specific works. The art critic and collector Paul Westheim was the editor of the progressive art journal Das Kunstblatt (The Art Sheet) and also launched the portfolio series Die Schaffenden (The Creators), published between 1918 and 1932, which featured original prints by artists such as Erich Heckel and Max Kaus. By the 1920s, books and the distinctly German phenomenon of the print portfolio had become the central means of presenting modernist innovations, from Dada to the Bauhaus experimentation with type fonts and graphic design.
LACMA is one of only few institutions in the US to own such an exceptional collection of early 20th-century illustrated books, periodicals, and portfolios. Rarely on view, this exhibition is a wonderful opportunity to discover the variety of book illustration and print making in early 20th-century Germany.
Frauke Josenhans, Curatorial Assistant, Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies
This Weekend at LACMA
Start the weekend right with some music fun and exciting films! Beginning Friday, LACMA presents three selections in the evening: the classic 1932 psychological thriller M at 7 pm at the Inglewood Art+Film Lab; Inside Man, directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington, at 7:30 pm in the Bing Theater; and Spike Lee’s Student Academy Award winning film Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads at 9:45 pm also in the Bing. Beforehand, at 6 pm, come out and relax to the piano sounds of Sunnie Paxson Trio with vocalist Cynthia Calhoun during this week’s installment of Jazz at LACMA.
Vincent van Gogh, Wheat Field with Reaper (Harvest in Provence)
(Champ de blé avec moissonneur), 1889, Museum Folkwang. Photo Credit:
bpk, Berlin / Museum Folkwang/ Art Resource, NY
On Saturday, learn about video and filmmaking at the Instant Film Workshop at noon and come watch the stirring film Salt of the Earth later that day at 7 pm, both presented in conjunction with Inglewood Art+Film Lab. Back at the museum, join in on any of these amazing, free tours including walkthroughs of popular exhibitions like Expressionism in Germany and France: From Van Gogh to Kandinsky, and Treasures from Korea: Arts and Culture of the Joseon Dynasty, 1392–1910; as well as looks at American Landscape, South and Southeast Asian Art, and many more. At 5 pm Latin Sounds presents a program of traditional and modern Brazilian Choro music by Grupo Falso Baiano in Hancock Park. And finally, at 7:30 pm in the Bing Theater see Van Gogh in a portrayal of the troubles and experiences of painter Vincent Van Gogh.
Installation photograph, Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic, November 24, 2013–July 27, 2014, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, © Calder Foundation, New York, Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, photo © Fredrik Nilsen
Catch the final days of the imaginative and balanced modern sculptures seen in Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic closing Sunday, July 27. A ticket into this exhibition also grants you access to Van Gogh to Kandinsky! To explore more of the galleries, visit any one of these tours including Islamic Art, Cubism, European Art, and Japanese Art. Put a perfect end to the perfect weekend with unique melodies from violinist Conrad Chow and pianist Timothy Durkovic at Sundays Live.
Lily Tiao
John Altoon’s Banana Man
I am at LACMA on a Wednesday drinking Earl Grey tea and eating a fistful of sugar cookies; the museum is closed. I watch the gardeners prune the large palm trees in front of BCAM; palm fronds scatter across the sidewalk. I’m here for a study day and walk-through of the John Altoon exhibition with other artists. We take the Barbara Kruger elevator up to the second floor of BCAM and situate ourselves in the first room of the exhibition. I look around. Some of the paintings are familiar, but most are new to me. Despite his premature death of a heart attack at age 44, Altoon produced a plethora of work.
Installation view, John Altoon, June 8–September 14, 2014, Los Angeles County Musuem of Art, © 2014 Estate of John Altoon, photo © 2014 Museum Associates/LACMA
Altoon’s practice, especially evidenced in the works in the first room, varies in style and technique, as if the artist was sampling a variety of ideas, trying on many different approaches to see what stuck. We see elements of Abstract Expressionism in a number of his paintings, highly rendered fictional magazine advertisement drawings, and cartoonish works on paper.
John Altoon, Untitled (F-46), 1966, National Gallery of Art, Washington, anonymous gift, 1997, © 2014 Estate of John Altoon
Carol S. Eliel, the curator of the exhibition, begins the day by discussing how the exhibition came together by framing Altoon as an “artist’s artist.” Highly regarded and respected by other artists, the lineage of Altoon’s practice has been passed on to the subsequent generation of artists. We see this throughout the exhibition wall quotes as well as in the catalogue, texts by contemporary artists such as Monica Majoli, Monique Prieto, and Laura Owens, who each wrote about the influence of Altoon’s work on their own.
During the study day, we learned from Eliel that Altoon’s archive was not well maintained, and much of what we know about his life and practice has been passed on by his colleagues. I sit in the room during the conversation and listen as others share their experiences with Altoon’s work as well as any personal relationship they had with him. Through these different stories, I get a clearer picture of what Altoon might have been as an artist and a person. Arguments were made and disputed—everything from his intentions in using the female form to whether or not he wore striped pants. Some spoke about Altoon as a draftsman or as an illustrator. Others argued that his paintings were not “successful.” I watch as all these artists assert their positions and, through Altoon, position their own relationships to painting.
John Altoon in his studio, ca. 1968. Image courtesy of and © Joe Goode
“Was he a feminist?”
“Well, he was friends with Judy Chicago.”
“Yeah, but that was before she was a feminist herself.”
John Altoon, Untitled (F-8), 1962–63, collection of Dean Valentine and Amy Adelson, © 2014 Estate of John Altoon, photo © 2014 Museum Associates/LACMA
As the conversation moves into the third gallery, I am struck by one painting in particular: Untitled (F-8), 1962–63, which, for the purposes of this text, I will call “Woman in Yellow Coat.” The work is a large portrait painting of a bourgeois couple standing together. The woman is at the center of the frame, taking up two-thirds of the image, pushing to the side the man in a green jacket and cowboy hat, who holds a box of cigars. She stands there in a dark yellow raincoat and a large rain hat, which is tied around her short blond hair. Both are naked from the waist down. The presence of this painting reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), in which Kim Novak’s character is supposedly haunted by a painting of her great relative, Carlotta Veldez. The character goes and sits in a museum every day, mesmerized by her own image—she’s supposedly dead. The painting stares back at us, making us, the viewers, aware of its presence. The painting taps into the history of San Francisco and the manner in which a city and its history are mythologized, shared through folktales like ghost stories.
Still from Vertigo, 1958
Staring at “Woman in Yellow Coat” I’m reminded of a comment that art historian Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe made about a conversation he had had with John Baldessari, who said that no other artist was more influenced by Altoon than Mike Kelley.
Kelley is also mentioned twice in the Altoon catalogue, once by Paul McCarthy, who shared conversations he had with Kelley about Altoon, as well by Eliel, who indicates that Kelley owned and collected Altoon. Looking at “Woman in Yellow Coat” I immediately think of Mike Kelley’s 1983 video The Banana Man. This work is currently on display as part of the Mike Kelley retrospective at MOCA Los Angeles.
Mike Kelley, Banana Man, 1983, courtesy Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts
Kelley’s costume contains a similar hat and jumpsuit, though his outfit covers his entire body. The fabric is lined with white zippers along the suit as well as with a long, white handkerchief that sticks out from the crotch like a large, flaccid penis. I remember seeing The Banana Man over 10 years ago and thinking that Kelley’s character was based on the namesake of Gilligan’s Island, a floppy character who is the show’s comic relief, constantly knocking things over and accidentally destroying others’ belongings. Kelley often plays the clown in his videos, a grown-up child not capable of dealing with adult responsibilities. He too scared to deal with his own sexuality, simultaneously driven by and terrified of his own penis.
Mike Kelley, Banana Man Costume, 1981, courtesy Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts
According the Electronic Arts Intermix, which houses the video, Kelley states, “the Banana Man was a minor figure on a children’s television show I watched in my youth. I, myself, never saw this performer. Everything I know about him was told to me by my friends. The Banana Man is an attempt at constructing the psychology of the character—problematized by the fact that the character is already a fictional one, and by the fact that none of my observations were direct ones.”
Another character constructed through the passing of information from person to person. What is the Banana Man but merely an archetype, a collection of other characters such as Harpo Marx, Charlie Chaplain, and Harold Lloyd, morphed into one clown? We see many archetypes throughout Kelley’s other video work: Dracula, Santa Claus, etc. Each of these figures is a cultural form we already know.
As I recall Kelley’s yellow suit, I first think of the white handkerchiefs. Throughout the video, he constantly pulls them from both the front and back of his costume like a magic trick. I’m also reminded of gay hankie, a common tool in the 1970s for gay sex cruising. Different colored handkerchiefs stood for different sexual proclivity: white meant masturbation (the color representing semen). Kelley mentions his own semen in the video as he pours table salt across the screen. He uses these hankies to clean the mess from his over-sexed libido. The Banana Man’s costume does quite fit Kelley and droops off of his body, as if he was wearing “daddy” clothing. This is much different from Altoon’s yellow raincoat, which is quite form fitting, made for the subject’s body. I’m reminded of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol. 1, running around slaying her enemies in a fitted yellow jumpsuit.
Still from Kill Bill, 2003
While Altoon’s subject’s torso appears naturally posed, her lower nude half looks uncomfortable—legs are twisted and turned as if a comfortable stance is elusive. While the half-nude male subject of the painting is tucked into the background, the female’s body is completely exposed. She stands there looking outward, addressing the viewer. Her nudity reminds of me of a Vanessa Beecroft performance, in which spectators are confronted by the reality of the live nude female form.
In The Banana Man, there is a constant struggle between Kelley’s gender identification and gendered power. Although he always uses a male pronoun to identify himself, he fluctuates in performing highly gendered tasks. As man, he identifies as an “average guy” who is paid a low wage for his labor, performing the role as a blue-collar worker. We see him lust over the female body, wanting sexual gratification. This is quite similar to Altoon’s works on paper, in which we see castrated, anthropomorphized penises attempting to seduce fully drawn female bodies.
As female, Kelley performs the role of mother, one seen in multiple characters, from the martyr dressed up as angel feeding the other performers garbage to the pregnant woman trying to deliver a baby to Lady Liberty. As mother, he even plays a pregnant female dog, as he circles around a yellow carpet in his underwear stating that his character has developed a kidney infection mistaken for pregnancy. Without child, he thinks his dog toys are puppies, and he both caresses and humps them. Does Kelley want to be Mother, or does he want to be like Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Does he see enchantment as the only means through which to hold on to Mother? If his male characters are impotent, his women are barren. Kelley performs a miscarriage by standing over a bucket and releasing potatoes from his between his legs, which stands in for stillborn babies. Throughout The Banana Man there is a constant shift between the representation of the phallus versus the representation of the vaginal. His jumpsuit pockets are consistently penetrated by off-screen hands, only to reveal that they are also barren or merely filled with garbage.
Yellow is a symbol of both pleasure and decay in the video. While the viewer is seduced by Kelley’s candy-colored suit and the idea of the sweet taste of the banana, Kelley also reminds us that yellow is the color of jaundice. In both Altoon’s and Kelley’s work, the body is in a state of decay: for Altoon the images are scribbled together, half-formed figures struggling to maintain shape, while in Kelley’s fluids are pouring and leaking out of the body as the character’s physicality begins to fall apart he loses a grip on his mental stability. In their lives, both artists struggled with mental illness. Altoon was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his late 30s and suffered from depression and paranoia, and Kelley who took his own life in 2012. Mental anxiety is apparent in both their works: in Altoon’s through the rapid pace that his pen takes across the paper, the automatic drawing that reveals the artist’s subconscious; and in Kelly’s through the subject of emotional trauma.
Mike Kelley, still from Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #36, 2011, courtesy Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts
I’m at the Egyptian Theatre at FilmForum with a big bucket of popcorn watching Kelly’s video Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #36 (Vice Anglais), from 2011. In the video, four figures tie up a woman dressed in white, laughing at her and whipping her over until she bleeds. Three of figures are male and the fourth is female. She does not participate in these actions but watches closely with amusement. These scenes take place in what appears to be a cave, similar to a Beckett play, a no man’s land in limbo. Though the video is absurd, at no point does it apologize for its violence. At the end, the bride is not untied, she lays there covered in blood exhausted by her torture. We sit in the theater watching this violence onto the female body. The theater is quite silent during this screening, with the occasional awkward laugh. Each of us wonder with whom is Kelley asking us to identity in this violence. With whom does Kelley identify?
Paul Pescador, artist and filmmaker
The Legacy of Joseon: Korea’s Last Dynasty
Popular interest in all things Korean has been growing in the United States. Samsung and Hyundai are now familiar household names, South Korea’s rapid economic expansion continues to defy most predictions, and recent reports on the health benefits of Korean food and the overseas popularity of Korean films, soap operas, and K-pop have captured the attention of many, especially those of us living in Los Angeles. But even ardent Korea-philes may be surprised to learn that many of the social customs, beliefs, and traditions still prominent in Korea today can be traced back to the Joseon dynasty.
Unknown artist, Karma Mirror and Stand, 19th century, National
Museum of Korea, Seoul, photo © National Museum of Korea
The exhibition Treasures from Korea: Arts and Culture of Joseon Dynasty, 1392–1910, which just opened at LACMA on June 29, brings to Los Angeles the art and culture of this last dynasty of Korea. Most of the nearly 150 works in the exhibition, among them national treasures that have never been shown in the U.S., have been generously loaned by the National Museum of Korea as well as other museums and private collections in Korea. This exhibit, which is traveling between the Philadelphia Museum of Art, LACMA, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is part of an important cultural exchange between South Korea and the United States. In 2013, these three museums, along with the Terra Foundation for American Art, sent to Korea the first-ever survey of American art in the exhibition Art across America, which was on view at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul from February 4 through May 19, 2013, after which it traveled to the Daejeon Museum of Art (June 17–September 1, 2013).
Marked by a grand sense of pageantry, a strong sense of morality, and an unwavering reverence for nature—all characteristic of the Joseon dynasty—this exhibition is the first major presentation of traditional Korean art at LACMA. Treasures from Korea is also the third part of a larger effort to share traditional Korean art with the American audience. The two earlier installments, which featured works from the earlier dynasties of Silla (A.D. 57–668) and Goryeo (A.D. 918–1392), were presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, in 2013 and 2003, respectively.
Divided into five themes, Treasures from Korea captures the story of the life of an epic dynasty—its embrace of neo-Confucianism in the belief that the philosophy would sustain the country, how tastes emerged as the upper class developed new ceremonies and events (which then influenced the rest of society), how earlier historic Korean traditions were practiced in the private sphere, and how all these customs and assumptions were tested and reshaped by the pressures of modernization and the infiltration of the West.
The King and His Court
Korea’s Joseon dynasty spanned more than 500 years, overlapping with China’s Ming and Qing dynasties and Japan’s Muromachi, Momoyama, Edo, and Meiji periods. The dynastic founder, Yi Songgye, established Korea’s first secular state based on the principles of neo-Confucianism in a decisive move away from centuries of policies centered on Buddhism. In this revolutionary shift, the long-revered Korean traditions of shamanism (the indigenous religion of Korea), Buddhism, and Daoism, which together had sought to bring understanding to the rules of nature and the cosmos, became absorbed and integrated into a larger order based on China’s Confucianism, a philosophy of attaining social harmony. Altered to suit Korea’s political needs, this version of Confucianism was known as neo-Confucianism.
This was both a radical and conscious shift espoused by the government to start the dynasty anew. (The name Joseon translates to “fresh dawn.”) Although Korea had historically regarded itself as a sovereign state of China, the implementation of neo-Confucian policies was an important step for Korea in its effort to become an independent country with a healthy respect for China. With the fall of the Chinese Ming dynasty to the Manchus in 1644, Koreans regarded themselves as representatives of the last bastion of Confucianism.
Royal Protocol for the Kings’ Portraits, 1902, National Museum of Korea, Jangseogak Archives, the Academy of Korean Studies, Seongnam, photo © National Museum of Korea
It was of quintessential importance for the newly founded dynasty, with its unfamiliar secular state policies and recently established kingship, to assert its legitimacy. Rituals played a critical role in bringing about a culture of pomp and pageantry thought to ensure continued dynastic prosperity. All festivities demanded a particular presentation and were massive affairs with countless artisans, laborers, and officials engaged in the production of these rituals of the court. The first section of the exhibition, titled “The King and His Court,” showcases the celebration and documentation of important rites of passage for the royal lineage. It illustrates how the birth of a royal was celebrated with large-scale folding screens and placenta jars, how the honoring of new regal progeny included the giving of official titles of rank, and how the welcoming of foreign envoys, royal weddings, and funerals involved colorful, vibrant folding screens and tranquil ceramics. This theme exhibits the regalia and aesthetic tastes of the court, as well as the public life and customs regarded as most important in the life of the king.
Women’s Ceremonial Topcoat (Wonsam), 19th century, Seoul Museum of History, photo © Seoul Museum of History
Joseon Society
The second theme, “Joseon Society,” explores how the royal aesthetic and adherence to neo-Confucian principles manifested itself in the Joseon upper class and trickled down to the rest of Joseon society. The underlying moral and social culture of the court deeply affected the rest of society. While the majority of the different classes of society were based on heredity, officials of the court secured their positions through government examinations that were based on Confucian teachings. With this, the culture of the scholar-official, or literati, was born. What began as a way to gain a court position evolved into a culture that held scholarship in the highest regard.
A consequence of this was the widening distinction between men and women. Women did not have a place in politics or the outside world and were relegated to overseeing the house with the primary obligation of producing sons. We see the difference in their roles manifested in the style of furniture, clothing, and choice of objects used by the male scholar-official as compared to the interests and decorative aesthetics of the female in the Joseon household. Symbols of nature, longevity, and good fortune visually populated the arts as ways to convey, acknowledge, and affirm an understanding of the shared importance of these beliefs.
Box with Ox-Horn Decoration, late 19th century, National Museum of Korea, Seoul, photo © National Museum of Korea
In further efforts to promote Confucian studies, a native script known as Hangeul was developed in 1446. It allowed Chinese classics to be translated, but the new invention had a more far-reaching impact by allowing all members of society, including those who were not educated in classical Chinese, to read and write. It immediately generated a new, popular activity of writing personal letters.
Hangeul Letter and Envelope, 1752–59, National Museum
of Korea, Seoul, photo © National Museum of Korea
Preaching Assembly of Amitabha, 19th century, Gyeongju National Museum, photo © 2014 Gyeongju National Museum
Ancestral Rituals and Confucian Values
The Confucian concept of filial piety made it a moral duty to pay respect to one’s ancestors and, by correlation, to one’s king, making the practice of ancestral rituals an even more pronounced part of Joseon life than it had been in previous times. Korean shaman priests and the Buddhist clergy for centuries practiced respect for, and dedication to, one’s ancestors. Re-envisioned in a new ritualized form, the ceremonies honoring the dead held at the Joseon royal court were believed to control the fate of the country; they were directly linked to proving and protecting the king’s legitimacy and authority. The social obligations expected of every court official quickly relegated these practices to the home, where the precise conduct of the ceremony and the quality of ritual wares used became equated with devotion and respect for one’s ancestors. The exhibition’s third theme takes us into this private realm of ancestor worship.
Incense Container, 19th century, National Museum of Korea, photo © 2014 National Museum of Korea
Brass, National Palace Museum of Korea, photo © 2014 National Palace Museum of Korea
Continuity and Change in Joseon Buddhism
With Confucian state rites replacing Buddhist ones, Buddhism, which had been the moral and religious stronghold for previous Korean dynasties, was relegated to an even deeper private sphere of individual worship among members of the royal court and society when it came to matters of life and death. Paintings and devotional objects were commissioned to support prayer requests for a long and healthy life and wishes for a successful rebirth in the afterlife. But with the obligation to produce a son, women of both the Joseon court and society became the staunchest supporters. In these requests, all earlier Korean traditions were called upon, and Daoist and folk deities were jointly worshipped in the name of Buddhism.
Water Dropper, 19th century, National Museum of Korea, photo © 2014 National Museum of Korea
Joseon in Modern Times
Despite a number of major attacks from China and Japan over the years, the dynasty survived centuries of relative political stability. But with the tide of Western influence, all aspects of the Joseon dynasty were brought into question and in many ways were interrupted. Although foreign influences had made their way indirectly to Korea by means of diplomatic missions to China, by and large the Joseon dynasty protected itself with a foreign policy of isolation. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, Korea was forced to open its ports to trade, a decision that prompted a range of responses from those who staunchly believed that Korea’s identity and independence lay in the strict continuation of neo-Confucian ideals to those who, with the changing atmosphere in the world beyond, believed that the future lay with joining the rest of the world. It’s evident that the introduction of electricity and photography and—in an effort to modernize—the declaration of the Korean empire in 1897 brought stylistic changes in art and uniforms as well as royal household items and books in English. From the pomp and pageantry of the king and his court to their influence on the rest of Joseon society, and from expressions of private individuals to their practice of ancestor worship and Buddhism, the seeming end of a dynasty turned out to be a coming of age as the country began to emerge into the modern period.
Korea, Scholar’s Books and Objects (Chaekkeori), Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), 19th century, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Far East Art Council Fund
Official’s Robe, Trousers, Sword, and Sword Belt, early 20th century, Korean, Museum of Korean Embroidery, Seoul, photo © Museum of Korean Embroidery
It is so often the case: politics affects art. The state policy introduced by early Joseon officials resulted in new artistic production that accommodated the needs of the new dynasty. Largely made by unknown craftspersons and court artists, the art of this period embodied a philosophy and social order that resulted in the longest-running Confucian dynasty in history. And that is a remarkable achievement worth seeing.
Virginia Moon, Assistant Curator, Korean Art
A version of this article originally appeared in the summer 2014 (volume 8, issue 3) of LACMA’s Insider.
Spend Friday with any of these exciting events ranging from film, art tours and exciting live music. At 7:30 pm, catch Spike Lee’s Malcolm X in the Bing Theater. For a more art filled day, join in on LACMA’s many art tours including John Altoon at 1:00 pm, Art of the Ancient Americas at 2 pm, Modern & Contemporary Art at 2:30 pm, and European Art at 3 pm. End the day with some relaxing Jazz at LACMA music featuring bassist Henry “The Skipper” Franklin.
Enjoying Jazz at LACMA
Studio Session: Drawing with Color kickstarts this Saturday at 10 am at the Los Angeles Times Central Court; improve your drawing skills while exploring creativity and color. At 5 pm Latin Sounds presents the Cuban sounds of Orquesta Charonga led by Flutist Fay Roberts.
In the Bing Theater, come enjoy the film It Happened One Night at 7:30 pm. Check out some of LACMA’s additional art exhibit tours featuring Arts and Culture of Joseon Korea at noon, Ganesha: Elephant-Headed God at 1 pm, Art of the Pacific at 2:30 pm and many more.
LACMA9 Art+Film Lab photos © Museum Associates/LACMA, by Duncan Cheng
On Sunday, Montebello Art + Film Lab presents a special Free Day at LACMA: Montebello with family fun activities, art gallery tours, and artist Nicole Miller’s film Nicole Miller: Believing Is Seeing at 12:30 pm. Kids can learn more about environment issues with the art course Eco-Friendly Art at 10 am. Stroll through The Work of Diego Riviera at 1 pm and catch Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic before it closes next week on July 27. Other ongoing exhibitions include Expressionism in Germany and France: From Van Gogh to Kandisnsky at 10:30 am, Art of the Ancient World at noon, and Japanese Art at 2 pm. Finally, there is no better way to end the weekend then with the beautiful opera sounds of the iPalpiti Artists Soprano Disella Lárusdóttir and Counter-Tenor Daniel Bubeck at 6 pm in the Bing Theater.
Night in Day
The night never wants to end, to give itself over
to light. So it traps itself in things: obsidian, crows.
Even on summer solstice, the day of light’s great
triumph, where fields of sunflowers guzzle in the sun—
we break open the watermelon and spit out
black seeds, bits of night glistening on the grass.
The exhibition Night in Day is named after a Joseph Stroud poem, which describes the dark of night as a powerful force that creeps into everyday objects, refusing defeat. Slivers of night might be found in rounded black watermelon seeds, the wings of crows, or the shimmer of volcanic glass. Black is the remnant of night in our day.
For this exhibition of 11 photographs from LACMA’s permanent collection currently on view in the exhibition, I have selected works by artists who have made the night a central part of their subject. Darkened city streets, glowing suburban structures, and starlit landscapes contain narratives cloaked in darkness, that, when surrendered to the light of day, offer the rare opportunity to grasp their shrouded details.
Larry Clark, Acid, Lower East Side from the portfolio Teenage Lust, 1981, gift of Barry Lowen
Larry Clark’s Acid Lower East Side (1968) is an arresting image of a young man making direct visual contact with the photographer. His white facial makeup and the fringe of his cape reflect the ambient light emanating from the street lamp overhead and shops that line the receding sidewalk. Alone on the cobblestone crosswalk, the man looks fierce, disagreeable, and mildly threatening—sensations that we can voyeuristically observe via the photograph from a distance. For this series, Teenage Lust (and Tulsa just before it), Clark photographed amid his friends and acquaintances, suggesting that this is not a stranger caught unaware, but someone who he was out with one night in 1968 on the streets of New York City.
Lewis Baltz, Night Construction, Reno, 1977, gift of Joe Deal, © Lewis Baltz, courtesy Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne
Nighttime Construction, Reno, taken by Lewis Baltz nearly a decade later, offers the landscape of the American West as it was being transformed by a building boom and the systematic creation of suburbs and sprawl. Most closely identified with New Topographics, Baltz’s work aestheticizes the built environment with a deadpan, unromantic gaze. This is a rare nighttime view of home construction as workers presumably aim to meet a completion deadline. The photograph pictures the house’s plywood skeleton lit by a hidden source of light from within, giving the man-made structure a miraculous glow against the dark, silhouetted ridge.
Florian Maier-Aichen, Untitled, 2007, gift of Sheridan Brown, courtesy of the artist; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; Gagosian Gallery, New York; and 303 Gallery, New York
Florian Maier-Aichen’s 2007 photograph, Untitled, grants a bird’s-eye view of a mountain landscape woven with wispy clouds. At first glance the dark sky evokes a photographic nocturne, but the brightness of the mountain and reflective nature of the clouds suggest something else at work. From the top of Mt. Baldy, this scene was photographed with 4 x 5 black-and-white infrared film evoking an eerie, unnatural appearance. Commonly referred to as day for night in cinema, this technique is used by filmmakers to simulate a night scene. While the effect is convincing, it simultaneously conveys a level of discomfort difficult to qualify.
Since the invention of photography, artists have been capturing nighttime scenes—drawn to the technical challenge of photographing under low light conditions and to the creative challenge of capturing veiled moments that can easily go undetected. Night in Day offers a glimpse into these shadowy and mysterious narratives.
Rebecca Morse, Associate Curator, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department
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Land Of Books
Ognian Georgiev's official web page. Author, journalist and TV commentator
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ROBERT ELLIS: CITY OF ECHOES IS AN EPIC THRILLER
Posted by Ognian Georgiev
Robert Ellis’s next novel City of Echoes will have an official premiere on September 1. The book is already in the market for pre-sales and thanks to Kindle first program the first reviews already came. “I couldn’t put it down”, “Excellent read” and “Classic LA Noir” are just few of the opinions by readers. The novel received pretty nice rating with 4.1 Amazon stars from 181 reviews.
The American writer became a bestselling author with his novel The Dead Room. In one of the coolest interviews ever at Land of Books our next guest reveals interesting facts about his books and his future plans.
– Robert, what is your next book City of Echoes about?
– CITY OF ECHOES is the introduction of a new LAPD homicide detective, Matt Jones, on the first night of his first murder case. A man has been gunned down in a parking lot off Hollywood Boulevard. At a glance, the bullet-riddled body appears to be the work of a serial robber who’s been working the Strip for months. The crime is so grisly, the identity of the victim so outrageous, that Jones and his partner, Denny Cabrera, jump into the investigation faster than they should. Nothing about the direction they’re taking is even close to safe. As Jones uncovers evidence linking the crime to a brutal, ritualized murder that occurred eighteen months ago, he begins to suspect that there’s more going on beneath the surface, and that he and his partner are in too deep to turn back or escape. When Jones discovers how far the corruption goes, a cover-up that defies the imagination, and his own personal ties to the rising body count, he’s no longer sure he can trust anyone, not even himself.
– How did you decide to write the story of LA Homicide detective?
– Great question. I love the genre. I grew up in Philadelphia, but moved to Los Angeles and ended up spending most of my life living there. I’ve worked with two homicide detectives from the Robbery Homicide Division, Cold Case Unit for every one of novels. I originally thought that the hero in my last three novels, Lena Gamble, would be great for CITY OF ECHOES. Later I realized that I needed someone younger and with less experience like Matt Jones to cover the thriller beats, make the story resonate, and bring it all home.
– What was the biggest challenge during the write up process?
– CITY OF ECHOES is an epic thriller. The last third of the novel is laced with twists and turns. My readers expect this when they sit down with any of my novels, so I’m always looking for ways to make sure the reading experience is as intense as possible. This means that for any single novel, I’m actually writing three. In CITY OF ECHOES there is the world as it appears to Matt, the world that it could possibly be, and then with the resolution, the world as it really is. Lifting the veil between the way the opponent wants Matt to see the crime, and Matt’s discovery of what actually happened — making all that work is always the big challenge, but also, the most rewarding part of writing.
– Tell us something more about your main character Matt Jones? Is he close to someone from your real life?
– Matt Jones, or should I say, Matthew Trevor Jones, came up the hard way. His father walked out on his wife and son when Matt was just a boy. His aunt took him in and he was raised in New Jersey. When his aunt passed away, Matt enlisted in the army and was sent to Afghanistan where he met his best friend, Kevin Hughes. Before his tour of duty, Hughes was a cop in Los Angeles. After many long talks and after their return to the US, Hughes convinces Matt to leave the East Coast and sign on with the LAPD. After five years on the force Matt is promoted to Hollywood Homicide. And that’s where CITY OF ECHOES begins; the first night of his first murder case.
Matt Jones relies on his intelligence and instincts to see him through. He is a remarkable character . For almost the entire story, Matt’s life is on the line. In spite of the danger, in spite of the terror, he ignores his fears and pursues the real killer. We experience the story through his eyes, his thoughts, his worries, his best guesses. Like real life, sometimes Matt is right, and sometimes he’s wrong. In either case, Matt’s a keeper and we’re with him all the way.
– How much time did you need to finish the story and to publish it?
– (laughs) If you were to ask my editors and my readers, I think everyone would agree that I take too much time! My only defense is that I think all of my novels show that it was worth it!
– The Dead Room is your most popular book. Did you expect such a success of the novel?
– If you had asked this question before August 1st, I would have said that THE DEAD ROOM was my most popular novel. But now, with CITY OF ECHOES, I’m not sure that’s true anymore. CITY OF ECHOES has caught fire and changed everything for me. All three books in the Lena Gamble trilogy are doing the same thing. THE DEAD ROOM will always be special because it’s dedicated to my father who introduced me to Thomas Harris’ masterpiece RED DRAGON. Even more, the story is set outside Philadelphia in the towns and neighborhoods where I grew up. But the introduction of LAPD Detective Matt Jones brings it all back again. In Jones’ second case, THE LOVE KILLINGS (due out next summer), the story is set in Philadelphia again. THE DEAD ROOM will always be special, but right now, everything on the stove has come to a boil because of CITY OF ECHOES. I think it’s the best novel I’ve ever written.
– In Access to Power you moved your characters’ environment from LA to D.C. How tough is make such a change and did you need much additional time to make your research?
– I have always been a filmmaker. I made a film for National Geographic on the Great Lakes with a friend of mine, I ghostwrote NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4, and I’ve shot, directed, and edited thousands of short films and TV commercials. I wish I could say that what occurs in ACCESS TO POWER doesn’t happen in real life. But the fact is that everything short of the actual murders occurs every day.
ACCESS TO POWER came to me in a nightmare after I was assigned the task of gathering surveillance footage of a mobster running for political office in a New Jersey ghetto. While a friend of mine and I hid on the third floor of a parking garage with a long-lens camera, the subject walked outside, stepped away from the building, looked straight up at the lens and froze. The moment was extremely frightening because he thought the camera was a rifle, and for a split second, he thought he was going to be assassinated. He thought he was going to killed. A few moments later, he realized it was a camera and ran to his car and took off. And in a single instant, I realized that the horrific world Dashiell Hammett described so perfectly was alive and well and always would be. There would be no need to invent mobsters or “bad guys” when just about any politician would do. I began working on ACCESS TO POWER the following day.
Every political detail in ACCESS TO POWER either happened to me or someone I know. This includes the chase to the top of the Capitol Dome. If you take a close look at the dome you will notice a ladder built into the side. I made the climb from an inside catwalk on a hot day in August. The only liberty I took were in the dimensions of the dome’s slope. Everything else in this novel is real and true.
– Who are you (Would you describe yourself with few sentences)?
– Someone who’s still very much a searcher. Someone who wants to make the world a better place for everyone. Everybody living right now only has this one life, this one chance. Helping people see it through, helping people with the injustices in life, even in my small way as a novelist, seems like the right thing to do.
– What are your writing habits?
– I write everyday in the morning, walk my dogs, eat lunch, run errands, then write for a couple hours before dinner. My dogs, Harry and Sam, will be thirteen in October. The three of us have been on the same schedule for thirteen years! Oh, and did I mention how much I love coffee. The heroes in my novels all drink a lot of coffee, which I guess they get from me!
– Are you satisfied by the sales of your books?
– (Laughs) What writer is satisfied with sales numbers?! Tell me his or her name?!
– What are you doing to promote your book by the best possible way?
– CITY OF ECHOES was one of six books picked by Amazon to be promoted in their Kindle First Program. This is a terrific program for authors and readers alike. I’m honored to be selected, and can’t wait for publication day. I’m also using social media. But my favorite way to get the word out is by meeting with book clubs. I do it in person, if I can, or use Skype if I can’t. I love book clubs because everyone’s read the novel and we can talk about the story without the fear of spoiling the read. Meeting with readers, talking about stories, listening to what they think, makes it all worth it. I’ve always looked at it this way; a novel isn’t a novel until the reader brings their imagination to the work and completes the circle.
– When we will see your next novel and would you unveil something more about it?
– My next novel, THE LOVE KILLINGS, will be out in August 2016. It’s another Matt Jones thriller, and as I may have already said, the story is set in Philadelphia like THE DEAD ROOM. Like RED DARGAON and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, CITY OF ECHOES and THE LOVE KILLINGS are very closely linked. In fact, you could say that THE LOVE KILLINGS is a continuation of CITY OF ECHOES. I’m totally jazzed by the whole thing.
– Do you remember the exact moment when you decided to become a writer?
– This is a really tough question because I remember the exact moment as if it was yesterday, and I don’t talk about it very much. I was twenty-four years old, driving out to graduate school in a VW bus that I’d refurbished that summer. It was a hot afternoon on the 27th day of August, and I was driving west on Route 70 about thirty miles east of Pittsburgh. Traffic had been reduced to a single lane because of construction. A tractor trailer was in front of me, and another truck was behind me. Everything was cool until the truck in front me came to a stop. I looked in the rearview mirror, saw the truck behind me and said to myself, he’s going to stop. When I checked the mirror again, I realized he wasn’t going to stop. I had enough time to get the van into first gear, let out the clutch, turn the steering wheel, and grab it as hard as I could. I was knocked unconscious on impact. The van flipped and rolled and landed on its side pointed in the opposite direction. I must have been out for five or ten minutes because when I woke up traffic had stopped and a crowd of people had formed. Fifty people were staring at me like I was dead. Once I woke up, a man broke from the ranks and helped me kick through the windshield and escape the wreckage. I was going to graduate school for a degree in film, but already had one as an undergraduate. After the accident, my perspectives changed. I met Walter Tevis, who wrote THE HUSTLER, THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, and THE COLOR OF MONEY. I quit school after the first quarter, rented a small house, and started writing.
– If you may ask yourself one question in the interview what it will be? (Don’t forget to answer)
– What was your greatest revelation about writing? I was writing screenplays. Like I said before, I ghostwrote NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4, but I wrote more than a handful of my own screenplays. I can remember spending an afternoon with Sandra Bullock in her kitchen, drinking coffee and talking about a screenplay I had written that she wanted to be in. I can remember sitting with the heads of production at Fox and Imagine and spending hours talking about another screenplay entitled HIDDEN AGENDA, which would later become the novel ACCESS TO POWER. These were the same people who produced the series 24, and it was a real kick when Jack Bauer’s go-to political sleaze bag in the first season just happened to be named Robert Ellis. And that’s where the revelation begins. It happened when I transformed HIDDEN AGENDA, the screenplay, into ACCESS TO POWER, my first novel. A screenplay is a blueprint for a finished work. Inside that screenplay a writer is limited to what characters do and say in order to tell a story. But a novel is a completely finished work. There are no limitations on the writer. For the first time in my life as a writer I would no longer be limited to action and dialogue. Now I could stir the pot with what my characters were thinking. It was this discovery, the idea that a novelist can give his characters this extra dimension, this spark of life, that got me all amped up. My novels are usually written from the hero’s point of view. What Matt Jones is thinking in CITY OF ECHOES gives this story life, and makes everything about it, real.
To learn more about Robert Ellis take a look at his Website
Take a look at his books
City of Echoes (Detective Matt Jones Book 1)
The Dead Room
City of Fire
The Lost Witness
Access to Power
About Ognian Georgiev
Ognian Georgiev is a sport journalist, who is working as an editor at the "Bulgaria Today" daily newspaper. He covered the Summer Olympics in Beijing 2008 and in London 2012. The author specializes in sports politics, investigations and coverage of Olympic sports events. Ognian Georgiev works as a TV broadcaster for Eurosport Bulgaria, Nova Broadcasting group, TV+, F+ and TV7. He is a commentator for fight sports events such as boxing/kickboxing and MMA. In May 2014 Ognian Georgiev released the English version of his book The White Prisoner: Galabin Boevski's secret story.
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Posted on August 15, 2015, in Author, BESTSELLER, Books, Interview and tagged author, book, City of Echoes, interview, Robert Ellis, The Dead Room. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
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THE DIRTY SECRETS THAT COULD KNOCKOUT OLYMPIC BOXING
THE DIRTY SOCKS OF OLYMPIC BOXING PART III: THE RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE II
AIBA PRESIDENT CHING-KUO WU RESIGNED
THE DIRTY SOCKS OF OLYMPIC BOXING, PART II: $20 000 FOR A RIO QUOTA
THE DIRTY SOCKS OF OLYMPIC BOXING, PART 1: Kazakhstan government invested $10 mil. into AIBA
Ognian Georgiev
e-mail: ogii3 (at) abv.bg
Tweets by @galabinboevski
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What Would Reconstruction Really Mean in Syria?
By Frederick Deknatel
HE MAY NOT be able to return to Syria, but when Nihad Sirees sits down to write in Berlin, Aleppo never seems that far away.
“Hayy Sakhour, al-Sha’ar, al-Muasalat, al-Hanano — all of them I know now as I know my own desk,” he said, listing the names of vanished neighborhoods. They were all parts of eastern Aleppo, the half of the city that fell under rebel control for four years and became the world’s worst urban battlefield since Sarajevo 1992, if not Berlin 1945, until Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its Russian allies forced the rebels out under a blitz in late 2016.
Like so many Syrians who escaped the war, Sirees watched it all on a screen, following streams of social media posts, YouTube videos, and other desperate documentation from Syrians who couldn’t escape the suffering in places like eastern Aleppo: barrel bombs dropped from regime helicopters, mortars and improvised explosives fired by Islamist rebels, thunderous airstrikes by Russian jets, the static of gunfire, dead silence.
Before the war, the neighborhoods of Aleppo that became synonymous with the conflict’s brutality and destruction were the city’s working-class areas, neglected by the government. That same government, back in control of Aleppo, is unlikely to rebuild them.
Bashar al-Assad probably had eastern Aleppo and its residents in mind when he strode confidently to a stage in Damascus two years ago and told an audience of his supporters what Syria, in his words, had “won” in the war — which wasn’t over at the time and still isn’t, even though the regime has steadily retaken territory from its opponents. “We lost the best of our youth and our infrastructure,” Assad said. “It cost us a lot of money and a lot of sweat, for generations. But in exchange, we won a healthier and more homogeneous society in the true sense.”
A general who runs one of Syria’s many security branches reportedly echoed that sinister triumphalism last year, telling other officers, “A Syria with 10 million trustworthy people obedient to the leadership is better than a Syria with 30 million vandals.”
According to the regime’s rhetoric, it has been fighting “terrorists” and “foreign aggressors” since Syrians took to the streets to protest decades of Assad family rule in 2011. Assad’s forces have bombed hospitals and whole neighborhoods, claiming terrorists had taken over. When Russia’s air force joined in, it justified airstrikes on Aleppo and other cities as a form of counterterrorism. Bashar inherited this strategy from his father, Hafez al-Assad, who razed much of the city of Hama in 1982 to suppress a rebellion led by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Sirees knows the regime, not least because his home city of Aleppo was also part of that earlier uprising in the 1980s and was punished for it. He knows it hasn’t changed. There is a mantra that Syrian soldiers and pro-Assad militias have scrawled on the skeletons of buildings across the country over the past eight years: “Assad, or we burn the country.” Sirees knows what will come out of the ashes.
It won’t be reconstruction. How does a country rebuild after it has been torched? After its economy has cratered, and when its cities and towns are strewn with millions of tons of rubble? Where nearly two-thirds of all residential and light industrial areas are either heavily damaged or destroyed? And where the still-rising death toll no longer makes the news, even though more than half a million people have died, and more than six million have fled as refugees?
Rebuilding Syria, after nearly eight years of war, is estimated to cost some $388 billion, according to the latest estimate by the United Nations — a number that seems both strangely precise and staggeringly large, and also keeps rising. But it won’t happen, at least not yet. Even if and when it does, the regime’s goal won’t really be reconstructing the country that existed before the war. Instead, keen to declare victory on its terms, at all costs, Assad’s regime is eyeing reconstruction as a chance to consolidate what is left of Syria today — and if it can, to cash in.
“The regime is so corrupted, and surrounded with corrupted people,” Sirees told me of the prospects for reconstruction and lucrative rebuilding contracts, shaking his head of cloud-white hair. “Rebuilding is like a golden egg. Everyone sits and is waiting to get it, or to get a good part of it.”
An engineer by training, Sirees ran his own engineering office in Aleppo before he turned to writing. “Rebuilding is now theories, plans, papers, and charts,” he said. “No one knows when they will start.” The Assad regime would like the world to think otherwise. It has been declaring Syria ready to be rebuilt for years, hosting so-called reconstruction fairs on the outskirts of Damascus even as the war raged around them. A former rebel stronghold lies in ruins nearby, and wrecked buildings line the highway running from the fairground to the center of the capital. In 2017, a mortar attack on the fair reportedly killed six people. But the regime has remained on-message. “The process of eradicating terrorism has reached its final stages, and the reconstruction phase is knocking on the doors,” Hussein Arnous, the minister of housing and public works, proclaimed in opening the fair last year.
Sirees is the author of seven novels and a play, but it was his screenplays that really made him famous in the Arab world. Before Syria was synonymous with civil war, it was known for better things — including its hugely popular soap operas, called musalsalat, the best of which were broadcast across the region, where everyone seems to have a satellite TV, or at least access to one at a café or the barber’s. In 1998, his series The Silk Market, a period piece set in Aleppo’s celebrated Old City, premiered on Syrian television. It was an immediate hit. But it was also sly, with a subversive story line about Syria’s political and social upheaval in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and how the Ba’ath Party had exploited it to seize power.
The government censors somehow didn’t catch all this until after the show had aired, so fame for Sirees came with something else: a very public backlash from a cruel, authoritarian regime. He was condemned as a traitor by that same Ba’ath Party, still in power years later in the twilight of Hafez al-Assad’s rule. Smeared by state media, Sirees was driven from public life in his own county. His books were banned. But he stayed in Aleppo, maintaining a low profile and shielded, as much as he could be, by his popularity. His books, published in Beirut, kept selling.
Then, in 2011, the protests against Bashar al-Assad began. Sirees fled the next year, before the popular uprising really reached Aleppo, but after the regime had tortured and shot protesters in the streets of other Syrian cities and towns, provoking armed resistance that erupted into full-blown civil war. He first went to Cairo and then all the way to Rhode Island for a visiting writer position at Brown University. He later made his way to Berlin. His daughter still lives in Aleppo, with her two children, but he knows he can’t go back. “I will go to prison,” he told me, “because my name is on their blacklist over what I wrote.”
The return of complete government control in his hometown has prompted some token projects with symbolic value, most of all at the heavily damaged Umayyad Mosque, in the heart of Aleppo’s battered Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Before the war, the Old City was famous for its well-preserved medieval urban fabric — narrow, meandering alleyways, miles of markets under vaulted stone roofs, and a unique density of other historic mosques, madrasas, and palaces going back as far as the 12th and 13th centuries. The Old City marked the frontline in the battle over Aleppo, and it shows it today. The medieval souq is mostly a burned-out husk. Some of those mosques and madrasas, including one complex designed by the great Ottoman architect Sinan, are nothing but craters. UNESCO estimates that 60 percent of the Old City’s buildings were severely damaged in the war, and 30 percent completely destroyed.
That includes the Umayyad Mosque’s iconic minaret, which was toppled in 2013 — by the regime’s own artillery, according to most accounts. The minaret, though, is now being put back together. But is this really reconstruction? Sirees doesn’t think so. “I don’t think that to fix an arch somewhere in the Old City, or a minaret — it is not rebuilding.”
Yet that is exactly why the work underway at the Great Mosque is the story of Aleppo’s reconstruction so far: it is shrouded in propaganda and triumphalism, only the authorities in Damascus and their allies are involved, and it’s hard to know what’s actually happening on the ground. Military engineers are running the restoration — rather than the Ministry of Culture, the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums, or the Ministry of Religious Endowments, which otherwise administers the mosque. The main engineer in charge of managing the Great Mosque’s restoration told a Western journalist in Aleppo last year: “I have no idea why I was chosen for this job. Before this project, I built Aleppo airport.”
Aleppo is, in turn, the story of Syria’s wider reconstruction in all its ambiguities. The Assad regime is prioritizing what to rebuild and what not to. It will restore symbolic sites that are considered useful for propaganda purposes but neglect the devastated stretches of the city that made the mistake of supporting the opposition — and were once home to so many of the refugees who have fled Syria. “The regime has two possible areas of interest in reconstruction,” Amr al-Azm, a Syrian archeologist from Damascus and a professor of history and anthropology at Shawnee State University, in Ohio, told me. “One, as a means to reward those areas and individuals that were loyal to it. Two, for the regime’s coterie to enrich itself.”
Any postwar reconstruction has contingencies, but in addition to what the Assad regime really wants, ambiguity exists on a more practical and even technical level. Does anyone agree on what reconstruction means in Syria, and what it should entail?
“The question that always comes up is, well, what is reconstruction?” Moises Venancio, a senior program advisor for the United Nations Development Program in Syria and neighboring countries, told me in a recent interview in New York. “One thing is, it has never been defined, which is good and bad, and has allowed everybody to kind of move.” When the UNDP talks about reconstruction, he said, “we’re really talking normally about significant multi-year programs that look at the rehabilitation and/or construction of significant infrastructure in a particular country. And that’s not what we’re involved in in Syria — and frankly nobody is at this point in time. It just requires funding sources that certainly are not available right now.”
In addition to imposing sanctions on the Syrian regime, the United States and most European governments say they won’t help fund major reconstruction as long as Assad is entrenched in power, but he’s not going anywhere as an endgame nears after eight years of war. The official position of the United Nations is that it won’t support physical reconstruction in Syria until there is a viable political transition underway, and the war has not ended. (This is why UNESCO isn’t involved in the Great Mosque’s reconstruction in Aleppo, or other projects to restore the many cultural heritage sites damaged across Syria.) Political talks to resolve the fighting have been dragging on in various forms since the civil war began. There have been four rounds in Geneva, all unsuccessful; since 2016, following Russia’s intervention in Syria, talks moved to Astana, in Kazakhstan, and Sochi. They’re all like Waiting for Godot. Assad didn’t survive for all these years, destroying much of the country in the process, to step aside in a negotiated settlement.
But despite the lack of definition about reconstruction and the lack of money, the UN is still actively involved in Syria, including in projects that might sound a lot like efforts to rebuild. “We don’t do reconstruction; no one does reconstruction in Syria,” as Venancio put the current situation. Yet the UNDP does fund smaller projects — all classified as humanitarian assistance and described by the UN as “rehabilitation,” “recovery,” and “community resilience,” in 13 of Syria’s 14 governorates. That means local-level assistance to restore basic essential services, like sewage networks, water lines, or electricity, as well as repairing schools and hospitals. In 2018, the UNDP says that this work directly benefited some 111,000 Syrians, with more than two and a half million more benefiting indirectly from improved infrastructure and services. The UNDP’s funding goal for this year, to continue that assistance in Syria, is $45 million; as of March, though, it was still $17 million short. This is important, life-saving work, but it still only represents about .01 percent of the overall reconstruction needed in Syria, based on those latest staggering estimates.
There are strict protocols to distinguish this activity from actual reconstruction, and a grim calculus determines what the UNDP and other UN agencies can do. Take a school in eastern Aleppo. The UNDP, in coordination with UNICEF, can repair a school whose structure is only partially damaged. But it cannot help rebuild a school destroyed down to its foundation. As one official at the UNDP’s office in Damascus explained to me: “The red line is 30 to 40 percent of the initial level. So if damage goes beyond 30 to maximum 40 percent of the initial volume of the building, then we consider it reconstruction and we don’t intervene,” given the limitations on the UN’s activities in Syria for what might be considered reconstruction.
This official, who has visited Aleppo many times, recalled having to turn down a request from a neighborhood committee in one eastern Aleppo neighborhood whose school was too destroyed to be rebuilt, even though they and their UNICEF colleagues had the resources to help them. The official, like those colleagues, wished the policy were different. “There should be a clear distinction between reconstructing something that will benefit the war economy — that would benefit the regime — and rehabilitating a service that would be essential for providing the minimum assistance to people,” such as a school, this official added. Rebuilding more schools would also help avoid what they called “the potential perfect ground for another future ISIS to arise.” UNICEF estimates that there have been more than 4,000 attacks on schools during the war; today, 1.75 million Syrian children are still out of school, mostly because they don’t have one to go to.
Syria’s Ministry of Tourism has a surprisingly active YouTube account, given the state of affairs. In quick promotional reels, many no more than a minute long, it shares glossy snapshots of Syria meant to remind viewers of better days — or to distract from the current reality. Increasingly, though, the ministry has been looking ahead.
A video uploaded to its account last November presented an optimistic view of Aleppo, “between history and the future.” What we don’t see is the fighting that had consumed the city for four years, often street-to-street combat, with snipers everywhere and explosives tunneled under the ancient heart of the city. Other times, it was death from above, usually in the form of the crude barrel bombs dropped from regime helicopters, designed to maximize civilian punishment.
You wouldn’t know any of this from the ministry’s video, which opens with the sun rising over Aleppo’s skyline. It quickly cuts to an aerial shot of the Citadel, the massive medieval fortress built of limestone over a steep hill that lords over the city. In the battle for Aleppo, this medieval military site became a modern military target, as Syrian soldiers set up positions high atop the Citadel to fire on rebel positions below. The battle over, it has the damage to show for it today, with pockmarked parapets and its huge walls blasted by artillery. In the tourism ministry’s YouTube reel, you can’t see much of this damage from on high, but you can make out a giant banner of a beaming Bashar al-Assad, draped over a section of the Citadel’s wall.
Drone footage then pans over the ravaged streets of central Aleppo below, where excavators and trucks move piles of rubble, kicking up clouds of dust in the sun, and where workers in yellow vests stand on scaffolding that surrounds an Ottoman-era clock tower, another city landmark and bright spot among all the debris. Before returning to the Citadel — whose stout, imposing entrance, built to repel Crusaders, is also draped in an enormous Assad banner and Syrian flag — the video then hovers over a huge crane standing over the Umayyad Mosque.
UNESCO considers the mosque, also known as Aleppo’s Great Mosque, “one of the architectural masterpieces of the Muslim world.” The crane is roughly where the mosque’s 1,000-year-old minaret once stood, in its northwest corner. Built when Aleppo was ruled by a dynasty of Seljuk Turks, the square minaret was adorned with Kufic inscriptions and intricate carvings. Since Aleppo’s Old City had retained its medieval-era skyline for centuries, the 150-foot minaret dominated the views around it for more than 900 years.
It collapsed on April 24, 2013. The Assad regime said “terrorists” blew it up. The rebels blamed the regime. Months earlier, the minaret had been damaged by shelling fired from the Citadel — the direction of regime forces. A city was being destroyed around it, with all the accompanying human suffering, but the ancient minaret seemed to singularly capture the war’s toll, at least in news reports. Architecture has a way of doing that in war, from the Bamiyan Buddhas, dynamited by the Taliban in Afghanistan, to St. Paul’s Cathedral, standing amid the smoke and rubble of London during the Blitz. But while London’s intact cathedral had symbolized something about the resilience of Britons despite their suffering under German bombs, Aleppo’s ruined mosque had a bleaker message, expressing the scale of devastation of Syria’s civil war.
But things look more optimistic in the tourism ministry’s video. The ancient minaret in no longer reduced to a jumbled pile of limestone spilling out into the mosque’s crumbling courtyard. You can see that workers have collected those stones into neat piles. Some catalog them, and others are shown cutting and stacking new stones.
The minaret and the rest of the Great Mosque are being rebuilt, and the work is being paid for by Aleppo’s newest patron: Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman of Chechnya and one of Vladimir Putin’s protégés. In 2017, an opaque quasi-charity that is named after Kadyrov’s father — a former Chechen rebel commander turned Putin ally who was killed in a bombing in Grozny 2004 — announced via Russia’s state news agency, TASS, that it had donated $14 million to reconstruct the Great Mosque. The Akhmad Kadyrov Regional Public Foundation was also funding the reconstruction of the badly damaged, late Ottoman-era Khalid Ibn al-Walid Mosque in the ruins of Homs.
The TASS story that trumpeted Kadyrov’s donation quoted the mufti of Aleppo, the city’s highest religious authority, who stuck to the regime line that the destruction of the Great Mosque “was all done by militants and terrorists.” Kadyrov, the mufti said, had “vowed to fully restore the building even if more money will be needed.” In promoting Kadyrov and his charity, official Russian media added a pointed message about who, it claimed, was helping rebuild Aleppo, and who wasn’t: “No other international foundation or organization, including UNESCO, has so far offered any assistance.”
A year ago, Diana Darke, a British writer who lived in Damascus for several years before the war and has written two recent books on Syria, visited Aleppo, having snuck her way on to a pro-government tour. She spoke with the main engineer in charge of managing the Great Mosque’s restoration, a man named Misbah Baqi. According to Darke, he works for a construction company controlled by the Syrian military, “and takes orders directly from the president’s office, not, as would be usual, from the Ministry of Religious Affairs,” which otherwise oversees sites like the Great Mosque.
The regime may be in charge there now, but other Syrians had helped protect the mosque any way they could during the worst days of the war. Dodging snipers’ bullets, young Syrians, many of them architects and archeologists in training from Aleppo University, built a barrier of bricks to shield the decoratively tiled Tomb of Zechariah, where worshippers pray to the father of John the Baptist. Others constructed a protective, padlocked case around the 14th-century sundial in the mosque’s large marbled courtyard, with sandbags and masonry. The secured sundial was still standing there last year, according to Darke, “seals intact, somehow overlooked by engineers and propagandists, a small and solitary but defiant reminder of who protected what in this seven-year war.”
The UNDP official in Damascus told me recently that military engineers remain at work in the Great Mosque, rather than experts from the Ministry of Culture or the Syrian government’s antiquities authority, the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums. “What they have done is make a very detailed inventory of every stone that is on the ground and compare it with photographs of the minaret before the war, in order to try to rebuild it,” the official said. But, they added, the real work “hasn’t started,” and the military is directing everything.
The mosque sits in the center of Aleppo’s Old City, which UNESCO designated a World Heritage Site in 1986. Today, given the scale of destruction around the Great Mosque, it looks like the worst part of the Old City, according to this UNDP official. “So even this reconstruction of the mosque and the minaret, although it’s symbolic, at the end of the day it’s paradoxical, because nobody lives around there,” they added.
And even then, “We are only talking about the Old City.” The damage is much worse in the neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo that are seared into Sirees’s mind. Not far from the Old City, and sometimes described as slums, these neighborhoods expanded rapidly in the years before the war, absorbing an influx of poorer people from Aleppo’s rural and mostly Sunni outskirts, who moved into the city to work in factories and live in cheaply built, densely packed apartments. It was a trend throughout Syria in the immediate years before the war — urban populations boomed, in large part because of an extreme drought across the Syrian countryside that drove people into the cities. Many of those buildings in eastern Aleppo that had been hastily built to take in this influx of people are now flattened, reduced to gnarled piles of concrete and rebar — among the more than 35,000 homes estimated to have been destroyed or damaged in the battle over Aleppo, according to satellite imagery analysis by the United Nations.
The fighting may have ended, but eastern Aleppo still looks like no-man’s land. On a UN visit last year, the official from Damascus remembers driving for kilometers through neighborhoods like al-Hanano and al-Sha’ar, where they saw only two things: destruction and looting. “Even the frames from the windows have been stolen,” they said. “And there’s no sign whatsoever of investment in reconstruction.”
If reconstruction is the next stage of Syria’s war, it will unfold like the others — as a grinding stalemate. Emboldened by its near-victory amid the ashes, Assad’s government insists it will only award contracts for reconstruction to “friendly countries.” “We welcome any assistance with reconstruction from those countries that were not part of the aggression on Syria,” Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem declared at last year’s UN General Assembly, putting the uprising and civil war in the regime’s usual terms. “The countries that offer only conditional assistance or continue to support terrorism, they are neither invited nor welcome to help.”
The regime’s goals are already evident where it has re-established control. Last year, it passed a controversial measure, known simply as Law 10, to seize abandoned properties and redevelop the devastated land in the name of reconstruction. Critics allege it is a way to make the war’s demographic shifts permanent while enriching Assad’s cronies, since the areas it targets were poor, informally developed, and Sunni-majority before the war, like the neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo. Developments involving a crew of businessmen tied to the regime are underway. The most prominent, called Marota City, promises glittering high-rises and blocks of modernist mid-rises over expropriated and razed land in a Damascus suburb. It is currently Syria’s largest investment project.
But most of the world is still withholding money. Especially in Washington, policymakers argue that aid money for Syria, even for humanitarian purposes or what is generally called “stabilization” — which might cover the kind of recovery work the UNDP does, as well as things like removing land mines — could inadvertently go to supporting the war economy, profiteers, and Assad’s own interests. Government forces in Syria have a long track record of blocking international aid convoys from entering opposition areas or seizing them outright, and many fear funds for reconstruction — or recovery or rehabilitation, depending on the definition — could be co-opted too. “The U.S. is funding the UN inside Syria, while the Syrian government plays dirty politics with the aid we pay for,” Robert Ford, the last American ambassador in Damascus, wrote in an op-ed last year.
The House of Representatives also passed a bill last year, the No Assistance for Assad Act, that would have banned any American funding in government-controlled parts of Syria, with the exception of basic humanitarian aid — essentially codifying in law the position of not aiding reconstruction as long as Assad is in power. It never got past the Senate, but a new effort is making its way through Congress that would impose harsh additional sanctions on countries and third parties involved in Syrian reconstruction.
Will this official US line against funding reconstruction hold? There is little sign that Europe is thinking otherwise, though some countries, like Italy, are considering reopening their embassies in Damascus as the reality of Assad’s position sets in. Earlier this year, the European Union expanded its sanctions against financial supporters of the regime to cover 11 additional Syrian businessmen and five companies. One of them, Samer Foz, has pitched himself as the middleman for reconstruction and is behind the Marota City project in Damascus. He got rich throughout the war as many businessmen fled, selling everything from wheat to cement, and owns a steel plant in Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, where new rebar is being forged from melted-down scrap metal. In a rare interview with The Wall Street Journal last year, he said European countries should work with him to help rebuild Syria “to draw refugees back.” As the Journal wrote, Foz “wants the furnaces of his Homs steel plant to be a cornerstone of Syrian reconstruction even before a political settlement.”
Other Arab states might get involved, most of all Syria’s neighbor Lebanon, which has its own recent history with rebuilding a country — and especially a city, in Beirut — ripped apart by its own civil war. But those with the most financial resources — like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have both cultivated close ties with President Donald Trump — also funded the armed opposition to Assad. They have their own interests at stake. “They’re not going to want to throw money in so the Iranians jump in, or the Russians jump in, or Rami Makhlouf or some other Syrian regime leech jumps in and enriches themselves,” as Amr al-Azm put it. Makhlouf is Assad’s cousin, a telecom tycoon who seemed to have a stake in everything in Syria before the war and has been under US and European sanctions for years.
The biggest obstacle to any reconstruction, and why any efforts greater than humanitarian aid are talk for now, are sanctions. How do you get the money in? No matter how many billions might be pledged, there are still sanctions. “And most countries, unless you’re Russia or China, are not going to sanctions-bust,” Azm said. International funds for Syria must go through its Central Bank, which is exactly what sanctions are designed to block. Otherwise, “you’re essentially giving the Syrian regime hard currency.”
“The regime knows it,” Azm added, which explains its current thinking about reconstruction and why it “insists that any work — any reconstruction, any activity — has to be done through it or its own agencies.” That way, “it gets its hands on the hard currency,” but more importantly, “it claims legitimacy.”
By broadcasting cheery propaganda about the supposedly busy pace of rebuilding underway in Aleppo, while most of the city in fact lies neglected in ruins, Syria’s Ministry of Tourism is doing its own small part.
Whenever the minaret of the Great Mosque is reconstructed, Aleppo might end up looking more and more like Homs.
Syrian rebels proclaimed Homs the “capital of the revolution” in the early days of the uprising. It then became the regime’s model for how it would prevail in the civil war: Homs was besieged, bombarded, and its residents starved into surrender. Nearly two-thirds of the city has been razed. “We basically don’t have a cityscape anymore,” Marwa al-Sabouni, an architect in Homs, told Architectural Digest.
The city’s main landmark is the Khalid Ibn al-Walid Mosque, which was built in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century and dedicated to the Arab military commander, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad, who led the seventh-century conquest of Syria and later died in Homs. The mosque was caught in many crossfires in the war’s earliest fighting, and the neighborhood around it all but obliterated by the time a group of ragged rebels evacuated the city in 2014.
Homs has also been left in ruins, with a few exceptions. The Khalid Ibn al-Walid Mosque, with Kadyrov’s funding, has been hastily rebuilt, its signature domes, once riddled with huge holes, reconstructed by military engineers, just like Aleppo’s minaret. A reporter for The National who toured Homs in April 2018 noted that the government was “keen to show off” the mosque’s restoration. Indeed, the Ministry of Tourism features it in another one of its YouTube videos, with aerial footage of the mosque standing desolate in a ghostly city, over a triumphant soundtrack. As one man in Homs told The National’s reporter, “There is no one here to pray in it.”
The limited rebuilding efforts in Homs have otherwise been confined to the city’s Christian neighborhoods, to buttress Assad’s claims of protecting Syria’s religious minorities, including the Alawite sect to which he belongs. The flattened former rebel districts, largely Sunni, have been ignored and left empty. It’s hard not to see those stretches of urban wreckage, emptied of people, as the embodiment of what Assad says was “won” in the war: a society without any of his opponents.
Areas of Aleppo could fit Assad’s vision of victory. Some 450,000 people have returned to the city since early 2017, but the city is paralyzed when it comes to any kind of formal reconstruction. I’ve heard various mentions of a vague, government master plan for the city’s “restoration,” but like most things in Syria, it’s a black box. Instead of planning, there is only propaganda, like the banners around Aleppo that show Assad’s face hovering over an image of the Citadel and promise, “Aleppo in Our Eyes.”
To someone in eastern Aleppo, the question of who can or will fund what — and the more immediate distinction between what the UN defines as rehabilitation, rather than reconstruction — may determine whether or not a neighborhood can get aid money to rebuild their school. In such an uncertain situation, many people are taking matters into their own hands. The first time the UNDP official in Damascus I spoke with went to Aleppo, in August 2017 — some nine months after the government retook the city — all the shops were closed on one war-weary main street. “It was really spectral,” they said. When they went back three months later, after more refugees had returned to Aleppo, “all those shops had opened, and they were all selling cement, iron, other construction materials.”
This is what Syrian reconstruction really looks like for now. Yet the material in those stores wasn’t “for big companies, but for people,” this UNDP official explained. “It’s somebody who is buying two or three bags of cement to rebuild part of the wall of his house, in order to be able to have his family, who returned to Aleppo with him, survive.” Syrians have been left to fend for themselves — to rebuild their homes, or what remains of them, however they can.
To Moises Venancio, the UNDP advisor in New York, the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations still have jobs to do in Syria, despite the frozen political dialogue, the stasis around reconstruction, and all the unknowns about how the civil war might finally end. “When we look at Syria, we have to move beyond that fact of the political process with the authorities in Damascus and think about people, 17 million people, that need assistance,” he said, referring to the country’s diminished population.
Eight years of sanctions haven’t forced Assad to embrace reform, or stop laying siege to rebel areas, or release thousands of prisoners. What is left of Syria’s economy today is more dependent than ever on Iran and Russia. But even if foreign money could flow in, how would the regime spend it? Again, Aleppo and Homs offer some clues. As Azm told me, “The areas that have been most damaged, that most need reconstruction, the areas that were bombed by the regime that produced the refugees in the first place — the regime is not about to go and take all this money and rebuild their homes. It’s going to take the money and reward the areas that were loyal to it.”
The regime is hardly hiding this agenda. From Assad’s recent speeches and statements to the way formerly besieged areas are presented as vanquished on state television, everything exults in conquest. It is, as Azm said, “totally and utterly triumphalist. There’s no disguising it. Not even a fig leaf of an effort to try and somehow suggest post-conflict reconciliation, stabilization, unity. Nothing. ‘We won. We won everything.’”
It may be projection, but it carries a message. If the authorities in Damascus don’t actually foresee a full-fledged reconstruction process, how much leverage over Assad do Western governments really have through sanctions? In the regime’s rhetoric, everything is “post-crisis,” not postwar, and the promise of huge amounts of money from the West to rebuild may not appeal if rebuilding all of Syria isn’t really the goal. Assad has other priorities: consolidating control and territory, and ensuring the diplomatic and military support of his allies. If anything, Russia may be more interested in the benefits of reconstruction, in order to add to the optics about its intervention and proclaim that it — not Washington — is stabilizing Syria. Then it can justify pulling more of its forces out of the country.
The patronage from Putin’s Chechen protégé to pay for the hasty restoration of two cherished mosques in Aleppo and Homs fits right in. “Even the minaret has a political background,” Nihad Sirees said of the work in the heart of Aleppo’s Old City. It has its soft-power potential. “The Russians, they want to tell the Syrian people: Look, we respect Islam and Islamic heritage.” For Kadyrov, Islamic charity has its own propaganda purposes at home. “The Chechen government participates because they want to tell their people that they care about Islam, and about Islamic heritage.” But that still leaves the rest of Aleppo, like so much of Syria, in a state of ruin.
Frederick Deknatel is the managing editor of World Politics Review.
Feature image: “Syria: two years of tragedy” by Foreign and Commonwealth Office is licensed under CC BY-ND. 2.0.
Banner image: “Great Mosque of Aleppo in 2013, after destruction of the minaret” by Gabriele Fangi, Wissam Wahbeh is licensed under CC BY 3.0.
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